OPENINGS:  INDIANA JONES AND THE DIAL OF DESTINY (Paramount/Lucasfilm/Disney) barely scraped the bottom of weekend expectations with $60M, and that studio estimate assumes an very strong Sunday.  The extremely expensive tentpole–$400M+ in production and worldwide marketing costs–combined an elderly franchise built around an 80-year old star with mediocre reviews following an ill-advised Cannes premiere, […]

>The ninth weekend of the year should generate about $125 million for the top 12 films, a fairly typical weekend for the first weekend in March — up 2% from last year’s comparable weekend and down a negligible 1% from the four-year average for this weekend.  Universal should stand tall with a $44 million opening […]

  OPENINGS:  ABIGAIL (Universal) launched at the low end of expectations with $10.2M, lower than the $11.8M for Night Swim and virtually the same as the $9.9M for Imaginary.  Those films are respectively at $32.5M and $28M in the US, which is the likely range for Abigail.  However, the new film reportedly cost $28M before […]

UPDATE: We have revised the numbers for Marvel’s The Avengers to reflect Disney’s outlook for the film based on Friday’s opening, which puts the film on track for the biggest opening weekend of all time. The 18th weekend of 2012 is looking like an outstanding $228 million for the Top 12 films, up 47% from […]

  OPENINGS:  January is often welcoming to low-budget horror, but that didn’t help THE DAMNED (Vertical), which found $800K at 732 theaters, a meager $1100 weekend per-theater average. HOLDOVERS:  Flooding the holiday zone with family entertainments worked out very well for the studios, which had a quartet of bona fide smash hits between Thanksgiving and […]

> With early studio projections all over the map, it looks like it could be a long weekend of jockeying for the top spot.  Right now, it looks like Lion King in 3D will be number #1 with over $23 million.  Moneyball, written by Aaron Sorkin and best on the Michael Lewis bestseller, is flirting […]

>The weekend studio estimates (based on Friday and Saturday actuals and projections for Sunday) are coming in about the same as the weekend numbers posted yesterday (based on Friday actuals only).  The box office volume for the top 12 films is now looking like $110 million for the weekend, down 6% from last year’s weekend […]

>Based on Friday and Saturday box office (and estimated Sunday numbers), The Help continues at #1 yet again, down only 2% from last week.  This is really getting to be a tired headline, but with the feeble crop of recent releases The Help is just taking full advantage of the situation.  The weekend overall is now […]