As expected, GONE GIRL (20th) flew past DRACULA UNTOLD (Legendary/Universal) on Saturday and based on preliminary numbers at Deadline, it will easily take the weekend.  Gone Girl‘s $11.4M Saturday was down just 25% from the week before, and it should have a superb $27.5M 2d weekend, down a mere 27% from its debut.  That’s […]

  Once again, Gone Girl was vanquished for a day by a horror movie, but will almost certainly rebound to take the weekend. OPENINGS:  DRACULA UNTOLD (Legendary/Universal) gets the partnership between Universal and its new co-producer/financier Legendary (which for years was parked at Warners) off to a solid start.  Dracula‘s Friday results were underreported in […]

Based on Friday’s grosses, weekend #41 of 2014 looks like a very strong $138 million for the top 12 films Friday-Sunday, 31% above the norm for this weekend ($106 million).   Opening at 2,885 theaters, Dracula Untold from Universal grossed $8.9 million Friday and is on track for a $24.8 million opening three-day weekend (well […]

  GONE GIRL (20th) should easily retain its title in its 2d weekend of release, based on preliminary numbers at Deadline.  Although the Friday race is tight between Gone Girl at $7.1M and the new DRACULA UNTOLD (Legendary/Universal) at $7M, that’s misleading, because in the odd way openings are reported in the post-Dark Knight Returns […]

Weekend #41 of 2014 is looking like $126 million for the top 12 films this weekend, up 19% from the norm for this weekend. Opening at around 3,000 theaters Friday (above the 2,886 average theater count for opening weekends the last two years), Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day from Disney should average a barely […]

  It was a strong multiplex weekend all over the world this week, which was good news for Hollywood and its overseas equivalents. OPENINGS:  Although David Fincher is considered one of cinema’s heavy hitters, he’s never been a blockbuster guy, and until this weekend, his biggest opening came a dozen years ago, with $30.1M for […]

WORLDWIDE STUDIO SCORECARD.  Fox had a great week worldwide last week ($167 million worldwide), partly from the domestic release of Gone Girl this weekend but also from strong overseas returns for The Maze Runner.  Fox is now over $4 billion for the year worldwide, the #1 Hollywood studio by far, and saddled with surprisingly few duds on its […]

Based on Friday’s and Saturday’s grosses, weekend #40 of 2014 looks like $142 million for the top 12 films Friday-Sunday, even better than yesterday’s estimate ($129 million) and now 37% above the norm for this weekend ($104 million).  A great start for the fall movie season with two new films opening to different demographics and […]