Based on Friday’s grosses, weekend #39 of 2014 looks like $100 million for the top 12 films Friday-Sunday, 5% above the norm for this weekend ($95 million). Opening at 3,236 theaters, The Equalizer from Sony grossed $12.6 million Friday and is on track for a $36.4 million opening three-day weekend (slightly above our $34.5 million […]

  This weekend, Denzel Washington is proving himself yet again one of the last truly reliable movie stars.  Just a week after Liam Neeson flopped with A Walk Among the Tombstones, preliminary numbers at Deadline have THE EQUALIZER (Columbia/Sony) at $12.5-13M on Friday (including $1.5M from Thursday night)–roughly the same amount ($12.7M) Tombstones made in […]

Weekend #39 of 2014 is looking like $97 million for the top 12 films this weekend, up 3% from the norm for this weekend. Opening at around 3,234 theaters Friday (above the 2,886 average theater count for opening weekends the last two years), The Equalizer from Sony should average a solid $10,600 per theater for the […]

  OPENINGS:  THE MAZE RUNNER (20th) is off to a healthy start worldwide, leading the US with $32.5M and overseas with $37.9M, the latter in 47 territories (and such major areas as Western Europe and China still to come).  Those aren’t gigantic numbers, but as YA franchises go, Maze Runner was done on the cheap, […]

WORLDWIDE STUDIO SCORECARD.  Fox expanded its lead with $147 million worldwide this week, mostly from the release of The Maze Runner, pushing the studio to over $3.8 billion worldwide for the year to date.  Disney is in second with $2.6 billion, and Warner Brothers remains in third place with almost $2.5 billion.  In the chart below […]

Based on Friday’s and Saturday’s grosses, weekend #38 of 2014 now looks like $93 million for the top 12 films Friday-Sunday, 8% above the norm for this weekend ($86 million) and up a bit from yesterday’s estimate ($91 million). Opening at 3,604 theaters, The Maze Runner from 20th Century Fox grossed $11.3 million Friday and […]

  OPENINGS:  As YA franchises go, the $11.3M opening day for THE MAZE RUNNER (20th) was ahead of the $9.6M for the first Percy Jackson, which ended up with a $31.2M weekend.  Maze is being pitched more to teens than to families, so it may not have quite as strong a weekend multiple as Percy, […]

Based on Friday’s grosses, weekend #38 of 2014 looks like $91 million for the top 12 films Friday-Sunday, 6% above the norm for this weekend ($86 million). Opening at 3,604 theaters, The Maze Runner from 20th Century Fox grossed $11.3 million Friday and is on track for a $31.0 million opening three-day weekend (somewhat below […]