There were no miracle turnarounds for any of the weekend’s dim new arrivals on Saturday.  Instead, according to preliminary numbers at Deadline, the expected occurred and GUARDIANS OF THE GALAXY (Marvel/Disney) jumped back to the front of the pack in its 4th weekend with a 55% Friday-to-Saturday increase to $7.5M, down less than 30% […]

  OPENINGS:  The question for IF I FALL (Warners/MGM), as with any movie that has a high proportion of young female appeal, is just how frontloaded it will turn out to be.  Friday’s $6.8M included $1.1M from Thursday night, about 16% of the total.  The Fault In Our Stars was much more frontloaded, earning more […]

Based on Friday’s grosses, weekend #34 of 2014 looks like $103 million for the top 12 films Friday-Sunday, somewhat below our forecast ($111 million) but still 21% above the norm for this weekend ($86 million). Opening at 2,907 theaters, If I Stay from Warner Brothers grossed $6.8 million Friday and is on track for a $17.0 million […]

  At the beginning of the month, the success of Guardians of the Galaxy and Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles was prompting some to excitedly conclude that the box office year was now truly 52 weeks long.  But the second half of August remains a lousy time to launch a movie, a fact that’s being borne […]

Weekend #34 of 2014 is looking like $111 million for the top 12 films this weekend, up 30% from the norm for this weekend and the fourth up weekend in a row after six straight down weekends. Opening at over 2,750 theaters Friday (just below the 2,886 average theater count for opening weekends the last two years), Frank […]

  OPENINGS:  On an unspectacular weekend, LET’S BE COPS (20th) was able to top the new arrivals with $17.7M (and $26.1M since its opening on Wednesday).  It should get to $40M in the US, and with a reported production cost of $18M, the question marks about potential profitability are the cost of its marketing campaign […]

WORLDWIDE STUDIO SCORECARD.  No change in the studio rankings this week with no studio increasing more than $100 million over the past 7 days worldwide.  Fox’s modest gain this week comes mostly from the domestic potential for Let’s Be Cops and continued overseas grosses for How to Train Your Dragon 2.  Disney’s weekly gain is mostly a function of […]

Based on Friday’s and  Saturday’s grosses, weekend #33 of 2014 now looks like a modest $129 million for the top 12 films Friday-Sunday, a little better than yesterday’s forecast ($124 million) and 11% above the norm for this weekend ($116 million) but still below our forecast ($140 million). Playing at 3,094 theaters, Let’s Be Cops from Fox […]