OPENINGS:  THE CONJURING (Warners) behaved like a horror movie on Saturday, falling 18% despite the great reviews and exit polls, but that didn’t stand in the way of its estimated huge $41.5M weekend.  That made it the biggest non-sequel R-rated horror movie ever, and bigger than all the thrillers Warners released under its now-defunct […]

  OPENINGS:  Disney is the land where dreams come true, but not even their wizards could have imagined the scale of BLACK PANTHER (Marvel/Disney), which has crashed through all expectations–not just as a big-budget action film that exists almost completely in an African universe, but as a solo character superhero debut in general.  Current studio […]

  Despite a $8.7M start on Thursday night that was no better than the year’s other blockbusters, and bulletins throughout the day that business was slightly softer than expected, reports at Deadline and elsewhere are now claiming that TRANSFORMERS: AGE OF EXTINCTION (Paramount) surged to $40M on Friday, which would be the biggest day of any […]

Team Salem’s top pick (Pixar’s Brave) opened this weekend, helping increase the slate to $290 million, up almost $97 million from last week.  Meanwhile, continued strong business from Madagascar 3 and a few others pushed Team Metcalf’s almost-fully-release slate up a similar amount over the last week (up $95 million) to $1.17 billion.   Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter pushed […]

  OPENINGS:  The $31.6M first day for THOR: THE DARK WORLD (Disney) was about 24% higher than the $25.5M opening for the first Thor, an increment likely to reduce as the movie’s run continues, since sequels tend to be more front-loaded.  A $200M US total would be more than 10% up from Thor‘s $181M.  Where […]

  OPENINGS:  In the US, DADDY’S HOME 2 (Paramount) eked out a victory among the newcomers at $30M, thanks to a 6% family audience bump on Saturday.  That’s still 22% below the opening for the first Daddy’s Home, and it’s likely that spread will increase greatly through the week, since the original comedy opened on […]

> The past week is up an astounding 55% from last year, and the year-to-date tally is now down 17% from last year (improving from down 20% last week).  The audience is starting to return to movie theaters. The Past Week: Total Box Office Volume Looking at all films in wide release playing between April 18 […]

  OPENINGS:  CRAWL (Paramount) may be an example of a studio outsmarting itself.  Paramount held no critics screenings, presumably because disdain was expected, and thus was unable to create any advance buzz around a response that turned out to be remarkably enthusiastic (88% on Rotten Tomatoes).  The result was a tepid $12M opening, and since […]