OPENINGS:  Not much changed between Friday’s results and weekend studio estimates.  THE DARK TOWER (MRC/Columbia/Sony) was unsurprisingly frontloaded between fans of the novels and bad word of mouth, and it dropped 13% on Saturday.  Sony is projecting a $19.5M weekend (the fact that the studio didn’t push the number past $20M indicates either honesty […]

>Cars 2 exceeds its forecast, but will it hold up?  Bad Teacher also blows past its forecast, driving the weekend up 16% over the same weekend last year. Cars 2 opened with $25.4 million on Friday, and it looks like the Pixar sequel will gross $74 million from Friday-Sunday.  The film is headed for $195 […]

WORLDWIDE STUDIO SCORECARD.  Updated look at 2016 films by studio.  We will begin tracking the 2017 slate in a few weeks.   YEAR TO DATE BOX OFFICE. Looking at North American box office, 2017 to date is now +5% above last year and now +13% above the average for this point the past four years ($0.714 billion). […]

The four new films in North America this weekend have had very little presence overseas so far — only ParaNorman has overseas receipts to date (and only $5 million at that).  The one film from this weekend that should eventually gross some international dollars is Expendables 2, which should head for about $150 million overseas (somewhat below the […]

>Based on Friday and Saturday box office (and estimated Sunday numbers), The Help continues at #1, down an impressive 29% from last weekend.  All the openers are very weak, with per theater numbers well below average.  However, the theater counts come with a big asterisk.  The counts are accurate for Friday, but the Saturday counts […]

  Here’s an instructive piece of box office math, courtesy of Disney and The Lone Ranger.  Ranger cost (including worldwide marketing) about $350M all told, and it’s going to have global theatrical revenues of about $240M.  Disney is reporting that the movie will end up losing around $190M, which is $80M higher than the usual […]

  OPENINGS:  For ROGUE ONE (Lucasfilm/Disney), massive success was taken for granted, and the question was how big a standalone spin-off entry in the Star Wars canon could be.  The answer is pretty damn big:  its $155M US opening weekend is the 12th highest ever, and #3 for the year (behind $179.1M for Captain America: […]

For the 18 days December 16-January 2, the top 10 films each day in North America have totaled $980 million, now -14% below last year’s record pace and +37% above the average since 2002. Holiday Box Office Volume — Top 10 Films North America $ millions by year $ millions (2002-2015) # days Period 2016 2015 2014 […]