OPENINGS:  THE WORLD’S END (Focus/Universal) is off to a very solid start, with a $2250 per-theatre average on Friday in just 1549 theatres, giving it a $3.5M day and a weekend that could hit $10M.  That compares well to the other entries in Edgar Wright/Simon Pegg’s “Cornetto Trilogy,” even though World’s End has the […]

Weekend #26 of 2012 looks like another weak one: $157 million for the top 12 films, down 18% from last year’s comparable weekend and down 8% from the four-year average for the weekend.  Some of this decline can be attributed to the calendar.  July 4 fell on or close to the 26th weekend in previous […]

  Is OZ THE GREAT AND POWERFUL (Disney) more like Alice in Wonderland or like The Lorax?  We won’t know for another 24 hours or so, and that’s going to be the difference between Oz living up to its potential or not.  According to preliminary numbers at Deadline, Oz had a $23.5M Friday (including Thursday […]

  OPENINGS:  42 (Warners) had no trouble taking the weekend with an estimated $27.3M.  With very limited overseas appeal, the picture isn’t likely to be a huge moneymaker (production and marketing costs will reach at least $100M worldwide, and it probably won’t make that much in US theatres alone), but even a small amount of […]

  OPENINGS:  JURASSIC WORLD: FALLEN KINGDOM (Legendary/Perfect World/Universal) is claiming a round-number $150M US opening (actually $150.001M, which is cute), a number that relies on an extremely strong Sunday projection.  If it goes down by a million or two tomorrow in finals, it won’t be a meaningful change except for PR purposes, and the result […]

> It was a solid Saturday for most films in the market, according to the preliminary numbers at Deadline, which are subject to revision on both Sunday and Monday.  THINK LIKE A MAN (Screen Gems/Sony) is reporting a 10% uptick for the day, which would be a very good sign (Tyler Perry’s Why Did I […]

  OPENINGS:  THE BEST MAN HOLIDAY (Universal) had a strong Saturday bump for a movie aimed at the African-American audience, up 16% from Friday (in comparison, Think Like A Man increased 9% and Tyler Perry’s last 2 movies dropped 16% and 8%). That suggests very positive word of mouth, which may give Best Man unexpected […]

>Based on Friday and Saturday box office (and estimated Sunday numbers), the two sequels opening wide this weekend are not doing the business generally forecast, and they are under-performing the preceding movies in their series.  As a whole, the weekend is looking like $111 million for the top 12 films, down 13% from the same […]