> It’s always to the advantage of the new opening to own first place at the boxoffice, so if Paramount thought FOOTLOOSE could pull it out over REAL STEEL, they would have staked their claim today.  (Both pictures are reporting a 39% Saturday-to-Sunday drop.) The Hollywood Reporter says Real Steel also made $23M overseas, which […]

Updated international box office chart below.  The Hobbit (+$97 million overseas since last week) and Life of Pi (+$82 million) are the big movers this week. New entrants to the chart include The Impossible at #31, Texas Chainsaw at #41, and Promised Land at #65.  With significant (and growing overseas business) the Spanish-produced Impossible is the one film in this week’s crop that can move up […]

  OPENINGS:  It was a blah MLK Weekend at the box office, driven by soft openings.  Over the 3-day weekend, ONE OF THEM DAYS (TriStar/Sony) was reported to have a very narrow lead with $11.6M, but it was expected to fall into 2nd place with $14M including the Monday holiday.  The good news for Sony […]

WORLDWIDE STUDIO SCORECARD.  Here is an updated look at the 2017 film slates by studio. YEAR TO DATE BOX OFFICE. Looking at North American box office, 2017 to date is still down -2% from last year and still +1% above the average for this point the past four years ($7.899 billion).  Over the same period, Hollywood films have grossed over […]

>Rise of the Planet of the Apes will finish the weekend at #1 with an estimated $51 million at this point, significantly above the ShowBuzzDaily forecast.  In contrast, Universal’s The Change-Up is struggling, missing a much lower estimate.  The holdovers are showing mostly acceptable declines except for Cowboys & Aliens.  Overall, the weekend is up 24% versus […]

The 44th weekend of the year is looking like $114 million for the top 12 films, better than last weekend but 4-8% below comparable weekends the past few years.   Opening at over 3,350 theaters Friday (slightly above the 2,886 average theater count for opening weekends the last two years), Ender’s Game from Lionsgate/Summit should average $8,600 per […]

  Let’s start with something simple:  anyone who claims to have reliable knowledge about the profitability of a specific film, without having detailed access to its production budgets, financing documents and key talent agreements (virtually all confidential), misleads themselves and their readers. The financing and accounting of films is probably more complicated now than it’s […]

  OPENINGS:  DON’T BREATHE (Screen Gems/Sony) had an unusually strong Saturday for a horror movie, down just 1% from Friday (which, remember, these days includes Thursday night).  By way of comparison, Lights Out fell 22% on its 2d day of release.  That propelled Don’t Breathe to an exceptional $26.1M weekend, the biggest opening for a […]