> Captain America and the final Harry Potter film’s second weekend will battle for #1, with each around $60 million.  Friends with Benefits should open at a decent level for an R-rated comedy.  The weekend should be up well over 20% from this weekend last year when Salt and Ramona & Beezus opened (remember those?).   Opening at […]

  OPENINGS:  NO HARD FEELINGS (Columbia/Sony) slightly exceeded tracking expectations with $15.1M, but those expectations were themselves quite low.  With production and worldwide marketing costs in the neighborhood of $100M, the film will need to hold strongly for the next several weeks to reach any profit, and while it has the hard-R comedy field to […]

>The seventh weekend of the year should generate about $142 million for the top 12 films — up 9% from last year’s comparable weekend and up over 20% from the four-year average for this weekend.  Nicolas Cage should lead a crowded field, although the second Ghost Rider should be down significantly from 2007’s original.  The […]

  OPENINGS:  MONKEY MAN (Universal) walked an odd path to theaters, originally being targeted for a Netflix release.  While the result earned strong reviews (87% on Rotten Tomatoes), there was no storybook ending at the box office, as Dev Patel’s film was below expectations at $10.1M.  Nor did Monkey Man stir much excitement overseas, with […]

The 20th weekend of 2012 is looking like a disturbing $132 million for the Top 12 films, down 17% from both this weekend last year and the four-year average for the same weekend.  Marvel’s The Avengers continues to do well, but the three films opening this weekend generated very little excitement, to say the least.  […]

  OPENINGS:  Expectations were low for KRAVEN THE HUNTER (Marvel/TSG/Columbia/Sony), and it still managed to under-deliver, with a puny $11M start.  Even though Kraven had moderate costs by superhero movie standards (around $175M including marketing), it will never climb past red ink, especially since things were no better overseas with $15M from 60 territories.  For […]

> Real Steel is opening at forecast — at a very decent level, but will it be enough to cover the big visual effects costs and all the above-the-line talent expenses?  More on that in Box Office Footnotes.  In second place, The Ides of March missed its rather moderate forecast.  It will need a shelf’s […]

>The weekend studio estimates (based on Friday and Saturday actuals and projections for Sunday) are coming in slightly above the weekend numbers posted yesterday (based on Friday actuals only).  The box office volume for the top 12 films is now looking like $100 million for the weekend, down 31% from last year’s weekend and down […]