Thank God for overseas box office.  One of the last great American exports is the Hollywood motion picture slate.  The films released in the U.S. over the last four months have grossed $3.65 billion in North America, but they have taken in another $4.85 billion in foreign lands.  There is no better example than Resident Evil: […]

  WORLDWIDE STUDIO SCORECARD.  Here is an updated look at the 2019 film slates by studio. BOX OFFICE. Looking at North American box office, 2019 is still -5% below last year’s comparable span and still +1% above this point the past four years ($8.203 billion).  Over the same period, Hollywood films have grossed over $21.9 […]

  Strong holds by Dawn of the Planet Of the Apes and some longer-running titles made this weekend look less terrible than it was. OPENINGS:  THE PURGE: ANARCHY (Universal) topped the newcomers with $28.4M, but that was 17% below the $34.1M opening weekend for last year’s Purge.  While Purge 2 will turn a profit, it […]

> It’s good that the weekend’s total will beat last year’s awful group of Get Him To the Greek, Killers, Prince of Persia and Sex & the City 2, but on a picture-by-picture basis, the news is a lot less pleasant: X-MEN:  FIRST CLASS is headed for the lowest opening of any picture in its […]

  THE MEG (Gravity/Warners) appears to be having the opposite box office experience from what we’ve come to associate with US/China action movies.  In the US, it’s overperforming, perhaps helped by a calendar slot a week after Discovery’s yearly Shark Week:  preliminary numbers at Deadline estimate opening day at $16.5M ($4M from Thursday night), which […]

>The fifth weekend of the year should generate about $84 million for the top 12 films — up 15% from last year’s comparable weekend but down a similar percentage from a “normal” weekend this time of year.  Three new films open this weekend to positive reviews, but none of the three should gross more than […]

  PIXELS (Columbia/Sony) was marketed on its high concept rather than as an Adam Sandler star vehicle, perhaps reflecting not just Sandler’s dwindling value, but the shuttering of his long-term acting relationship with the studio as he moves to Netflix.  The result was better than some of Sandler’s recent flops, but far from exciting:  according […]

: Because Christmas Day falls on a Sunday, box office figures are incomplete this morning.  As is usually the case with Christmas Eve, business was down across the board yesterday, and if we look to 2011 as a guide, the Sunday bumps today may range from 40-60% for family movies like Sing and Moana, to […]