Based on Friday’s grosses, weekend #37 of 2014 looks like $78 million for the top 12 films Friday-Sunday, 6% below the norm for this weekend ($83 million) and better than we forecast. Opening at 2,175 theaters, No Good Deed from Sony/Screen Gems grossed $8.8 million Friday and is on track for a $24.7 million opening three-day weekend (well above our $16.0 […]

>The Help remains the lone sign of strength at the box office.  Down only 2% from the Tropical Storm Irene-dampened box office last weekend, The Help has been upgraded again to $155 million estimated total domestic gross.  The Debt looks like the best of the three new openers, with almost $10 million this Friday-Sunday weekend […]

  OPENINGS:  BAD GRANDPA (Paramount) romped to 1st place at the multiplexes this weekend with $32M, but perhaps more notably, it also made $8.4M in just 16 overseas territories.  That’s the same level as Jackass 3D, which ended up making $54M internationally, a tremendous success for such a low-budget franchise.  Bad Grandpa 2 seems all […]

Not the disaster we expected, the 25th weekend of 2012 is looking like $158 million for the Top 12 films Friday-Sunday, down 7% from this weekend last year and down 10% from a more normal third weekend in June.  Brave is on track to open solidly (about $7 million more than forecast for the weekend), […]

  OPENINGS:  It’s official:  THE HUNGER GAMES: MOCKINGJAY PART I (Lionsgate) opened to $123M in the US, down 20% from the first Hunger Games and down 23% from Catching Fire.  That’s still the #1 opening of the year by 23% (beating Transformers: Age of Extinction), and the 15th biggest opening ever, but there’s no way […]

  FIFTY SHADES OF GREY (Universal/Focus) had the giant box office start that’s been anticipated since the movie was announced.  According to preliminary numbers at Deadline, it earned $31M on Friday (that includes $8.6M from Thursday evening shows), and if that number holds up, it would be the 2d biggest one-day February gross (and the […]

  OPENINGS:  BLACK ADAM (DC/New Line/Warners) arrived within moderate expectations at $67M.  That’s the highest weekend we’ve seen since Thor: Love & Thunder in July, but as a superhero epic with a $300M+ production/marketing budget, it’s far below Love & Thunder ($144.2M), Doctor Strange In the Multiverse of Madness ($187.4M), and DC’s The Batman ($134M).  […]

  Note:  The Father’s Day tide is expected to lift virtually all movie boats on Sunday, and the studios have factored that into their weekend estimates.  However, next weekend’s declines may be steeper than usual as a result. OPENINGS:  MEN IN BLACK: INTERNATIONAL (Tencent/Columbia/Sony) was the latest big-budget franchise entry to perform dimly, with a […]