Based on Friday’s grosses, weekend #19 of 2015 looks like a wobbly $117 million for the top 12 films Friday-Sunday, well below the norm for this weekend. Opening at 3,003 theaters Friday, Hot Pursuit from Warner Brothers is on track for a $12.9 million opening three-day weekend (below our $17.5 million ShowBuzzDaily forecast earlier this week). The film is pacing toward […]

  It’s a busy but not particularly big weekend at the multiplex.  The weekend’s winner will be BOO 2! A MADEA HALLOWEEN (Lionsgate), which did a fairly good job of holding the audience for last year’s original Boo.  Deadline reports a preliminary $7.5M opening day, down 21% from Boo‘s start.  If that percentage holds, the […]

>BREAKING DAWN PART 1: Although the huge day-after-Thanksgiving take lifted everything in the multiplex, Breaking Dawn 1 continues to run behind New Moon by 10 percent. THE MUPPETS: Still well under Tangled’s Thanksgiving gross last year, but given its moderate cost, a solid hit. HUGO:. It’s per-theatre gross is almost identical to Muppets, although it’s […]

The Past Week: Total Box Office Volume All films in wide release playing between August 27 and September 2 grossed $133 million, fairly close to the same week last year (-2%) but up 7% from the four-year average for the week.  The past six weeks have actually been fairly close to the four-year average box […]

  OPENINGS:  AS ABOVE/SO BELOW (Universal) cost just $5M to produce, but its big-studio marketing campaign will add at least $30M to that, and after a $3.2M Friday, it’s headed for $9.5M by Sunday and $11.5M for the 4-day holiday, which will likely give it $20M at best for its entire US theatrical run.  Those […]

  Despite a trio of new arrivals, MISSION: IMPOSSIBLE – FALLOUT (Skydance/Alibaba/Paramount) will ride strong reviews and word of mouth to an easy second consecutive weekend crown.  Preliminary numbers at Deadline have Friday at $9.8M, down 57% from last week, and better than the 60% drop for the 2nd Friday of Rogue Nation.  With that […]

WORLDWIDE STUDIO SCORECARD. YEAR TO DATE BOX OFFICE. Looking at North American box office, 2015 to date is now +4% above last year and +7% above the average for this point the past four years ($1.485 billion).  Over the same period, Hollywood films have grossed $4.3 billion worldwide when we add overseas box office (that’s […]

> Saturday was a little weaker than expected, according to preliminary boxoffice figures reported by Deadline, resulting in some shortfalls compared to initial weekend estimates.  21 JUMP STREET (Sony) had a small Saturday decline of about 5%, which should get it to around $34M for the weekend.  The novelty of Will Ferrell speaking Spanish in […]