WORLDWIDE STUDIO SCORECARD.  Year to date, Warner Brothers has moved well ahead of its competing studios, thanks to two bona fide hits to balance two strikeouts.  Sony and Universal, the next level down each with around $450 million worldwide to date, has a similar hit and miss ratio to Warner Brothers, but the hits are […]

  As Hollywood becomes more and more dependent on action and animation franchises, the US market becomes increasingly less relevant. OPENINGS:  NEED FOR SPEED (DreamWorks/Disney) made more money in China ($21.2M) on its opening weekend than it did in the US ($17.8M).  Combined with $24.4M from 39 other territories around the world, Need is likely […]

Based on Friday’s and Saturday’s grosses, weekend #11 of 2014 looks like $102 million for the top 12 films Friday-Sunday, a few million dollars lower than yesterday’s estimate and now slightly below the box office volume for a typical weekend in the middle of March.  Two new wide releases opened softly Friday and were even […]

  Based on preliminary numbers at Deadline, the weekend box office will largely be in line with Friday’s results.  Both NEED FOR SPEED (DreamWorks/Disney) and SINGLE MOMS CLUB (Lionsgate) barely budged on Saturday from their Friday starts, with Speed up $300K and Moms up $100K.  That will push Speed down to 3d place for the […]

  OPENINGS:  NEED FOR SPEED (DreamWorks/Disney) won Friday with $6.6M (which includes $1.1M from Thursday night), but it’s destined to come in 2d or even 3rd for the weekend, probably under $20M.  At a $175M cost (including worldwide marketing), $50M in the US will barely make a dent, meaning that the movie will need to […]

Based on Friday’s grosses, weekend #11 of 2014 looks like $106 million for the top 12 films Friday-Sunday, almost exactly matching the average for this weekend over the last few years.  Two new wide releases didn’t do anything special, but two limited releases distinguished themselves.   Opening at 3,115 theaters Friday, Need for Speed from Disney grossed $6.6 […]

  It’s looking like a slow weekend at the box office, although the successive arrivals of Divergent, Noah and Captain America 2 over the next 3 weeks should keep it from becoming a trend. Based on preliminary numbers at Deadline, NEED FOR SPEED (DreamWorks/Disney) probably won’t even reach $20M for the weekend.  Its reported $6.5M […]

Weekend #11 of 2014 is looking like $115 million for the top 12 films, down from last weekend but actually 10% above the average for the comparable weekend the past several years. Opening at around 3,000 theaters Friday (slightly above the 2,886 average theater count for opening weekends the last two years), Need for Speed from Disney should […]