>Seven full weeks into 2012, domestic box office continues to run well ahead of last year’s slow pace and now has moved solidly ahead of the comparable period’s average for the last several years.                 The Past Week: Total Box Office Volume All films in wide release playing between February 13 […]

  There’s going to be a crowd at the top of the box office this weekend, but there’s not much good news in it for anyone.  According to preliminary numbers at Deadline, AMERICAN MADE (Cross Creek/Universal) took Friday with $6M (almost $1M of it from Thursday night), which should give it a $15-16M weekend.  However, […]

  MONDAY UPDATE:  In the face of widespread industry skepticism, Paramount is sticking to its claim that TRANSFORMERS: AGE OF EXTINCTION earned $100M last weekend–actually, $100,038, 390.  (The consensus is that the real number is $97-98M.)  Here’s the way the system works:  the vast majority of US theatres report their results to the 3rd-party company […]

  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 […]

Updated international box office chart:  

Based on Friday’s and Saturday’s grosses, Weekend #47 of 2013 now looks like $222 million for the top 12 films — up from yesterday’s estimate thanks to a stronger than expected Saturday for Hunger Games: Catching Fire.  Now the overall weekend volume virtually matches the average for recent weekends before Thanksgiving. Opening at 4,163 theaters […]

WORLDWIDE STUDIO SCORECARD.  Updated look at 2016 by studio.   YEAR TO DATE BOX OFFICE. Looking at North American box office, 2016 to date is now +2% above last year and still +2% above the average for this point the past four years ($4.039 billion).  Over the same period, Hollywood films have grossed $10.9 billion worldwide […]

> The new PARANORMAL ACTIVITY 3 is off to a good start:  its $8M boxoffice from midnight shows last night was 30% higher than Paranormal 2‘s midnight performance, and in a league with Hangover 2‘s $10.4M, which is the highest ever for an R-rated title. Sequels, of course, tend to be increasingly more front-loaded, so […]