Ten weeks into 2013, the North American box office continues to track as a B-level year (nearly identical to 2008 and 2011), well below recent A-level years (2009, 2010 and 2012).  To date, 2013 totals $1.528 billion for wide-release films, while 2008 was $1.519 billion at this point and 2011 was $1.482 billion. The stronger […]

Through 14 weeks of the year, 2013 totals $2.232 billion (for wide-release films that have played at more than 400 theaters).  This remains well behind the 2012 pace ($2.624 billion) and the very similar 2010 pace ($2.618 billion).  However, 2013 continues to pull away from the particularly slow performance in 2011 ($2.071 billion). As a […]

Based on Friday’s and Saturday’s grosses, Weekend #19 of 2013 looks like $152 million for the top 12 films, about the same as the $151 million estimate yesterday.  Iron Man 3 picked up the pace with a very strong second Saturday (moving from an estimated $67.4 million second weekend yesterday to $72.5 million today), while […]

Based on Friday’s grosses, Weekend #23 of 2013 looks like an okay $153 million for the top 12 films, down 14% from last year but 5% above the average for this weekend the past few years.  The Purge is doing much better than forecast and is propping the weekend up. Opening at 2,536 theaters Friday, […]

  OPENINGS:  The $40M weekend estimate for THE HEAT (20th) makes more sense than it did last night, now that the movie’s Saturday is being reported as a 6% increase rather than a 5% drop.  (But always be suspicious of round-number estimates anyway.)  The Heat is going to be profitable, thanks to its $45M production budget, […]

STUDIO SCORECARD. The race for second place is very interesting thanks to The Conjuring, which puts Warner Brothers very much on Universal’s heels for year to date worldwide box office.  Fox also had a reasonably good week, getting it closer to fourth-place Paramount for the year. If the studios were divided into geographic leagues, the Valley […]

The 33rd weekend of the year is looking like $133 million for the top 12 films, up a sizable 17% from the average for a normally extremely sleepy weekend.  Opening at around 2,800 2,940 theaters Friday (very close to the 2,886 average theater count for opening weekends the last two years), Kick-Ass 2 from Universal should average $8,900 $8,500 per […]

Based on Friday’s and Saturday’s grosses, Weekend #36 of 2013 now looks like $67 million for the top 12 films, a few million dollars better than yesterday’s estimate and now up slightly from the average post-Labor Day weekends the past few years. Opening at 3,107 theaters Friday, Riddick from Universal grossed $7.3 million Friday and a […]