> Deadline has early numbers for Saturday and the weekend, and there aren’t any major surprises. PARANORMAL ACTIVITY 3 is overwhelming everything else in the market even after its expected big drop from Friday (which included $8M from Thursday midnight shows).  If the preliminary $18M Saturday number bears true, the movie will have a better […]

> NEW YEAR’S EVE (Warners):  Hardly any bump from Saturday night couples meant about as low an opening as anyone could have reasonably imagined.  Even with some play during Christmas week, the picture may struggle to earn more than its $56M production budget (which is separate from a likely $100M+ worldwide marketing budget).  After J. […]

> Beware the round-number weekend estimate. OPENINGS:  THE GREY (Open Road) is claiming an even $20M gross for the weekend, which would make tomorrow’s adjusted number starting with “19” no surprise at all.  In any case, it’s a bit lower than Liam Neeson’s other starts in his new career as an action star, but Grey […]

> The most successful movie of all time, Avatar, had an opening weekend ($77M) that only ranks 38th on the list of the biggest openings.  Conversely, the #1 opening weekend of all time belongs to Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows (Part II), with $169M, more than double Avatar‘s–but its total gross of $381M puts […]

>   Hold all tickets for 2d place. OPENINGS:  As of now, THE PIRATES!  BAND OF MISFITS (Sony), THE FIVE-YEAR ENGAGEMENT (Universal), THE LUCKY ONE (Warners) and THE HUNGER GAMES (Lionsgate/Summit) are all projected to gross within a $243,000 range for the weekend, with Pirates on top with $11.4M and Engagement bringing up the rear […]

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), […]

A down week this week (last year boasted the opening of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 2) erased the big gains last week, and now the year to year comparisons are back to where they were a few weeks (high single-digit percentages). The Past Week: Total Box Office Volume All films in wide […]

  THE DARK KNIGHT RISES (Warners) appears to be headed for its 3rd (and probably last) weekend in 1st place, according to preliminary numbers at Deadline.  The Caped Crusader’s Friday is estimated over $10M, which should mean a weekend around $35M.  That would bring its total by Sunday night to over $350M, which would tie […]