Based on Friday’s grosses, Weekend #35 of 2013 looks like a very decent $95 million for the top 12 films, up 16% from the average Friday-Sunday portion of recent Labor Day weekends.  One Direction: All of Us and the out-of-nowhere Instructions Not Included opened well, and continued strength from The Butler and We’re the Millers […]

  OPENINGS:  As expected, FANTASTIC FOUR (20th) plunged 25% on Saturday as word of mouth caught up with it (by comparison, Ant-Man lost just 14% on its 2d day of release), giving it a sad $26.2M weekend.  Things didn’t get any better when international was factored in, as the franchise-killer managed just $34.1M in 43 […]

> Anyone who thinks the boxoffice isn’t in a slump needs a new prescription for bifocals. Note:  since December 24 is a traditionally deadly day at the boxoffice (closed theatres, family plans)  that would make 3-day weekend estimates look even worse than they are, we’ll use 4 day Friday-Monday weekend estimates below. WE BOUGHT A […]

Based on Friday’s grosses, Weekend #6 of 2013 is another weak one: only $84 million for the top 12 films (about 50% behind the pace for the same weekend the last few years, an even steeper drop than last weekend).  The lone bright spot: Identity Thief.  Our big lesson: never underestimate Melissa McCarthy.  Our outlook […]

  WONDER WOMAN (RatPac/Wanda/Ten Cent/DC/Warners) is proving to be exactly what its studio–and the summer box office in general–needed.  For Warners, it’s giving the embattled DC mega-franchise its first taste of critical praise since the days of The Dark Knight, which is important in itself, and that’s paying off in ticket sales.  Preliminary numbers at […]

With the Fourth of July falling on a Wednesday, most of the past week performed like weekend days, driving the seven-day domestic box office haul to one of the highest in recent memory. The Past Week: Total Box Office Volume All films in wide release playing between July 2 and July 8 grossed an incredible […]

Weekend #22 of 2012 looks like it will total about $122 million for the top 12 films, down 21% from last year’s comparable weekend and down 20% from the four-year average for the weekend.  That would make it three down weekends (way down) in a row.   Opening at an estimated 3,700 theaters, Snow White and […]

Weekend #2 of 2014 is looking like $100 million for the top 12 films, a pretty shabby total for a weekend that normal totals $125 million or more. Opening at around 2,700 theaters Friday (slightly below the 2,886 average theater count for opening weekends the last two years), Lone Survivor from Universal should average about $8,200 per […]