OPENINGS:  THE WORLD’S END (Focus/Universal) is off to a very solid start, with a $2250 per-theatre average on Friday in just 1549 theatres, giving it a $3.5M day and a weekend that could hit $10M.  That compares well to the other entries in Edgar Wright/Simon Pegg’s “Cornetto Trilogy,” even though World’s End has the […]

Based on Friday’s grosses, Weekend #34 of 2013 looks like an okay $91 million for the top 12 films, even with the average for the same weekend the last few years but up from last year’s comparable weekend. Opening at 1,548 theaters Friday, The World’s End from Focus/Universal grossed $3.5 million Friday and is on track for […]

  Be sure to read Mitch Metcalf’s Weekend Box Office Predictions. Momentum was lacking for THE MORTAL INSTRUMENTS: CITY OF BONES (Screen Gems/Sony), as the studio kept the movie from critics until the last possible instant and didn’t even have night-before screenings for audiences–one of the only films of the summer to wait till 12:01AM […]

The 34th weekend of the year is looking like $99 million for the top 12 films, up a decent 10% from the average for this weekend.  Opening at 3,046 theaters Wednesday (a bit above the 2,886 average theater count for opening weekends the last two years), The Mortal Instruments: City of Bones from Sony should average $4,100 per theater for the […]

  OPENINGS:  If a movie like THE BUTLER (Weinstein) can make back most of its production cost in a single weekend (and The Help did the same 2 years ago), why aren’t there more movies like The Butler?  The answer is the other side of the coin of “Why are there so many action-fantasy adventure […]

WORLDWIDE STUDIO SCORECARD.  Universal and Warner Brothers again flipped positions in the year to date worldwide box office chart.  Universal didn’t have much this week (the lame domestic opening of Kick-Ass 2 and some continued overseas business from Despicable Me 2), but it was certainly more than Warner Brothers, which has grown very quiet here […]

Updated international box office chart:

Based on Friday’s and Saturday’s grosses, Weekend #33 of 2013 looks like an okay $121 million for the top 12 films, up 6% from the average for this weekend the past few years but down 5% from last year’s comparable weekend. Opening at 2,933 theaters Friday, Lee Daniels’ The Butler from Weinstein grossed $8.3 million […]