OPENINGS:  The production budget for 2 GUNS (Universal) was funded by producers Emmett/Furla and Foresight Entertainment, with Universal just on the hook for marketing and distribution.  In addition, the overseas distribution is being handled by other studios.  All of this limits Universal’s risk and also its upside, and since the movie had a $10M […]

Based on Friday’s grosses, Weekend #31 of 2013 looks like a surprisingly weak $124 million for the top 12 films, down 5% from the average for this weekend the past few years (the first such decline since the weekend of June 7-9 eight weeks ago).  Opening at 3,025 theaters Friday, 2 Guns from Universal grossed $10 million Friday […]

  According to preliminary numbers at Deadline, 2 GUNS (Universal/Emmett-Furla) claimed Friday with $9.8M (including $1.3M from Thursday night).  If that number holds, it’ll be considerably below Denzel Washington’s last action opening for Safe House, which started with $13.6M, despite the presence this time of Mark Wahlberg, although it would be higher than Unstoppable ($8M) and […]

  2 GUNS (Universal), with a 10PM Thursday start, had an unexceptional $1.2M launch, on the low end of the summer.  But while it was below White House Down‘s $1.35M, and that action movie went on to just a $24.9M weekend, it’s in the same neighborhood as Now You See Me ($1.5M) and The Heat […]

  There haven’t been a lot of Wednesday openings this summer, and even fewer that are relevant to the start of THE SMURFS 2 (Sony), which began with $5.2M yesterday.  This Is The End ($7.8M) was aimed at a completely different audience, while the colossal $35M start for Despicable Me 2 was part of a […]

The 31st weekend of the year is looking like $141 million for the top 12 films, not bad for the first weekend of August. Opening at around 2,800 theaters Friday (near the 2,886 average theater count for opening weekends the last two years), 2 Guns from Universal should average $12,200 per theater for the three-day weekend (for a […]

  On Sunday mornings, the devout go to church, and movie studios lie.  (There’s not much overlap between the two groups.)  The studios lie (or fudge, if you’re sensitive about the L Word), fundamentally, because they can get away with it:  when “estimated” box office returns are announced on Sunday mornings, they’re simply repeated–one might […]

  OPENINGS:   Two smart studio decisions bailed out what could have been a scary opening weekend for THE WOLVERINE (20th).  Fox kept the budget relatively low for its expensive genre, just $250M or so including worldwide marketing, and it boosted international appeal with an Asian setting.  Both paid off, as the movie had the robust […]