The 28th weekend of the year is looking like a very good $209 million for the top 12 films, up 15% from the comparable weekend the last few years. Opening at around 3,000 theaters Friday (somewhat above the 2,886 average theater count for opening weekends), Grown Ups 2 from Sony should average $15,300 per theater for the three-day weekend (for a $45.5 […]

Updated international box office chart:

STUDIO SCORECARD. With the strong domestic and international opening of Despicable Me 2, Universal had a very good week (up $311 million from last week and almost catching Warner Brothers in terms of worldwide box office for the year).  Warner Brothers, thanks to Man of Steel, still brought in $157 million this week.  Next week the studio […]

  OPENINGS:  DESPICABLE ME 2 (Universal) had an even better weekend overseas than it did in the US, with $88.8M (in 45 markets, with plenty more major ones to come) vs $82.5M.  (Of course, in the US it also had the benefit of a holiday week, giving it a huge $142.1M here so far.)  The […]

Based on Friday’s and Saturday’s grosses, Weekend #27 of 2013 still looks like a terrific $223 million for the top 12 films, up sharply from the comparable weekend in recent years. Not even The Lone Ranger could derail a hot summer box office, which is up 30% or more in three of the last four […]

  It’s a best of times, worst of times kind of weekend for the newcomers. OPENINGS:  DESPICABLE ME 2 (Universal) is everything its makers could have wanted at the box office.  With a $30.2M Friday, it should have $140M in the US by Sunday (it won’t match the $97.9M Independence Day weekend of Transformers 3, but […]

Based on Friday’s grosses, Weekend #27 of 2013 looks like a terrific $223 million for the top 12 films, up sharply from the comparable weekend in recent years. Not even The Lone Ranger could derail a hot summer box office, which is up 30% or more in three of the last four weekends. Opening at […]

The complete Friday Box Office report will be posted at its usual time Saturday morning, but in the meantime we have one big over-performer in Despicable Me 2, one opener slightly above forecast (Kevin Hart) and one flat-out, embarrassing bomb (Lone Ranger), doing even worse than our bearish expectations. With $34.3 million Wednesday and $24.5 million […]