OPENINGS:  At $53.5M, SHAZAM (DC/New Line/Warners) had the lowest opening weekend of the current DC run of superhero movies (it was also below all the Marvel openings), but it was produced to be a lower-budget companion piece to the megabusters, and with that in mind, its opening was fine.  Overseas was bigger at $102M, but […]

  OPENINGS:  SPIDER-MAN: FAR FROM HOME (Columbia/Sony) owned the Independence Day holiday, with $93.6M over the 3-day weekend, and a $185.1M total since its Tuesday opening.  Comparisons are inexact due to the 6-day holiday start, but it was considerably ahead of The Amazing Spider-Man, which also had a 6-day opening (with July 4th on Wednesday […]

  OPENINGS:  The entertainment business revolves these days around IP, but not all franchises are created equal, and there turned out to be a thunderous lack of interest in TERMINATOR: DARK FATE (Skydance/Tencent/20th/Disney/Paramount), which opened to just $29M in the US against production/marketing costs of $300M+.  A big-budget action epic in that predicament normally hopes […]

  OPENINGS:  THE INVISIBLE MAN (Blumhouse/Universal) had a 12% Saturday bump, evidence of extremely strong word of mouth in the horror genre (among recent uncommonly leggy horror releases, Get Out rose 17% on its 2nd day of release, and A Quiet Place was up 1%).  That brought it to a strong $29M weekend, and with […]

  HOLDOVERS: NOMADLAND (Searchlight/Disney, also on Hulu) earned $500K at 1175 theatres after 2 weeks in limited release for which the studio didn’t provide numbers.  That’s, a weekend per-theatre average a bit over $400.  Even by the standards of split theatrical/streaming Oscar contending releases like Judas and the Black Messiah (which averaged about $1100 at […]

  OPENINGS:  Note that the entire market in the US will be hit by Super Bowl Sunday, which will be down from Saturday by roughly double the percentage of the usual Saturday-Sunday drop.  (However, Hollywood will hope for a Valentine’s Day bump the following day.)  Even with that included in the calculations, though, the weekend’s […]

  OPENINGS:  BLACK ADAM (DC/New Line/Warners) arrived within moderate expectations at $67M.  That’s the highest weekend we’ve seen since Thor: Love & Thunder in July, but as a superhero epic with a $300M+ production/marketing budget, it’s far below Love & Thunder ($144.2M), Doctor Strange In the Multiverse of Madness ($187.4M), and DC’s The Batman ($134M).  […]

> An eclectic trio of films open wide this weekend.  Cowboys & Aliens (the ultimate genre mash-up) should win the weekend with $41.5 million.  Captain America should drop to second place, while The Smurfs should battle with Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 2 for third place.  Crazy, Stupid, Love should open quietly in fifth […]