THE LEGO MOVIE (Warners) is barely even being challenged by the newcomers this weekend, and it will easily reign supreme over the multiplexes for its 3rd win in a row.  Preliminary numbers at Variety and Deadline have Lego at $7M+ on Friday, and while that’s down from last Friday’s $12.8M (all holdovers will be sharply […]

  Yesterday we looked at some of the ways that the costs of producing a feature film are higher and more complicated than they might seem.  Today, some additional obstacles that lie between any movie and profitability.   These may be the most important and least-understood part of profitability calculations.  Every entity that distributes a […]

Based on Friday’s grosses, Weekend #49 of 2013 looks like $87 million for the top 12 films from Friday-Sunday, right on target for the usually slow post-Thanksgiving weekend.   Opening at 2,101 theaters Friday, Out of the Furnace from Relativity grossed $1.9 million Friday and is on track for a $5.5 million opening weekend (below the already bearish […]

WORLDWIDE STUDIO SCORECARD.  Here is an updated look at the 2017 film slates by studio.   YEAR TO DATE BOX OFFICE. Looking at North American box office, 2017 to date is now down -2% from last year and now +2% above the average for this point the past four years ($6.820 billion).  Over the same period, Hollywood films […]

Based on Friday’s grosses, Weekend #21 of 2013 looks like an outstanding $256 million for the top 12 films, 50-75% above the comparable weekend the past few years.  A fairly deep bench of films is currently playing, although don’t count on Hangover III to contribute much in the coming weeks. Opening at 3,658 theaters Friday, Fast […]

Based on Friday’s grosses, weekend #30 of 2015 looks like $148 million for the top 12 films Friday-Sunday, equaling the norm for this weekend and above last year’s weekend. Opening at 3,723 theaters Friday, Pixels from Sony is on track for a $25.0 million opening three-day weekend (below our $37.5 million ShowBuzzDaily forecast earlier this week). The film is pacing toward a slightly […]

  OPENINGS:  3-day weekend totals were largely in line with where they were headed on Friday night.  COCO (Pixar/Disney) settled in at $49M ($71.2M since Wednesday).  On a 3-day basis, that was almost exactly the same as Tangled‘s $48.8M, suggesting that Coco should land at $200M in the US.  That would put it in the […]

  December 24, along with December 31, will be the lowest box office days of the holiday season, because so many people have non-movie plans those nights.  Nevertheless, INTO THE WOODS (Disney) had a highly promising start with screenings that began at 7PM on Christmas Eve, earning $1.1M.  (That compares with the $325K that Annie […]