The Croods was the big mover overseas this past week, up $38 million outside North America to $243 million overseas and $416 million worldwide.  The other big gainer outside of home was G.I. Joe: Retaliation (up $23 million overseas to $168 million overseas to date and just under $300 million worldwide). Slowing down a bit outside of the […]

  OPENINGS:  SMILE 2 (Paramount) opened on par with its predecessor, at $23M compared to $22.6M.  A small dip had been projected, so that was slightly above expectations.  The sequel, unlike the first Smile, will face major competition in its 2nd weekend, so it remains to be seen whether it can have that film’s stellar […]

Based on Friday’s grosses, Weekend #52 is on pace for a solid $166 million thanks to three movies at or near $30 million for the Friday-Sunday period.  However, the two big openers are not living up to the promise of their initial Christmas Day grosses.  Les Miserables opened with $18.1 million Tuesday (a strong #1 […]

  OPENINGS:  Almost all the “early Friday” numbers turned out to be overly optimistic, but THE HEAT (20th) is still having a great opening, with a $13.6M first day that should put it in the neighborhood of a $37M weekend.  That puts it ahead of Melissa McCarthy’s $34.6M opening with Identity Thief, and remarkably enough, […]

  With July 4th falling on a Saturday for the 1st time since 2009, this was fated to be a slow holiday at the box office.  Nevertheless, the weekend’s openings were supposed to be able to overtake titles that have already been in the market for 3-4 weeks.  Based on preliminary numbers at Deadline, however, […]

> Thanks to Universal’s Fast Five, the box office is headed for the third up weekend in a row.  Other openers to have minimal impact, however. Another up weekend is in store, fueled by Fast Five, the fifth in the Fast and Furious franchise (see complete franchise track below).  The film should open at a […]

Now if the Madagascar animals had to battle the Prometheus aliens, that might have been interesting. OPENINGS:  PROMETHEUS (20th) edged out MADAGASCAR 3 (DreamWorks Animation/Paramount) for Friday honors ($21.4M to $20.5M), but girls, you’re both pretty.  Madagascar should pull ahead for the weekend thanks to family matinees (and what could be mixed word of mouth […]

This weekend is on track to be the fifth weekend in a row to be up over the previous years.  None of the openers look like big hits — it’s just that Argo is hanging around very well in its third week and there are more films at or near $10 million this weekend than […]