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 […]

  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 continents drift, and so does the boxoffice. OPENINGS:  ICE AGE:  CONTINENTAL DRIFT (20th), at $16.5M, was 25% below the opening for Ice Age 2, and lower than the first Friday of Ice Age 3 (which opened on a Wednesday), but the franchise gets the overwhelming bulk of its revenue from overseas–something like 70%–so unless […]

Updated worldwide box office chart for 2013 North American films.  The Hobbit: Desolation of Smaug (Warner Brothers) and Frozen (Disney) are the top American performers overseas by far this past week.  Also, click here for a summary of worldwide performance by studio.

> Deadline has early numbers for Saturday and the weekend, and there aren’t any major surprises. PARANORMAL ACTIVITY 3 is overwhelming everything else in the market even after its expected big drop from Friday (which included $8M from Thursday midnight shows).  If the preliminary $18M Saturday number bears true, the movie will have a better […]

> The past week (seven days ending Sunday) came in up 25% versus last year’s comparable week (the first significant increase in five weeks).  Year-to-date box office is now down 7% versus last year.    The Past Week: Total Box Office Volume All films in wide release playing between July 11 and July 17 grossed $331 […]

  A great start for the weekend, if you overlook the fact that 2 of the 3 new arrivals flopped. OPENINGS:  THE AMAZING SPIDER-MAN (Sony) has successfully rebooted the franchise, no question about it.  (Unless it tanks overseas, which is hugely unlikely.)  But Spidey hasn’t come back quite at full strength:  even with a 6-day […]

Based on Friday’s and Saturday’s grosses, weekend #3 of 2015 looks like $185 million for the top 12 films Friday-Sunday, even better than the estimate yesterday ($172 million), way up from the norm for this weekend and setting a new record for the third weekend in January, breaking last year’s brief record (see track below […]