OPENINGS:  ZERO DARK THIRTY (Sony) was well ahead of the crowd with $24M, a number slightly depressed (as was almost everything this weekend) by the Sunday combination of NFL playoffs and the Golden Globes.  The $18.8M for A HAUNTED HOUSE (Open Road) didn’t get close to the openings for the Scary Movie franchise (most […]

Based on Friday’s and Saturday’s grosses, Weekend #2 of 2013 is on pace for $122 million, a touch lower than it appeared yesterday but still up slightly from the same weekend the last few years.  Zero Dark Thirty’s first wide weekend is now looking like $24 million, a few million dollars lower than yesterday’s forecast […]

  According to preliminary numbers at Deadline, ZERO DARK THIRTY (Sony) didn’t have a tremendous Saturday bump at the boxoffice, just about 5%, but it was still far and away the biggest picture of the weekend, with an estimated $24.5M that should propel it through the next several weeks of Oscar season. The weekend’s shocker […]

  OPENINGS:  ZERO DARK THIRTY (Sony) expanded to coincide with its Oscar nominations, and the strategy worked as planned, with the acclaimed (and, in some circles, attacked) drama easily carrying Friday with $9M, on its way to $25-27M for the weekend. It’s a massive embarrassment for GANGSTER SQUAD (Warners) that it was beaten by the […]

Based on Friday’s grosses, Weekend #2 of 2013 is on pace for $124 million, identical to last weekend and up slightly from the same weekend the last few years.  The three wide-release films this weekend performed pretty much as forecast Wednesday, while Lincoln is the big surprise among the holdovers thanks to the Oscar nominations, […]

The second weekend of 2013 should total about $122 million for the top 12 films, a little better than the same weekend the last few years but below the comparable weekend in 2009 and 2010.  Zero Dark Thirty moves from the art houses to a fairly wide release and should play more commercially than The […]

Updated international box office chart below.  The Hobbit (+$97 million overseas since last week) and Life of Pi (+$82 million) are the big movers this week. New entrants to the chart include The Impossible at #31, Texas Chainsaw at #41, and Promised Land at #65.  With significant (and growing overseas business) the Spanish-produced Impossible is the one film in this week’s crop that can move up […]

  OPENINGS:  TEXAS CHAINSAW (Lionsgate) did what most horror movies do, dropping 23% on Saturday for a lousy 2.3x weekend multiple of its Friday gross.  It was actually in 2d place on both Saturday and Sunday, but that frontloaded Friday was enough to give it a comfortable $23M win for the weekend.  With a $20M […]