Based on Friday’s grosses, weekend #49 of 2014 looks like $69 million for the top 12 films Friday-Sunday, down 11% the norm for this weekend ($78 million) and down 20% from the same weekend last year.   Opening at a mere 589 theaters, The Pyramid from 20th Century Fox is on track for a $1.0 million opening three-day […]

  UPDATE:  The release of THE INTERVIEW continues to be improvisational, and contrary to regular practice–as well as Sony’s previously expressed plans–the studio announced on Sunday that in addition to its $2.8M take from independent theatres, the film earned $15M from online viewing in the Wed-Sat period.  However, Sony didn’t specify how that amount was […]

Based on Friday’s and Saturday’s grosses, weekend #5 of 2015 now looks like $87 million for the top 12 films Friday-Sunday, somewhat above the norm for this weekend but not as strong as our optimistic forecast.   Opening at 2,893 theaters Friday, Project Almanac from Paramount is on track for an $8.5 million opening three-day weekend (well below […]

WORLDWIDE STUDIO SCORECARD.   YEAR TO DATE BOX OFFICE. Looking at North American box office, 2015 to date is still +4% above last year and now +6% above the average for this point the past four years ($1.638 billion).  Over the same period, Hollywood films have grossed $4.8 billion worldwide when we add overseas box office […]

  OPENINGS:  PAUL BLART: MALL COP 2 (MGM/Sony/Columbia) was at the high end of diminished expectations with $24M.  That’s roughly 25% below the $31.8M start for the first Paul Blart, not a surprise considering that the Blart franchise was far from universally beloved.  The question will be whether Blart 2 can have anything like its […]

  OPENINGS:  Here’s a telling stat for TOMORROWLAND (Disney):  although the movie was aimed squarely at a family audience, only 30% of the people who showed up were in that demo.  Instead, 60% of the audience was over 25, meaning the older George Clooney fans.  That suggests that Disney marketing wasn’t able to get the […]

Based on Friday’s and Saturday’s grosses, weekend #27 of 2015 looks like $133 million for the top 12 films Friday-Sunday, a little better than yesterday’s estimate but still below the norm for this weekend but slightly above last year’s similar bummer of a July 4th weekend.   Opening at 3,758 theaters Friday, Terminator: Genisys from Paramount is now on track […]

  OPENINGS:  As expected, FANTASTIC FOUR (20th) plunged 25% on Saturday as word of mouth caught up with it (by comparison, Ant-Man lost just 14% on its 2d day of release), giving it a sad $26.2M weekend.  Things didn’t get any better when international was factored in, as the franchise-killer managed just $34.1M in 43 […]