Weekend #38 of 2014 is looking like $104 million for the top 12 films this weekend, up 20% from the norm for this weekend. Opening at around 3,500 theaters Friday (above the 2,886 average theater count for opening weekends the last two years), Maze Runner from 20th Century Fox should average a solid $9,800 per theater […]

Based on Friday’s and Saturday’s grosses, weekend #8 of 2015 looks like $106 million for the top 12 films Friday-Sunday, a little softer than it looked yesterday but still somewhat above the norms for this weekend.   Opening at 2,755 theaters Friday, McFarland, USA from Disney is on track for an $11.3 million opening three-day weekend (now slightly […]

  OPENINGS:  Star/co-writer/co-producer Melissa McCarthy reportedly took a fraction of her usual fee on TAMMY (Warners) to keep the production budget down to the low $20Ms.  After a $6.4M 4th of July (up 17% from Thursday), the movie is well on its way to recouping that budget–it should have a $22M weekend, and $34M since […]

The weekend continues to look very close to the way it did yesterday morning.  Madagascar 3: Europe’s Most Wanted looks like $35.5 million, according to the studio estimate this morning (down a decent 41% from the opening weekend and hitting our forecast in Wednesday’s ShowbuzzDaily Weekend Predictions).  Prometheus is looking like more like a 60% […]

Looking at wide-release films in North America (those that play on at least 400 screens at some point), 2013 now totals just over $3.1 billion, down 13% from 2012 and down 5% from the prior four-year average 2009-2012.  Still a very mediocre year.  Each year-to-date period below is defined as the first Monday after New […]

> Deadline has some early Saturday and weekend numbers, the highlight of which is that REAL STEEL is claiming a 40% Saturday bump, which would lead it to a $29M weekend, somewhat higher than expected.  Since Steel is a family movie, a big increase for matinees is possible, but we’ll see if it bears out […]

  Based on preliminary numbers at Deadline, PARANORMAL ACTIVITY: THE MARKED ONES (Paramount) is likely to win Friday but lose the weekend.  Its $8.5M start positions it not only to come in below the wide releases of all the previous installments of the Paranormal franchise (which opened in October), but also below the recent January […]

>The past week (seven days ending Sunday) came in up 25% versus last year’s comparable week.  Year-to-date box office is now down 7% versus last year (an improvement of two percentage points from last week).    The Past Week: Total Box Office Volume All films in wide release playing between May 30 and June 5 […]