GODZILLA (Warners/Legendary) is proving to be a somewhat frontloaded hit, with preliminary numbers at Deadline and elsewhere showing a Saturday drop of 15-20%, down from $38.5M on Friday to $32-32.5M.  If that holds, it will be a much heavier fall than the ones for Captain America: The Winter Soldier (down 6% to $34.7M) or […]

  International Box Office Note:  This is the last weekend before the World Cup begins diverting much of the planet’s attention (except, of course, in the US) away from movies for the next month.  That’s expected to have a noticeable effect on the overseas box office. OPENINGS:  THE FAULT IN OUR STARS (20th) confirmed all […]

Based on Friday’s and Saturday’s grosses, weekend #27 of 2014 looks like $118 million for the top 12 films Friday-Sunday, even worse than the $126 million estimate yesterday, now 31% below the norm for this weekend, and well below the $153.2 million weekend for the top 12 the last time July 4 fell on a […]

  GUARDIANS OF THE GALAXY (Marvel/Disney) held strongly on Saturday despite its massive opening day.  According to preliminary numbers at Deadline and elsewhere, the outer space superhero romp dropped about 15% from Friday (which included $11.2M from Thursday night shows) to $32M.  That’s a better Day 2 hold than Transformers: Age of Extinction, Godzilla or X-Men: Days of […]

  Labor Day Weekend is the only holiday that doesn’t make people gravitate to the movies, and this year will be no exception.  Based on preliminary numbers at Deadline, the 5-week old GUARDIANS OF THE GALAXY (Marvel/Disney), newly anointed as America’s #1 film of 2014 at approximately $262M (although it will never catch up with […]

  Strong Saturdays for both GONE GIRL (20th) and ANNABELLE (New Line/Warners) suggest that no matter who claims victory on Sunday morning, we may not really know who’s won the weekend until final numbers are available the next day.  According to preliminary box office figures at Deadline, Gone Girl climbed about 15% on Saturday to $15.3M, […]

  OPENINGS:  NIGHTCRAWLER (Open Road) and Ouija are in a dead heat for the weekend title, with Nightcrawler claiming a temporary $9000 edge at $10.909M.  We won’t know the real winner until tomorrow, but Ouija is already admitting a 52% Sunday drop, while Nightcrawler maintains that it will only fall 35% today.  That number is […]

The weekend predictions will return next week, when Exodus: God and Kings and Top Five are released nationally.  This weekend, typical for the post-Thanksgiving weekend, is extremely quiet.  Only The Pyramid is opening at a very small 589 theaters.