Based on Friday’s grosses, weekend #34 of 2014 looks like $103 million for the top 12 films Friday-Sunday, somewhat below our forecast ($111 million) but still 21% above the norm for this weekend ($86 million). Opening at 2,907 theaters, If I Stay from Warner Brothers grossed $6.8 million Friday and is on track for a $17.0 million […]

  Saturday’s box office didn’t bring any major changes to the results indicated by Friday’s, according to preliminary numbers at Deadline.  THE OTHER WOMAN (20th) was fairly flat, rising only 3% Friday-to-Saturday for $9.6M on its 2d day of release, still on track for a $25M weekend that will put it well in front of […]

> Reviews have been coming in progressively worse for Cars 2, dropping from 50% positive at RottenTomatoes to 37% as of Friday morning.  In line with this trend is Mitch Salem’s review of the film.  The words “lazy” and “phoning it in” seem to summarize what reviewers think, and that does not bode well for […]

  OPENINGS:  STAR TREK: INTO DARKNESS (Paramount) is the first underperformer of the summer, and there will be plenty of harrumphing and speculation about why that is.  With Sunday likely to be much weaker than last weekend’s Mother’s Day, Darkness will be hard-pressed to match in 4 days (plus Wednesday night screenings) the $79.2M that […]

    FRIDAY AFTERNOON UPDATE:  Both Variety and The Hollywood Reporter are reporting, based on Friday afternoon sales, that MOCKINGJAY is going to substantially underperform THE HUNGER GAMES and CATCHING FIRE for the day, and therefore for the weekend, to an extent that goes far beyond the fact that unlike the others in the series, […]

WORLDWIDE STUDIO SCORECARD. Scroll down for domestic and overseas grosses for each film individually so far in 2014. YEAR TO DATE BOX OFFICE. Looking at North American box office, 2014 is still running -6% behind last year and -4% below the average for this point the past four years ($9.192 billion).  Over the same period, […]

  OPENINGS:  THE LIGHT BETWEEN OCEANS (DreamWorks/Reliance/Participant/Disney) brings to an ignominious end the distribution relationship between DreamWorks and Disney.  Their final shared title disappointed on every level, with a $5M 3-day weekend that might become $6M on Monday, and no chance of recouping its costs.  Even though the weak reviews, length and period setting worked […]

  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 […]