The Past Week: Total Box Office Volume All films in wide release playing between September 10 and September 16 grossed a piss-poor $93 million, down 19% from the four-year average for the week and down 21% from the same week last year.  We have to go back to the same week in 2004 to find […]

Thank God for overseas box office.  One of the last great American exports is the Hollywood motion picture slate.  The films released in the U.S. over the last four months have grossed $3.65 billion in North America, but they have taken in another $4.85 billion in foreign lands.  There is no better example than Resident Evil: […]

  Paul W.S. Anderson and Paul Thomas Anderson share the glory. OPENINGS:  W.S. Anderson’s RESIDENT EVIL:  RETRIBUTION (Screen Gems/Sony) took the weekend, but its $21.1M haul is the lowest the series has seen in a decade, and 20% below the opening of the last installment.  All of this only means something if it’s reflected overseas, […]

The weekend now looks like $70 million for the top 12 films, just a shade lower than the estimate yesterday.  The rank order remains the same, with Resident Evil: Retribution opening at #1 ahead of Finding Nemo 3D (although Nemo will outgross Retribution over the course of their theatrical runs).     The ShowbuzzDaily Domestic […]

OPENINGS:  Both RESIDENT EVIL:  RETRIBUTION (Screen Gems/Sony) and FINDING NEMO 3D (Pixar/Disney) are softer than expected.  Evil is likely to have a $21M weekend, which would be the lowest opening in the series since the 2002 original, while Nemo’s probable $17M will be far below The Lion King 3D‘s $30.2M and barely even with Beauty […]

The 37th weekend of 2012 is looking like $71 million for the Top 12 films Friday-Sunday, a rebound from last week’s near record low but still around 17% below comparable weekends in the past.  Resident Evil: Retribution opened about how we forecast Wednesday, but Finding Nemo 3D is opening well below our forecast in second […]

  This weekend’s boxoffice is looking stronger than last week’s–but that’s not saying very much.  According to preliminary numbers at Deadline, RESIDENT EVIL: RETRIBUTION (Screen Gems/Sony) owned Friday with $8.8M.  That’s lower than the opening days for the last several Resident Evil installments ($10.7M/$9.6M/$9.2M for the last 3), and should mean a $22M opening weekend […]

This weekend will definitely be up over the disaster that was last weekend.  We expect the top 12 films to total around $74 million, although that is still down 15% from the same weekend last year.  The returning films won’t contribute much to the weekend total, but two new films this weekend (the 3D re-release […]