WORLDWIDE STUDIO SCORECARD.  Here is an updated look at the 2019 film slates by studios (films entering wide release in the 2019 calendar year), including worldwide box office for those films during 2020. We will begin the track of the 2020 slate soon. BOX OFFICE. Looking at North American box office, 2020 begins +7% above […]

  OPENINGS:  With the pandemic raging throughout the country and about 20% fewer theatres open than last week, box office numbers plunged across the board.  There were no truly wide openings, but the Jackie Chan vehicle VANGUARD (Gravitas) opened at 1375 theatres with a low $400K start, a per-theatre weekend average of just $290. Similarly, […]

  OPENINGS:  Taking the spotlight from higher-profile arrivals, the anime title MY HERO ACADEMIA: WORLD HEROES’ MISSION (Funimation) was the weekend’s highest-grossing newcomer with $6.4M, better than the $5.9M opening for the last Academia movie, 2019’s Heroes Rising.  These films tend to be fairly front-loaded, but Mission should pass $15M in the US, and it […]

  OPENINGS:  MINIONS: THE RISE OF GRU (Illumination/Universal) exceeded industry expectations with a $108.5M 3-day opening.  That’s just a bit lower than the $115.7M launch for the first Minions movie, although that was an April 2015 launch that didn’t have the benefit of a holiday Sunday.  Rise of Gru is expected to hit $127.9M over […]

> Let the summer begin!  The fourth Pirates of the Caribbean will open all by itself with close to $95 million this weekend. Opening at over 4,000 theaters, Pirates 4 should average a killer $23,500 per theater (for $94 million total).  On Stranger Tides is the most coolly-received movie in the franchise by critics (read […]

  OPENINGS:  While DUNGEONS & DRAGONS:  HONOR AMONG THIEVES (eOne/Paramount) launched at the upper end of expectations, $38.5M (which included an unusually intense program of preview screenings) was a shaky start for a project with $250M in production/marketing costs and the hope to become a franchise.  It will need to hold up extremely well over the next several […]

> Three Muppets at a Rehearsal Thanksgiving weekend brings three well-reviewed family/ holiday entries and a mild expansion for a comedic-drama with Oscar hopes.  Total box office volume should be around $161 million for the three-day portion of the weekend, down about 6% from the same weekend last year when Tangled and Burlesque opened and […]

  OPENINGS:  Hiyao Miyazaki’s THE BOY AND THE HERON (GKids) exceeded expectations and set a high-water mark for its filmmaker and for non-franchise Japanese animation with a $12.8M launch.  The film will lose its Imax screens next week and faces challenges from other family-oriented films, but if word of mouth is strong and it can […]