WORLDWIDE STUDIO SCORECARD.  Here is an updated look at the 2019 film slates by studio. BOX OFFICE. Looking at North American box office, 2019 is still -5% below last year’s comparable span and still +1% above this point the past four years ($9.593 billion).  Over the same period, Hollywood films have grossed over $25.5 billion […]

Based on Friday’s and Saturday’s grosses, weekend #7 of 2014 now looks like $160 million for the top 12 films Friday-Sunday, much lower than yesterday’s estimate ($171 million) but still 22% ahead of this weekend’s average the past several years.  Saturday was not kind to three of the four new movies (except RoboCop).  We know […]

  OPENINGS:  The economics for FANTASTIC BEASTS AND WHERE TO FIND THEM (Warners) will probably put the film at $600-700M worldwide against roughly $350M in costs.  That’s a profitable place to be, although not quite as strong as Suicide Squad, which has reached $745.6M worldwide on similar costs.  For the weekend, Warners is predicting $75M in […]

STUDIO SCORECARD. 20th Century Fox vaulted ahead of Paramount into fourth place in worldwide box office for 2013 to date, mostly because of The Wolverine.  Universal and Warner Brothers remain a very close #2 and #3, respectively, with both studios grossing well over $100 million this past week (primarily from overseas grosses for Universal’s Despicable Me […]

  OPENINGS:  The east coast blizzard seems to have had less effect on the weekend box office than one might have assumed, considering that all the newcomers went up from Friday to Saturday, even though they were in typically front-loaded genres.  Their studio estimates have them bunched within a narrow $825K range for the weekend, […]

  OPENINGS:   Two smart studio decisions bailed out what could have been a scary opening weekend for THE WOLVERINE (20th).  Fox kept the budget relatively low for its expensive genre, just $250M or so including worldwide marketing, and it boosted international appeal with an Asian setting.  Both paid off, as the movie had the robust […]

  OPENINGS:  LUCY (Universal) is claiming the lowest Sunday drop in the Top 10, so the studio’s $44M weekend estimate may come down a bit tomorrow, but it’s still a very solid hit for all concerned.  That’s especially true for Scarlett Johansson, who now has non-Avenger action movie bona fides.  The only question is whether […]

> Deadline has the early Saturday and weekend boxoffice estimates, and this is what “frontloaded” looks like:  HARRY POTTER AND THE DEATHLY HALLOWS (PART 2) plummeted by 52% from Friday (including midnights) to Saturday, with the result that its $44.2M on Saturday didn’t even come close to the Spiderman 3 record of $51.3M for that […]