Proving, once again, that opening night exit polls are all but meaningless, preliminary numbers at Deadline have NOAH (Paramount/Regency) rising as much as 20% from Friday to Saturday despite a “C” grade that supposedly predicted poisonous word of mouth.  In fact, for a non-family release, a 20% Saturday bump is excellent–by way of comparison, […]

Based on Friday’s grosses, Weekend #34 of 2013 looks like an okay $91 million for the top 12 films, even with the average for the same weekend the last few years but up from last year’s comparable weekend. Opening at 1,548 theaters Friday, The World’s End from Focus/Universal grossed $3.5 million Friday and is on track for […]

  FURIOUS 7 (Universal) will handily take its third consecutive weekend title after what preliminary numbers at Deadline say was an $8M Friday.  That’s down about 58% from last Friday (which was 54% down from the Friday before), and puts the blockbuster in line for a $25M weekend, which would give it $290M in the […]

  Happy Thanksgiving to all!  Wednesday was a great day for both THE HUNGER GAMES: CATCHING FIRE (Lionsgate) and the new FROZEN (Disney), setting the stage for a sensational holiday box office weekend for the pair. Catching Fire zoomed 30% from Tuesday to $20.7M, blowing past the record for the Wednesday before Thanksgiving ($14.4M for […]

  OPENINGS:  None, really, although you could stretch and include THE PYRAMID (20th), an ultra-low budget, barely-marketed “found-footage” horror item that opened at just 589 theatres.  It made $458K on Friday, and probably won’t get much past $1M for the weekend, not enough to pay even for its very limited costs. HOLDOVERS:  Instead, for the […]

Based on Friday’s grosses, Weekend #10 of 2013 is the first weekend in 7 weeks to match the pace for this time of year: $122 million for the top 12 films Friday-Sunday (even with last year and up 5% from the same weekend average for the last few years).  Most of the credit for the […]

The Past Week: Total Box Office Volume All films in wide release playing between December 3 and December 9 grossed only $101 million, down 3% from the four-year average for the week but up 13% from the same week last year.  The past six weeks are still 18% above the four-year average and 25% above […]

  THE MAZE RUNNER:  DEATH CURE (20th) will win the weekend, although not in particularly impressive fashion.  According to preliminary numbers at Deadline, its opening day was $8.4M (including $1.5M from Thursday night), down from the $11.3M start for the first Maze Runner, and the $11M for Scorch Trials.  It should have $23.5M by Sunday, […]