ONCE UPON A TIME… IN HOLLYWOOD (Columbia/Sony), the summer’s great adult-oriented, non-franchise, auteur/movie star hope, had a solid start per preliminary numbers at Deadline with a $16.7M opening day (including $5.8M from Thursday night).  That’s the biggest opening of Quentin Tarantino’s career, higher than the $14.4M for Inglourious Basterds and the $15M for Django […]

Based on Friday’s grosses, Weekend #41 of 2013 looks like an okay $111 million for the top 12 films, down 8% from last year’s weekend but equal to the average for the same weekend the past few years. Opening at 3,874 theaters Friday, Captain Phillips from Sony Pictures grossed $8.5 million Friday and is on track for $26.5 million opening weekend […]

The 2014 holiday box office continues to out-pace the average for the last several years but is now slightly behind the same period in 2013. The top 10 films on Saturday December 27, 2014 totaled $63.4 million, slightly above the average $60.4 million for the days since 2002 when December 27 landed on a Friday-Sunday. […]

>Weekend Studio Estimates came in slightly higher than yesterday’s first look for Hangover Part II and Kung Fu Panda 2.  Weekend is up almost 50% over last year.  The ShowbuzzDaily Domestic Final estimates now show that Hangover Part II Tides should finish its domestic run with $296 million.  Kung Fu Panda 2 now looking like […]

> Now that THE HELP has opened about as well as Dreamworks/Disney could have hoped, the next goal is a 2d weekend decline of around 40%.  That would match the hold of Julie & Julia, and would make a $100M gross for Help very realistic.  The film’s only direct competition next weekend is the seemingly […]

  The tricks arrived early and the treats were nonexistent on a bleak pre-Halloween weekend. Let the second-guessing begin on STEVE JOBS (Legendary/Universal).  Last week’s limited expansion suggested softness as the awards hopeful widened beyond NY/LA, and national release has crumbled its box office hopes entirely.  Preliminary numbers at Deadline have Steve Jobs at $2.5M […]

  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 […]

Updated international box office.  The $505 million overseas to date for Iron Man 3 (after only two weeks) puts it on a pace to challenge the $888 million overseas total for The Avengers last year, as well as the $947 million overseas tally for Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 2 in July 2011.  But the high-water mark for […]