With what appears to be the exception of a sensational hold for Argo, this weekend is looking fairly lackluster, according to preliminary Friday numbers at Deadline.  PARANORMAL ACTIVITY 4 (Paramount) of course, will dominate the weekend, and because of its bargain-basement cost, it will reap plenty of profit for the studio.  But at $15M […]

>Four full weeks into 2012, domestic box office continues to run well ahead of last year’s anemic pace but about even with the comparable period’s average for the last several years.        The Past Week: Total Box Office Volume All films in wide release playing between January 23 and January 29 grossed $172 million, […]

  OPENINGS:  SAN ANDREAS (Village Roadshow/RatPac Dune/New Line/Warners) had a solid 13% Saturday bump that propelled it to a $53.2M weekend, significantly above expectations–and with no direct competition arriving next weekend, it should hold fairly well (until Jurassic World arrives in 2 weeks).  The surprising part of the picture is that given that level of […]

WORLDWIDE STUDIO SCORECARD.  Year to date, Warner Brothers remains on top with $804 million worldwide, while Disney has vaulted to a competitive second place with $677 million (because of the arrival of Captain America: The Winter Soldier).  Sony and Universal remain in the next tier with about $530 million worldwide each.  Fox and Paramount are […]

Weekend #2 of 2014 is looking like $100 million for the top 12 films, a pretty shabby total for a weekend that normal totals $125 million or more. Opening at around 2,700 theaters Friday (slightly below the 2,886 average theater count for opening weekends the last two years), Lone Survivor from Universal should average about $8,200 per […]

Weekend #35 of 2015 is looking like $68 million for the top 12 films this weekend, significantly below the norm for this weekend (see comparisons below). We Are You Friends from Warner Brothers should open with a $9.0 million three-day weekend. Early reviews at RottenTomatoes are soft: 37% positive overall so far. We Are Your Friends is on track for […]

Based on Friday’s  and Saturday’s grosses, Weekend #50 of 2013 looks like $139 million for the top 12 films from Friday-Sunday, not as strong as we had forecast and down $5 million from yesterday’s estimate but still up double digits in terms of percent increase over comparable weekends the past several years.   Opening at […]

  OPENINGS:  THE MAZE RUNNER (20th) is off to a healthy start worldwide, leading the US with $32.5M and overseas with $37.9M, the latter in 47 territories (and such major areas as Western Europe and China still to come).  Those aren’t gigantic numbers, but as YA franchises go, Maze Runner was done on the cheap, […]