RIO 2 (20th) has leaped out to a Friday lead, according to preliminary numbers at Deadline, one that it should be able to sustain for the weekend.  The Rio sequel has $11.5M on Friday, about 10% ahead of the first Rio‘s $10.3M opening day.  That film made $39.2M for the weekend, and Rio 2 […]

Weekend #23 of 2012 looks like it will total about $174 million for the top 12 films, up 32% from last year’s comparable weekend and up 19% from the four-year average for the weekend.  A pair of decently-reviewed openers aimed at very different audiences should both put some life back in the box office after […]

The 38th weekend of the year is looking like a wobbly $71 million for the top 12 films, down 19% from the $89 million multi-year average for this weekend. Opening at over 3,100 theaters Friday (above the 2,886 average theater count for opening weekends the last two years), Prisoners from Warner Brothers should average $5,900 per theater for the weekend (for […]

  OPENINGS:  THE WOMAN KING (TriStar/Sony) launched at the higher end of expectations with $19M, boosted by strong reviews (94% on Rotten Tomatoes) and enthusiastic audience response as measured by exit polls.  In the current market, with few openings arriving each week (and even fewer for Woman King‘s older female target demo), the film should […]

Memorial Day weekend pushed Team Metcalf’s front-loaded slate to $682 million through Monday in the second annual ShowbuzzDaily Summer Movie Fantasy Draft, with only two significant films left to open on his slate: Prometheus (#8 pick overall) and Madagascar 3 (#11), both opening June 8.  Team Weil totals $47 million so far (with Battleship his lone film to have opened).  Weil’s […]

  OPENINGS:  Every time a Christian movie sells some tickets, the pundits treat it as though they’ve seen… well, a miracle.  But at this point there have been plenty of these “miracles,” and people should just accept that the films fill a sizable niche.  (And that because of their narrow-yet-intense audience, they’re nearly always underestimated […]

>Super 8 beats the forecast with a solid opening.  The weekend top 12 are looking to be down a bit from 2010.Super 8 opened with $13.2 million on Friday, and it looks like the JJ Abrams film will gross almost $41 million from Friday-Sunday.  The film is headed for $118 million in North America when […]

>Through Monday, July 4, Team Metcalf has pulled within $60 million of Team Salem.  Metcalf will enjoy another few weeks of Transformers: Dark of the Moon and two more marginal openings before Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 2 on July 15 puts Salem back in the driver’s seat.  Next update on Friday.