The $17.1M opening day (including $3.4M from Thursday night) for GHOSTBUSTERS (Columbia/Sony) reported in preliminary numbers at Deadline would be fine if the movie were at the same budget level as previous Paul Feig/Melissa McCarthy collaborations The Heat or Spy.  But Ghostbusters cost 2-3x as much, $275M+ including production and global marketing, and a […]

> Rio‘s domestic opening is a little soft, but the film has the advantage of facing no animated competition (aside from the minor Hoodwinked Too) until Kung Fu Panda 2 opens May 27. Plus it has its gangbuster foreign grosses to keep it warm. There is a great horror movie boxoffice story this season… Insidious, […]

  SAN ANDREAS (Village Roadshow/Warners) is off to a mid-range start, with preliminary Friday numbers at Deadline giving it a $17.5M opening day (including $3.1M from Thursday night), which is slightly ahead of the $16.6M opening day of Mad Max: Fury Road.  No one really cares that its likely $45M weekend will be Dwayne Johnson’s […]

  For the fourth consecutive weekend, an animated movie will lead the box office, as Finding Dory‘s mantle is taken by THE SECRET LIFE OF PETS (Illumination/Universal).  With a $38M Friday (including $5.3M from Thursday night) reported in preliminary numbers at Deadline, Pets is on track for a $95M weekend, which would make it the […]

  This may be a good time to pause the stories about Disney’s infalliability, and the unstoppable dominance of the Star Wars franchise.  SOLO (Lucasfilm/Disney) is underperforming in a big way, with preliminary numbers at Deadline putting its opening day at $36.5M, extremely frontloaded with $14.1M of that total from Thursday night.  That’s the lowest […]

Weekend #51 of 2015 is looking like an amazing $281 million for the top 12 films this weekend, reminiscent of another historic weekend six years ago (see comparisons below). Star Wars: The Force Awakens from Disney should open with $225 million Friday-Sunday. The film is on track for around $720 million domestic in its run. Overseas the film could bring in $1.2 billion, […]

  OPENINGS:  We’ll see how the numbers hold up in tomorrow’s finals, but for now at least THE BOSS BABY (DreamWorks Animation/20th) is the weekend winner with $49M, considerably better than expectations.  The only dour note on the success is that it was rather frontloaded for a family non-sequel, with a 28% Saturday bump.  That […]

WORLDWIDE STUDIO SCORECARD.  The 2014 Scorecard, updated with additional overseas grosses, has been updated below.  The 2015 Scorecard will be introduced toward the end of January. YEAR TO DATE BOX OFFICE. Looking at North American box office, 2015 (one full week young) is -14% behind last year and -13% below the average for this point […]