DAWN OF THE PLANET OF THE APES (20th) had a good but not overwhelming Thursday night showing with $4.1M.  That’s more than triple the $1.25M for 2011″s Rise of the Planet of the Apes, but it’s far from the level for this summer’s tentpole blockbusters, which ranged from $8.1M for X-Men: Days of Future […]

  OPENINGS:  GODZILLA VS KONG (Warners, also on HBO Max) had the biggest US theatrical debut since the onset of pandemic closings with $48.5M over 5 days ($32.2M for the 3-day weekend).  It will clearly roar past Tenet‘s $57.9M to become the highest-grossing title in over a year, and could pass $100M in the US.  […]

  OPENINGS:  THE WOLF OF WALL STREET (Paramount/Red Granite) fell behind American Hustle on Friday, dropping 6% to $6.3M, but considering that it’s a polarizing, 3-hour, hard-R saga that people aren’t even sure whether to call a black comedy or a drama, that’s still a fine result, and the film is likely to earn $50M+ […]

  OPENINGS:  THE GRUDGE (Columbia/Sony) tried to take advantage of Hollywood’s early January fallow period, but at $11.3M, the reboot of a remake found few takers, far below the $29.6M for 2018’s Insidious: The Last Key, and also less than the $13.7M for 2017’s Underworld: Blood Wars and the $15M for 2015’s The Woman In […]

> It’s always to the advantage of the new opening to own first place at the boxoffice, so if Paramount thought FOOTLOOSE could pull it out over REAL STEEL, they would have staked their claim today.  (Both pictures are reporting a 39% Saturday-to-Sunday drop.) The Hollywood Reporter says Real Steel also made $23M overseas, which […]

  Although some films have opened well against the Super Bowl, both counterprogramming (the Hannah Montana concert movie and Dear John) and playing toward the action genre (Taken and Chronicle), as a rule the studios stay away, and that was the case this year.  The only wide opening was the low-budget horror flick WINCHESTER (CBS/Lionsgate), […]

  OPENINGS:  BAD GRANDPA (Paramount) romped to 1st place at the multiplexes this weekend with $32M, but perhaps more notably, it also made $8.4M in just 16 overseas territories.  That’s the same level as Jackass 3D, which ended up making $54M internationally, a tremendous success for such a low-budget franchise.  Bad Grandpa 2 seems all […]

  Despite some of the best reviews of the year for any movie, big studio or indie, WAR FOR THE PLANET OF THE APES (TSG/20th) is off to a merely OK start.  According to preliminary numbers at Deadline, it had a $21.1M opening day (including $5M from Thursday night), putting it 24% behind the $27.6M […]