OPENINGS:  With a $10M production budget (and tens of millions in marketing on top), the $10.6M weekend for SINISTER 2 (Blumhouse/Gramercy/Focus/Universal) will test Blumhouse’s ability to make money out of just about anything.  The opening is far below the $18M start for 2012’s Sinister, and its US total won’t be near the $48.1M gross […]

  There’s a lot of new product in the market this weekend, which will drive up multiplex totals, but nothing is really breaking through.  The battle at the top looks like it will be close between GOOSEBUMPS (Columbia/Sony) and THE MARTIAN (TSG/20th), both of which should come in at $23-24M.  Goosebumps has the early lead, […]

WORLDWIDE STUDIO SCORECARD.   YEAR TO DATE BOX OFFICE. Looking at North American box office, 2015 to date is still +4% above last year and still +1% above the average for this point the past four years ($9.144 billion).  Over the same period, Hollywood films have grossed over $24.3 billion worldwide when we add overseas box office (that’s […]

  As will be noted endlessly by the studio and its mouthpieces all weekend, KUNG FU PANDA 3 (DreamWorks Animation/20th) is the first in the series to open in January, after June and May openings for the previous chapters.  Nevertheless, DWA and 20th didn’t choose that day with the idea of earning less, and the […]

WORLDWIDE STUDIO SCORECARD.  Updated look at 2016 by studio.   YEAR TO DATE BOX OFFICE. Looking at North American box office, 2016 to date is now +11% above last year and now +12% above the average for this point the past four years ($2.066 billion).  Over the same period, Hollywood films have grossed over $5.8 […]

WORLDWIDE STUDIO SCORECARD.  Updated look at 2016 by studio.   YEAR TO DATE BOX OFFICE. Looking at North American box office, 2016 to date is now +1% above last year and now +2% above the average for this point the past four years ($3.837 billion).  Over the same period, Hollywood films have grossed $10.4 billion worldwide […]

  With a marketplace starved of adult comedy after the failure of Bad Santa 2, and the holiday deluge of product not quite here, this weekend is proving to be good timing for the arrival of OFFICE CHRISTMAS PARTY (DreamWorks/Paramount).  According to preliminary numbers at Deadline, Office had a $6.7M Friday (including $950K from Thursday night), and depending […]

  OPENINGS:  It’s still too soon to gauge whether RINGS (Paramount) can creep its way to breakeven with international help (total production/marketing costs are $75M+), but it’s certainly not performing well enough to justify a continuation of the franchise.  In the US, its $13M weekend estimate is below the $15M opening of the original US […]