OPENINGS:  Stop me if you’ve heard this before:  an expensive action-adventure will need to overperform internationally in order to get past its red ink.  With Thor 2 opening in just a week, ENDER’S GAME (Summit/Lionsgate) had a very narrow window to make an impression, and its $9.9M Friday, probably meaning a weekend in the […]

  The holiday box office “weekend” doesn’t officially start until today (several of the new openings began screening on Tuesday night, but their studios aren’t publicizing the results), and Mitch Metcalf’s weekend predictions are here.  Even in this pre-holiday period, though, THE HUNGER GAMES: CATCHING FIRE (Lionsgate) is piling on impressive numbers. After the normal heavy post-weekend […]

  The box office effect of the upcoming holidays is already being seen, as studios are estimating extremely low Sunday drops from Saturday based on seasonal patterns.  With one conspicuous exception, everything in town is doing at least moderately well. OPENINGS:  ANCHORMAN 2: THE LEGEND CONTINUES (Paramount) didn’t carry off the weekend crown, and at […]

Based on Friday’s grosses, weekend #2 of 2014 looks like $121 million for the top 12 films Friday-Sunday, down 12% from the average for the same weekend the past few years (but better than we forecast earlier this week). Opening at 2,876 theaters Friday, Lone Survivor from Universal grossed $14.4 million Friday, putting the Peter Berg-directed Afghanistan War […]

International box office for 2013 releases through February 9, 2014.  Frozen now has Despicable Me 2 in its sights, after passing both Hunger Games: Catching Fire and The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug in recent weeks.  And another very good week for The Wolf of Wall Street overseas as it approaches $300 million worldwide. Click here for a summary of worldwide performance by […]

  OPENINGS:  300: RISE OF AN EMPIRE (Warners/Legendary) did well in late-night shows, raising its Friday estimate to $17.7M, which may bring its opening weekend to $43M or more.  That’s still not in a league with the original 300 and its $28.9M/70.1M start (especially since the 2007 movie didn’t have 3D ticket prices or Thursday […]

Based on Friday’s grosses, weekend #14 of 2014 looks like $159 million for the top 12 films Friday-Sunday, up 40% from the four-year average for this weekend.  All credit goes to the second Captain America, as Disney has succesfully transformed April into the new May on the evolving movie release calendar.   Opening at 3,938 […]

Weekend #18 of 2014 is looking like a relatively soft $139 million for the top 12 films, 28% below the typical volume for this weekend the past few years ($192 million). Opening at over 4,000 theaters Friday (well above the 2,886 average theater count for opening weekends the last two years), The Amazing Spider-Man 2 from Sony should average $21,400 per […]