WORLDWIDE STUDIO SCORECARD.  Here is an updated look at the 2017 film slates by studio. YEAR TO DATE BOX OFFICE. Looking at North American box office, 2017 to date is still down -1% from last year and now +1% above the average for this point the past four years ($9.282 billion).  Over the same period, Hollywood films have grossed […]

>The monolith that is TRANSFORMERS:  DARK OF THE MOON has started its weekend.  With a combination of 9PM shows (that were supposedly all in 3D) and midnights, reports are that the picture made $13.5M last night.  This is considerably less than the $16M for midnight Transformers 2 shows, although more than the original Transformers ($8.8M […]

  No big surprises in Saturday’s boxoffice numbers compared to Friday’s, according to preliminary figures at Deadline:  the holdovers rose about 50% (aside from the family movies, which doubled), and the dismal new arrivals stayed about even. That left THE TWILIGHT SAGA:  BREAKING DAWN PART 2 (Summit/Lionsgate) and SKYFALL (Sony/MGM) pretty much neck-and-neck at the […]

Based on Friday’s and Saturday’s grosses, weekend #26 of 2014 now looks like $171 million for the top 12 films Friday-Sunday, very close to yesterday’s estimate ($172 million) and 10% below the norm for this weekend and 6% below the same weekend last year as the lackluster summer 2014 rolls on.   Opening at 4,233 […]

> Why did it snow on my weekend? Based on Friday and Saturday box office (and estimated Sunday numbers), Puss in Boots looks like a $34 million opening weekend.  The highly unusual late-October snowstorm in the northeast certainly reduced the opening numbers for Puss, but the weather also seemed to have a strong impact on […]

>Holy Smurfs!  The Smurfs will exceed their estimate and Cowboys & Aliens is falling short of its prediction enough to put the two films on a course for a photo-finish at the end of the weekend.  Both films look like they will open around $36 million.  Crazy, Stupid, Love looks like $18.5 million, somewhat ahead of […]

  OPENINGS:  SPIDER-MAN: ACROSS THE SPIDER-VERSE (Marvel/Sony Animation) flew past expectations with a $120.5M US opening, more than triple Into the Spider-Verse‘s $35.4M start in 2018.  That made it the 2nd biggest opening of 2023, behind only The Super Mario Bros Movie.  Across probably won’t have the 5.4x multiple that Into did (Across is more […]

  OPENINGS:  We won’t really know the order of the weekend’s closely-bunched Top 3 movies until final numbers are released tomorrow, but since the default position of any studio with a new opening is to claim victory, the fact that AMERICAN MADE (Cross Creek/Universal) is currently in 2nd place with $17M can’t be a good […]