Based on Friday’s grosses, Weekend #17 of 2013 is looking like a very weak $80 million for the top 12 films, down 34% from the average the past few years for this weekend and down 18% from the same weekend last year.  Michael Bay’s Pain and Gain opened fairly quietly — not a total disaster but […]

Based on Friday’s grosses, Weekend #25 of 2013 looks like an excellent $223 million for the top 12 films, up 32-42% from the same weekend in recent years.  The two wide openers clicked with audiences, with Monsters University doing as well as we forecast but World War Z opening much stronger than expected. Opening at […]

Happy Father’s Day! Based on Friday’s and Saturday’s grosses, Weekend #24 of 2013 looks like a really good $192 million for the top 12 films, not quite the $200+ million we forecast Wednesday but still up 27% from the average for this weekend the past few years and up well over 50% from last year’s […]

  Given the overwhelming fanboy appeal of PACIFIC RIM (Warners/Legendary), it’s not exactly a shock that the movie started strong with shows that started at 7PM Thursday night, earning $3.6M.  It’s probably in line for a solid Friday as well–the question will be what happens when the usually frontloaded genre crowd is done and the […]

  OPENINGS:   Two smart studio decisions bailed out what could have been a scary opening weekend for THE WOLVERINE (20th).  Fox kept the budget relatively low for its expensive genre, just $250M or so including worldwide marketing, and it boosted international appeal with an Asian setting.  Both paid off, as the movie had the robust […]

Based on Friday’s grosses, Weekend #34 of 2013 looks like an okay $91 million for the top 12 films, even with the average for the same weekend the last few years but up from last year’s comparable weekend. Opening at 1,548 theaters Friday, The World’s End from Focus/Universal grossed $3.5 million Friday and is on track for […]

  OPENINGS:  PRISONERS (Warners) came in at $7M on Friday, a bit less than the initial $7.5M estimate.  That could indicate cooling word-of-mouth as the evening went on, or just overenthusiastic estimators.  The number is still above Argo‘s $5.9M start but it’s below the $8.3M for The Town, two other adult thrillers Warners released in […]

  OPENINGS:  When Paramount pushed the next Paranormal Activity to 2014, it seemed to give CARRIE (Screen Gems/Sony/MGM) an open field to own the Halloween movie season.  But audiences weren’t interested, and Carrie managed only a $6.6M opening day on the way to a likely $15M weekend, a major disappointment considering the auspices (the classic […]