J and K aren’t the only ones wearing black today. OPENINGS:  In what’s starting to look like a bad summer for any movie not called The Avengers, MEN IN BLACK 3 (Sony) opened with a subpar $18M on Friday.  Sony is doing the only thing it can do, which is to point at […]

>The weekend studio estimates (based on Friday and Saturday actuals and projections for Sunday) are coming in slightly stronger than the weekend numbers posted yesterday (based on Friday actuals only).  The box office volume for the top 12 films is now looking like a very good $145 million for the weekend, up 11% from last […]

  The bulk of the week’s openings arrived on Wednesday, and as usual for this weekend they were led by a Disney family attraction.  This year it was COCO (Pixar/Disney), which was more or less on target at $13.2M, down 15% from last year’s Moana and its $15.5M opening day.  That suggests the 5-day weekend […]

Updated international box office chart:

NOTE:  THIS POST HAS BEEN UPDATED TO REFLECT OFFICIAL STUDIO ESTIMATES FOR CHRISTMAS DAY. There was plenty under the tree for Hollywood this Christmas Day.  The major tinsel came from LES MISERABLES (Universal), which is projected to have an enormous, overperforming $18.2M opening day.  That would be a blockbuster pace if the movie can keep […]

STUDIO SCORECARD. The worldwide studio rankings for 2013 to date remain the same as last week’s. Reminder: the chart below has been reformatted and expanded to include a look at all releases from each studio, divided into three buckets: worldwide grosses of over $300 million, grosses between $100 million and $299 million, and films under […]

>The 22% drop for GREEN LANTERN on Saturday is fairly disastrous:  Thor, X-Men and Pirates 4 all dropped about 8% on their first Saturdays, and Super 8 actually increased.  (Hangover 2 and Kung Fu Panda 2 opened on Wednesdays, so their weeks had a different dynamic.)  Obviously, this indicates terrible word of mouth for the […]

  OPENINGS:  The weekend belonged to ZOOTOPIA (Disney Animation/Disney), which broke its studio unit’s opening record and the March animation record with $73.7M, and also earned $63.4M internationally (including $24M from China) to give it a worldwide total, counting early foreign openings, of $232.5M, with plenty of road ahead, and only The Little Prince as […]