> X-Men: First Class opens in first place but below expectations.  Weekend on pace to be up 24% over last year’s comparable weekend.X-Men: First Class opened with $20 million on Friday, and it looks like the prequel will gross about $53 million from Friday-Sunday.  The film is headed for $160 million in North America when […]

>Based on Friday and Saturday box office (and estimated Sunday numbers), the total box office for this weekend is now looking like only $100 million, down 24% from last year.  Projected weekend grosses for each film (summarized after the jump) are generally lower than originally forecast yesterday.  After Mission: Impossible — Ghost Protocol, nothing is […]

>Final box office grosses for the weekend came in late, and the top three movies were somewhat lower than projected on Sunday.  For example, the Paranormal Activity 3 opening weekend was projected to gross $54.0 million on Sunday, but the actual number came in at $52.6 million.  Looking at all films in release, the past […]

    Beware of studio estimates and round numbers. OPENINGS:  In order to get MEN IN BLACK 3 (Sony) to a round $70M for the 4-day weekend, the studio had to claim the lowest Monday drop of the market’s Top 9 films–even though MIB3 hasn’t shown any particular strength with the family matinee audience (its […]

> In future weeks, we’ll have a spiffy chart to keep you current on the progress of our Summer Movie Blockbuster Draft, but for now it’s pretty simple: Team Metcalf THOR:  $84,752,317 Team Salem $0 Over at Team Salem, I’d like to note that this somewhat lopsided total is because none of my movies have […]

> Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides opens huge overseas, almost topping Fast Five in its first weekend.    The table below shows the domestic and international grosses for the Top 25 films (out of the 47 movies released between January and April at over 500 theaters).  Fast Five is still the #1 film worldwide released between January and […]

> TRANSFORMERS:  DARK OF THE MOON becomes the latest franchise movie to fall short in the US compared to prior chapters of the series, despite an increased 3D ticket price.  (Like others, most notably Pirates 4, it may well make up the shortfall overseas.)  That doesn’t make a US gross of $350M anything to complain […]

>With over $3 billion of summer box office through Wednesday, only $53 million separates Teams Metcalf and Salem.  Metcalf’s slate of movies leads with $1.59 billion versus $1.54 billion for Salem’s.  Only one film (30 Minutes or Less) is left to open, and Salem should enjoy a strong second weekend for Rise of the Planet […]