OPENINGS:  THE POSSESSION (Lionsgate) is doing quite well for a low-budget horror quickie, with $17.7M for the 1st 3 days of the holiday weekend, and is on track to be the #2 Labor Day opening ever, behind only the 2007 remake of Halloween.  LAWLESS (Weinstein Company), though, at $9.7M, is behind last year’s The […]

Audiences decide they want to see movies again. OPENINGS:  With the market starved for family entertainment (the last major animated opening was Ice Age 4 back in July), HOTEL TRANSYLVANIA (Sony) and its $43M smashed the September opening record and the Sony Animations record, and comes in just behind Shark Tale as the biggest animated […]

  The biggest boxoffice story of the weekend happened overseas:  in only 25 international markets, SKYFALL (Sony) the new James Bond, has opened at a scorching, record-setting pace, with a reported $77.7M in 3 days (including $32.4M in the UK alone).   The movie doesn’t open in the US for 2 weeks, but it’s already kicking […]

  No great disconnects between Saturday’s estimates and Sunday’s, although one number needs some scrutiny. OPENINGS:  RISE OF THE GUARDIANS (DreamWorks Animation/Paramount) was at the top of the new arrivals, but with a very disappointing $24M weekend ($32.6M over 5 days).  At that rate, it’s going to have to struggle to hold onto its theatres […]

Skyfall is finally starting to slow down — “only” $16 million overseas since last week.  Although still a decent haul, the weekly pace is down substantially from recent weeks.  The latest Bond film looks tantilizingly close to $1 billion worldwide, but it will have to stretch to make it. The Hobbit is really rolling overseas, with $146 […]

  OPENINGS:  ZERO DARK THIRTY (Sony) expanded to coincide with its Oscar nominations, and the strategy worked as planned, with the acclaimed (and, in some circles, attacked) drama easily carrying Friday with $9M, on its way to $25-27M for the weekend. It’s a massive embarrassment for GANGSTER SQUAD (Warners) that it was beaten by the […]

  Even if Die Hard takes the weekend, it’s running on fumes. OPENINGS:  A GOOD DAY TO DIE HARD (20th) cost at least triple the budget of SAFE HAVEN (Relativity), and had a more expensive marketing campaign as well.  Yet on Friday, only $75K separated the two–and that was after Safe Haven won Valentine’s Day to […]

Based on Saturday’s grosses, Weekend #11 of 2013 is now looking strictly mediocre.  Yesterday it appeared that the weekend would be up slightly from the same weekend in past years, but now it is down slightly from previous years.  Oz remains the only real draw at the box office (now headed for over $250 million […]