Not a lot of changes from last night’s early numbers. STAR WARS: THE FORCE AWAKENS (Lucasfilm/Disney):  The all-time biggest 2d US weekend:  $153.5M (down 38% from opening weekend, far better than the 49%/50% for Jurassic World/Avengers, although the 2% drop for Avatar and 24% increase for Titanic–both from the era before giant Thursday night openings–remain […]

Weekend #6 of 2015 is looking like $108 million for the top 12 films this weekend, well below the normal volume for this weekend ($133 million). Opening at around 3,500 theaters Friday (well above the 2,886 average theater count for opening weekends the last two years), The SpongeBob Movie: Sponge Out of Water from Paramount should average […]

  OPENINGS:  TERMINATOR: GENISYS (Skydance/Paramount) had hoped, even with July 4th subduing Saturday business, to find a holiday spark that would allow it to earn at least a $150M total in the US, but after a $28.7M opening weekend ($44.2M including Wed-Thurs), it may be hard-pressed to get past $100M.  That puts additional pressure on […]

  OPENINGS:  ANT-MAN & THE WASP (Marvel/Disney) turned out to be rather front-loaded, with a 30% Saturday drop (compared to 14% for the 2nd day of Ant-Man).  That pushed the studio weekend estimate down to $76M, which is still 33% better than Ant-Man‘s debut, but at the low end for Marvel, ahead of only the […]

> The weekend studio projections (Friday and Saturday actual numbers plus a studio-generated estimate for Sunday’s business) are very similar to the early look at the weekend from yesterday.  Hop will lead the way, with Arthur and Hanna battling out for second place (a race that could go down to the wire Monday morning with […]

  OPENINGS:  STAR TREK BEYOND (Skydance/Alibaba/Huahua/Paramount) had a tepid start, claiming a $59.6M opening weekend in the US.  Even if that number holds (it includes an extremely aggressive Sunday estimate), it would be 20% below the $75..2M 2009 franchise reboot, and even below the $70.2M earned by Star Trek Into Darkness, which opened on a […]

>Thanksgiving week lagged behind the comparable week last year by 8%, bringing the year to date tally 3.7% behind 2010’s total at this time.  Final numbers for all the Thanksgiving box office are also available below.        The Past Week: Total Box Office Volume All films in wide release playing between November 21 and November […]

Weekend #28 of 2015 is looking like $194 million for the top 12 films this weekend, slightly above the norm for this weekend and way above last year’s very soft weekend (see comparisons below).  [Note: a previous version of this post had incorrect estimated weekend totals.] Minions from Universal should open with a $108 million three-day weekend. Early reviews at RottenTomatoes […]