The most interesting box office story of the weekend is WARCRAFT (Legendary/Universal).  It’s a dud in the US, with $11M on Friday according to preliminary numbers at Deadline, which with its frontloaded fan audience probably means a $25M or so weekend and a domestic total that may not reach $75M.  That’s not much on […]

How big a flop is BATTLESHIP (Universal)?  Even bigger than the catastrophic John Carter, that’s how big.  According to early Friday numbers at Deadline, Battleship is headed for a $9.5M opening day, and if that number holds, it’ll be less than John Carter‘s $9.8M.  Carter made it to $30M in its opening weekend, thanks to […]

WORLDWIDE STUDIO SCORECARD.  Here is an updated look at the 2017 film slates by studio.   YEAR TO DATE BOX OFFICE. Looking at North American box office, 2017 to date is now down -2% from last year and now +2% above the average for this point the past four years ($6.820 billion).  Over the same period, Hollywood films […]

  OPENINGS:  We’ll find out tomorrow if the studio’s $100.2M US weekend estimate for THE FATE OF THE FURIOUS (Universal), which counts on an influx of post-church Easter Sunday Christians, will slip into double figures.  But even if the number holds, it’s down 32% from the Furious 7 opening.  If Universal’s hypothesis that this decline […]

> According to preliminary numbers at Deadline, THINK LIKE A MAN (Screen Gems/Sony) is overperforming in a big way, and should easily take the first non-Hunger Games weekend in over a month.  Man‘s opening day is estimated at $12M, and assuming a Tyler Perry level of frontloading (specifically Why Did I Get Married Too, which […]

WORLDWIDE STUDIO SCORECARD.  Here is an updated look at the 2017 film slates by studio. YEAR TO DATE BOX OFFICE. Looking at North American box office, 2017 to date is still down -3% from last year and still +1% above the average for this point the past four years ($7.076 billion).  Over the same period, Hollywood films have […]

> Maybe JOHN CARTER should have starred Jonah Hill. OPENINGS:  21 JUMP STREET (Sony) got off to a great start, with a $13.1M Friday that should get it to around $35M for the weekend.  Expect a quick announcement that a sequel script is in development.  Although the movie’s success is of course great for Hill, […]

  OPENINGS:  The major studios abandoned this normally prime summer-season weekend, and a flood of indies rushed in to grab the available theaters.  None were able to capitalize to a particularly notable extent, with the anime HAIKYUU: THE DUMPSTER BATTLE (Crunchyroll/Sony) faring best at $3.5M.  The genre is typically very frontloaded, so Haikyuu may not […]