OPENINGS:  There wasn’t any good news for this week’s wide releases, and that began with the weekend’s leader, as THE FLASH (DC/Warners) failed to meet even the lowest expectations with a sluggish $55.1M start.  (The studio’s 4-day estimate, including the Monday Juneteenth holiday, was an optimistic $64M.)  The 3-day total was significantly lower than […]

  There were no new wide releases on this pre-holiday, pre-Last Jedi weekend, so all the action was in holdovers and limited releases.  According to preliminary numbers at Deadline, COCO (Pixar/Disney) easily retained its crown with a $6.3M Friday.  That was down 67% from last week’s holiday Friday, better than the drops for Moana (70%) […]

  PRISONERS (Warners) had a strong Saturday at the box office, according to preliminary numbers at Deadline.  The dark thriller increased by 28% on its second day to $9M, and should reach $21-22M for the weekend.  That would put it right in between Argo ($19.5M) and The Town ($23.8M), the successes Warners hopes to emulate […]

Based on Friday’s and Saturday’s grosses, weekend #21 of 2015 now looks like $143 million for the top 12 films Friday-Sunday, significantly below the norm for this weekend.  A definite clunker Memorial Day Weekend at the box office. Opening at 3,972 theaters Friday, Tomorrowland from Disney is on track for a $32.2 million opening three-day weekend (better than it looked yesterday […]

> Deadline has preliminary Saturday boxoffice numbers, and IMMORTALS seems to have followed the fanboy-genre pattern of extreme front-loading, with a 2d day reported as $10.6M, down 25% from Friday.  It should still win the weekend easily with a $30-32M total, but considering the much bigger movies about to flood the market, it’s unlikely to […]

Based on Friday’s and Saturday’s grosses, weekend #20 of 2014 now looks like $171 million for the top 12 films Friday-Sunday, somewhat less than the $177 million estimate yesterday but still up 17% from the norm for this weekend.   Opening at 3,952 theaters, Godzilla from Warner Brothers grossed $38.5 million late Thursday/Friday and a slightly cooler $32.2 […]

Based on Friday’s grosses, Weekend #12 of 2013 is another down weekend (making it 10 down weekends out of 12 this year so far): $128 million for the top 12 films Friday-Sunday (down 10% from an average comparable weekend the past few years and down 37% from the same weekend last year dominated by the […]

  With shows that began at 8PM last night, THE HUNGER GAMES: CATCHING FIRE (Lionsgate) earned $25.3M, and as is often the case with initial numbers, they can be read in several ways.  On the one hand, the result is considerably higher than the $19.7M Thursday night gross for the first Hunger Games–but that was […]