Weekend #25 of 2012 looks like another disappointment: a soft $150 million for the top 12 films, down 12% from last year’s comparable weekend and down 14% from the four-year average for the weekend.  Pixar’s Brave should open well, but the other two openers will struggle to find any audience and there certainly won’t be […]

  The summer movie season is officially underway, just in time for us to finish our look at the line-ups and prospects for each of the big studios.  That brings us to Paramount Pictures, the least busy but hardly the quietest of the group.  Our previous examinations: Sony Universal Warner Bros 20th Century Fox Disney […]

  Most films will rise this weekend compared to last week, simply because New Year’s Eve is a bigger moviegoing occasion than Christmas Eve.  Generally, box office should rise 20% or so on Saturday, drop around 30% on Sunday, then jump 30-40% on New Year’s Day.  The first two weekends of 2018 should feature relatively […]

  Hollywood generally has little interest in opening films against the Super Bowl, and to the extent it participates, it tries to counterprogram the game by aiming at the young female demographic.  Thus we have a PG-13 horror movie and a YA fantasy-romance this weekend, but neither is finding much of an audience. RINGS (Paramount) […]

Weekend #5 of 2015 is looking like $104 million for the top 12 films this weekend, actually well above the normal volume for this weekend ($77 million), which is hobbled by the Super Bowl and its massive television audience.  American Sniper on Friday and Saturday should salvage the weekend somewhat, but there is very little […]

  OPENINGS:  LIGHTYEAR (Pixar/Disney) was a tricky attempt to extend the hugely lucrative Toy Story franchise, both a prequel and a spinoff that featured a different version of the titular character than the one audiences have loved for decades.  Disney didn’t manage to convince fans that it was essential viewing, and the result was a […]

Last weekend we said domestic box office would get back on track, and it turned out to be another very weak weekend (the third weekend in a row down around 20%).  We are going out on a limb again this week, forecasting an okay box office performance, with the top 12 films generating about $88 […]

  OPENINGS:  The musical remake of MEAN GIRLS (Paramount) was within expectations at $28M for the 3-day weekend ($32M is anticipated with the inclusion of Monday’s MLK Day holiday).  The film, which was originally developed for streaming, had a moderate budget, so it should be on its way to a fair amount of profit.  The […]