This weekend is on track to be the fourth weekend in a row to be up over the previous years.  Paranormal Activity 4 opens very large but will play out very quickly as the young, horror audience flocks to the first weekend.  Tyler Perry puts down his Madea outfit and his writer-producer-director suit and simply […]

Weekend #44 of 2015 is looking like a very weak $69 million for the top 12 films this weekend, well below the norm for this weekend (see comparisons below) as Halloween and all its distractions lands on a Saturday and derails movie attendance. Our Brand Is Crisis from Warner Brothers should open with a $6.5 million weekend. The film is on track […]

The 7th weekend of 2013 looks like it will be down from prior years but not at the excessive rates we have seen the past few weekends.  We expect $121 million for the top 12 films Friday-Sunday, 6% to 15% below the normal pace for this weekend.   Opening in 3,552 theaters Thursday, A Good […]

  OPENINGS:  Let’s be clear:  the decision to greenlight a $100M production budget for IN THE HEART OF THE SEA (Village Roadshow/Warners)–a period whaling adventure that features about 10 minutes of a CG whale and is otherwise mostly (spoiler alert) about the cast starving and suffering–was fundamentally insane.  Even if the film had been good, […]

  OPENINGS:  THE CALL OF THE WILD (20th/Disney) did a bit better than expected at $24.8M, but in the long run that’s not likely to make much difference.  Similarly to Dolittle (although much more quietly), Call of the Wild was extremely expensive, with $200M+ in production/marketing costs, so a $75M US total won’t get it […]

Weekend #46 of 2015 is looking like a tepid $102 million for the top 12 films this weekend, well below the norm for this weekend (see comparisons below). The 33 from Warner Brothers should open with a $8.0 million weekend. The film is on track for around $23 million domestic in its run. Overseas the film could bring in $27 million, giving it […]

Weekend #27 of 2015 is looking like $161 million for the top 12 films this weekend, a touch below the norm for the same weekend the past few years but well above last year’s Independence Day Weekend dud (see comparisons below). Terminator: Genisys from Paramount should open with a $34.0 million traditional three-day weekend and about $51 million through Sunday. Early reviews […]

  After years in the wilderness, M. Night Shyamalan returned to profitability with last year’s The Visit, and based on preliminary numbers at Deadline, SPLIT (Blumhouse/Universal) will build on that success.  Opening day was $13.5M (including $2M from Thursday night), far ahead of Visit‘s $9.2M, and the weekend could be as high as $35M, a […]