OPENINGS:  ALITA: BATTLE ANGEL (20th) squeezed everything it could out of its opening 2-holiday week, with paid preview screenings on Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday nights (totaling $2.4M) preceding its official Thursday opening.  All-in, that put it at $36.5M through Sunday, which will probably become $41M with Monday.  It has two more or less open […]

  OPENINGS:  The box office may not have hit bottom yet (see “Next Weekend” below), but it’s getting close, with the horror movie THE INVITATION (Screen Gems/Sony) topping the weekend at a painful $7M.  Things were no better overseas, where the film opened at $1.6M in 19 markets.  Despite these numbers, The Invitation may still […]

Weekend #49 of 2015 is looking like a decent $94 million for the top 12 films this weekend, actually better than what we usually see on one of the slowest weekends of the year (see comparisons below). Krampus from Universal should open with $12.0 million Friday-Sunday. The film is on track for around $26 million domestic in its run. Overseas the film […]

  OPENINGS:  HALLOWEEN (Blumhouse/Miramax/Universal) was front-loaded, with a Saturday drop that hit 18%, but that only prevented it from setting records, not from being a giant hit at $77.5M for the weekend.  That instantly makes it the highest-grossing entry in the 40-year old Halloween franchise (not adjusting for inflation).  With one more weekend before the […]

  FANTASTIC BEASTS AND WHERE TO FIND THEM (Warners) wasn’t expected to touch the $60-90M opening day territory of the latter Harry Potter movies, since Fantastic is a spin-off that doesn’t include any of the major Potter characters.  But preliminary numbers at Deadline have it at $29.4M, lower than any of the Potters, and even […]

  OPENINGS:  The older, less frontloaded audience for THE LEGEND OF TARZAN (Village Roadshow/RatPac/Warners) allowed it to slip ahead of the holiday weekend’s new arrivals, down just 10% from Friday for a 3-day $38.1M weekend that should become $46M by Monday.  Unfortunately for the mega-budgeted adventure, that still means around a $125M US total, which […]

  OPENINGS:  SMILE 2 (Paramount) opened on par with its predecessor, at $23M compared to $22.6M.  A small dip had been projected, so that was slightly above expectations.  The sequel, unlike the first Smile, will face major competition in its 2nd weekend, so it remains to be seen whether it can have that film’s stellar […]

Weekend #40 of 2015 is looking like $143 million for the top 12 films this weekend, above the norm for this weekend but close to last year’s strong weekend (see comparisons below). The Martian from Fox should open with a $55.0 million weekend. Strong critical support: 93% positive reviews so far. The film is on track for around $166 million […]