OPENINGS:  Pedro Almodovar’s PARALLEL MOTHERS (Sony Classics) expanded to wide release at 684 theaters in anticipation of the Oscar nominations that are little more than a week away, but its $300K weekend translated into a per-theater average under $500. HOLDOVERS:  The lack of any new Hollywood competition was as usual good for the films […]

The 52nd weekend of the year is looking like $181 million for the top 12 films Friday-Sunday, a very healthy performance for the final weekend of the year. Opening at 2,537 theaters today (slightly below the 2,886 average theater count for opening weekends the last two years), The Wolf of Wall Street from Paramount should average a solid $9,600 per […]

>Two strong films open Friday, with Rio and Scream 4 poised to fuel the weekend to a strongly positive uptick from the same weekend last year. After weeks of disappointing box office returns, two films are set to open this weekend, together reaching for about $80 million.  Rio should lead the weekend at around 3,800 theaters, […]

  OPENINGS:  A MADEA FAMILY FUNERAL (Lionsgate) launched at $27.1M, and with the exception of the outliers Madea Goes To Jail ($41M) and A Madea Christmas ($16M), that puts it in the standard $21-30M range of the franchise.  It should be headed for $65M in the US, and that’s the only number that counts, since […]

  THE LEGO MOVIE 2: THE SECOND PART (Warners Animation) is looking like a textbook example of a studio watering down its own franchise.  Warners jumped into 2 spin-offs before even reaching its first official sequel, and the result according to early numbers at Deadline is a $8.9M opening day, down 48% from the first […]

  OPENINGS:  Even with a big Mother’s Day bump of 24% (the same as last year’s Snatched), the $18.5M weekend for LIFE OF THE PARTY (New Line/Warners) is the lowest of Melissa McCarthy’s starring career, and even lower than Snatched‘s $19.5M.  The Mother’s Day bump means that next weekend’s drop will likely be dramatic, and […]

  This was the weekend that the COVID-19 crisis hit the box office in earnest, and while that fact pales in importance compared to the human cost of the pandemic, it’s going to represent a multi-billion dollar hit that will reverberate through the lives of many throughout the world.  As bad as the numbers below […]

  OPENINGS:  Christmas Day is one of the highest-grossing days of the year, and it will give a major bump to everything in the market.  Even with that boost, AQUAMAN & THE LOST KINGDOM (DC/Warners) was only able to muster a $40M 4-day weekend studio estimate after $28.1M in 3 days (and given the 34% […]