The 23rd weekend of the year is looking like a wobbly $127 million for the top 12 films, well under the same weekend the last few years.  Three out of four weekends in May were anchored by solid commercial films (Iron Man 3, Star Trek Into Darkness and Fast & Furious 6).  But the first […]

  OPENINGS:  Despite being the only high-profile arrival of the week, and having a pedigree and visual style that guaranteed it media attention, Robert Zemeckis’s HERE (Miramax/TriStar/Sony) bombed with $5M.  It’s been a tough decade for Zemeckis, once a maker of blockbuster hits, whose most recent moderate success was 2012’s Flight.  Here hasn’t opened overseas, […]

OPENINGS:  TERRIFIER 3 (Cineverse) broke through to a mainstream audience with an $18.3M weekend, which is more than the entire $10.6M run of 2022’s Terrifier 2 (that one’s highest weekend was $1.9M).  The new entry in the unrated, ultra-violent slasher series accomplished this with not just a low production budget, but reportedly a miniscule amount […]

  MURDER ON THE ORIENT EXPRESS (20th) had a surprising amount of marketing muscle behind it, and at least in the short term it seems to be paying off.  According to preliminary numbers at Deadline, opening day was $10.6M (including $1.6M from Thursday night), and considering that Murder is aimed at an older audience that […]

  OPENINGS:  The release strategy for 1917 (Universal) has gone just about perfectly, culminating in a $36.5M wide opening weekend that was significantly ahead of industry expectations.  Universal screened the film to critics and guild groups at the end of November, unveiled it in limited release on Christmas Day with the benefit of strong reviews, […]

The 50th weekend of the year is looking like $160 million for the top 12 films Friday-Sunday, a very good kick-off to the holiday movie season. Opening at around 3,900 theaters Friday (well above the 2,886 average theater count for opening weekends the last two years), The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug from Warner Brothers should average a very good $21,200 per […]

  OPENINGS:  There was no question that  ANT-MAN & THE WASP: QUANTUMANIA (Marvel/Disney) would dominate Presidents Day weekend and become 2023’s first blockbuster.  Its $104M 3-day weekend (projected to reach $118M including Monday) was in line with expectations.  The film’s decent 2.26 Friday-to-weekend multiplier also demonstrated that, at least in the short term, the MCU is […]

The 26th weekend of the year (halfway through already!) is looking like an on-target $189 million for the top 12 films, within a few percentage points of the comparable weekend the last few years.     Opening at around 3,000 3,222 theaters Friday (somewhat above the average 2,886 theater count for opening weekend wide releases), White […]