OPENINGS:  THE SECRET LIFE OF PETS (Illumination/Universal) quintupled the next-highest grosser of the weekend, with the biggest opening in US history for an animated non-sequel at $103.2M, easily passing last year’s $90.4M for Inside Out.  It remains to be seen if Pets can match Inside Out‘s nearly 4x multiple, but whatever happens from here, […]

  Labor Day weekend is always the exhausted last gasp of the summer movie season, but this year the studios didn’t even try.  Partly it’s the effect of August having generally been a disaster in 2015 (last year’s 4-day Labor Day span featured a $22.9M 5th weekend for Guardians of the Galaxy and $15.6M from […]

Weekend #9 of 2016 is looking like $98 million for the top 12 films this weekend, somewhat below the norm for this weekend (see comparisons below). NEW FILMS THIS WEEKEND February 26-28, 2016 Critics Positive ($ millions) Opening Weekend Forecast Domestic Total Projection Overseas Total Projection Worldwide Total Projection Gods of Egypt LG PG13 n/a 11.5 30 175 […]

The weekend predictions will return next week, when Exodus: God and Kings and Top Five are released nationally.  This weekend, typical for the post-Thanksgiving weekend, is extremely quiet.  Only The Pyramid is opening at a very small 589 theaters.

Based on Friday’s grosses, Weekend #33 of 2013 looks like an okay $120 million for the top 12 films, up 6% from the average for this weekend the past few years but down 6% from last year’s comparable weekend.  Opening at 2,933 theaters Friday, Lee Daniels’ The Butler from Weinstein grossed $8.3 million Friday and is on track […]

  OPENINGS:  THE GRUDGE (Columbia/Sony) tried to take advantage of Hollywood’s early January fallow period, but at $11.3M, the reboot of a remake found few takers, far below the $29.6M for 2018’s Insidious: The Last Key, and also less than the $13.7M for 2017’s Underworld: Blood Wars and the $15M for 2015’s The Woman In […]

  OPENINGS:  The stated $101M weekend start for THE HUNGER GAMES: MOCKINGJAY PART 2 (Lionsgate) means that we won’t really know whether it went over $100M until final numbers are released tomorrow.  But even if that number holds, it will be down 17% from last year’s Mockingjay 1.  More seriously, the international opening was $146M, […]

Weekend #12 of 2014 is looking like $149 million for the top 12 films, slightly better than this same weekend on average in previous years. Opening at around 3,800 theaters Friday (well above the 2,886 average theater count for opening weekends the last two years), Divergent from Lionsgate/Summit should average $16,800 per theater for the weekend (for a $63.5 […]