OPENINGS:  ANGEL HAS FALLEN (Millenium/Lionsgate) smartly picked a weekend to open that was far enough away from Hobbs & Shaw with its larger and overlapping audience, and near enough to the end of summer to keep the competition sparse  The result was a solid $21.3M opening, almost the equal of the last franchise installment […]

  OPENINGS:  GOOD BOYS (Good Universe/Universal) easily led the weekend with $21M, a solid start for a comedy that probably had production/marketing costs under $75M.  It was somewhat frontloaded with a 12% Saturday drop, but summer Sundays have been running strong this year, so it should still have a fair weekend multiple.  Good Boys has […]

  OPENINGS:  SCARY STORIES TO TELL IN THE DARK (CBS/Lionsgate) dropped 21% on its 2nd day of release, which isn’t unusual for the horror genre (recently, The Curse of La Llorona fell 26% on its Day 2, and Child’s Play was down 25%), resulting in a $20.8M weekend, and a likely $40M US total.  Scary […]

  On a weekend prizing quantity of newcomers over box office quality, HOBBS & SHAW (Universal) will easily retain the crown, despite a 70% Friday-to-Friday drop to $7.1M, per preliminary numbers at Deadline.  The Fast & The Furious franchise tends to be frontloaded, and that 70% drop is actually better than the 76% for Fate […]

  OPENINGS:  Quentin Tarantino’s ONCE UPON A TIME… IN HOLLYWOOD (Columbia/Sony) had a 21% Saturday drop, indicating a fair amount of frontloading, but studio estimates have it reaching its goal at $40.4M for the weekend, setting a new record for the filmmaker by topping Inglourious Basterds‘ $38.1M.  (However, Basterds opened in the era before opening […]

  ONCE UPON A TIME… IN HOLLYWOOD (Columbia/Sony), the summer’s great adult-oriented, non-franchise, auteur/movie star hope, had a solid start per preliminary numbers at Deadline with a $16.7M opening day (including $5.8M from Thursday night).  That’s the biggest opening of Quentin Tarantino’s career, higher than the $14.4M for Inglourious Basterds and the $15M for Django […]

  OPENINGS:  THE LION KING (Disney) was expected to be the crown jewel in Disney’s recreations of its animated classics, and despite sharply mixed reviews, it delivered with a $185M opening weekend–and that studio estimate includes a fairly conservative number for Sunday, so it could go higher in finals.  If it stays at $185M, it […]

  OPENINGS:  CRAWL (Paramount) may be an example of a studio outsmarting itself.  Paramount held no critics screenings, presumably because disdain was expected, and thus was unable to create any advance buzz around a response that turned out to be remarkably enthusiastic (88% on Rotten Tomatoes).  The result was a tepid $12M opening, and since […]