OPENINGS:  Although JURASSIC WORLD: DOMINION (Universal) is being billed as the “conclusion of the trilogy,” the studio certainly won’t be abandoning the franchise, as Dominion opened to $143.4M, almost identical to the $148M for 2018’s Fallen Kingdom, and with a very similar trajectory, down 22% on Saturday (Fallen Kingdom dropped 15%, but that was […]

  OPENINGS:  JOHN WICK: CHAPTER 4 (Lionsgate) roared to a $73.5M start, more than 20% higher than its predecessor Parabellum‘s $56.8M.  If it holds at that pace–and it has no direct competition until Renfield on April 14–it should become the first title in the franchise to pass $200M in the US.  (Already, Lionsgate is pushing […]

  OPENINGS:  Hiyao Miyazaki’s THE BOY AND THE HERON (GKids) exceeded expectations and set a high-water mark for its filmmaker and for non-franchise Japanese animation with a $12.8M launch.  The film will lose its Imax screens next week and faces challenges from other family-oriented films, but if word of mouth is strong and it can […]

  OPENINGS:  THE WILD ROBOT (DreamWorks Animation/Universal), aided by strong reviews, started above expectations with $35M.  It has the family audience almost to itself until mid-November, and should pass $100M in the US.  It’s thus far in only 29 international territories, and has $18.1M after a $9.9M weekend.  Since the source material is a series […]

>The eighth weekend of the year should generate about $116 million for the top 12 films — up 21% from last year’s comparable weekend and up 25% from the four-year average for this weekend.  The big studios are sitting out Oscar weekend, leaving it to Relativity, Lionsgate and Summit to open films as attention shifts […]

> An eclectic trio of films open wide this weekend.  Cowboys & Aliens (the ultimate genre mash-up) should win the weekend with $41.5 million.  Captain America should drop to second place, while The Smurfs should battle with Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 2 for third place.  Crazy, Stupid, Love should open quietly in fifth […]

Weekend #35 of 2012 looks fairly similar to the Labor Day weekends over the past few years.  Only about $81 million for the top 12 films this weekend (defined as the three-day Friday-Sunday portion we always concentrate on), and very little chance of any new film breaking out on what is traditionally a very rough […]

The box office this weekend should be slightly off the pace for this weekend the last few years, cooling off a bit after a few solid weekends.  Two new films open, and it appears 42 will lead the way with just under $20 million. Opening at around 2,900 theaters Friday (a very average number), 42 from […]