OPENINGS:  UNCHARTED (Columbia/Sony) had a strong start with $44.2M ($51M with the holiday Monday), once again largely due to the M18-34 demo, but also suggesting that Tom Holland may be emerging as an action star even without webs to spin.  (Of course it didn’t hurt that Uncharted followed his mega-smash Spider-Man so closely that […]

Weekend #22 of 2016 forecasts for films opening wide and major returning films: NEW FILMS THIS WEEKEND May 27-29, 2016 Critics Positive ($ millions) Opening Weekend Forecast Fri-Mon Forecast Domestic Total Projection Overseas Total Projection Worldwide Total Projection X-Men: Apocalypse Fox PG13 52% 68.5 85.2 195 550 745 Alice Through the Looking Glass Dis PG […]

  OPENINGS:  It was no picnic opening against the historic 2nd weekend of Black Panther, and all of the new arrivals may have left some money on the table.  GAME NIGHT (New Line/Warners) fared best, and ran a healthy 25% Saturday bump into a $16.6M weekend, but that points toward a $45M US total, far […]

  OPENINGS:  After last week’s Barbenheimer fireworks, the box office for new movies returned to earth–with a thud in the case of HAUNTED MANSION (Disney), which was at the bottom of projections at $24.2M.  With the exception of Guardians 3, it’s been a tepid summer for Disney, and Haunted Mansion carries production/marketing costs in the […]

  OPENINGS:  RALPH BREAKS THE INTERNET (Disney) was somewhat frontloaded, with a 44% drop on Day 2, so it didn’t challenge Frozen‘s $93.6M record for the biggest 5-day Thanksgiving opening.  But Disney has nothing to complain about with a #2 ranking and $84.5M ($55.7M over the 3-day weekend), putting it on track for $250M at […]

  OPENINGS:  LITTLE (Legendary/Universal) led the weekend’s weak crop of newcomers with $15.5M, buoyed by a 15% Saturday bump.  That’s about 15% below the recent opening of What Men Want, which was aimed at a somewhat older audience, and suggests an OK $45M US total.  It had a limited overseas opening in 11 markets, where […]

  OPENINGS:  There were no new wide releases for New Year’s weekend, but a pair of lackluster films arrived for Christmas Day.  VICE (Annapurna) has $17.7M to date, $7.8M of it from this weekend, but it’s been quite frontloaded, dropping 40% on December 26 and staying at that general level ever since.  It should reach […]

The 27th weekend of the year is looking like an excellent $218 million for the top 12 films, up 20-35% from the comparable weekend the last few years. Opening at around 3,900 theaters Wednesday (well above the top 10% theater count for opening weekend wide releases of 3,690 theaters), Despicable Me 2 from Universal should average $20,000 per theater for the three-day weekend […]