OPENINGS:  Hollywood’s barely-breathing Labor Day weekend didn’t get any healthier on Saturday.  The CLOSE ENCOUNTERS OF THE THIRD KIND (Columbia/Sony) re-release had a 35% Saturday bump, and like everything else in the market, it will hold nearly steady on this holiday Sunday, then have a Sunday-type decline on Monday.  (The exception is that children’s […]

  All this summer’s box office needed for burial was a shovel, and Hollywood provided that with a Labor Day line-up devoid of any genuinely wide new releases.  The result is going to be ugly, except for a few hardy holdovers. The widest release of the weekend isn’t new at all:  it’s the one-week 901-theatre […]

  OPENINGS:  LEAP (Weinstein) was the weekend’s tallest dwarf, claiming to have cleared $5M for the weekend, but that number will require an extremely strong Sunday hold.  Even if it’s sustained in tomorrow’s finals, it’s hardly anything to be enthused about–except in comparison to the weekend’s other losers. BIRTH OF THE DRAGON (WWE/Blumhouse/BH Tilt/Universal) couldn’t […]

  The major studios are barely participating in late August distribution, and it was clear the box office would be dreadful this weekend even before calculating the effects of Hurricane Harvey and the expected massive pay-per-view gate for Saturday’s Mayweather vs. McGregor bout.  (Those events are likely to bring down weekend multiples even lower than […]

  OPENINGS:  The $21.6M start for THE HITMAN’S BODYGUARD (Summit/Lionsgate) was on target for the B-movie, which had a modest 2% Saturday dip.  It also earned $6.6M in early international release.  While it does nothing much to burnish Ryan Reynolds post-Deadpool, Hitman is on track for a modest profit on $90M or so in production/worldwide […]

  THE HITMAN’S BODYGUARD (Summit/Lionsgate) is off to a mild late-August start, but it will be enough to win the quiet weekend.  Preliminary numbers at Deadline have opening day at $8.1M (including $1.7M from Thursday night), which should mean a $20M weekend.  While that might not even land it in the top 50 August openings, […]

  OPENINGS:  There have been a lot of busted franchises this summer, but ANNABELLE: CREATION (New Line/Warners) held strong, with a $35M opening weekend that was down just 5% from the first Annabelle.  The new entry is considerably more frontloaded than the first, down 22% on Saturday compared to 10%, which may mean a US […]

  ANNABELLE: CREATION (New Line/Warners) will easily take the weekend.  According to preliminary numbers at Deadline, opening day was $15.1M, slightly below the $15.5M for 2014’s original Annabelle, but Creation is much more frontloaded, with $4M from Thursday night, almost double the $2.1M for Annabelle.  That suggests a lower weekend multiple than Annabelle‘s 2.4, and […]