OPENINGS:  In the US, the launch of THE MUMMY (Perfect World/Universal) could hardly have gone worse with a $32.2M weekend.  Although it’s higher than the openings for Tom Cruise’s recent Jack Reacher titles and Edge of Tomorrow, this was a very expensive project (reports differ on just how expensive, with production costs from $125M […]

  THE MUMMY (Perfect World/Universal) is a disaster, although the studio and its minions will try to spin otherwise through the course of the weekend.  According to preliminary numbers at Deadline, it earned $12M on opening day ($2.7M of it from Thursday night), which puts it in line for a $30M weekend and a US […]

  OPENINGS:  WONDER WOMAN (RatPac/Wanda/Ten Cent/DC/Warners) is a big win with $100.5M in the US, and for the DC franchise, the 93% at Rotten Tomatoes may be almost as important a number.  It’s also worth noting that unusually, Warners has conservatively estimated Sunday with a 28% drop (by comparison, Guardians Vol 2, arguably with less […]

  WONDER WOMAN (RatPac/Wanda/Ten Cent/DC/Warners) is proving to be exactly what its studio–and the summer box office in general–needed.  For Warners, it’s giving the embattled DC mega-franchise its first taste of critical praise since the days of The Dark Knight, which is important in itself, and that’s paying off in ticket sales.  Preliminary numbers at […]

  OPENINGS:  PIRATES OF THE CARIBBEAN: DEAD MEN TELL NO TALES (Disney) easily took the weekend worldwide, but it’s another diminishing franchise.  In the US, it had a $62.2M 3-day opening, and although Memorial Day will push that to around $76M, on a 3-day-to-3-day basis, it’s down 30% from 2011’s On Stranger Tides (it’s likely […]

  It’s beginning to look like a long, dark summer for Hollywood, which is adding two more box office disappointments to a growing list over this Memorial Day weekend.  PIRATES OF THE CARIBBEAN: DEAD MEN TELL NO TALES (Disney) had a $23M Friday (including $5.3M from Thursday night) according to preliminary numbers at Deadline, and […]

  OPENINGS:  ALIEN: COVENANT (TSG/20th) slumped almost as badly on its 2d day of release as the unpopular Prometheus (22% vs 25%), and the result was a lackluster $36M weekend in the US–and even that number includes an aggressive estimate for Sunday.  Worse yet, with Covenant now playing in every major international market except China […]

  ALIEN: COVENANT (TSG/20th) was supposed to refresh the franchise after the disenchanted response to Prometheus, but it’s opening at the low end of expectations.  Preliminary numbers at Deadline put opening day at $15.2M (including $4.2M from Thursday night), which suggests a $38M weekend.  Covenant carries about $225M in production/marketing costs, and it may not […]