OPENINGS:  FINDING DORY (Pixar/Disney) had a 17% Saturday drop, which is on the high side for an animated blockbuster (Inside Out fell 10% on its 2d day, Monsters University was down 6%, and Minions 16%).  That suggest that the overall multiple from opening weekend may not reach the heady heights that Pixar is used […]

  OPENINGS:  THE EXORCIST: BELIEVER (Blumhouse/Morgan Creek/Universal) was at the low end of expectations with $27.2M, and it was also below projections internationally with $17.9M in 52 markets.  It’s hard to tell just what this means in terms of the bottom line, because while a $125M worldwide total wouldn’t look terrible against $30M in production […]

  OPENINGS:  The weekend multiple for HOW TO TRAIN YOUR DRAGON: THE HIDDEN WORLD (DreamWorks Animation/Universal) was 3.2x, about mid-way between the first Dragon‘s 3.6x and Dragon 2‘s 2.6x.  (Note that the studio isn’t including $2.5M in paid preview income in its weekend number–if that were added to Friday the way Thursday night revenue is, […]

Weekend #29 of 2014 is looking like $147 million for the top 12 films this weekend, -21% below the norm and the fifth weekend in a row down significantly from previous years.  Opening at 3,303 theaters Friday (well above the 2,886 average theater count for opening weekends the last two years), The Purge: Anarchy from Universal should […]

  OPENINGS:  It was important for THE MAGNIFICENT SEVEN (Village Roadshow/MGM/Columbia/Sony) to hit the $35M that the studio is currently claiming, because that puts it slightly over the two obvious comparisons:  the $34.1M for the last Denzel Washington/Antoine Fuqua collaboration The Equalizer, and the $34.5M just a few weeks ago for Sully, a film similarly […]

  After its history-making $120.5M opening day, there were two pre-existing Saturday models that STAR WARS: THE FORCE AWAKENS (Lucasfilm/Disney) could have followed.  The final Harry Potter was so front-loaded that it crashed by 53% from Friday to Saturday.  On the other hand, Jurassic World gently declined by 15%, similar to the 14% drop for […]

  OPENINGS:  Here’s the crazy thing about the official record-busting $238M weekend estimate for STAR WARS: THE FORCE AWAKENS (Lucasfilm/Disney), which smashed the previous weekend record by more than 12%, and nearly tripled the prior December record:  it’s on the conservative side.  Flying in the face of most studio behavior in reporting opening weekends, Disney […]

  OPENINGS:  Not much changed between Friday’s results and weekend studio estimates.  THE DARK TOWER (MRC/Columbia/Sony) was unsurprisingly frontloaded between fans of the novels and bad word of mouth, and it dropped 13% on Saturday.  Sony is projecting a $19.5M weekend (the fact that the studio didn’t push the number past $20M indicates either honesty […]