OPENINGS:  DON’T BREATHE (Screen Gems/Sony) had an unusually strong Saturday for a horror movie, down just 1% from Friday (which, remember, these days includes Thursday night).  By way of comparison, Lights Out fell 22% on its 2d day of release.  That propelled Don’t Breathe to an exceptional $26.1M weekend, the biggest opening for a […]

  OPENINGS:  PARANORMAL ACTIVITY: THE MARKED ONES (Paramount) was an experiment in several ways–the first installment of the franchise to be a spin-off and not a direct sequel, the first released out of the Halloween season, and one of Hollywood’s first tries at producing and marketing a movie primarily to the Latino audience.  All of […]

Weekend #24 of 2012 looks like it will total a just okay $146 million for the top 12 films, down 1% from last year’s comparable weekend and down 6% from the four-year average for the weekend.  Two films with once-big stars should open with just under $30 million each.  Not an embarrassment to be sure, […]

  OPENINGS:  As expected, BLACK PANTHER: WAKANDA FOREVER (Marvel/Disney) swamped the box office worldwide.  Its $180M US weekend was below Doctor Strange 2 ($187.4M) and the original Black Panther ($202M, on a Presidents Day weekend), but still the biggest opening Hollywood has seen in 6 months, reinforcing the MCU as the center of movie culture […]

  As with Spectre 2 weeks ago, THE HUNGER GAMES: MOCKINGJAY PART 2 (Lionsgate) is making a tremendous amount of money in its opening weekend–but not as much as had been expected in light of what its franchise predecessor had earned.  According to preliminary numbers at Deadline, Mockingjay 2 will have a $47M launch, including […]

  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 […]

Weekend #38 of 2016 forecasts for films opening wide and major returning films: NEW FILMS THIS WEEKEND September 16-18, 2016 Critics Positive ($ millions) Opening Weekend Forecast Domestic Total Projection Overseas Total Projection Worldwide Total Projection Blair Witch LG R 53% 21.5 57 60 117 Bridget Jones’s Baby Uni R 83% 13.5 40 30 70 Snowden […]

>The 12th weekend of the year should be a whopper: about $176 million for the top 12 films.  How big is that for the fourth weekend in March?  Enormous, unprecedented: up 62% from last year’s comparable weekend and up 55% from the four-year average for this weekend.  Of course, this weekend is all about The […]