OPENINGS:  Box office expectations were high for THE SUPER MARIO BROS MOVIE (Nintendo/Illumination/Universal), but the video game adaptation blew past them with a record-smashing $204.6M 5-day opening (passing the $200.1M for Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen) that was huge in all quadrants.  Even though Friday was its 3rd day of release, the 3-day weekend […]

  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, […]

  OPENINGS:  As is frequently the case these days, the biggest opening numbers are outside the US.  DOCTOR STRANGE (Marvel/Disney) won’t arrive here until Thursday night, but it’s already racked up $86M in 33 overseas territories covering less than half the world, and not including China or Japan.  It’s a particularly impressive start since Strange […]

The box office is starting to stabilize after a rough first quarter of the year.  This weekend’s top 12 films should total about $120 million, within 3% of the same weekend in recent years and the second weekend in a row to buck the strong downward trend most of the winter. Opening at a slightly […]

Weekend #32 of 2015 is looking like $133 million for the top 12 films this weekend, somewhat below the norm for this weekend (see comparisons below). Fantastic Four from Fox and Marvel should open with a $46.5 million three-day weekend. Early reviews at RottenTomatoes are unenthusiastic: 21% positive overall so far. Fantastic Four is on track for […]

  The other studios didn’t try very hard to compete with the second weekend of CAPTAIN MARVEL (Marvel/Disney), and the blockbuster will have no trouble repeating as #1 this week.  According to preliminary numbers at Deadline, the Friday-to-Friday drop was 70% (to $18.8M), which sounds like a lot, but is fairly standard for the genre.  […]

This weekend is poised to be the third solidly up weekend in a row.  Five films open this weekend, with four boasting positive critical acclaim and two in rave territory.  None looks to be a big commercial hit, but the total business for the openers combined with very good returning box office for Taken 2 […]

Weekend #34 of 2012 looks like a typically bad fourth weekend of August.  Three shitty new films open and a political documentary goes semi-wide, and each should be well under $10 million for the weekend.  The top 12 films this weekend should total $89 million, about the same pace for the comparable weekend the last […]