A piece of beloved genre IP that gets rave reviews is hard to beat, and the newest iteration of HALLOWEEN (Blumhouse/Miramax/Universal) is headed toward a huge opening. Preliminary numbers at Deadline put Friday at $33M ($7.7M from Thursday night), and even allowing for the typical front-loading of sequels and horror movies, that should mean […]
OPENINGS: Quentin Tarantino’s ONCE UPON A TIME… IN HOLLYWOOD (Columbia/Sony) had a 21% Saturday drop, indicating a fair amount of frontloading, but studio estimates have it reaching its goal at $40.4M for the weekend, setting a new record for the filmmaker by topping Inglourious Basterds‘ $38.1M. (However, Basterds opened in the era before opening […]
It’s been a while since we’ve had a chance to look at box office together, and the period has been a busy one, with the return of Hollywood blockbusters like A Quiet Place Part II, F9, The Suicide Squad and Black Widow to theaters (some exclusively, others shared with various forms of home availability). […]
OPENINGS: No one, including its studio, expected much from the remake of FIRESTARTER (Blumhouse/Universal, also on Peacock), and it delivered a weak $3.8M that suggests an eventual $10M US total. Economics become murky when films also premiere on streaming, but that certainly isn’t good. Things were no better overseas, where Firestarter limped to $2.1M […]
OPENINGS: There was no question that ANT-MAN & THE WASP: QUANTUMANIA (Marvel/Disney) would dominate Presidents Day weekend and become 2023’s first blockbuster. Its $104M 3-day weekend (projected to reach $118M including Monday) was in line with expectations. The film’s decent 2.26 Friday-to-weekend multiplier also demonstrated that, at least in the short term, the MCU is […]
OPENINGS: This was supposed to be the kick-off weekend for the holiday movie season, but Dune 2 decamped for 2024 and the studios didn’t step in to replace it, so the biggest arrival of the week was the expansion of PRISCILLA (A24) from 4 theaters to 1359 with $5.1M. That’s not a bad number […]
OPENINGS: ALIEN: ROMULUS (20th/Disney) became the latest franchise product to hit big this summer, arriving at the high end of expectations with $41.5M. That was higher than 2017’s Alien: Covenant ($36.2M), although below 2012’s Prometheus ($51.1M). The film was also solid overseas, with a $66.7M start sparked by $25.7M from China. Romulus was budgeted […]
>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 […]