>Thor appears to be headed for a solid opening but not enough to push the weekend up versus last year (when Iron Man 2 opened huge).  Two other openers, both romantic comedies, should have minimal impact. Opening at over 3,500 theaters, Thor should average a very good $19,000 per theater (for $67 million total).  Although […]

  OPENINGS:  JUMANJI: THE NEXT LEVEL (Columbia/Sony) successfully rode its strategy of arriving in theatres ahead of The Rise of Skywalker to a $60.1M weekend, far ahead of the $36.2M opening weekend for the last Jumanji (although that had a different release pattern, opening on the Wednesday between that year’s Star Wars installment and Christmas […]

The 25th weekend of the year is looking like a very good $217 million for the top 12 films, well above the same weekend the last few years.   Opening at over 3,800 4,004 theaters Friday (just above the top 10% of theater counts), Monsters University from Pixar and Disney should average $21,100 per theater for the […]

The 30th weekend of the year is looking like $174 million for the top 12 films, a bit lower than last weekend ($181 million) but much better than the average for this weekend the past few years ($137 million) when summer normally really starts to sputter (The Watch and Cowboys & Aliens were released this […]

  Half a dozen films entered wide release over the Martin Luther King holiday weekend, and none of them is likely to chart higher than 5th place, most ranging from major disappointments to outright disasters. The most unpleasant surprise may be PATRIOTS DAY (CBS/Lionsgate), a piece of populist history with Mark Wahlberg in the lead […]

  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 […]

Weekend #26 of 2014 (the halfway mark for the year already) is looking like $175 million for the top 12 films this weekend, 8% below the norm for this weekend and 4% below the same weekend last year, which featured two moderate openers rather than one big one (The Heat and White House Down).  Although Transformers should […]

> Captain America and the final Harry Potter film’s second weekend will battle for #1, with each around $60 million.  Friends with Benefits should open at a decent level for an R-rated comedy.  The weekend should be up well over 20% from this weekend last year when Salt and Ramona & Beezus opened (remember those?).   Opening at […]