OPENINGS:  This was the weekend of AVATAR: THE WAY OF WATER (20th/Disney), and the epic’s launch was softer than widely expected at $134M in the US and $301M in all major overseas markets including China.  Box office apologists, who at this point resemble political press secretaries, have rushed in to spin that Way of […]

  THE LEGO MOVIE 2: THE SECOND PART (Warners Animation) is looking like a textbook example of a studio watering down its own franchise.  Warners jumped into 2 spin-offs before even reaching its first official sequel, and the result according to early numbers at Deadline is a $8.9M opening day, down 48% from the first […]

  OPENINGS:  EVIL DEAD RISE (Warners) modestly exceeded expectations with $23.5M, although that was still below the franchise’s last reboot in 2013 at $25.8M (which only reached a $54.2M total in the US and didn’t spawn a sequel).  Horror has become the most dependable genre in Hollywood, and Evil Dead Rise is the only one […]

  OPENINGS:  Following several months of strong showings from the horror genre, PREY FOR THE DEVIL (Lionsgate) arrived at $7M to mop up the Halloween weekend remainder.  That was around the expected result, and considering that Prey was a low-budget effort with little national marketing, it might be enough to set a pace for minimal […]

  OPENINGS:  There were no new wide releases for New Year’s weekend, but a pair of lackluster films arrived for Christmas Day.  VICE (Annapurna) has $17.7M to date, $7.8M of it from this weekend, but it’s been quite frontloaded, dropping 40% on December 26 and staying at that general level ever since.  It should reach […]

  JASON BOURNE (Universal) is performing in line with expectations.  Preliminary numbers at Deadline have its opening day at $22M (including $4.3M from Thursday night), down just 10% from the $24.7M start (with no Thursday screenings) for 2007’s Bourne Ultimatum, the last Matt Damon/Paul Greenglass title in the franchise.  Great word of mouth gave Ultimatum […]

  OPENINGS:  There’s no way to spin the $10.5M US opening of  Steven Spielberg’s WEST SIDE STORY (20th/Disney), and its even worse $4.4M start in 37 overseas territories (with $2.8M of that from France and the UK), as anything but flat-out bad.  Unlike other 2021 musicals like In the Heights ($11.5M opening even with a […]

  It may have hurt Sony’s pride to turn SPIDER-MAN: HOMECOMING (Marvel/Columbia/Sony) over to Marvel to produce, but it proved to be a smart business move, with preliminary numbers at Deadline that put opening day at about $48M ($15.4M from Thursday night), 35% higher than the first day of 2014’s Amazing Spider-Man 2.  With word […]