There don’t appear to be many surprises in the Friday box office numbers, based on preliminary estimates at Deadline.  As usual, ticket sales declined on Thanksgiving itself (particularly for family movies), then surged on Friday, and the results were largely in line with Wednesday’s form. MOANA (Disney Animation) wasn’t able to keep up its […]

  OPENINGS:  According to published reports, Emma Watson’s deal on BEAUTY & THE BEAST (Disney) starts at a $3M base, but rises to $15M if the film reaches around $750M worldwide.  It seems like Watson can safely buy any Lamborghini that’s caught her eye, because Beauty is a global blockbuster.  In the US, Disney’s $170M […]

  OPENINGS:  MISSION IMPOSSIBLE: FALLOUT (Skydance/Alibaba/Paramount) rode almost unanimous rave reviews to a franchise-high $61.5M weekend opening in the US.  (That record doesn’t adjust for inflation, and comes with an asterisk because the first two in the series opened on Wednesdays, with Mission 2 at $78.8M by its first Sunday.)  If Fallout runs like Rogue […]

  After two weeks of sloth, Hollywood started rolling out its pre-holiday product.  The weekend’s easy winner will be SPIDER-MAN: INTO THE SPIDER-VERSE (Sony Animation/Columbia/Sony), which had a $12.6M Friday according to preliminary numbers at Deadline, including $3.5M from Thursday night.  That should give it a $35M+ weekend.  Projections after that are tough, because there […]

  Box office discussions about AVENGERS: ENDGAME (Marvel/Disney) will revolve around records broken and those likely to fall.  The first to go was the Thursday night record, which is now $60M (beating The Force Awakens‘s $57M and 54% above Infinity War‘s $39M), and now preliminary numbers at Deadline have Endgame‘s Thursday/Friday at $157M, absolutely smashing […]

  OPENINGS:  After several weeks of big-studio disappointments, FROZEN 2 (Disney) performed as the blockbuster it was expected to be, with $127M in the US.  Comparisons to the first Frozen in 2013 are a bit dicey, because that opened wide on the Wednesday before Thanksgiving.  It earned $93.5M over the 5-day weekend, with an ultimate […]

  OPENINGS:  The spectacular success of SPIDER-MAN: NO WAY HOME (Marvel/Columbia/Sony) may have less to say about the box office overall than some would like to think.  No Way Home vaporized all pandemic-era records with a $253M weekend that was 2.8x the previous Covid high ($90M for Venom: Let There Be Carnage), becoming the #1 […]

  OPENINGS:  BODIES BODIES BODIES (A24) went wide after last week’s NY/LA launch and is now in 1290 theaters, with more expansion scheduled to come.  A24 is reporting a $3.3M weekend, although it should be noted that this estimate assumes an extremely strong Sunday hold despite a steep drop on Saturday.  No international release thus […]