OPENINGS:  THE CALL OF THE WILD (20th/Disney) did a bit better than expected at $24.8M, but in the long run that’s not likely to make much difference.  Similarly to Dolittle (although much more quietly), Call of the Wild was extremely expensive, with $200M+ in production/marketing costs, so a $75M US total won’t get it […]

  OPENINGS:  JIGSAW (Lionsgate) had a better Saturday hold than Saw VI (down 21% instead of 32%), and that saved it from having the lowest opening weekend of the franchise.  However, its $16.3M start is still far below the $24.2M for the last installment Saw 3D, which killed off the series for 7 years.  Jigsaw […]

Weekend #43 of 2015 is looking like $111 million for the top 12 films this weekend, above the norm for this weekend (see comparisons below). Steve Jobs from Universal should collect around a $18.5 million in its first wide weekend. Through Sunday, the total to date should be around $21 million. The film is on track for around $65 million domestic […]

Weekend #18 of 2015 is looking like $263 million for the top 12 films this weekend, well above the norm for this weekend, as the next Avengers film kicks off summer early and gets Disney into the game for 2015 in a big way. Opening at around 4,200 theaters Friday (well above to the 2,886 average theater count […]

  OPENINGS:  Both of the weekend’s R-rated arrivals had fair Saturday bumps, reflecting their older audiences.  However, that’s also the demo for Oscar viewing, so we’ll see if their Sunday estimates are overly optimistic.  For now, RED SPARROW (TSG/20th) is at $17M for the weekend after its 12% Saturday climb, a mediocre total for a […]

  OPENINGS:  DEAR EVAN HANSEN (Universal) clunked badly with a $7.5M debut, following on the heels of the underperforming In the Heights and underlining that while musicals can score at the box office, they remain a risky genre.  Even with a relatively low production cost and limited marketing, it’s hard to see any path to […]

  OPENINGS:  NON-STOP (Universal) had the Friday lead with $10M, but that doesn’t mean it’ll take the weekend.  In any case, Universal’s investment will pay off handsomely–it covered only $12M of the budget for US rights (plus marketing costs in its territory, of course), and a likely weekend in the high $20Ms should mean US […]

  The most interesting box office story of the weekend is WARCRAFT (Legendary/Universal).  It’s a dud in the US, with $11M on Friday according to preliminary numbers at Deadline, which with its frontloaded fan audience probably means a $25M or so weekend and a domestic total that may not reach $75M.  That’s not much on […]