OPENINGS:  GHOSTBUSTERS (Village Roadshow/Columbia/Sony) is reporting a $46M weekend (that number assumes the lowest Sunday drop in the Top 10, so it may come down a bit in finals), about 10% higher than the start for Independence Day: Resurgence and 20% higher than The Legend of Tarzan, all on similar $275M+ production/marketing budgets.  None […]

Weekend #41 of 2016 forecasts for films opening wide and major returning films: NEW FILMS THIS WEEKEND October 7-9, 2016 Critics Positive ($ millions) Opening Weekend Forecast Domestic Total Projection Overseas Total Projection Worldwide Total Projection The Girl on the Train Uni R 54% 29.0 85 110 195 The Birth of a Nation Fox R 83% […]

  The phenomenon of It having had its day, weekend box office is starting to look more familiar, which is to say subdued.  KINGSMAN: THE GOLDEN CIRCLE (MARV/20th) will take the weekend, but hardly in impressive fashion.  Preliminary numbers at Deadline have opening day at $15.7M, which includes $3.4M from Thursday night.  2 years ago, […]

  OPENINGS:  With the addition of Saturday and overseas numbers, SOLO (Lucasfilm/Disney) is starting to shift from a disappointment to a potential disaster.  In the US, Solo fell 30% on Saturday (by comparison, last year’s Memorial Day opening Pirates of the Caribbean 5, a movie no one particularly loved, dropped only 14% on its Saturday, […]

  VENOM (Tencent/Columbia/Sony) easily set a new October opening record with a studio-reported $80M weekend, far ahead of Gravity‘s $55.8M.  However, Venom dropped 19% on Saturday, worse than Thor: The Dark World (1% increase), Doctor Strange (4% drop) and even Justice League (15% drop), although certainly far better than the 38%/41% plunges for Batman v. […]

  After a string of disappointments at the box office, this weekend’s franchise centerpiece looks like it will deliver.  Preliminary numbers at Deadline have the opening day for HOW TO TRAIN YOUR DRAGON: THE HIDDEN WORLD (DreamWorks Animation/Universal) at $17.3M (including $3M from Thursday night and $2.5M from earlier paid previews), better than the $12.1M […]

  OPENINGS:  CRAWL (Paramount) may be an example of a studio outsmarting itself.  Paramount held no critics screenings, presumably because disdain was expected, and thus was unable to create any advance buzz around a response that turned out to be remarkably enthusiastic (88% on Rotten Tomatoes).  The result was a tepid $12M opening, and since […]

  OPENINGS:  THE BAD GUYS (DreamWorks Animation/Universal) had a solid $24M start, above (low) projections.  It’s unclear whether the release for the film will fall under the normal Universal non-blockbuster 17-day exclusive theatrical policy, or if Bad Guys will fully be able to take advantage of the lack of family movies in the market until […]