OPENINGS:  Horror has been one of the more reliable genres at the pandemic box office, and CANDYMAN (MGM/Universal) opened with a solid $22.4M, buoyed by unusually good reviews (85% on Rotten Tomatoes).  That offset a weaker showing overseas, where it earned $5.2M in 51 markets. HOLDOVERS:  FREE GUY (20th/Disney) enjoyed its final pre-Shang Chi […]

  OPENINGS:  In the US, the launch of THE MUMMY (Perfect World/Universal) could hardly have gone worse with a $32.2M weekend.  Although it’s higher than the openings for Tom Cruise’s recent Jack Reacher titles and Edge of Tomorrow, this was a very expensive project (reports differ on just how expensive, with production costs from $125M […]

>The second weekend of 2012 looks to be fairly anemic: $103 million for the top 12 films for the traditional three-day Friday-Sunday period.  This would be down 11% from the same weekend in 2011 and down 28% from the same weekend average for the past several years.  Basically, there is just not enough heat or […]

  OPENINGS:  After last week’s Fall Guy stumble, KINGDOM OF THE PLANET OF THE APES (20th/Disney) arrived at the high end of projections with $56.5M.   That was roughly on par with the starts for 2011’s Rise ($54.8M) and 2017’s War ($56.3M), although a bit lower than 2014’s Dawn ($72.6M).  The franchise has reliably done better […]

  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 […]

Weekend #47 of 2014 is looking like $227 million for the top 12 films this weekend, up 22% from the norm for this weekend and similar to this weekend last year (which also featured the opening of a Hunger Games installment). Opening at over 4,000 theaters Friday (well above the 2,886 average theater count for […]

  Are Americans tired of superhero movies?  There were whispers to that effect after The Avengers: Age of Ultron underperformed a bit and Fantastic Four outright flopped last year, but clearly the answer is Hell, No.  DEADPOOL (Marvel/20th) puts a new R-rated satiric spin on the genre (very carefully:  its jokes are aimed at Fox’s […]

  OPENINGS:  ONE PIECE FILM: RED (Crunchyroll/Sony) opened at $9.5M, on the low end of recent national anime releases compared to Jujutsu Kaisen‘s $18M and Dragon Ball Super‘s $21.1M.  As is typical for the genre, it was extremely frontloaded, earning more than 50% of its weekend total by the end of Friday.  However, its US […]