OPENINGS: There were no new wide openings on this pre-holiday season weekend in the US, but things were busier overseas. AQUAMAN (DC/Warners), which won’t arrive in the US until December 21, launched in China with a huge $93.6M, the best start for any Warner Bros film in that country, and almost as much as […]
ONCE UPON A TIME… IN HOLLYWOOD (Columbia/Sony), the summer’s great adult-oriented, non-franchise, auteur/movie star hope, had a solid start per preliminary numbers at Deadline with a $16.7M opening day (including $5.8M from Thursday night). That’s the biggest opening of Quentin Tarantino’s career, higher than the $14.4M for Inglourious Basterds and the $15M for Django […]
OPENINGS: THE ADDAMS FAMILY (BRON/MGM) proved to be a still-fertile source of IP with a solid $30.3M US start, and the cartoon should benefit from closed schools on Columbus Day for a robust 4-day weekend total. Production costs were reportedly on the low end of animation, so a 3x multiple to $90M should go […]
None of the weekend’s openings were expected to come near last week’s blockbuster opening, and none will. The target Christian audience is turning out for RISEN (Affirm/Columbia/Sony), with preliminary numbers at Deadline putting it at $4.25M for Friday. Given its demographics, Risen should hold well through the weekend, particularly on Sunday, which could give […]
With July 4th falling on a Saturday for the 1st time since 2009, this was fated to be a slow holiday at the box office. Nevertheless, the weekend’s openings were supposed to be able to overtake titles that have already been in the market for 3-4 weeks. Based on preliminary numbers at Deadline, however, […]
Weekend #33 of 2012 looks like an unusually robust third weekend of August. Four new films open, with The Expendables 2 an atypically strong entry for this late weekend. The top 12 films this weekend should total $143 million, up over 35% from the pace for the same weekend the last few years. Opening at […]
Last weekend we said domestic box office would get back on track, and it turned out to be another very weak weekend (the third weekend in a row down around 20%). We are going out on a limb again this week, forecasting an okay box office performance, with the top 12 films generating about $88 […]
OPENINGS: INDIANA JONES AND THE DIAL OF DESTINY (Paramount/Lucasfilm/Disney) barely scraped the bottom of weekend expectations with $60M, and that studio estimate assumes an very strong Sunday. The extremely expensive tentpole–$400M+ in production and worldwide marketing costs–combined an elderly franchise built around an 80-year old star with mediocre reviews following an ill-advised Cannes premiere, […]