OPENINGS:  THE LAST VOYAGE OF THE DEMETER (Universal) stirred little interest from critics or audiences, and set sail with a flat $6.5M.  It hasn’t yet opened overseas, but will have a difficult time trying to recoup $100M or so in production/marketing costs. The tiny JULES (Bleecker Street) launched for some reason at 780 theaters, […]

>Two strong films open Friday, with Rio and Scream 4 poised to fuel the weekend to a strongly positive uptick from the same weekend last year. After weeks of disappointing box office returns, two films are set to open this weekend, together reaching for about $80 million.  Rio should lead the weekend at around 3,800 theaters, […]

  OPENINGS:  PITCH PERFECT 2 (Gold Circle/Universal) blew past even the highest of expectations, outgrossing the entire US run of its predecessor with a $70.3M weekend, and proving not to be all that frontloaded with a 12% Saturday drop.  In addition, with a gradual international roll-out in just 29 markets, the movie earned $26.9M, which […]

Weekend #4 of 2014 is looking like $107 million for the top 12 films, up 7% from the average for this weekend the past few years. Opening at around 2,700 theaters Friday (slightly below the 2,886 average theater count for opening weekends the last two years), I, Frankenstein from Lionsgate/Summit should average a mediocre $5,800 per theater for the […]

  OPENINGS:  Taking the spotlight from higher-profile arrivals, the anime title MY HERO ACADEMIA: WORLD HEROES’ MISSION (Funimation) was the weekend’s highest-grossing newcomer with $6.4M, better than the $5.9M opening for the last Academia movie, 2019’s Heroes Rising.  These films tend to be fairly front-loaded, but Mission should pass $15M in the US, and it […]

  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 […]

  GLASS (Blinding Edge/Blumhouse/Buena Vista Intl/Universal) will easily win this MLK Weekend, but it’s not shaping up as the phenomenon it was envisioned to be–and we’ll see over the next few days whether it has a word of mouth problem.  According to preliminary numbers at Deadline, it had a $16.3M Friday (including $3.7M from Thursday […]

  OPENINGS:  The traditional horror movie start of the new year was provided by NIGHT SWIM (Blumhouse-Atomic Planet/Universal), although at $12M it was the lowest such arrival since The Grudge started with $11.4M in 2020.  The final number for that one was $21.2M, and Night Swim probably won’t be much higher.  The international launch was […]