It’s not much of a surprise at this point that GRAVITY (Warners) continues to run rings around its competition.  Based on preliminary numbers at Deadline, the blockbuster will easily win its third consecutive weekend, with $8.8M on Friday, down only 30% from last Friday.  That should mean a $30M weekend, and close to $170M […]

Weekend #11 of 2014 is looking like $115 million for the top 12 films, down from last weekend but actually 10% above the average for the comparable weekend the past several years. Opening at around 3,000 theaters Friday (slightly above the 2,886 average theater count for opening weekends the last two years), Need for Speed from Disney should […]

Weekend #37 of 2014 is looking like $65 million for the top 12 films this weekend, down 21% from the norm for this weekend. Opening at around 3,500 theaters Friday (above the 2,886 average theater count for opening weekends the last two years), Dolphin Tale 2 from Warner Brothers should average a mediocre $5,500 per theater for the […]

Weekend #17 of 2015 is looking like $78 million for the top 12 films this weekend, well below the already low norm for this weekend. Opening at around 2,900 theaters Friday (very close to the 2,886 average theater count for opening weekends the last two years), Age of Adaline from Lionsgate/Summit should average $3,600 per theater for the three-day […]

  OPENINGS:  PIXELS (Columbia/Sony) isn’t the first Adam Sandler movie to approach a $90M production budget–incredibly, the first Grown Ups reportedly cost that much–but as his audience shrinks, it becomes more difficult to justify a greenlight for him at that level.  Pixels is reporting a very mild $24M weekend in the US (that number assumes […]

  There’s a lot of new product in the market this weekend, which will drive up multiplex totals, but nothing is really breaking through.  The battle at the top looks like it will be close between GOOSEBUMPS (Columbia/Sony) and THE MARTIAN (TSG/20th), both of which should come in at $23-24M.  Goosebumps has the early lead, […]

  THE REVENANT (Regency/20th) is showing impressive strength in its first day of wide release, after 2 strong weeks at NY/LA arthouses.  Preliminary numbers at Deadline give it $14M+ on Friday, putting it surprisingly into 1st place and confirming that Leonardo DiCaprio is one of the few “movie stars” these days who actually sells tickets.  […]

  Considering the almost laughably low level of the competition it faced, THE FATE OF THE FURIOUS (Universal) didn’t hold up well on its 2d Friday.  Preliminary numbers at Deadline have the day at $11.4M, down 75% from last week’s opening day.  That’s worse than the 72% Friday-to-Friday drop for Furious 7 (which was coming […]