This may be a good time to pause the stories about Disney’s infalliability, and the unstoppable dominance of the Star Wars franchise. SOLO (Lucasfilm/Disney) is underperforming in a big way, with preliminary numbers at Deadline putting its opening day at $36.5M, extremely frontloaded with $14.1M of that total from Thursday night. That’s the lowest […]
OPENINGS: Here’s the crazy thing about the official record-busting $238M weekend estimate for STAR WARS: THE FORCE AWAKENS (Lucasfilm/Disney), which smashed the previous weekend record by more than 12%, and nearly tripled the prior December record: it’s on the conservative side. Flying in the face of most studio behavior in reporting opening weekends, Disney […]
OPENINGS: GODZILLA, KING OF THE MONSTERS (Legendary/Warners) didn’t have the Saturday bump that Kong: Skull Island enjoyed, instead dropping 17%, which was slightly worse even than the first Godzilla‘s 16%. The result was a $49M US weekend, and a US total that may only reach $125M. Although the numbers overseas were bigger, they were […]
Yesterday’s studio estimate for THE HUNGER GAMES: CATCHING FIRE (Lionsgate) seemed high, with a Sunday drop predicted to be by far the lowest in the Top 10, so it’s not much of a surprise to see the weekend number reduced now that final figures are out, down $3M from $161.1M to $158.1M. Even with […]
There was enough product at the multiplexes to make for a solid Thanksgiving weekend total, but holiday fireworks were absent. OPENINGS: THE GOOD DINOSAUR (Pixar/Disney) had a $39.2M weekend ($55.6M since its Wednesday opening), putting it behind Frozen ($67.4M), Toy Story 2 ($57.4M) and Tangled ($48.8M) among Thanksgiving openings. It continues to run closest to […]
BLADE RUNNER 2049 (Alcon/Sony/Warners) was a high-risk bet, with roughly $300M in production and worldwide marketing wagered on an extremely serious 164-minute sequel to a 35-year old film that only became legendary after it was itself a sizable flop in theatres. Reportedly, the bulk of that investment rested with Alcon, while Sony (international) and […]
OPENINGS: We’ll see how the numbers hold up in tomorrow’s finals, but for now at least THE BOSS BABY (DreamWorks Animation/20th) is the weekend winner with $49M, considerably better than expectations. The only dour note on the success is that it was rather frontloaded for a family non-sequel, with a 28% Saturday bump. That […]
OPENINGS: In the US, NO TIME TO DIE (UA/MGM) opened at $56M, at the low end of expectations–and “expectations” are usually already set low so that the press will report that a film has “overperformed”–and below the last three Bond films (Quantum of Solace $67.5M, Skyfall $88.4M, Spectre $70.4M). Obviously the pandemic is a […]