Truth be told, “weekend” box office doesn’t mean much in a week where Friday/Saturday/Sunday are no stronger than the weekdays that surround them, and virtually all the openings took place on Wednesday.  (Also, morning estimates aren’t very different from the preliminary numbers we posted last night.)  Nevertheless, a few thoughts. OPENINGS:  THE WOLF OF […]

WORLDWIDE STUDIO SCORECARD.  Fox rolls on, running away with 2014 worldwide with another $144 million this week (mostly from continued strong overseas grosses from Maze Runner and Gone Girl).  Fox is a huge #1 with almost $4.2 billion for the year to date worldwide.  The next best week came from lowly Universal ($134 million worldwide the past week), […]

> With the superpowers wielded only by Hollywood studio estimators, CAPTAIN AMERICA:  THE FIRST AVENGER has leaped ahead of Thor to claim the biggest superhero opening of the year.  But Captain America and HARRY POTTER AND THE DEATHLY HALLOWS (PART 2) are the only pictures in the Top 10 predicting a Sunday drop of less […]

> There’s not much to add about the weekend grosses that hasn’t been said (see Mitch Metcalf’s round-up report here), so let’s take a look at who, apart from the studios themselves, did and didn’t have a fun weekend: WINNERS Women of THE HELP:  Emma Stone isn’t likely to get Oscar consideration for her performance, […]

  UPDATE:  The release of THE INTERVIEW continues to be improvisational, and contrary to regular practice–as well as Sony’s previously expressed plans–the studio announced on Sunday that in addition to its $2.8M take from independent theatres, the film earned $15M from online viewing in the Wed-Sat period.  However, Sony didn’t specify how that amount was […]

  OPENINGS:  It was important for THE MAGNIFICENT SEVEN (Village Roadshow/MGM/Columbia/Sony) to hit the $35M that the studio is currently claiming, because that puts it slightly over the two obvious comparisons:  the $34.1M for the last Denzel Washington/Antoine Fuqua collaboration The Equalizer, and the $34.5M just a few weeks ago for Sully, a film similarly […]

>   Despite the enormous 53% drop on Saturday, Warners is projecting only a 21% fall for HARRY POTTER AND THE DEATHLY HALLOWS (PART 2) on Sunday, which would be 2nd lowest in the week’s Top 10, behind only Disney’s WINNIE THE POOH (which figures to be strong in Sunday matinees).  If the Harry Potter […]

  OPENINGS:  ETERNALS (Marvel/Disney) opened at the low end of expectations with $71M, not a surprise given its lousy reviews (48% on Rotten Tomatoes, unprecedented for the MCU) and blah audience exit polls.  Even so, that makes it the #4 US opening of the pandemic era, and all of those quartet members are Marvel movies.  […]