> With one startling exception and a couple of smaller ones, the holiday crop of movies declined on Saturday and are expected to recover on New Year’s Day. PARAMOUNT:  MISSION: IMPOSSIBLE – GHOST PROTOCOL went down 18% and is expected to rise 33% today.  It should hit $142M by the end of the 4-day holiday […]

  OPENINGS:  Everything stayed pretty much as is after Monday’s estimates were released.  THE POSSESSION (Lionsgate) has the #2 Labor Day 4-day opening weekend with $21.3M.  LAWLESS (Weinstein Company) is trying to stay ahead of last year’s The Debt, and is currently claiming to be $148,400 in front over 4 days–we’ll find out tomorrow if that’s […]

  OPENINGS:  As usual with new arrivals, the eager studios behind GI JOE: RETALIATION (Paramount/MGM) have claimed a low Sunday decline (2d lowest in the Top 10), so the $41.2M weekend and $51.7M opening 4 days could slip a bit when final numbers are released tomorrow–and even if they don’t, that 4 day figure is […]

  OPENINGS:  If a movie like THE BUTLER (Weinstein) can make back most of its production cost in a single weekend (and The Help did the same 2 years ago), why aren’t there more movies like The Butler?  The answer is the other side of the coin of “Why are there so many action-fantasy adventure […]

No changes in the studio rankings this week, the top two studios had enormous weeks (each around $250 million) from The Hobbit: Desolation of Smaug (Warner Brothers) and Frozen (Disney), with each film experiencing a significantly upgraded domestic total forecast and very big grosses overseas.  For a complete ranking of 2013 films individually by worldwide performance click here. TOTAL NORTH […]

WORLDWIDE STUDIO SCORECARD.  A great week for Fox, which vaults into second place and just over $900 million worldwide box office year to date.  The very strong Fox week was paced by the domestic rollout of The Other Woman and continued international strength from Rio 2.  Disney remains in the top spot with just under $1 billion worldwide […]

  OPENINGS:  The big box office news of this weekend happened overseas, where THE HOBBIT:  THE BATTLE OF THE FIVE ARMIES (New Line/MGM/Warners) has already opened in 37 territories to a massive $117.6M in advance of its US launch next week.  The Hobbit movies have done overwhelmingly well overseas, with the previous installments earning respectively […]

  OPENINGS:  PAUL BLART: MALL COP 2 (MGM/Sony/Columbia) was at the high end of diminished expectations with $24M.  That’s roughly 25% below the $31.8M start for the first Paul Blart, not a surprise considering that the Blart franchise was far from universally beloved.  The question will be whether Blart 2 can have anything like its […]