> Sony is taking an interesting strategy this fall:  with MONEYBALL in release, THE IDES OF MARCH opening on Friday and ANONYMOUS coming on October 28, they’re cornering the market on upscale, wide-release drama until Warner Bros opens J. EDGAR on November 11.  (On that date, Sony will go as downscale as is humanly possible […]

  Will it really be that happy a Father’s Day?  Almost every movie in the market is estimating an unusually low Sunday drop because of the holiday, although the Father’s Day effect normally helps only all-family titles. OPENINGS:  It hardly matters whether ROCK OF AGES (Warners) and THAT’S MY BOY (Sony) hit their round-number $15.1M […]

  OPENINGS:  DJANGO UNCHAINED (Weinstein/Sony) and LES MISERABLES (Universal) are both success stories, but Django has pulled away from Les Miz over the past couple of days, and should outpace the musical by the end of the week.  Django appears likely to beat Inglourious Basterds and its $120.5M to become Quentin Tarantino’s biggest hit ever, […]

  OPENINGS:  The $40M weekend estimate for THE HEAT (20th) makes more sense than it did last night, now that the movie’s Saturday is being reported as a 6% increase rather than a 5% drop.  (But always be suspicious of round-number estimates anyway.)  The Heat is going to be profitable, thanks to its $45M production budget, […]

  OPENINGS:  THOR: THE DARK WORLD (Disney) held essentially even on Saturday, an excellent result for a franchise movie, especially where a chunk of its “Friday” number had come from Thursday night screenings.  (In comparison, Iron Man 3 dropped 10% on its second day of release.)  Presumably because of that strong Saturday hold, Disney is […]

WORLDWIDE STUDIO SCORECARD.  Year to date, Warner Brothers has pulled ahead thanks to the opening of 300: Rise of an Empire and recent overseas grosses from The LEGO Movie, as it really kicks into gear outside North America. Scroll down for domestic and overseas grosses for each film individually so far in 2014.   YEAR TO DATE […]

WORLDWIDE STUDIO SCORECARD.  Paramount got off the mat with the release of Transformers: Age of Extinction, pushing the studio over $1.0 billion worldwide for the year to date and into 5th place and now above Universal.  Disney ($1.66 billion worldwide for 2014 to date) moved slightly above Sony ($1.65 billion) thanks to continued overseas grosses […]

  OPENINGS:  NIGHTCRAWLER (Open Road) and Ouija are in a dead heat for the weekend title, with Nightcrawler claiming a temporary $9000 edge at $10.909M.  We won’t know the real winner until tomorrow, but Ouija is already admitting a 52% Sunday drop, while Nightcrawler maintains that it will only fall 35% today.  That number is […]