OPENINGS:  THE GRUDGE (Columbia/Sony) tried to take advantage of Hollywood’s early January fallow period, but at $11.3M, the reboot of a remake found few takers, far below the $29.6M for 2018’s Insidious: The Last Key, and also less than the $13.7M for 2017’s Underworld: Blood Wars and the $15M for 2015’s The Woman In […]

  OPENINGS:  With the pandemic raging throughout the country and about 20% fewer theatres open than last week, box office numbers plunged across the board.  There were no truly wide openings, but the Jackie Chan vehicle VANGUARD (Gravitas) opened at 1375 theatres with a low $400K start, a per-theatre weekend average of just $290. Similarly, […]

  OPENINGS:  Taking the spotlight from higher-profile arrivals, the anime title MY HERO ACADEMIA: WORLD HEROES’ MISSION (Funimation) was the weekend’s highest-grossing newcomer with $6.4M, better than the $5.9M opening for the last Academia movie, 2019’s Heroes Rising.  These films tend to be fairly front-loaded, but Mission should pass $15M in the US, and it […]

  OPENINGS:  MINIONS: THE RISE OF GRU (Illumination/Universal) exceeded industry expectations with a $108.5M 3-day opening.  That’s just a bit lower than the $115.7M launch for the first Minions movie, although that was an April 2015 launch that didn’t have the benefit of a holiday Sunday.  Rise of Gru is expected to hit $127.9M over […]

  OPENINGS:  While DUNGEONS & DRAGONS:  HONOR AMONG THIEVES (eOne/Paramount) launched at the upper end of expectations, $38.5M (which included an unusually intense program of preview screenings) was a shaky start for a project with $250M in production/marketing costs and the hope to become a franchise.  It will need to hold up extremely well over the next several […]

  OPENINGS:  WONKA (Warners) kicked off the holiday movie season with $39M, at the upper end of expectations.  As a family entertainment, it can look forward to a high multiple into January, and could reach $200M+ in the US, against around $250M in production/marketing costs.  The IP musical is even stronger overseas, where it expanded […]

  OPENINGS:  THE WILD ROBOT (DreamWorks Animation/Universal), aided by strong reviews, started above expectations with $35M.  It has the family audience almost to itself until mid-November, and should pass $100M in the US.  It’s thus far in only 29 international territories, and has $18.1M after a $9.9M weekend.  Since the source material is a series […]

> The tiny 3% drop in PUSS IN BOOTS‘ second weekend is truly remarkable, and could well lead to studios adopting DreamWorks’ strategy in the future of opening an animated movie on Halloween weekend and then having a de facto 2d opening the following week.  (However, the picture is still running $13M below Megamind‘s 10 […]