OPENINGS:  $17.1M for THE CALL (TriStar/Sony) is more than the movie cost to produce (although it won’t pay for the marketing), and sets the Halle Berry vehicle up to be a modest hit.  However, there’s no spinning the $10.3M for THE INCREDIBLE BURT WONDERSTONE (Warners), which will lose much more than its $35M production budget […]

  Here’s an instructive piece of box office math, courtesy of Disney and The Lone Ranger.  Ranger cost (including worldwide marketing) about $350M all told, and it’s going to have global theatrical revenues of about $240M.  Disney is reporting that the movie will end up losing around $190M, which is $80M higher than the usual […]

  The box office effect of the upcoming holidays is already being seen, as studios are estimating extremely low Sunday drops from Saturday based on seasonal patterns.  With one conspicuous exception, everything in town is doing at least moderately well. OPENINGS:  ANCHORMAN 2: THE LEGEND CONTINUES (Paramount) didn’t carry off the weekend crown, and at […]

WORLDWIDE STUDIO SCORECARD.  Strong overseas grosses for Captain America: The Winter Soldier continue to pad Disney’s lead over Warner Brothers in worldwide box office to date (Disney has $929 million compared to $861 million for Warner Brothers).  Fox is next with $723 million, and Sony has pulled to over $600 million with Heaven Is for Real this weekend. […]

  OPENINGS:  The world, if not the galaxy, belonged to GUARDIANS OF THE GALAXY (Marvel/Disney) this weekend.  In the US, its $94M start (as is typical, Disney estimated an aggressively strong Sunday, down just 19% from Saturday, so that number may reduce a bit tomorrow) pulverized the previous August record-holder (The Bourne Ultimatum) to the tune […]

WORLDWIDE STUDIO SCORECARD. Scroll down for domestic and overseas grosses for each film individually so far in 2014. YEAR TO DATE BOX OFFICE. Looking at North American box office, 2014 is still running -6% behind last year and -3% below the average for this point the past four years ($9.075 billion).  Over the same period, […]

OPENINGS:  THE LONGEST RIDE (20th) tried to counterprogram Furious 7 with a Nicholas Sparks romance, but didn’t even muss the blockbuster’s hair with a $13.5M opening.  That’s better than the lousy $10M start for last year’s Sparks adaptation The Best Of Me, and that’s the sum total of the positives in the context of other […]

  OPENINGS:  STRAIGHT OUTTA COMPTON (Legendary/Universal) turned out to be somewhat frontloaded, with a 20% drop on its 2d day of release.  But no one will complain about its huge $56.1M weekend, the #6 August opening ever (and #2, behind only Signs, among non-franchise titles).  It should add plenty of gold to Universal’s 2015 pile […]