Studio honesty is rare enough to be worth noting when it appears:  THE HUNGER GAMES: CATCHING FIRE (Lionsgate) could easily have juiced its Sunday estimate to claim the #2 second weekend of all time today, but instead it was content with being #4, at $74.5M  just $1.1M behind Avatar and $700K behind The Dark […]

  This weekend was fine… but just wait till next week. OPENINGS:  Polarizing, controversial, dark, revisionist, divisive–and a hit.  NOAH (Paramount/Regency) took in $44M in the US this weekend after a 16% Saturday bump.  That already makes it Darren Aronofsky’s 2d biggest hit after Black Swan.  Of course, it’s also by far his most expensive film, […]

  OPENINGS:  It’s official:  THE HUNGER GAMES: MOCKINGJAY PART I (Lionsgate) opened to $123M in the US, down 20% from the first Hunger Games and down 23% from Catching Fire.  That’s still the #1 opening of the year by 23% (beating Transformers: Age of Extinction), and the 15th biggest opening ever, but there’s no way […]

  OPENINGS:  INSURGENT (Summit/Lionsgate) had a stronger Saturday hold than Divergent (down 7% instead of 13%), and based on that, Liosgate is also claiming a stronger Sunday hold (down 35% instead of 40%).  That gives Insurgent a $54.1M weekend studio estimate, just a breath away from Divergent‘s $54.6M, although even if those numbers hold up […]

  OPENINGS:  MISSION IMPOSSIBLE: ROGUE NATION (Skydance/China Film Channel/Alibaba/Paramount) had a solid Saturday hold, down 3% from Friday, and the studio is projecting a $56M weekend in the US, well ahead of the $47.7M opening of Mission 3, the only other entry in the series to have a conventional Friday opening.  (However, in 2006 movies […]

WORLDWIDE STUDIO SCORECARD.   YEAR TO DATE BOX OFFICE. Looking at North American box office, 2015 to date is still +4% above last year and still +1% above the average for this point the past four years ($9.029 billion).  Over the same period, Hollywood films have grossed over $24.0 billion worldwide when we add overseas box office (that’s […]

WORLDWIDE STUDIO SCORECARD.  Updated look at 2016 by studio.   YEAR TO DATE BOX OFFICE. Looking at North American box office, 2016 to date is now +7% above last year and now +10% above the average for this point the past four years ($2.279 billion).  Over the same period, Hollywood films have grossed $6.4 billion […]

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