OPENINGS: THE LAST VOYAGE OF THE DEMETER (Universal) stirred little interest from critics or audiences, and set sail with a flat $6.5M. It hasn’t yet opened overseas, but will have a difficult time trying to recoup $100M or so in production/marketing costs. The tiny JULES (Bleecker Street) launched for some reason at 780 theaters, […]
OPENINGS: Hiyao Miyazaki’s THE BOY AND THE HERON (GKids) exceeded expectations and set a high-water mark for its filmmaker and for non-franchise Japanese animation with a $12.8M launch. The film will lose its Imax screens next week and faces challenges from other family-oriented films, but if word of mouth is strong and it can […]
There was enough product at the multiplexes to make for a solid Thanksgiving weekend total, but holiday fireworks were absent. OPENINGS: THE GOOD DINOSAUR (Pixar/Disney) had a $39.2M weekend ($55.6M since its Wednesday opening), putting it behind Frozen ($67.4M), Toy Story 2 ($57.4M) and Tangled ($48.8M) among Thanksgiving openings. It continues to run closest to […]
OPENINGS: The Robo-turtle very nearly stole the race from the rom-com hare, as ABOUT LAST NIGHT (Screen Gems/Sony) continued its post-Valentine’s Day slowdown, falling another 39% on Sunday to $4.9M and now projected to total $28.5M over the 4-day weekend. That’s still a fine number for a moderately-budgeted movie, but not the breakout hit […]
WORLDWIDE STUDIO SCORECARD. Here is an updated look at the 2017 film slates by studio. YEAR TO DATE BOX OFFICE. Looking at North American box office, 2017 to date is now even with last year and still +4% above the average for this point the past four years ($6.425 billion). Over the same period, Hollywood films have grossed […]
WORLDWIDE STUDIO SCORECARD. Here is an updated look at the 2017 film slates by studio. YEAR TO DATE BOX OFFICE. Looking at North American box office, 2017 to date is still down -2% from last year and still +1% above the average for this point the past four years ($8.750 billion). Over the same period, Hollywood films have grossed almost […]
OPENINGS: For a movie aimed at children that isn’t a frontloaded franchise installment, WONDER PARK (Nickelodeon/Paramount) had an unimpressive 19% Saturday bump, and it emerged with a $16M weekend that won’t do it much good against production/marketing costs in the neighborhood of $200M–especially with Disney’s Dumbo just 2 weeks away. The initial overseas results […]
OPENINGS: Melissa McCarthy is now a genuine Hollywood player with the enormous debut of IDENTITY THIEF (Universal), beating all pre-release estimates with $36.6M. (Take that, Rex Reed!) Apart from Universal, the happiest studio in town is Fox, which has the McCarthy/Sandra Bullock vehicle The Heat coming up in the thick of summer movie season […]