OPENINGS:  With the LA movie theatre market now open (at 25% capacity) and a general rise in vaccinations, the box office seems to be taking its first very tentative steps back to pre-pandemic life.  The one wide opening of the weekend THE COURIER (Roadside) wasn’t at all impressive at a $2M start, but the […]

  OPENINGS:  THE BATMAN (DC/Warners) was the first event movie to open in 3 months, and the market responded with a $128.5M weekend, the 2nd-highest of the pandemic era (although not close to Spider-Man: No Way Home‘s $260.1M start).  About $4M of that number is attributable to AMC’s new “variable pricing” policy, hiking the ticket […]

  OPENINGS:  As expected, BLACK PANTHER: WAKANDA FOREVER (Marvel/Disney) swamped the box office worldwide.  Its $180M US weekend was below Doctor Strange 2 ($187.4M) and the original Black Panther ($202M, on a Presidents Day weekend), but still the biggest opening Hollywood has seen in 6 months, reinforcing the MCU as the center of movie culture […]

  OPENINGS:  The most hyped box office weekend of the year delivered and then some.  BARBIE (Mattel/Warners) burst into theaters with $155M, technically the best of the year (although the $146.4M for Super Mario Bros came after a Wed-Thurs start that had already brought in $58.3M).  Among the many records set by the blockbuster were […]

  OPENINGS:  IF (Paramount) was at the low end of projections with $35M, although that was an improvement over where it seemed to be headed after Friday’s $10.4M.  The key was strong family turnout on Saturday, but while IF benefited from being the first major release for that demographic in the 11 weeks since Kung […]

> Very early numbers say that TRANSFORMERS:  DARK OF THE MOON is headed for about $97M overseas this weekend, which of course is a huge amount of money but also a 56% drop from last weekend–higher than the 52% domestic decline.  (UPDATE:  According to the Hollywood Reporter, the Transformers number is actually $93M for the […]

> As Hollywood prepares to honor its best (well, this year… maybe not so much), an undistinguished group of arrivals dominate the boxoffice. OPENINGS:  ACT OF VALOR (Relativity) is claiming the lowest Sunday decline for any adult-skewing picture in the Top 10, ignoring the usual Oscar Day decline (even though the film had the lowest […]

  OPENINGS: The weekend belonged to Bond.  James Bond.  SKYFALL (Sony/MGM) had by far the biggest start for any Bond movie in the US, with an estimated $87.8M.  That’s more than $20M ahead of the previous record-holder, Quantum of Solace, and Skyfall will have far better legs than Solace, as shown by its up day […]