> Due to the Martin Luther King holiday on Monday, all studios are estimating low Sunday drops, although some are projecting more aggressively than others. UNIVERSAL:  CONTRABAND held almost even on Saturday, which is good for an action movie, and is projecting a reasonable (given the holiday) 21% drop on Sunday.  It should get to […]

Twelve days into the three-week holiday movie season, 2012 is now 9.0% behind the average for the same period over the last several years ($362 million this year versus $398 million on average 2004-2011).  Further, 2012 is 12.1% behind the last time Christmas fell on a Tuesday (2007’s $412 million over this period).   After […]

WORLDWIDE STUDIO SCORECARD.   YEAR TO DATE BOX OFFICE. Looking at North American box office, 2015 to date is now +5% above last year and now +1% above the average for this point the past four years ($6.833 billion).  Over the same period, Hollywood films have grossed $18.4 billion worldwide when we add overseas box office (that’s +5% […]

  OPENINGS:  MAMA (Universal) had a 9% bump on Saturday, not bad for a horror movie, and should have a very healthy $33M by the end of the 4-day weekend.  BROKEN CITY (20th) and THE LAST STAND (Lionsgate), with their older-skewing audiences, had proportionately better Saturdays (up 19% and 25%, respectively), but there’s still such limited […]

  OPENINGS:  The answer to the question of whether the Day 2 drop for SUICIDE SQUAD (RatPac/DC/Warners) would be as bad as the one for Batman v Superman turned out to be no–it was worse.  Suicide plunged 41% on Saturday, compared to BvS‘s 38%.  That’s the kind of drop usually associated with the hugely-frontloaded Twilight series, […]

  OPENINGS:  There were no wide openings this weekend.  Limited releases included WILD MOUNTAIN THYME (Bleecker Street, also available digitally) at 450 theatres with a $223 per-theatre weekend average and a $100K total; and ARCHENEMY (RLJE, also available digitally) at 94 theatres with a $592 average and a $55K total. HOLDOVERS:  THE CROODS: A NEW […]

With the release of Thor: The Dark World Disney has reclaimed second place in the worldwide box office race, pushing Universal to third and moving to within $100 million of Warner Brothers.  Still a lot of overseas upside for the second installment of Thor so Disney should be back at #1 in the next week or two.   TOTAL […]

  OPENINGS:  For a Wednesday opening, TRANSFORMERS: THE LAST KNIGHT (Huahua/Paramount) had a fairly good 27% Saturday bump in the US (by comparison, 2011’s Dark of the Moon went up just 5% on its parallel day), which pushed the weekend estimate a bit to $45.3M, giving the film $69.1M over 5 days.  That’s still far […]