OPENINGS:  STAR WARS: THE LAST JEDI (Lucasfilm/Disney) had an excellent Saturday for a blockbuster of its size, dropping 39% from Friday, where The Force Awakens had fallen 43%.  That cemented Last Jedi as the 2nd-highest opening in US history at $220M (down 11% from Force Awakens)–and that studio estimate may even be a tad […]

  OPENINGS:  THE MEG (Gravity/Warners) had a fair hold on Saturday, down 2%, which brought it to a $44.5M weekend.  That’s 83% better than Skyscraper‘s start, and 27% better than Rampage, and with no new direct competition next weekend, The Meg could reach $125M in the US.  However, the mega-B-movie had a reported $300M+ in […]

  OPENINGS:  The Good Friday/Easter weekend was solid for the most part, but it lacked a major holiday opening because Avengers: Endgame is just a few days away and set to engulf box offices worldwide.  Instead, the studios offered films aimed at niches or short runs.  They were led by THE CURSE OF LA LLORONA […]

  OPENINGS:  For a year lean on powerhouse franchises and expected to be tough at the box office, Hollywood’s 2020 is off to a heartening start.  Following last week’s strong performance by 1917, this week’s BAD BOYS FOR LIFE (Columbia/Sony) blasted through expectations with a $59.2M 3-day weekend ($68M with the Monday holiday), and with […]

  HOLDOVERS: NOMADLAND (Searchlight/Disney, also on Hulu) earned $500K at 1175 theatres after 2 weeks in limited release for which the studio didn’t provide numbers.  That’s, a weekend per-theatre average a bit over $400.  Even by the standards of split theatrical/streaming Oscar contending releases like Judas and the Black Messiah (which averaged about $1100 at […]

  OPENINGS:  Note that the entire market in the US will be hit by Super Bowl Sunday, which will be down from Saturday by roughly double the percentage of the usual Saturday-Sunday drop.  (However, Hollywood will hope for a Valentine’s Day bump the following day.)  Even with that included in the calculations, though, the weekend’s […]

  OPENINGS:  BLACK ADAM (DC/New Line/Warners) arrived within moderate expectations at $67M.  That’s the highest weekend we’ve seen since Thor: Love & Thunder in July, but as a superhero epic with a $300M+ production/marketing budget, it’s far below Love & Thunder ($144.2M), Doctor Strange In the Multiverse of Madness ($187.4M), and DC’s The Batman ($134M).  […]

  OPENINGS:  INDIANA JONES AND THE DIAL OF DESTINY (Paramount/Lucasfilm/Disney) barely scraped the bottom of weekend expectations with $60M, and that studio estimate assumes an very strong Sunday.  The extremely expensive tentpole–$400M+ in production and worldwide marketing costs–combined an elderly franchise built around an 80-year old star with mediocre reviews following an ill-advised Cannes premiere, […]