Based on Friday’s grosses, weekend #49 of 2014 looks like $70 million for the top 12 films Friday-Sunday, similar to yesterday’s estimate ($69 million), down 9% the norm for this weekend ($78 million) and down 19% from the same weekend last year.   Opening at a mere 589 theaters, The Pyramid from 20th Century Fox is on track […]

  OPENINGS:  After last week’s Barbenheimer fireworks, the box office for new movies returned to earth–with a thud in the case of HAUNTED MANSION (Disney), which was at the bottom of projections at $24.2M.  With the exception of Guardians 3, it’s been a tepid summer for Disney, and Haunted Mansion carries production/marketing costs in the […]

  OPENINGS:  ONE PIECE FILM: RED (Crunchyroll/Sony) opened at $9.5M, on the low end of recent national anime releases compared to Jujutsu Kaisen‘s $18M and Dragon Ball Super‘s $21.1M.  As is typical for the genre, it was extremely frontloaded, earning more than 50% of its weekend total by the end of Friday.  However, its US […]

  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 […]

Like last week, Saturday was somewhat stronger than anticipated yesterday — the weekend now looks like $84 million instead of $81 million for the top 12 films.   The Possession and Lawless both look like they will be about one million dollars higher for the Friday-Sunday portion of the long weekend.  Oogieloves and the BIG […]

  OPENINGS:  Beyonce’s concert documentary RENAISSANCE (Variance/AMC Theaters) led the traditionally slow first weekend of December with $21M, a shadow of the $92.8M for the Eras Tour movie a couple of months ago, but within expectations.  As with Eras Tour, it’s likely that the Renaissance box office will be front-loaded with fans, so the US […]

  OPENINGS:  ALIEN: COVENANT (TSG/20th) slumped almost as badly on its 2d day of release as the unpopular Prometheus (22% vs 25%), and the result was a lackluster $36M weekend in the US–and even that number includes an aggressive estimate for Sunday.  Worse yet, with Covenant now playing in every major international market except China […]

  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 […]