Based on Friday’s and Saturday’s grosses, weekend #24 of 2014 now looks like $184 million for the top 12 films Friday-Sunday, still 20% above the norm for this weekend but now -7% below the same weekend last year.   Opening at 3,306 theaters, 22 Jump Street from Sony grossed $25.2 million Friday and $18.8 million Saturday, […]

Based on Friday’s and Saturday’s grosses, weekend #6 of 2015 now looks like $139 million for the top 12 films Friday-Sunday, up slightly from yesterday’s estimate ($135 million) and up a bit from the norm for this weekend.   Opening at 3,641 theaters Friday, SpongeBob Movie: Sponge Out of Water from Paramount is on track for a $56.0 […]

Based on Friday’s and Saturday’s grosses, weekend #34 of 2015 now looks like $92 million for the top 12 films Friday-Sunday, somewhat above the norm for this weekend (thanks mostly to Straight Outta Compton and definitely not the three openers) but below the same weekend last year (see track below). Opening at 2,766 theaters Friday, Sinister 2 from […]

  OPENINGS:  THE GREAT WALL (Legendary/Universal) scraped its way to $18.1M in the US, and should add another $3M or so on Monday.  The $50M it will hope to reach here will barely pay for its US marketing campaign, so the spectacle lives or dies overseas.  Right now it’s at $244.6M in the rest of […]

  OPENINGS:  BOO 2! A MADEA HALLOWEEN (Lionsgate) took the weekend with $21.7M, down 24% from last year’s first Boo.  That puts it behind all the previous Madea openings except A Madea Christmas, which had the entire holiday corridor for its run.  Last year’s installment had an exceptionally good Weekend 2 hold, down just 40% […]

  OPENINGS:  INCREDIBLES 2 (Pixar/Disney) resoundingly became the highest-opening animated film of all time with a giant $180M weekend, more than 30% higher than the $135.1M for Finding Dory.  Its Saturday behaved similarly to Dory, down 18% from Friday compared to Dory‘s 17%, although Incredibles 2 is looking for a better Sunday hold, down 16% […]

  OPENINGS:  The weekend multiple for HOW TO TRAIN YOUR DRAGON: THE HIDDEN WORLD (DreamWorks Animation/Universal) was 3.2x, about mid-way between the first Dragon‘s 3.6x and Dragon 2‘s 2.6x.  (Note that the studio isn’t including $2.5M in paid preview income in its weekend number–if that were added to Friday the way Thursday night revenue is, […]

  OPENINGS:  FORD VS. FERRARI (20th/Disney) had a strong start with $31M, and will hope to extend its run through the holidays and into Oscar season based on its initially older-skewing audience and excellent reviews and exit polls.  The only caution is that FvF was pricey for a non-IP project, with around $200M in production/marketing […]