OPENINGS:  Hiyao Miyazaki’s THE BOY AND THE HERON (GKids) exceeded expectations and set a high-water mark for its filmmaker and for non-franchise Japanese animation with a $12.8M launch.  The film will lose its Imax screens next week and faces challenges from other family-oriented films, but if word of mouth is strong and it can […]

Based on Saturday’s grosses, Weekend #12 of 2013 is another down weekend (making it 10 down weekends out of 12 this year so far): $130 million for the top 12 films Friday-Sunday (down 9% from an average comparable weekend the past few years and down 36% from the same weekend last year dominated by the […]

  OPENINGS:  MONKEY MAN (Universal) walked an odd path to theaters, originally being targeted for a Netflix release.  While the result earned strong reviews (87% on Rotten Tomatoes), there was no storybook ending at the box office, as Dev Patel’s film was below expectations at $10.1M.  Nor did Monkey Man stir much excitement overseas, with […]

  OPENINGS:  Word of mouth kicked in on Saturday for CAPTAIN AMERICA: CIVIL WAR (Marvel/Disney), which fell a mild 19% from opening day, much better than the 38% drop for Batman v Superman and the 33% for The Avengers: Age Of Ultron (although not quite as good as the 10% for Iron Man 3, 14% for The Avengers […]

> Why did it snow on my weekend? Based on Friday and Saturday box office (and estimated Sunday numbers), Puss in Boots looks like a $34 million opening weekend.  The highly unusual late-October snowstorm in the northeast certainly reduced the opening numbers for Puss, but the weather also seemed to have a strong impact on […]

>Transformers 3 is looking like a $97.4 million opening weekend (Friday-Sunday only) and $162 million through Sunday.  The three-day number is a record July 4th weekend showing.  What about Larry Crowne?  From an interview at Boxofficemagazine.com Tom Hanks said, “How do we compete in the marketplace?  Forgive me, I haven’t the slightest fu*king idea….  At […]

  OPENINGS:  The only new arrival in wide US release was the woebegone VOYAGERS (Lionsgate), which got a minimal push from its studio and opened at a low $1.4M, fated for $5M or so in the US. The major new international opening was MORTAL KOMBAT (Warners), which brought in $10.7M from 17 territories.  It opens […]

WORLDWIDE STUDIO SCORECARD.   YEAR TO DATE BOX OFFICE. Looking at North American box office, 2015 to date is now +6% above last year and +6% above the average for this point the past four years ($4.430 billion).  Over the same period, Hollywood films have grossed $12.3 billion worldwide when we add overseas box office (that’s […]