The weekend continues to look very close to the way it did yesterday morning.  Madagascar 3: Europe’s Most Wanted looks like $35.5 million, according to the studio estimate this morning (down a decent 41% from the opening weekend and hitting our forecast in Wednesday’s ShowbuzzDaily Weekend Predictions).  Prometheus is looking like more like a 60% […]

  OPENINGS:  The stated $101M weekend start for THE HUNGER GAMES: MOCKINGJAY PART 2 (Lionsgate) means that we won’t really know whether it went over $100M until final numbers are released tomorrow.  But even if that number holds, it will be down 17% from last year’s Mockingjay 1.  More seriously, the international opening was $146M, […]

Based on Friday’s and Saturday’s grosses, weekend #12 of 2015 looks like $123 million for the top 12 films Friday-Sunday, a little better than it looked yesterday but still below the norms for this weekend.   Opening at 3,875 theaters Friday, Insurgent from Lionsgate/Summit is on track for a $54.0 million opening three-day weekend (better than yesterday’s estimate and […]

  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:  The only new wide release on Halloween weekend was the low-budget horror movie COME PLAY (Focus/Universal), which was relatively impressive compared to last week’s $1.3M for Empty Man with $3.2M.  It seemed to be helped by pandemic considerations, because while normally a Saturday Halloween would be a down day, this year moviegoing appeared […]

Based on Friday’s and Saturday’s grosses, weekend #22 of 2014 now looks like $161 million for the top 12 films Friday-Sunday, 18% above the norm for this weekend now matching the same weekend last year.   Opening at 3,948 theaters, Maleficent from Disney grossed $24.2 million late Thursday/Friday and $25.6 million Saturday, now putting the film on track […]

  OPENINGS:  TEENAGE MUTANT NINJA TURTLES: OUT OF THE SHADOWS (Nickelodeon/Movie Media Group/Alibaba/Paramount) opened 46% below the TMNT reboot 2 years ago at $35.3M.  That suggests a $100M US total, and with $250M+ in production/marketing costs, the bulk of that will have to be recovered overseas.  So far, it’s earned $34M in 40 territories, not […]

>Thor opens solidly but not enough to push the weekend past Iron Man 2’s torrid pace last year. The ShowbuzzDaily Domestic Final estimates now show that Thor should finish its run with $190 million, while Fast Five has been upgraded to $212 million and Rio has been downgraded slightly to $138 million.  The other openers, […]