OPENINGS:  Despite being limited to 2 Saturday shows at 803 theaters, the (tape-delayed) live concert movie BTS: PERMISSION TO DANCE (Trafalgar) earned $6.8M at the US box office.  Even with an average $35 ticket price, that’s an impressive achievement, and the international result was even more remarkable at $25.8M.  This was the highest-grossing movie […]

  OPENINGS:  The $9M start for THE MENU (Searchlight/Disney) was below the $10.1M launch of Barbarian–and The Menu cost about $20M more to produce.  Combine that with the fact that The Menu is really more of a very dark satire than a horror movie, and its prospects look questionable.  The film also opened in 36 […]

  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:  It was a bleak Memorial Day weekend at the box office, the worst in decades.  FURIOSA: A MAD MAX SAGA (Warners) limped to a victory for Friday-Sunday with $25.5M, but it may well tumble to 2nd place once the Monday holiday numbers are tallied.  Tellingly, Warners refused to so much as issue a […]

>The weekend studio estimates (based on Friday and Saturday actuals and projections for Sunday) are coming in slightly above the weekend numbers posted yesterday (based on Friday actuals only).  The box office volume for the top 12 films is now looking like $100 million for the weekend, down 31% from last year’s weekend and down […]

>Based on Friday and Saturday box office (and estimated Sunday numbers), The Lion King returned to theaters 17 years later — in 3D no less — and scored a solid #1 for the weekend.  Drive opened okay, while Straw Dogs and I Don’t Know How She Does It were very quiet arrivals.  Conatagion fell to […]

  After a moratorium on official boxoffice pronouncements due to the tragic events in Colorado, Warners has officially released the weekend boxoffice figure for THE DARK KNIGHT RISES:  $160.9M.  This is where the unofficial weekend estimates had the picture, although it’s 10-20% below the pre-release expectations for the film.  That was also largely the case […]

Based on Saturday’s grosses, Weekend #9 of 2013 is a little better than it appeared yesterday but still down 38% from the same weekend the last few years.  Jack the Giant Slayer opened reasonably well, but there are no others films doing significant business (weekends over $10 million).  What a mess.         […]