OPENINGS:  LEAP (Weinstein) was the weekend’s tallest dwarf, claiming to have cleared $5M for the weekend, but that number will require an extremely strong Sunday hold.  Even if it’s sustained in tomorrow’s finals, it’s hardly anything to be enthused about–except in comparison to the weekend’s other losers. BIRTH OF THE DRAGON (WWE/Blumhouse/BH Tilt/Universal) couldn’t […]

  OPENINGS:  The $21.6M start for THE HITMAN’S BODYGUARD (Summit/Lionsgate) was on target for the B-movie, which had a modest 2% Saturday dip.  It also earned $6.6M in early international release.  While it does nothing much to burnish Ryan Reynolds post-Deadpool, Hitman is on track for a modest profit on $90M or so in production/worldwide […]

  OPENINGS:  There have been a lot of busted franchises this summer, but ANNABELLE: CREATION (New Line/Warners) held strong, with a $35M opening weekend that was down just 5% from the first Annabelle.  The new entry is considerably more frontloaded than the first, down 22% on Saturday compared to 10%, which may mean a US […]

  OPENINGS:  Not much changed between Friday’s results and weekend studio estimates.  THE DARK TOWER (MRC/Columbia/Sony) was unsurprisingly frontloaded between fans of the novels and bad word of mouth, and it dropped 13% on Saturday.  Sony is projecting a $19.5M weekend (the fact that the studio didn’t push the number past $20M indicates either honesty […]

  OPENINGS:  Word of mouth caught up with THE EMOJI MOVIE (Columbia/Sony) on Saturday, with a 14% drop (by comparison, Captain Underpants rose 11% on its 2d day of release, and last year’s Angry Birds Movie jumped 47%), but a $25.7M weekend is still good money for a movie no one seems to like.  (The […]

  OPENINGS:  The Saturday hold for DUNKIRK (Warners) wasn’t as strong as those for other Christopher Nolan non-sequels, down 11% where Inception stayed steady, and Interstellar actually rose 8%, pushing the weekend studio estimate to $50.5M.  Nevertheless, that’s a terrific start for a film that was far from a sure thing as a summer blockbuster.  […]

  OPENINGS:  The summer saga of underperforming franchise titles continued with WAR FOR THE PLANET OF THE APES (TSG/20th), with a $56.5M start that’s 22% below the $72.6M opening for Dawn 3 years ago, and just barely ahead of the $54.8M for 2011’s Rise (despite costing $60M more to produce than Rise).  Even with rave […]

  OPENINGS:  SPIDER-MAN: HOMECOMING (Marvel/Columbia/Sony) was considerably more front-loaded than initial enthusiasm suggested, dropping 27% on Saturday, and pushing its weekend total to $117M.  While the weekend result was still a very big number, that Saturday decline was far steeper than the 8-9% Day 2 drops for Wonder Woman and Guardians of the Galaxy 2 […]