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:  HAPPY DEATH DAY (Blumhouse/Universal) opened so well at $26.5M that inevitably, despite the fact that it appears to tell a completely closed-end story, talk of a franchise has started.  You can’t blame them:  Death Day isn’t quite at the blockbuster level of Blumhouse’s Split ($40M) or Get Out ($33.4M), but it’s starting better […]

  OPENINGS:  Coming into this weekend, the discussion about BLADE RUNNER 2049 (Alcon/Sony/Warners) was mostly about whether with its critical raves it could exceed expectations by 20% or so and become October’s #1 opening.  But things went in the other direction, and its current $31.5M estimate doesn’t even put it in the month’s Top 20.  […]

  OPENINGS:  We won’t really know the order of the weekend’s closely-bunched Top 3 movies until final numbers are released tomorrow, but since the default position of any studio with a new opening is to claim victory, the fact that AMERICAN MADE (Cross Creek/Universal) is currently in 2nd place with $17M can’t be a good […]

  OPENINGS: KINGSMAN: THE GOLDEN CIRCLE (MARV/20th) took the weekend, but at $39M it was below Fox’s minimal target number of $40M.  Since sequels burn out faster than initial films in a series, Golden Circle will probably end up around $100-120M in the US, compared to $128M for The Secret Service, and that’s on higher […]

  OPENINGS:  Hollywood’s barely-breathing Labor Day weekend didn’t get any healthier on Saturday.  The CLOSE ENCOUNTERS OF THE THIRD KIND (Columbia/Sony) re-release had a 35% Saturday bump, and like everything else in the market, it will hold nearly steady on this holiday Sunday, then have a Sunday-type decline on Monday.  (The exception is that children’s […]

  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 […]