Based on Friday’s and Saturday’s grosses, Weekend #31 of 2013 still looks like a surprisingly weak $126 million for the top 12 films, down 4% from the average for this weekend the past few years (the first such decline since the weekend of June 7-9 eight weeks ago).  Opening at 3,025 theaters Friday, 2 Guns from Universal grossed […]

  OPENINGS:  The first weekend of December brought the usual assortment of indies seeking a toehold before the holiday giants arrive, although this year was unusual in being dominated by Thanksgiving blockbusters, which grew the weekend box office total to a new record.  The most impressive of the newcomers was the Indian-language PUSHPA: THE RULE […]

  OPENINGS:  The $35.4M weekend result for SPIDER-MAN: INTO THE SPIDER-VERSE (Sony Animation/Columbia/Sony) was in keeping with its Friday projections, and the expectation is that it will thrive through the holidays.  Its 3% Saturday bump, though, which is low for a family animated movie (The Grinch jumped 47% on its 2nd day of release) but […]

Based on Friday’s and Saturday’s grosses, Weekend #25 of 2013 still looks like an excellent $223 million for the top 12 films, up 32-42% from the same weekend in recent years. The two wide openers clicked with audiences, with Monsters University doing as well as we forecast but World War Z opening much stronger than […]

  OPENINGS:  TRAP (Blinding Edge/Warners) had the unenviable task of facing the 2nd weekend of Deadpool and Wolverine and wasn’t up to the task, emerging at the low end of expectations with $15.6M.  That’s in between the results for M. Night Shyamalan’s last 2 releases, Old ($16.9M) and Knock At the Cabin ($14.1M), but like […]

Based on Friday’s and Saturday’s grosses, weekend #16 of 2015 now looks like $112 million for the top 12 films Friday-Sunday, better than it looked yesterday ($105 million) but still slightly below the norm for this weekend. Opening at 3,633 theaters Friday, Paul Blart: Mall Cop 2 from Sony is on track for a $24.0 million opening three-day weekend […]

  OPENINGS:  In the US, DADDY’S HOME 2 (Paramount) eked out a victory among the newcomers at $30M, thanks to a 6% family audience bump on Saturday.  That’s still 22% below the opening for the first Daddy’s Home, and it’s likely that spread will increase greatly through the week, since the original comedy opened on […]

Based on Friday’s grosses, weekend #19 of 2014 now looks like $129 million for the top 12 films Friday-Sunday, $2 million higher than yesterday’s estimate and now down 8% from the norm for this weekend (somewhat better than we expected due to the impressive strength of Neighbors).   Opening at 3,279 theaters, Neighbors from Universal grossed $19.6 million […]