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:  After 4 weeks of holiday movies occupying most of the market, moviegoers were ready for something new, and the beneficiary was THE UPSIDE (STX/Lantern), which substantially beat projections with a $19.6M weekend.  A 14% Saturday bump suggested strong word of mouth, and the final weekend number could go higher than the studio projection.  […]

>Fast Five is even stronger after a strong Saturday.  Biggest April opening ever pushes the weekend to 55% above last year’s comparable weekend. The ShowbuzzDaily Domestic Final estimates now show that Fast Five should finish its run with $183 million, ahead of Rio, which is headed for $149 million.  The other openers are DOA, with […]

  OPENINGS:  With the LA movie theatre market now open (at 25% capacity) and a general rise in vaccinations, the box office seems to be taking its first very tentative steps back to pre-pandemic life.  The one wide opening of the weekend THE COURIER (Roadside) wasn’t at all impressive at a $2M start, but the […]

  OPENINGS:  The spectacular success of SPIDER-MAN: NO WAY HOME (Marvel/Columbia/Sony) may have less to say about the box office overall than some would like to think.  No Way Home vaporized all pandemic-era records with a $253M weekend that was 2.8x the previous Covid high ($90M for Venom: Let There Be Carnage), becoming the #1 […]

  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:  LITTLE (Legendary/Universal) led the weekend’s weak crop of newcomers with $15.5M, buoyed by a 15% Saturday bump.  That’s about 15% below the recent opening of What Men Want, which was aimed at a somewhat older audience, and suggests an OK $45M US total.  It had a limited overseas opening in 11 markets, where […]

  OPENINGS:  The 18-34 audience that now defines theatrical distribution in the US showed up for SCREAM (Skyglass/Paramount), propelling the reboot to $30.6M for the 3-day weekend and $35M for the 4-day holiday.  Reportedly, that demo was responsible for 2/3 of all tickets sold for Scream, a fact that won’t be ignored as studios plan […]