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:  VIOLENT NIGHT (Universal) slightly overperformed with $13.3M in the US, and with its $20M production budget, it may be headed for breakeven or perhaps moderate profit.  However, worldwide marketing costs are likely to add another $40M+ to that tally, and the thriller had much less appeal overseas, with $7.1M in 72 territories. The […]

  OPENINGS:  LOGAN (TSG/20th) was in full control of the weekend at $85.3M, and the most impressive part of that may be the 5% Saturday drop, an even better hold than Deadpool‘s 10% and the 12% for The Wolverine, let alone the 22% for the last X-Men movie.  That suggests excellent word of mouth, and although […]

  OPENINGS:  There had been an expectation, or at least a hope, that MISSION: IMPOSSIBLE – DEAD RECKONING PART I (Skydance/Paramount) would get a boost from the spectacular performance of Top Gun: Maverick, but that didn’t come to pass, and Mission 7 performed in line with others in the franchise.  That meant $56.2M over the […]

> Based on Friday and Saturday box office (and estimated Sunday numbers), we have a photo finish for #1, with Real Steel in its second weekend probably edging opener Footloose.  As for the other openers, The Thing opened weakly, and The Big Year was a complete bomb.  After weeks of progress versus last year’s box […]

>Based on Friday and Saturday box office (and estimated Sunday numbers), The Help continues at #1, down an impressive 29% from last weekend.  All the openers are very weak, with per theater numbers well below average.  However, the theater counts come with a big asterisk.  The counts are accurate for Friday, but the Saturday counts […]

Based on Friday’s and Saturday’s grosses, Weekend #41 of 2013 looks like an okay $109 million for the top 12 films, down 10% from last year’s comparable weekend and down a nominal 2% from the average for the same weekend the past few years. Opening at 3,874 theaters Friday, Captain Phillips from Sony Pictures grossed $8.5 million Friday […]

  OPENINGS:  STRANGE WORLD (Disney) couldn’t muster any significant family audience over the Thanksgiving holiday, with $18.6M for the full 5 days and $11.9M for the 3-day weekend.  Nor did it have appeal overseas, where it managed just $9.2M in 43 territories.  Strange World was a disaster that the studio seems to have seen coming, as […]