WORLDWIDE STUDIO SCORECARD.   Scroll down for domestic and overseas grosses for each film individually so far in 2014. YEAR TO DATE BOX OFFICE. Looking at North American box office, 2014 is still running -5% behind last year and -3% below the average for this point the past four years ($7.930 billion).  Over the same […]

  OPENINGS:  The east coast blizzard seems to have had less effect on the weekend box office than one might have assumed, considering that all the newcomers went up from Friday to Saturday, even though they were in typically front-loaded genres.  Their studio estimates have them bunched within a narrow $825K range for the weekend, […]

  HOLDOVERS:  Once again, there were no significant openings this week.  And once again, the lack of competition didn’t help WW84 (DC/Warners, also on HBO Max), which had the worst hold of the top titles, down 46% to $3M.  It now seems unlikely to get much past $40M in the US, and it’s no longer […]

  OPENINGS:  MIDWAY (AGC/Bona/Lionsgate) was mildly ahead of expectations with $17.5M in the US, and it should perform well on Veterans Day Monday.  However, with around $150M in production and worldwide marketing costs, a $60M US total would leave it with a steep uphill climb to reach profitability.  Early overseas results weren’t particularly promising at […]

  OPENINGS:  Box office expectations were high for THE SUPER MARIO BROS MOVIE (Nintendo/Illumination/Universal), but the video game adaptation blew past them with a record-smashing $204.6M 5-day opening (passing the $200.1M for Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen) that was huge in all quadrants.  Even though Friday was its 3rd day of release, the 3-day weekend […]

Based on Friday’s and Saturday’s grosses, weekend #28 of 2014 now looks like $140 million for the top 12 films Friday-Sunday, 27% below the norm for this weekend and now slightly above our forecast ($134 million). Opening at 3,967 theaters, Dawn of the Planet of the Apes from 20th Century Fox grossed $27.7 million through Friday […]

  Even though Labor Day Weekend is historically slow at the multiplex, the Monday holiday still boosted the Sunday takings for most titles. OPENINGS:  Frontloading 101:  on Thursday night/Friday, ONE DIRECTION: THIS IS US (Sony) made a robust $8.9M… then the bottom fell out on Saturday, when the fans had been sated, and the concert […]

> Based on Friday and Saturday box office (and estimated Sunday numbers), The Lion King is holding on to the #1 spot, but Moneyball and Dolphin Tale are very close behind (both just over $20 million for the weekend).  The weekend overall is now looking like it will be up a strong 20% from this weekend last year.    […]