OPENINGS:  We’ll find out tomorrow if the studio’s $100.2M US weekend estimate for THE FATE OF THE FURIOUS (Universal), which counts on an influx of post-church Easter Sunday Christians, will slip into double figures.  But even if the number holds, it’s down 32% from the Furious 7 opening.  If Universal’s hypothesis that this decline […]

Based on Friday’s and Saturday’s grosses, Weekend #3 of 2013 is now on pace for $122 million, up from the $113 million estimate yesterday and now running ahead of the pace for the comparable weekend the past several years.  Just about every film in the top 12 picked up the pace with solid business on […]

  OPENINGS:  CHRISTOPHER ROBIN (Disney) led the newcomers with $25M (as is always the case with studio estimates that barely exceed a round number, that may decline in finals tomorrow), 16% better than Disney’s debut of Pete’s Dragon in August 2016.  However, the films had different trajectories, with Robin down 9% on Saturday, while Dragon […]

  OPENINGS:  THE GRUDGE (Columbia/Sony) tried to take advantage of Hollywood’s early January fallow period, but at $11.3M, the reboot of a remake found few takers, far below the $29.6M for 2018’s Insidious: The Last Key, and also less than the $13.7M for 2017’s Underworld: Blood Wars and the $15M for 2015’s The Woman In […]

Wow.  It’s time to haul out the superlatives and the sports cliches like grand slam and buzzer-beating three-point shot.  Marvel’s The Avengers is headed for a $200 million opening weekend, shattering the record previously held by Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 2 ($169.2 million).  Beating a record by 18% is truly extraordinary.  While […]

  OPENINGS:  Early January is a potent slot for horror movies, and M3GAN (Blumhouse/Universal) kicked off the year with a strong $30.2M, essentially the same as last year’s $30M for the rebooted Scream, despite all the franchise value of the latter (Scream also had the advantage of opening over the month’s holiday weekend).  M3gan has […]

  OPENINGS:  KONG: SKULL ISLAND (Legendary/Tencent/Warners) is playing as a quasi-family movie, perhaps in response to the R-rated Logan and Get Out.  That gave it a much more muscular Saturday than similar big-budget monster movies, up 19% on Saturday where Godzilla fell 16% and Pacific Rim dropped 13%.  With that boost, Kong should hit its […]

>The weekend studio estimates (based on Friday and Saturday actuals and projections for Sunday) are coming in slightly above the weekend numbers posted yesterday (based on Friday actuals only).  The box office volume for the top 12 films is now looking like $100 million for the weekend, down 31% from last year’s weekend and down […]