Based on Friday’s grosses, Weekend #27 of 2013 looks like a terrific $223 million for the top 12 films, up sharply from the comparable weekend in recent years. Not even The Lone Ranger could derail a hot summer box office, which is up 30% or more in three of the last four weekends. Opening at […]

  Given the overwhelming fanboy appeal of PACIFIC RIM (Warners/Legendary), it’s not exactly a shock that the movie started strong with shows that started at 7PM Thursday night, earning $3.6M.  It’s probably in line for a solid Friday as well–the question will be what happens when the usually frontloaded genre crowd is done and the […]

  Most films will rise this weekend compared to last week, simply because New Year’s Eve is a bigger moviegoing occasion than Christmas Eve.  Generally, box office should rise 20% or so on Saturday, drop around 30% on Sunday, then jump 30-40% on New Year’s Day.  The first two weekends of 2018 should feature relatively […]

  TAKEN 2 (20th), as expected, is running away with the boxoffice this weekend.  Its opening day, according to preliminary numbers at Deadline, is at $17.5M, not that much less than the $24.7M the original Taken made in its entire opening weekend in 2009.  The sequel should reach $45M or so for the weekend, although it […]

Another strong weekend at the box office: this weekend is looking like it will be over 50% higher than comparable weekends in recent years (improving from the +18% weekend last week).      Taken 2 from 20th Century Fox opened with a very good $18.6 million Friday and is on pace for $50.0 million Friday-Sunday.   […]

Based on Friday’s and Saturday’s grosses, weekend #17 of 2014 looks like $102 million for the top 12 films Friday-Sunday, better than the disaster of a weekend this time last year but still 8% below the norm for this weekend over the last several years.   Opening at 3,204 theaters Friday, The Other Woman from Fox grossed $9.3 […]

Based on Friday’s grosses, Weekend #6 of 2013 is another weak one: only $84 million for the top 12 films (about 50% behind the pace for the same weekend the last few years, an even steeper drop than last weekend).  The lone bright spot: Identity Thief.  Our big lesson: never underestimate Melissa McCarthy.  Our outlook […]

  OPENINGS:  THE BOURNE LEGACY (Universal) is holding on to its $40M opening by its fingernails, with just $265K to spare.  (We’ll find out tomorrow if that holds up.)   Bourne is an unusual action franchise that historically hasn’t overperformed internationally, and if that’s the case with Legacy as well, the picture is likely looking at […]