Based on Friday’s grosses, weekend #15 of 2014 looks like $143 million for the top 12 films Friday-Sunday, up 28% from the four-year average for this weekend ($112 million) and on its way to record for a mid-April weekend.  Rio 2 and Captain America 2 are fueling the box office, while two smaller films in […]

WORLDWIDE STUDIO SCORECARD.  The release of X-Men: Days of Future Past has pushed 20th Century Fox to the top of the heap with over $1.5 billion in worldwide box office in 2014 to date.  The race will ebb and flow through the rest of the summer and into the holiday season, but Fox, Warner Brothers and Sony […]

WORLDWIDE STUDIO SCORECARD.  20th Century Fox has pushed past $2.9 billion worldwide in 2014 to date, as Dawn of the Planet of the Apes gets rolling overseas.  Paramount is the other studio with more than $100 million this past week (thanks to continued strong overseas receipts for Transformers: Age of Extinction) now past $1.5 billion worldwide for the […]

Based on Friday’s grosses, weekend #38 of 2014 looks like $91 million for the top 12 films Friday-Sunday, 6% above the norm for this weekend ($86 million). Opening at 3,604 theaters, The Maze Runner from 20th Century Fox grossed $11.3 million Friday and is on track for a $31.0 million opening three-day weekend (somewhat below […]

Based on Friday’s grosses, weekend #46 of 2014 looks like $128 million for the top 12 films Friday-Sunday, down 33% the norm for this weekend ($191 million) but up slightly (+7%) from the same weekend last year. Opening at 3,154 theaters, Dumb and Dumber To from Universal grossed $14.2 million Friday and is on track for a $36.0 […]

Weekend #1 of 2015 is looking like $133 million for the top 12 films this weekend, up +12% from the norm for this weekend and up +4% from the same weekend last year.   Opening at 2,602 theaters Friday (somewhat below the 2,886 average theater count for opening weekends the last two years), The Woman in Black 2 from Relativity […]

In case you are staring at an Oscar ballot this afternoon or this evening and have no idea what to select, especially in the “down ballot” categories such as documentaries, foreign language film, or the technical awards, never fear.  Lean on the professional oddsmakers to help to separate the wheat from the chaff.  Instead of […]

WORLDWIDE STUDIO SCORECARD.  Universal remains a dominant #1, growing even more this week.  Unfriended helped a little with its domestic opening, but the big reason for the weekly again this week was Furious 7 which is exploding overseas.  As for the other openers this weekend, Paul Blart: Mall Cop 2 does not significantly improve Sony’s fortunes, nor does Monkey Kingdom for Disney. […]