> Deadline has preliminary boxoffice figures for Wednesday, and there doesn’t seem to be great news for anyone.  BREAKING DAWN PART 1 appears to be the easy winner for the day and probably for Thanksgiving weekend, but its $12.5M for Wednesday, if it holds, would be more than 10% off the parallel date for 2009’s […]

>Very lame weekend ahead, as is normal for the first weekend in December.  Coming off the last two weekends, which are usually the #1 and #15 weekends of the year in terms of total dollar volume, this weekend is usually ranked 50th overall.  After the extravaganza of movie-going leading up to and through Thanksgiving weekend, […]

  The Oscar nominations are here, and the biggest surprise is how few surprises they provide.  The closest thing to a shock was in the Best Actress category, where Ruth Negga and Isabelle Huppert were in, and that meant Amy Adams and Annette Bening–both of whom had been considered possible longshot winners–were out.  Otherwise, Michael […]

Weekend #31 of 2015 is looking like $150 million for the top 12 films this weekend, fairly close to the norm for this weekend (see comparisons below). Mission:Impossible – Rogue Nation from Paramount should open with a $55.0 million three-day weekend. Early reviews at RottenTomatoes are quite positive: 90% positive overall so far. Despite the strong reviews, the […]

> UPDATE:  The Deadline numbers have shifted quite a bit from their earlier incarnation:  HUNGER GAMES is now estimated at $19.5M for Friday (a 71% drop from opening day) and a $55M weekend (down 64%).  If that number holds, GAMES would have the 11th highest 2d weekend ever, although only $200K away from the Top […]

The 10th weekend of 2013 looks to be the first up weekend after six down weekends in a row.  The top 12 films Friday-Sunday should total $128 million, up 6 to 11% from the same weekend the last few years.  Keep in mind this is the weekend that has given us John Carter, Battle: Los […]

> TEN YEAR, which premiered tonight at the Toronto Film Festival, is one of the few festival movies that has the feel of a potential hit.  This is because, apart from its hugely engaging cast and, to be sure, some effective writing and directing, it’s really not a “film festival” movie at all, but a […]

    FRIENDS WITH BENEFITS – Worth A Ticket:  Almost Great   For about an hour, as you watch his new FRIENDS WITH BENEFITS, you could be forgiven for thinking that writer-director Will Gluck is the future of Hollywood romantic comedy.  Gluck came out of TV with the very underrated Fired Up, about a pair […]