STUDIO SCORECARD. No change in the year-to-date studio rankings this week, the midpoint of the year. 20th Century Fox was up $133 million from last week mainly thanks to the domestic release of The Heat. Warner Brothers had a similar $129 million weekly gain, mostly because of international gains by Man of Steel.  Disney and Paramount were […]

STUDIO SCORECARD. In the worldwide studio rankings for 2013 to date, very little change from last week. TOTAL NORTH AMERICAN BOX OFFICE. Looking at wide-release films in North America (those that play on at least 400 screens at some point), 2013 now totals just under $8.0 billion, just barely ahead of 2012’s pace and 3% above the prior four-year […]

> 50/50:  Worth A Ticket –  A Genuinely Feel-Good Cancer Comedy With The Big C renewed for its third season on Showtime, the concept of a comedy getting laughs from the experiences of a cancer patient is no longer especially shocking, which means that the new 50/50 has to be judged on its comedy-drama merits, […]

> PARANORMAL ACTIVITY 3 continues Paramount’s license to print money–it’ll soon be in profit even with worldwide marketing costs calculated in.  Yesterday will probably prove to be by far the biggest day of its front-loaded run, but at those prices, who cares? Sometimes it’s not about the marketing–it’s about the movie.  It would be difficult, […]

No changes in the studio rankings this week, the top two studios had enormous weeks (each around $250 million) from The Hobbit: Desolation of Smaug (Warner Brothers) and Frozen (Disney), with each film experiencing a significantly upgraded domestic total forecast and very big grosses overseas.  For a complete ranking of 2013 films individually by worldwide performance click here. TOTAL NORTH […]

> THE HELP continues to have a strong head start on the weekend boxoffice.  The Hollywood Reporter says the film grossed $4.3M on Thursday, down only around 20% from its opening day on Wednesday, which gives it almost $10M for the 2-day period.  This suggests the picture isn’t particularly front-loaded, and may foretell a solid […]

Based on Friday’s grosses, weekend #28 of 2014 looks like $134 million for the top 12 films Friday-Sunday, 30% below the norm for this weekend and very close to our forecast ($135 million). Opening at 3,967 theaters, Dawn of the Planet of the Apes from 20th Century Fox grossed $27.7 million through Friday and is on […]

>21 Jump Street joins the worldwide box office chart about a third of the way down the list, ranked #14 out of 44 films released wide in North America over the past three months.  We expect its domestic gross to top out at $119 million, while the overseas total should expand from the current tally […]