Weekend #39 of 2015 is looking like $137 million for the top 12 films this weekend, well above the norm for this weekend (see comparisons below). Hotel Transylvania 2 from Sony should open with a $37.5 million weekend. Reviews are non-existent: nothing yet at RottenTomatoes. The film is on track for around $123 million domestic. Overseas the film could bring in […]

> The past week (seven days ending Sunday) came in up 20% versus last year’s comparable week (the third significant increase in as many weeks).  Year-to-date box office is now down 5% versus last year.  Cowboys & Aliens edged The Smurfs in the weekend photo finish, but the ShowBuzzDaily domestic gross estimate (the number that really counts) gives the […]

  We’ve reached the last of our major studio midsummer surveys (we’ll take a look at mini-majors and indie distributors next week), having tackled Disney, Warner Bros, Paramount, Sony,and 20th Century Fox.  Our final target is Universal Pictures. It was all going so well for Universal–until this weekend.  After going a remarkable 3 for 3 […]

> Worth a Ticket. HANNA may be the first movie not based on a graphic novel to feel like it is.  Written by Seth Lochhead and David Farr (the first film for both) and directed by Joe Wright, it has the feel of a film conceived in visual rather than dramatic terms, more concerned with […]

> Per a Box Office Mojo tweet, the final actual number for BREAKING DAWN PART 1‘s opening weekend fell a bit to $138.1M.  This isn’t a major surprise, as the first 2 days of the weekend had indicated numbers more front-loaded than New Moon‘s opening, yet Summit estimated Breaking Dawn 1‘s Sunday with the same […]

>Preliminary numbers from Dec. 26 suggest that while business, as expected, was higher than Christmas Day, momentum may have slowed a bit. Some highlights: MISSION: IMPOSSIBLE – GHOST PROTOCOL (Paramount): The Monday bump seems to be around 5-6%, lower than projected yesterday, but still enough to get the picture to $77M to date and a […]

  THE DICTATOR:  Watch It At Home – Little Shock, No Awe   With Borat, Sacha Baron Cohen made one of the noisiest splashes into movie stardom of the past decade, daring and distinctive.  The question was whether he could follow it up.  And the answer, based on Bruno and the new THE DICTATOR, is […]

Weekend #43 of 2015 is looking like $111 million for the top 12 films this weekend, above the norm for this weekend (see comparisons below). Steve Jobs from Universal should collect around a $18.5 million in its first wide weekend. Through Sunday, the total to date should be around $21 million. The film is on track for around $65 million domestic […]