A brief update this week.  Team Salem had the biggest week, up $81 million to $371 million through Sunday for the slate. A full week of Brave was the main driver for the gain.  The first Monday-Thursday period combined with the second weekend of Brave totaled $65 million, exactly matching the opening weekend number — a very good […]

Another down week at the North American box office, although the declines are not severe as last week.  With the arrival of Spider-Man early this week and expected decent mid-week business for two solid openers this past weekend, next week at this time should show some plus signs again in the weekly comparisons. The Past […]

  THE AMAZING SPIDER-MAN will begin spinning its midnight webs in just a few hours, so let’s take a quick look at its competition in the midnight screening record books. The Sam Raimi 2002-07 Spider-Man trilogy were successful at midnight, but with $8-10M grosses that have long since been passed. All of the current top […]

Madagascar 3 has ballooned to $244 million overseas to date (up from $157 million through last week).  The third Madagascar has now tied the overseas take for the first Madagascar ($244.2 million) and is now gunning for the $423.9 million overseas total for Madagascar 2. Meanwhile Snow White and the Huntsman had a nice weekly gain to $189 million overseas to date (from […]

Ted now looks like a $54.1 million opening weekend, according to the studio estimate this morning (exceeding our forecast in Wednesday’s ShowbuzzDaily Weekend Predictions).  Warner Brothers has pulled Magic Mike’s weekend estimate below $40 million, while Madea’s Witness Protection is down a bit to $26.4 million.   Brave is on track for a 49% decline […]

MUCH stronger than we forecast, the 26th weekend of 2012 is looking like $196 million for the Top 12 films Friday-Sunday, up only 2% from this weekend last year but up 15% from the multi-year average for this weekend.  R-rated comedy is just what the audience wanted.  Family Guy creator Seth McFarlane struck gold with […]

Weekend #26 of 2012 looks like another weak one: $157 million for the top 12 films, down 18% from last year’s comparable weekend and down 8% from the four-year average for the weekend.  Some of this decline can be attributed to the calendar.  July 4 fell on or close to the 26th weekend in previous […]

  Nora Ephron never won an Oscar, although she was nominated for 3 of her screenplays (for Silkwood, When Harry Met Sally… and Sleepless in Seattle).  With the exception of Silkwood, she didn’t write or direct Oscar-type movies–gravitas wasn’t her thing.  Ephron, who died today at the age of 71, was a proponent of light, […]