Marvel’s The Avengers now looks like a $55.1 million weekend, according to the studio estimate this morning (now exactly hitting our forecast in Wednesday’s ShowBuzzDaily Weekend Predictions).  The new films this weekend are trailing badly, however.  Battleship looks like a $25.4 million opening weekend and we are projecting a final gross of $62 million domestically.  The […]

    Be extra-nice to anyone you know at Universal today. OPENINGS:  BATTLESHIP (Universal) is lucky John Carter exists, because the studio can spin the numbers (Carter cost a little more, Battleship is doing a little better overseas) to obscure the fact that its movie, with a domestic opening of $25.3M ($5M less than Carter‘s) […]

  The news didn’t get any better for BATTLESHIP (Universal) on Saturday.  According to preliminary numbers at Deadline, the aquatic disaster couldn’t even manage a 10% increase on its 2d day of release (in comparison, John Carter had a 25% bump on its first Saturday), and is headed for a horrible $25M opening weekend, $5M […]

The 20th weekend of 2012 is looking like a disturbing $132 million for the Top 12 films, down 17% from both this weekend last year and the four-year average for the same weekend.  Marvel’s The Avengers continues to do well, but the three films opening this weekend generated very little excitement, to say the least.  […]

    Audiences sank Universal’s Battleship. OPENINGS:  There’s no way to spin the arrival of BATTLESHIP (Universal)  as anything other than a horribly expensive flop.  Its $9M opening day is even less than the infamous John Carter‘s $9.8M, and it may not have the 3x weekend multiple that got Carter to a $30M weekend.  Battleship […]

      BATTLESHIP:  Not Even For Free – Watch a Transformers DVD Instead   For about half an hour, BATTLESHIP could fool you into thinking it’s not the movie you were expecting it to be.  It begins as the story of Alex Hopper (Taylor Kitsch), a good-looking, unmotivated screw-up who lives with his straight-arrow […]

Weekend #20 of 2012 looks like it will be about $156 million for the top 12 films, down 2% from last year’s comparable weekend and down the same amount from the four-year average for this weekend.  Three movies open, with Battleship headed for the biggest opening of the trio (about $42.5 million).  The Dictator starring […]

  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 […]