Based on Friday’s grosses, Weekend #16 of 2013 is looking like $102 million for the top 12 films, down 19% from the same weekend last year and down 8% from the average the past few years for this weekend.   Opening at 3,783 theaters Friday, Oblivion from Universal grossed $13.3 million Friday and is on track for […]

Marvel’s The Avengers (distributed by Disney) has jumped to $441.5 million to date overseas (up from $178.4 million last week, when it opened ahead of Friday’s North American debut).  United Kingdom ($25.7 million so far) and Australia ($20.2 million) lead the international charge so far, although there are also impressive results from Mexico ($17.4 million), South Korea […]

Based on Friday’s grosses, weekend #24 of 2014 looks like $197 million for the top 12 films Friday-Sunday, 28% above the norm for this weekend but no different than the same weekend last year.   Opening at 3,306 theaters, 22 Jump Street from Sony grossed $25.0 million Friday and is on track for a $63.0 million […]

  THE ADVENTURES OF TINTIN:  Worth A Ticket – The Return of Steven Spielberg   Remember how lousy the last Indiana Jones movie was?  Remember watching it and wondering sadly what had become of Steven Spielberg, the magician who for decades had an irresistible, inexhaustible ability to spin action sequences into sight gags into satisfying […]

Weekend #44 is on pace to almost match the multi-year average for this weekend and exceed the same weekend last year, which was missing an animated family film.  This year Wreck-It Ralph props up the weekend, as Megamind did on this weekend in 2010 and Madagascar 2 did in 2008.  Flight is solid but not […]

Posting this update later than usual for the record. The Past Week: Total Box Office Volume All films in wide release playing between December 17 and December 23 grossed a dreadful $155 million, down 41% from the four-year average for the week and down 27% from week #51 last year.  To be fair, December 25 […]

>Now 16 full weeks into 2012, year-to-date domestic box office is running 22% ahead of last year’s pace (down from the +25% pace last week because the Monday-Thursday business April 16-19 was particularly soft), while the year-to-date total is still fully 15% ahead of the comparable period’s average for the last several years.   Updated final […]

> Watch It At Home People complain that Hollywood doesn’t take risks, but Universal went and hired the director of Alvin and the Chipmunks to make a movie about a musical-minded, free-spirit digitally animated character who upturns the life of an ordinary guy… talk about pushing the envelope!  (In fairness, Alvin was a chipmunk singer, […]