STUDIO SCORECARD. Warner Brothers has moved past Universal to take the #2 spot on the worldwide box office chart for 2013.  The opening of We’re the Millers and continued overseas strength from Pacific Rim and to a lesser extent The Conjuring powered Warner Brothers to the best week of the studios. Reminder: the chart below has been reformatted and expanded […]

    STRAW DOGS:  Watch It At Home – Pointless In Every Way   Forget about the artistic comparisons, the insult to film history, and the lack of respect to a great filmmaker no longer with us.  There’s not even a commercial reason to remake Sam Peckinpah’s 1971 STRAW DOGS.  The title is virtually valueless […]

>Box office volume this past week is running even with last year.  Updated final weekend box office numbers follow.          The Past Week: Total Box Office Volume All films in wide release playing between November 7 and November 13 grossed an okay $160 million, even with the same week in 2010 and down 1% […]

  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 […]

> Tonight at 43 real Imax theatres (the ones with the huge squarish screens), Warner Bros debuted an extended trailer for next summer’s THE DARK KNIGHT RISES shot in the full Imax format, consisting of the opening sequence and an extra minute or so of quick clips from the rest of the movie.  Apart from […]

WORLDWIDE STUDIO SCORECARD.  Here is an updated look at the 2018 film slates by studio. The studio totals also include 2018 dollars for films released in late 2017. YEAR TO DATE BOX OFFICE. Looking at North American box office, 2018 to date is now +10% above last year and still +11% above the average for this point […]

> John Carter traveled to Mars; the movie with his name also looks beyond the US for some help. OPENINGS:  JOHN CARTER (Disney) may or may not have grossed over $30M this weekend–we’ll find out for sure tomorrow.  (Disney is claiming a not-unreasonable 31% Sunday drop, but it would take only a small slip to […]

  Vulture picked the wrong weekend to predict Universal’s demise. OPENINGS:  SNOW WHITE AND THE HUNTSMAN (Universal) had a very good $20.3M Friday, and will do better than $50M for the weekend, successfully selling (male) audiences on the revisionist fairy tale as an epic action movie.  All that epic action and spectacular CG came at […]