WANDERLUST:  Watch It At Home – Hippy Jokes Thawed Out From 1966   The new WANDERLUST demonstrates the strengths and limitations of amiability in movies.  Its stars, Jennifer Aniston and Paul Rudd, have made very profitable careers out of being professionally likable.  Unlike, say, Tom Hanks, who also began his career in […]

  OPENINGS:  BRAVE (Pixar/Disney) opened right in the Pixar range at $66.7M.  That’s better than WALL-E ($63.1M), not quite as good as Up ($68.1M).  Those 2 movies ended up with $224M and $293M, respectively, so the magnitude of Brave‘s success has yet to be determined.  The film is in only 10 overseas territories, where it grossed $13.5M for […]

    The midweek boxoffice path of THE DARK KNIGHT RISES has been oddly up and down.  Compared to the trajectory of The Dark Knight, it’s had a worse Monday, a better Tuesday, a worse Wednesday, and now a better Thursday, as Rises took in an additional $13.2M yesterday for a 7-day total of $225M.  Rises […]

Like last week, Saturday was somewhat stronger than anticipated yesterday — the weekend now looks like $84 million instead of $81 million for the top 12 films.   The Possession and Lawless both look like they will be about one million dollars higher for the Friday-Sunday portion of the long weekend.  Oogieloves and the BIG […]

Updated tracking of overseas box office.  Taken 2 is really starting to pick up steam overseas (up $65 million overseas since last week’s report), while Argo and Sinister open this weekend in the middle of the worldwide pack (with limited overseas prospects).  

The Past Week: Total Box Office Volume All films in wide release playing between November 19 and November 25 grossed an excellent $325 million, up 19% from the four-year average for the week and up 25% from the same week last year.   Over the last four weeks,  The past six weeks are now 15% […]

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 […]

Django Unchained (up $47 million overseas since last week) is starting to gain on Les Miserables (up $23 million overseas).  Django is now only $29 million behind Les Miz in our worldwide projection.  (Django leads domestically, while Les Miz holds a shrinking lead overseas). A wide variety of films has grossed over $20 million this past week.  Hansel and Gretel: Witch Hunters is up $26 […]