> The most successful movie of all time, Avatar, had an opening weekend ($77M) that only ranks 38th on the list of the biggest openings.  Conversely, the #1 opening weekend of all time belongs to Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows (Part II), with $169M, more than double Avatar‘s–but its total gross of $381M puts […]

> Marvel spent a great deal of time and effort setting the stage for its full-house-of-heroes extravaganza THE AVENGERS, and it’s all paying off.  The movie opened in 39 international territories this past week (some on Wednesday, some on Friday), covering 70% of the globe other than the US, and has already grossed a gigantic […]

    MELANCHOLIA – Watch It At Home – The Title Tells the Tale   Here’s a quick primer in Oscar rules and how studios can get around them.  In order for a film to be Oscar-eligible (other than in a few special categories like Documentary and Foreign Film), it needs a theatrical release in […]

    TOWER HEIST:  Watch It At Home – Hardly Luxury-Class   There may never have been a director more proud of being a hack than Brett Ratner.  In a recent NY Times profile, Ratner boasts (when he’s not going on about his friendship with Roman Polanski, because yeah, there’s a social relationship you’d want […]

  It takes about an hour, but Nicholas McCarthy’s THE PACT, which premiered in the Park City At Midnight section at Sundance, eventually turns out to have a neat twist up its sleeve, one that switches the movie from haunted house horror to an entirely different subgenre of thriller.  And after that, a solid reel […]

With six of eight movies open, Team Metcalf’s slate is closing in on $1 billion in domestic box office ($929 million through Sunday).  Metcalf’s seventh film opens Friday (Rock of Ages).  And then he will wait to see if the early lead will hold up as the other two teams really get going. Team Salem […]

Team Weil, with Ice Age 4, had the biggest gain this week, up $97 million to $325 million to date.  The coming week will be huge for this slate as Dark Knight Rises opens Friday. Team Salem had a decent week with an $88 million gain (thanks to continued strong business from Amazing Spider-Man).  The slate now totals $644 million […]

The Past Week: Total Box Office Volume All films in wide release playing between August 13 and August 19 grossed a decent $196 million, up 7% from the four-year average for the comparable week and up 3% from the same week in 2011. Year to date (now over $6.8 billion for wide-release films) is now […]