>Transformers 3 is doing good but not great business (midway between the first and second in the series), but the overall weekend is looking like it is up only marginally from last year thanks to weak holds by Cars 2 and Bad Teacher. Transformers: Dark of the Moon opened well and looks like it will […]

WORLDWIDE STUDIO SCORECARD.  Here is our first look at the 2017 film slates by studio. YEAR TO DATE BOX OFFICE. Looking at North American box office, 2017 to date is now +1% above last year and now +10% above the average for this point the past four years ($1.257 billion).  Over the same period, Hollywood films have grossed […]

Based on Friday’s and Saturday’s grosses, weekend #22 of 2014 now looks like $161 million for the top 12 films Friday-Sunday, 18% above the norm for this weekend now matching the same weekend last year.   Opening at 3,948 theaters, Maleficent from Disney grossed $24.2 million late Thursday/Friday and $25.6 million Saturday, now putting the film on track […]

> The new PARANORMAL ACTIVITY 3 is off to a good start:  its $8M boxoffice from midnight shows last night was 30% higher than Paranormal 2‘s midnight performance, and in a league with Hangover 2‘s $10.4M, which is the highest ever for an R-rated title. Sequels, of course, tend to be increasingly more front-loaded, so […]

Based on Friday’s grosses, weekend #27 of 2014 looks like a truly awful $126 million for the top 12 films Friday-Sunday, 26% below the norm for this weekend and well below the $153.2 million weekend for the top 12 the last time July 4 fell on a Friday (in 2008  when Hancock opened with $62.6 […]

The big gainer overseas this week was The Dark Knight Rises again, up $67 million to an overseas total of $445 million.  A billion dollars worldwide is still possible, but $950 million could be more realistic.   Ice Age 4 continues to pound away, up another $37 million overseas this week to $621 million to date. Brave, […]

  On Sunday mornings, the devout go to church, and movie studios lie.  (There’s not much overlap between the two groups.)  The studios lie (or fudge, if you’re sensitive about the L Word), fundamentally, because they can get away with it:  when “estimated” box office returns are announced on Sunday mornings, they’re simply repeated–one might […]

The 24th weekend of the year is looking like a very good $201 million for the top 12 films, well above the same weekend the last few years.   Opening at over 4,200 theaters Friday (well into the top 10% of theater counts), Man of Steel from Warner Brothers should average $26,400 per theater for the […]