WORLDWIDE STUDIO SCORECARD.   Scroll down for domestic and overseas grosses for each film individually so far in 2014. YEAR TO DATE BOX OFFICE. Looking at North American box office, 2014 is still running -5% behind last year and -3% below the average for this point the past four years ($7.784 billion).  Over the same […]

> THE HANGOVER PART II seems to be headed for the 4th highest Memorial Day opening of all time, behind only Pirates 3, Indiana Jones 4 and X-Men 3–and at less than half the budget of any of them.  Unlike all 3 of those, it should have good word of mouth, being a classic example […]

Based on Friday’s grosses, Weekend #14 of 2013 is looking pretty good: $135 million for the top 12 films in North America, up 16% from the comparable weekend the past few years.  The two new openers this weekend are on track to beat our forecast, and The Croods continues to play quite well in its […]

In the movie 42, Jackie Robinson (played by Chadwick Boseman) repeatedly asks Branch Rickey why he is breaking baseball’s unwritten whites-only rule.  Rickey (played by Harrison Ford) gives very vague, unsatisfying responses each time.  What a blown dramatic opportunity.  In Ken Burns’ nine-part documentary masterpiece “Baseball,” an aged Red Barber (the Dodgers’ radio broadcaster) describes the […]

WORLDWIDE STUDIO SCORECARD.  Here is a first look at the studio scorecard for the 2016 slates.  We have updated the summary categories somewhat this year with the top category now reserved for films over $500 million worldwide and the lower category for films under $150 million worldwide.       YEAR TO DATE BOX OFFICE. […]

Updated international box office chart.

>X-Men: First Class now has an accurate screen count and updated critical response.  The prequel has been adjusted downward a tick but will still lead the weekend, which will be up significantly over the same weekend last year. Opening at about 3,641 theaters, X-Men: First Class should average a strong $18,700 per theater (for $68 […]

>With Christmas coming this Sunday a host of films arrive this important weekend, with three films opening wide Wednesday (The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, The Adventures of Tintin, and the wide expansion of Mission: Impossible — Ghost Protocol), one major film opening Friday (We Bought a Zoo), and two major films in effect previewing […]