Worth a ticket.   In movies, as in life, when someone is offered an illicit miracle drug that seems too good to be true, it usually is. So the general narrative arc of LIMITLESS doesn’t come as a huge surprise. What is surprising is that Neil Burger’s film, predicted to be the highest […]

This weekend will be respectable — the top 12 films should total around $93 million, very typical for this weekend most years, although down 13% from last year when Moneyball and Dolphin Tale both opened.  Four films from very different genres open this weekend, none of which should break out significantly.  Also, The Master expands […]

  WORLDWIDE STUDIO SCORECARD.  Here is an updated look at the 2019 film slates by studio. BOX OFFICE. Looking at North American box office, 2019 is still -5% below last year’s comparable span and still basically even with this point the past four years ($7.601 billion).  Over the same period, Hollywood films have grossed almost […]

>Among Tyler Perry movies that feature his Madea character, BIG HAPPY FAMILY is looking relatively weak, but it may have a big Easter Sunday. Other pictures likely to benefit from family crowds include RIO, HOP and SOUL SURFER. On the other hand, the teen girl crowd typically turns out opening night, which could give WATER FOR […]

Based on Friday’s and Saturday’s grosses, weekend #25 of 2014 looks like $143 million for the top 12 films Friday-Sunday, very close to yesterday’s estimate for the weekend ($144 million) and now 12% below the norm for this weekend and a big 39% below the same very successful weekend last year.   Opening at 2,225 […]

  Our parade of studio summers continues. We’ve reviewed Disney, Warner Bros, Paramount, and Sony, and today’s focus is on 20th Century Fox. Fox has had a distinct strategy this summer, counterprogramming with comedy and animation while all the other studios were duking it out with massive action movies, and holding its own spectacles for […]

Updated International Box Office Chart:

The 32nd weekend of the year is looking like $165 million for the top 12 films, a very good result for the second week of August.  Four movies aimed at very different audiences should open reasonably well, giving the box office a short term boost.  But most of the four openers should disappear quickly, and […]