With hundreds of millions of dollars on the line, the opening dates for blockbuster movies are carefully calculated months–sometimes years–in advance.  So a last minute change doesn’t come from nowhere, and it’s notable that with less than 2 months to go, Sony has moved its Will Smith/M. Night Shyamalan vehicle AFTER EARTH from its previous […]

  Yesterday we looked at some of the ways that the costs of producing a feature film are higher and more complicated than they might seem.  Today, some additional obstacles that lie between any movie and profitability.   These may be the most important and least-understood part of profitability calculations.  Every entity that distributes a […]

STUDIO SCORECARD. In the worldwide studio rankings for 2013 to date, Sony moved ahead of Paramount (taking over 5th place) with $70 million of revenue this week (from continued overseas revenues from Mortal Instruments, White House Down and Smurfs 2).  Warner Brothers had an even better week ($76 million, mostly from overseas grosses for We’re the […]

Based on Friday’s grosses, weekend #28 of 2014 looks like $134 million for the top 12 films Friday-Sunday, 30% below the norm for this weekend and very close to our forecast ($135 million). Opening at 3,967 theaters, Dawn of the Planet of the Apes from 20th Century Fox grossed $27.7 million through Friday and is on […]

  THE AVENGERS:  Worth A Ticket – A Fun Summer Movie, No More Or Less   It’s easy to forget that THE AVENGERS is, you know, a movie.  It’s perhaps the ultimate example of corporate intellectual property, bioengineered years in advance of its production by Marvel and that company’s recent owner Disney, like the spawn […]

>The much anticipated surge at the box office did not materialize for the slew of sequels releases.  Total volume for the past week was down 17% from last year, and the second Sherlock Holmes and third Alvin and the Chipmunks are lagging behind their predecessors.       The Past Week: Total Box Office Volume All films […]

Updated international box office chart:

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 ($8.058 billion).  Over the same […]