The Past Week: Total Box Office Volume All films in wide release playing between November 12 and November 18 grossed an amazing $300 million, up 28% from the four-year average for the week and up 24% from the same week last year.    The past six weeks are now 13% above the four-year average and […]

Based on Friday’s grosses, Weekend #49 of 2013 looks like $87 million for the top 12 films from Friday-Sunday, right on target for the usually slow post-Thanksgiving weekend.   Opening at 2,101 theaters Friday, Out of the Furnace from Relativity grossed $1.9 million Friday and is on track for a $5.5 million opening weekend (below the already bearish […]

  Audiences to Hollywood:  Happy New Year!  And… what have you done for us lately?  2013 turned out to be a terrific year for high-quality movies, with so many good films and performances that some will inevitably be squeezed out of the Oscar race.  But that was so last year.  What does 2014 have in […]

Warners is claiming that Sucker Punch cost around $80M, which given the scale of the film suggests either admirable cost-effectiveness or a lowball number–in any case, word of mouth is likely to be terrible (see my review, not to mention that its overall Rotten Tomatoes number is at 20%), so it’s doubtful to get past […]

The year-to-date rankings are very similar to last week, with some studios showing small negative changes versus last week’s totals (as the final domestic estimates for some films have been adjusted downward).  For a complete ranking of 2013 films individually by worldwide performance click here. TOTAL NORTH AMERICAN BOX OFFICE. Looking at wide-release films in North […]

With the announcement of the Oscar nominations today, Lincoln only became more of a favorite by London oddsmakers (moving from a payout of about $1.80 on a $1 bet last week to about $1.40 today).   The odds got a bit longer for Les Miserables and Argo, but Zero Dark Thirty had the biggest swing (from a payout of about $5.50 last […]

  WRATH OF THE TITANS:  Watch It At Home – Put Back the Kraken   The producers of WRATH OF THE TITANS swore that this time the 3D would be better than it was in 2010’s Clash of the Titans, and you know what… it is.  That’s not saying an enormous amount, since the 3D […]

> TIFF’s Midnight Madness program is exactly what you think it is:  10 flat-out, unapologetic genre movies that premiere each night at midnight in front of a raucous crowd at the 1200-seat Ryerson Theatre.  In any given year, the Madness may include unexpected gems like last year’s Insidious and 2006’s Borat, interestingly weird pictures such […]