Twelve days into the three-week holiday movie season, 2012 is now 9.0% behind the average for the same period over the last several years ($362 million this year versus $398 million on average 2004-2011).  Further, 2012 is 12.1% behind the last time Christmas fell on a Tuesday (2007’s $412 million over this period).   After […]

> On the occasion of Super 8‘s release, the Top 10 movies directed by Steven Spielberg: 10. THE SUGARLAND EXPRESS (1974):  His first feature film, it suggests that had he never touched a special effect in his life, Spielberg would still have been a great American filmmaker.  A movie about celebrity and family that moves […]

> The summer movie season is starting with a bang:  according to preliminary numbers at Deadline, THE AVENGERS (Disney) is off to a $70M opening day.  If that number holds, it’ll be the #4 opening day of all time, behind only the final Harry Potter and 2 Twilights, and slightly ahead of, among others, The […]

> The past week (seven days ending Sunday) came in down 10% versus last year’s comparable week (the third significant decline in a row).  Year-to-date box office is down 8% versus last year.    The Past Week: Total Box Office Volume All films in wide release playing between June 27 and July 3 grossed $331 […]

> Early numbers for Thursday have TRANSFORMERS:  DARK OF THE MOON adding $21.5M to its boxoffice, making a total of $64.7M since Tuesday evening.  Comparing the Transformers movies isn’t apples to apples, because the first played a full day on its opening Tuesday, and the second didn’t begin until 12:01AM on Wednesday.  As of now, […]

> Early numbers for Friday and Saturday suggest that the first day, at least, of Hurricane Irene didn’t do enormous damage to the boxoffice.  Deadline reports that THE HELP had a healthy Friday-to-Saturday bump of 38%, on its way to a $14.5M weekend which would be only $1M below Mitch Metcalf’s pre-storm weekend prediction.  Similarly, […]

  CARS 2 – Watch It At Home:  Pixar Shifts Into Second Gear CARS 2 is preceded by a short subject, the first in what’s intended as a series called Toy Story Toons.  Entitled Hawaiian Vacation, it features all the familiar characters and voices, runs about 10 minutes, and effortlessly recaptures the joy, wit and […]

>The Hollywood Reporter has preliminary Friday numbers, and while the day’s boxoffice is looking like a close finish between GHOST RIDER: SPIRIT OF VENGEANCE (Sony) and THE VOW (Screen Gems/Sony), with both at $7-7.5M for the day, the likelihood is that over the course of the weekend–considering that new openings are more frontloaded (especially genre […]