>Three films are now in or projected to be in the $1 billion worldwide box office club: Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 2, Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides and Transformers: Dark of the Moon.  Clearly, movies with long titles (not surprisngly blockbuster sequels) are being rewarded and embraced around the world.  The […]

> The problem with 2011 on screen was more the pervasive mediocrity than an overload of terrible movies, but that doesn’t mean there weren’t some awful films to be found–and, if possible, avoided.  Here are 10 or so: 10.  ONE DAY:  Admittedly, a cheat:  One Day wasn’t a complete disaster–it was far less painful to […]

>The past week (seven days ending Sunday) is up 5% versus last year’s comparable week.  Year-to-date box office is now down 3.2% versus last year, the smallest year-to-year margin we’ve seen so far this year.        The Past Week: Total Box Office Volume All films in wide release playing between October 10 and October 16 grossed an awful $116 million, down 5% versus the same week in 2010 but down the same […]

The Past Week: Total Box Office Volume All films in wide release playing between September 17 and September 23 grossed a weak $107 million, down 12% from the four-year average for the week and down a big 24% from the same week last year.  We have to go back to the same week in 2007 […]

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 now -19% below last year’s comparable span (1 point worse than last week) and still -16% below the average for this point the past four years ($2.752 billion).  Over the same […]

  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 […]

Based on Friday’s grosses, Weekend #12 of 2013 is another down weekend (making it 10 down weekends out of 12 this year so far): $128 million for the top 12 films Friday-Sunday (down 10% from an average comparable weekend the past few years and down 37% from the same weekend last year dominated by the […]

This weekend is on track to be the fifth weekend in a row to be up over the previous years.  None of the openers look like big hits — it’s just that Argo is hanging around very well in its third week and there are more films at or near $10 million this weekend than […]