OPENINGS:   Two smart studio decisions bailed out what could have been a scary opening weekend for THE WOLVERINE (20th).  Fox kept the budget relatively low for its expensive genre, just $250M or so including worldwide marketing, and it boosted international appeal with an Asian setting.  Both paid off, as the movie had the robust […]

  OPENINGS:  KILLING THEM SOFTLY (Weinstein) is estimating a pathetic $7M weekend, just about the worst of Brad Pitt’s starring career, and even that may be pushing it, since the studio is claiming a relatively soft Sunday drop.  The same is true of the even more dismal THE COLLECTION (LD), which for reasons best known […]

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 -6% below last year’s comparable span (two points better than last week) and now basically even with this point the past four years ($5.987 billion).  Over the same period, […]

  THE HELP – Worth A Ticket:  The Story May Be Soft, The Acting Isn’t   THE HELP is–and I mean this in a good way–a big-screen Hallmark Hall of Fame.   It’s a long, absorbing, emotionally satisfying piece of mainstream Hollywood moviemaking that skims the surface of its difficult subject–the life of black maids […]

Oz the Great and Powerful had a very good week overseas, up $67 million to $137 million foreign to date and almost $400 million total projected worldwide.  It should approach $600 million worldwide, ending up at around #5 on our chart. The other significant gainer this past week was A Good Day to Die Hard, up $23 […]

    So that happened. THE AVENGERS:  Whenever a Sunday estimate just barely crosses a milestone threshold, it’s subject to adjustment on Monday, but whether the final number turns out to be $196M or $202M is a matter for headline writers–in any case, anything in the neighborhood of the $200.3M estimate is staggering, not to […]

Warner Brothers and Disney remain in a tight battle for the worldwide crown for 2013.  We will keep updating this over the next few weeks and declare a winner after the overseas grosses are fully counted.  The most significant films still grossing overseas are The Hobbit: Desolation of Smaug (for Warner Brothers) and Frozen (for Disney).  For a […]

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 -8% behind last year and now -6% below the average for this point the past four years ($5.904 billion).  Over the same […]