ANOTHER EARTH – Worth A Ticket:  Tiny Story With Big Ambitions   For ANOTHER EARTH, the Sundance Film Festival went exactly the way it’s supposed to.  The low-key picture was made on a miniscule budget (a few hundred thousand dollars) by complete unknowns, director/cinematographer/editor/co-writer/co-producer Mike Cahill and star/co-writer/co-producer Brit Marling, with far less […]

The “kids” didn’t show up for MEN IN BLACK 3 (Sony) on Saturday–it was wishful thinking to believe they would, considering the franchise’s decade-long absence–and the result, according to preliminary numbers at Deadline, was a very mild Friday-to-Saturday bump under 10%.  That puts the picture on track for a 4-day holiday weekend of $67-70M, just […]

WORLDWIDE STUDIO SCORECARD.  Here is a first look at the 2018 film slates by studio. YEAR TO DATE BOX OFFICE. Looking at North American box office, 2018 to date is now +9% above last year and now +14% above the average for this point the past four years ($1.330 billion).  Over the same period, Hollywood films have grossed […]

Based on grosses from Wednesday and Thanksgiving, Weekend #47 is on pace to exceed the multi-year average for this weekend by 10% — exactly on the pace we forecast earlier in the week.  Breaking Dawn Part 2 is running slightly behind our forecast pace in this second weekend, but still clearly #1 for the weekend. […]

WORLDWIDE STUDIO SCORECARD.  Updated look at 2016 by studio. YEAR TO DATE BOX OFFICE. Looking at North American box office, 2016 to date is now only marginally above last year and still +3% above the average for this point the past four years ($9.818 billion).  Over the same period, Hollywood films have grossed $25.4 billion worldwide when […]

For the 10 days December 16-25, the top 10 films each day in North America have totaled $503 million, still -16% below last year’s record pace but a healthy +56% above the average since 2002. Holiday Box Office Volume — Top 10 Films North America $ millions by year $ millions (2002-2015) # days Period 2016 2015 2014 […]

 Not At Any Price:  “Art” More Than Art   The name Monte Hellman doesn’t mean much to the vast majority of moviegoers, but Hellman is among the cultiest of American cult directors.  He came up the Roger Corman path in the 1960s with Jack Nicholson and Dennis Hopper (his films from that era include The […]

  WAR HORSE:  Watch It At Home –  Spielberg’s Beautiful Muzak   Earlier this year, audiences were presented with Super 8, J. J. Abrams’s pastiche of Steven Spielberg’s classic sci-fi adventures from the 1970s and 80s (Spielberg was a producer on the project).  Now with WAR HORSE, we have Spielberg’s own pastiche:  of John Ford, […]