> The National Board of Review is an organization with a virtually unknown membership that exists in public consciousness for precisely one day per year, and this is their day:  the announcement of their film awards.  Their claim to fame, such as it was, came from being the first ones out of the awards gate–but […]

  At a cost of $175M (meaning $300M+ with global marketing), SNOW WHITE AND THE HUNTSMAN (Universal) is a long way from profit.  But credit the studio with making “Snow White” seem cool enough to garner a solid opening (and credit the studio as well with cannily minimizing expectations, so a solid opening passes for […]

> The Hollywood Reporter has some very office boxoffice numbers.  These are based on matinee business only, so they can be misleading as to what will happen over the course of Friday, let along the weekend.  But for now, the big news is that COURAGEOUS, a Christian-themed movie produced by Sherwood Baptist Church in Georgia […]

WORLDWIDE STUDIO SCORECARD.  Here is an updated look at the 2018 film slates by studio. The studio totals also include 2018 dollars for films released in late 2017. YEAR TO DATE BOX OFFICE. Looking at North American box office, 2018 to date is now +3% above last year and now +17% above the average for this point the […]

> The boxoffice was steady as expected yesterday, virtually everything within 5%, up or down, from where it was on Wednesday.  There were just a couple of exceptions: PARIAH (Focus):  Proved to be scarily front-loaded, down a horrible 55% on its 2d day to an average $2500 in 4 theares. EXTREMELY LOUD AND INCREDIBLY CLOSE […]

> Based on Friday and Saturday box office (and estimated Sunday numbers), Real Steel is now looking like an opening weekend of over $27 million — $2 million more than projected yesterday.  Real Steel jumped 27% from Friday to Saturday (from $8.55 million to $10.85 million).  With a projected final domestic gross of $81 million, […]

> Deadline has early figures for Friday, and they indicate that Open Road’s THE GREY will, as expected, win the day and weekend.  If the early estimate of $6.2M for Friday holds, it could gross around $15M for the weekend.  That’s less than previous Liam Neeson vehicles Taken ($25M) and Unknown ($22M), but still impressive […]

Updated STUDIO SCORECARD: TOTAL NORTH AMERICAN BOX OFFICE. Looking at wide-release films in North America (those that play on at least 400 screens at some point), 2013 now totals over $8.2 billion, now basically even with last year’s pace and 3% above the prior four-year average 2009-2012 ($8.005 billion). Each year-to-date period below is defined as […]