On Sunday mornings, the devout go to church, and movie studios lie.  (There’s not much overlap between the two groups.)  The studios lie (or fudge, if you’re sensitive about the L Word), fundamentally, because they can get away with it:  when “estimated” box office returns are announced on Sunday mornings, they’re simply repeated–one might […]

Based on Friday’s grosses, Weekend #37 of 2013 looks like a very good $97 million for the top 12 films, up 18% from the average for the same weekend the past few years. Opening at 3,049 theaters Friday, Insidious Chapter 2 from FilmDistrict grossed $20.1 million Friday and is on track for a $42.3 million opening weekend (above the […]

STUDIO SCORECARD. In the worldwide studio rankings for 2013 to date, only moderate changes for each studio.  The biggest gainer this week was Paramount, which released a film from its tiny slate: Jackass Presents: Bad Grandpa. However, it shows just how slow the box office environment is right now when a $93 million weekly gain is tops among […]

2013 is turning into a photo finish.  The worldwide studio tallies below are for total box office performance of the films released wide sometime in 2013, so we are still counting up the figures for movies released late in the year.  Warner Brothers and Disney are separated by only $9 million.  Warner Brothers is actually […]

Based on Friday’s grosses, weekend #11 of 2014 looks like $106 million for the top 12 films Friday-Sunday, almost exactly matching the average for this weekend over the last few years.  Two new wide releases didn’t do anything special, but two limited releases distinguished themselves.   Opening at 3,115 theaters Friday, Need for Speed from Disney grossed $6.6 […]

  The summer movie season will be underway momentarily on the east coast, as 7PM screenings commence for The Amazing Spider-Man–which isn’t exactly riding a rave of critical support (56% positive at Rotten Tomatoes, and 35% among “top critics”).  At Sony tonight, uneasy lie the heads that wear a crown.  But meanwhile, our survey of […]

WORLDWIDE STUDIO SCORECARD.  Very little change in the studio rankings of worldwide box office for the year to date.  No studio changed its ranking this week, and the top four studios grossed a modest $60 to $101 million each over the past week. Scroll down for domestic and overseas grosses for each film individually so […]

Weekend #34 of 2014 is looking like $111 million for the top 12 films this weekend, up 30% from the norm for this weekend and the fourth up weekend in a row after six straight down weekends. Opening at over 2,750 theaters Friday (just below the 2,886 average theater count for opening weekends the last two years), Frank […]