As Dark Shadows followed The Avengers last year in the second weekend of May, The Great Gatsby will try to follow Iron Man 3’s huge opening last weekend.  Let’s face it, the TV spots for Gatsby make the film look like a lame costume party or some kind of high school production, and the racing […]

>Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 2, already a billion dollar movie worldwide, is now closing in on a billion dollars overseas alone.  The estimated worldwide gross for the final Harry Potter film now stands at $1.275 billion, with an estimated final domestic gross of $375 million and overseas gross to date of $900 […]

WORLDWIDE STUDIO SCORECARD.  Here is an updated look at the 2019 film slates by studios (films entering wide release in the 2019 calendar year), including worldwide box office for those films during 2020. We will begin the track of the 2020 slate soon. BOX OFFICE. Looking at North American box office, 2020 is now +18% […]

Based on Friday’s grosses, weekend #22 of 2014 looks like $159 million for the top 12 films Friday-Sunday, 16% above the norm for this weekend but -1% from last year.   Opening at 3,948 theaters, Maleficent from Disney grossed $24.2 million Friday and late Thursday, putting the film on track for a $71.0 million opening three-day weekend (well […]

The weekend before Christmas offers four wide releases and another fairly-wide release.  What a collection of underperformers.  The weekend should total a very uninspired $112 million for the top 12 films.  The 51st weekend of the year averages $172 million, and the last time this weekend started on December 21 (2007), the top 12 films […]

Among films currently playing in North America, the big gainers overseas were Taken 2 and Hotel Transylvania (each up $23 million overseas since last week), as well as Paranormal Activity 4 (just behind at +$22 million). But the biggest action overseas went to James Bond: $77 million in 25 markets for Skyfall.  The Daniel Craig action film comes to America on November […]

> RISE OF THE PLANET OF THE APES pulled in around $1.25M in its Thursday midnight screenings.  This is better than the $800K that Cowboys & Aliens managed last week, but dwarfed by the $4M Captain America earned and Thor‘s $3.3M.  (Let’s not even talk about Harry Potter.)  This supports Mitch Metcalf’s prediction that Apes […]

Men in Black 3 increased to $275 million overseas to date (up sharply from $132 million last week).  Battleship has stalled overseas — the foreign total is now $235 million (up marginally from $233 million last week).  Dark Shadows moved up to $121 million (from $107 million last week), putting the Tim Burton film within sight of maybe $225 million […]