>Here are the latest Summer Movie Draft results (through Thursday).  Not much change from the last update on Monday — Salem is pounding Metcalf with a $247 million lead.  This weekend two new movies join the rankings: Cars 2 (Metcalf) and Bad Teacher (Salem).     

> Deadline has the early Saturday and weekend boxoffice estimates, and this is what “frontloaded” looks like:  HARRY POTTER AND THE DEATHLY HALLOWS (PART 2) plummeted by 52% from Friday (including midnights) to Saturday, with the result that its $44.2M on Saturday didn’t even come close to the Spiderman 3 record of $51.3M for that […]

>Adam Sandler opens Jack and Jill this weekend, and it will be an uphill battle for it to displace Puss in Boots from the top of the box office.  Immortals will be challenging Jack and Jill for the second spot on the chart.  Box office volume for the weekend will probably be up around 6% […]

> Another up weekend at the box office is on store, led by an eclectic assortment of films.  It should be an up weekend, led by Tyler Perry’s Madea’s Big Happy Family and a forecast $31 million opening.  Playing at over 2,100 theaters, Madea should average over $14,000 per theater, a very good number.  Water […]

> There’s no way to slice or dice the numbers for COWBOYS AND ALIENS and make them any less sad.  The picture cost at least $165M (that’s the amount Universal will admit to), plus another $150M or so for worldwide marketing, and as Mitch Metcalf notes, it’s now on track to gross less than $100M […]

> UPDATE:  The Reporter has some early Friday numbers, and the storm’s effect can already be seen at the boxoffice.  THE HELP seems likely to win the weekend as expected, but with a lower-than anticipated $12-13M.  COLOMBIANA was in second on Friday, heading for a weekend of perhaps $10M.  DON’T BE AFRAID OF THE DARK […]

> Jim Field Smith’s comedy BUTTER, which premiered at the Toronto Film Festival, ambitiously makes a play for both the heartwarming indie Little Miss Sunshine audience and the satire-minded Election crowd.  That may be one play too many, but the movie is worth seeing anyway. Jason A Micallef’s first produced script is set in the […]

> The Saturday drop for PARANORMAL ACTIVITY 3 turned out to be very much in line with Paranormal 2‘s.  Paramount is estimating a better Sunday hold than the second installment had; if the result is instead the same as last time, the weekend gross will dip below $54M, but to a still-giant number.  Paranormal 3 […]