WORLDWIDE STUDIO SCORECARD.  Year to date, Warner Brothers has moved well ahead of its competing studios, thanks to two bona fide hits to balance two strikeouts.  Sony and Universal, the next level down each with around $450 million worldwide to date, has a similar hit and miss ratio to Warner Brothers, but the hits are […]

SAFE HOUSE:  Watch It At Home – You’ve Seen It     SAFE HOUSE feels like a remake, even though technically it’s not.  It’s a little bit Training Day, a little Bourne, a little Man On Fire (and everything else Tony Scott has ever done), with almost nothing added of its own, an exercise in […]

>Summer always ends with a whimper.  While Memorial Day and Independence Day weekends are among the strongest of the box office year, Labor Day weekend is usually the lowest of the year in terms of movie-going.  This weekend features the opening of three more duds: a “found footage” space thriller, a shark bloodfest, and a […]

Based on Friday’s and Saturday’s grosses, weekend #28 of 2015 looks like $204 million for the top 12 films Friday-Sunday, above the norm for this weekend and way above last year’s weak weekend. Opening at 4,301 theaters Friday, Minions from Universal is on track for a $115.2 million opening three-day weekend (a little lower than yesterday’s outlook but still […]

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 +10% above last year and now +11% above the average for this point […]

  OPENINGS:  Kevin Hart has been hanging around the edges of being a movie star for a few years now, and RIDE ALONG (Universal) makes it official.  With a $14.5M Friday start, it could challenge Cloverfield for the Martin Luther King weekend title, currently at $46.1M.  For Universal, this is the start of a nicely […]

Based on Friday’s grosses, Weekend #49 is on pace to fall below the  multi-year average for this weekend by 9% — ending a solid four-week winning streak at the box office.  One movie dared to open on one of the weakest weekends of the year (usually ranked #49 out of 52 weeks in terms of […]

> THE HUNGER GAMES has an excuse. Last night at midnight, The Hunger Games began its long-awaited run in theatres by grossing $19.7M.  Which is, by any estimation, a lot of money–the most ever earned by a non-sequel, and the 7th highest midnight ever.  But… it’s less than half the $43.5M of the midnight record […]