WORLDWIDE STUDIO SCORECARD.  Fox had a great week worldwide last week ($167 million worldwide), partly from the domestic release of Gone Girl this weekend but also from strong overseas returns for The Maze Runner.  Fox is now over $4 billion for the year worldwide, the #1 Hollywood studio by far, and saddled with surprisingly few duds on its […]

>Rise of the Planet of the Apes will finish the weekend at #1 with an estimated $51 million at this point, significantly above the ShowBuzzDaily forecast.  In contrast, Universal’s The Change-Up is struggling, missing a much lower estimate.  The holdovers are showing mostly acceptable declines except for Cowboys & Aliens.  Overall, the weekend is up 24% versus […]

> Moral of the weekend:  If you’re going to spend $250M+ on a movie, check first whether anyone wants to see it. OPENINGS:  With a probable $27-28M opening, just how big a flop is JOHN CARTER (Disney) going to be?  Hard to tell until full weekend and international numbers are in.  But its sheer cost–probably […]

  HUGO:  Worth A Ticket – If Only For the Visual Splendors   Paramount doesn’t have much choice but to market Martin Scorsese’s HUGO as a family movie:  it’s got a PG rating, a young boy and girl as the hero and heroine, a children’s book (“The Invention of Hugo Cabret” by Brian Selznick) as […]

Based on Friday’s grosses, Weekend #7 of 2013 is not as bad as the last few weeks: $123 million for the top 12 films during the traditional Friday-Sunday period of this holiday weekend (only 4% behind the pace for the same weekend the last few years).         Opening at 3,552 theaters Thursday […]

WORLDWIDE STUDIO SCORECARD.  Updated look at 2016 by studio.   YEAR TO DATE BOX OFFICE. Looking at North American box office, 2016 to date is still +4% above last year and still +5% above the average for this point the past four years ($7.371 billion).  Over the same period, Hollywood films have grossed almost $19.7 billion worldwide when we […]

WORLDWIDE STUDIO SCORECARD.  Here is an updated look at the 2017 film slates by studio. YEAR TO DATE BOX OFFICE. Looking at North American box office, 2017 to date is still down -1% from last year and now +2% above the average for this point the past four years ($9.518 billion).  Over the same period, Hollywood films have grossed […]

In the battle for second place in the ShowbuzzDaily Summer Movie Draft, very little changed the past week.  Team Weil’s slate tacked on $41.6 million the past seven days, while Team Salem added $40.9 million.  Weil remains $69 million ahead of Salem ($1.004 billion to $935 million for the entire summer). In the next week […]