>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 […]

>Another strong week in North American movie theaters.  The full week box office (August 8-14) generated $236 million, up 16% versus the same week last year and up 10% versus the average week the past four years. Year-to-date box office is $6.677 billion, now down only 4.0% from this time last year and up 1.8% […]

Based on Friday’s grosses, weekend #32 of 2015 looks like $119 million for the top 12 films Friday-Sunday, down significantly from the norm for this weekend (see track below). Opening at 3,995 theaters Friday, Fantastic Four from Fox is on track for a listless $27.0 million opening three-day weekend (well below our $46.5 million ShowBuzzDaily forecast earlier this week). […]

  NBC shook things up last night, to mixed effect. NBC:  A 2-hour THE VOICE hurt the 9PM competition, but resulted in a 3.7 for itself, the lowest Voice rating in weeks (down 0.4 from last Tuesday).  Putting GRIMM at 10PM gave the network a 2.0, its best rating in that slot since Parenthood ended its season (the […]

        BROADCAST HIGHLIGHTS:  One thing that hasn’t changed while we were away is that the broadcast networks air little of interest on Saturdays. CABLE HIGHLIGHTS:  NFL Network’s quaduple-header of PRESEASON NFL games swept the Top 4 slots at 0.49/0.49/0.49/0.36.  Adult Swim’s line-up performed as follows (we’ll begin having week-to-week comparisons with the […]

> As Hurricane Irene marches up the East Coast from North Carolina to Boston this weekend, the full impact on the weekend box office remains unclear, but there will be a significant impact.  News reports say that 65 million Americans will be touched by the storm (about 20% of the population), and many theaters will […]

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 +6% above last year and now +15% above the average for this point […]

  THE GREAT GATSBY (Warners) kicked off its run with a strong $3.3M from Thursday night shows.  That’s nowhere near superhero- or teen-vampire-movie levels, but it’s better than the $3M for Sex and the City 2, the last big opening skewed toward an older female audience (with pre-screening parties scheduled for many theaters here as […]