Projected weekly network ratings in prime time (based on four days of official nationals and three days of fast nationals).  ABC wins the week, thanks to two NBA Finals games on Thursday and Sunday.  The NBA Finals started a week later on the calendar last year (the week June 11-17, 2012) and that week contained […]

  Basketball, as always, beat Broadway last night. ABC:  Per Mitch Metcalf:  we have adjusted the 4.6 fast national adult 18-49 rating for NBA FINALS GAME 2  to an estimated 5.4 rating.  However, the 5.4 would still be 17% below the Sunday night game last year (on June 17), a similar decline to Game 1 on […]

  OPENINGS:  Not to throw any cold water on the extremely impressive performance of THE PURGE (Universal), but it’s unlikely that the thriller will slip only 12% on Sunday, as Universal is forecasting, when the next-lowest Sunday estimate in the Top 10 is almost double that.  (The idea seems to be that after a 38% […]

Updated international box office chart.

STUDIO SCORECARD. Another very good week for Universal with the moderate domestic success of The Purge and the continued strong overseas performance of Fast & Furious 6.  The perennial also-ran studio (Universal) is now about $300 million away from #1 Disney for 2013 to date.  Universal is actually #1 for the year to date domestically but […]

Based on Friday’s and Saturday’s grosses, Weekend #23 of 2013 looks like an okay $152 million for the top 12 films (very similar to yesterday’s estimate), down 13% from last year but 4% above the average for this weekend the past few years.  The Purge is doing much better than forecast and is propping the […]

  OPENINGS:  THE PURGE (Universal) will be instantly profitable by the end of its high $30Ms weekend, and while a great deal of that is due to the $3M production budget, a US marketing spend of only $20M (less than half the normal big-studio amount) is a big help.  The key:  minimal expensive TV advertising.  […]

Based on Friday’s grosses, Weekend #23 of 2013 looks like an okay $153 million for the top 12 films, down 14% from last year but 5% above the average for this weekend the past few years.  The Purge is doing much better than forecast and is propping the weekend up. Opening at 2,536 theaters Friday, […]