OPENINGS:  WONKA (Warners) kicked off the holiday movie season with $39M, at the upper end of expectations.  As a family entertainment, it can look forward to a high multiple into January, and could reach $200M+ in the US, against around $250M in production/marketing costs.  The IP musical is even stronger overseas, where it expanded […]

  OPENINGS:  Hiyao Miyazaki’s THE BOY AND THE HERON (GKids) exceeded expectations and set a high-water mark for its filmmaker and for non-franchise Japanese animation with a $12.8M launch.  The film will lose its Imax screens next week and faces challenges from other family-oriented films, but if word of mouth is strong and it can […]

  OPENINGS:  Beyonce’s concert documentary RENAISSANCE (Variance/AMC Theaters) led the traditionally slow first weekend of December with $21M, a shadow of the $92.8M for the Eras Tour movie a couple of months ago, but within expectations.  As with Eras Tour, it’s likely that the Renaissance box office will be front-loaded with fans, so the US […]

  OPENINGS:  NAPOLEON (Apple/Sony) launched at the higher end of expectations, with $20.4M over the 3-day weekend and $32.5M for the 5-day holiday.  As with Apple’s Killers of the Flower Moon, however, that leaves it a long way from any hope of breakeven on roughly $300M in production/marketing costs (particularly considering that audience polling indicated […]

  OPENINGS:  THE MARVELS (Marvel/Disney) fulfilled the ghastliest projections assigned to it, setting a new low for the MCU with a $47M US opening, and it was similarly dismal overseas, with $63.3M from 51 territories.  The internet is already bursting with theories that include “No one liked Captain Marvel in the first place” and the […]

  Anyone who’s been following the tumult in television, typified by the recently-concluded WGA strike and the ongoing-as-of-this-post SAG-AFTRA strike, knows that a key issue for the industry is that the streamers, who now dominate the programming landscape, keep their metrics deeply opaque.  This is their firm policy not just with their talent, but even […]

  OPENINGS:  This was supposed to be the kick-off weekend for the holiday movie season, but Dune 2 decamped for 2024 and the studios didn’t step in to replace it, so the biggest arrival of the week was the expansion of PRISCILLA (A24) from 4 theaters to 1359 with $5.1M.  That’s not a bad number […]

  OPENINGS:  What are we to make of the $23M start for KILLERS OF THE FLOWER MOON (Paramount/Apple)?  As serious 3+hour historical epics go, while it’s a small fraction of Oppenheimer‘s $82.5M launch, it’s better than the $22M 5-day opening for House of Gucci, and the $18.4M for 2013’s Scorsese/DiCaprio The Wolf of Wall Street […]