Eleven days into the three-week holiday movie season, 2012 is now 9.5% behind the average for the same period over the last several years ($316 million this year versus $349 million on average 2004-2011).  Further, 2012 is 13.7% behind the last time Christmas fell on a Tuesday (2007’s $366 million over this period).   The […]

  The Martin Luther King Day holiday tends to be a day off more for schoolchildren than for adult employees, meaning that at the boxoffice, it benefits family movies–of which there’s a distinct shortage right now.  For adult-oriented films, the Friday gross is often around 25-30% of the 4-day weekend total (with new openings at […]

  It’s a yearly irony that on the most moviecentric weekend of the year, hardly anyone goes to the movies. OPENINGS:  Dwayne Johnson’s vehicle SNITCH (Summit/Lionsgate) will lead the newcomers, but may face difficulty over the course of the weekend as The Rock’s fans discover it isn’t really the action movie it’s been marketed as […]

  OPENINGS:  The only reason to make a movie like THE CROODS (DreamWorks Animation/20th) is to get a piece of the remarkable overseas business that the Ice Age franchise sees ($716M on the last one alone), but so far, Croods is looking a little soft internationally, with $63.3M this weekend in territories covering roughly half the world.  That’s better than the […]

  OPENINGS:  OBLIVION (Universal) had a fairly good start, with a $13.3M Thursday night/Friday that should give it a $35-38M weekend, depending on word of mouth.  But that’s still lower than the $15.3M earned by GI Joe: Retaliation on its second day of release only 3 weeks ago, and at a probable higher cost (Universal […]

The 20th weekend of the year is looking like $158 million for the top 12 films, a little better than average for this weekend over the past few years but much better than the same weekend last year, which featured the opening of the one of the greatest clunkers/ punchlines/ punching bags ever: Battleship from […]

Updated international box office chart.

The complete Friday Box Office report will be posted at its usual time Saturday morning, but in the meantime we have one big over-performer in Despicable Me 2, one opener slightly above forecast (Kevin Hart) and one flat-out, embarrassing bomb (Lone Ranger), doing even worse than our bearish expectations. With $34.3 million Wednesday and $24.5 million […]