It’s a best of times, worst of times kind of weekend for the newcomers. OPENINGS:  DESPICABLE ME 2 (Universal) is everything its makers could have wanted at the box office.  With a $30.2M Friday, it should have $140M in the US by Sunday (it won’t match the $97.9M Independence Day weekend of Transformers 3, but […]

  THE WOLVERINE (20th) is the weekend’s only big newcomer at the box office, and it got off to a healthy $4M start last night.  That number is particularly strong since Wolverine held off till 10PM to start its launch–unlike other summer openings that have begun their “Fridays” at 6-7PM on Thursday–and it was was […]

Based on Friday’s and Saturday’s grosses, Weekend #33 of 2013 looks like an okay $121 million for the top 12 films, up 6% from the average for this weekend the past few years but down 5% from last year’s comparable weekend. Opening at 2,933 theaters Friday, Lee Daniels’ The Butler from Weinstein grossed $8.3 million […]

Based on Friday’s and Saturday’s grosses, Weekend #37 of 2013 now looks like a solid $90 million for the top 12 films, down from yesterday’s initial outlook but still up 9% from the average for the same weekend the past few years. Opening at 3,049 theaters Friday, Insidious Chapter 2 from FilmDistrict grossed $20.1 million Friday […]

STUDIO SCORECARD. In the worldwide studio rankings for 2013 to date, Warner Brothers again distanced itself from the others as Gravity enjoyed an upgraded domestic final and the start of overseas dollars, which will soon turn into a gusher.  Sony also had a good week as Captain Phillips came aboard and overseas results from other […]

Based on Friday’s and Saturday’s grosses, Weekend #45 of 2013 looks like $161 million for the top 12 films, not the record we had forecast but still 21% above the recent average for this weekend. Opening at 3,841 theaters Friday, Thor: The Dark World from Disney and Marvel grossed $31.6 million Friday and $31.7 million Saturday, now on […]

The 49th weekend of the year is looking like $97 million for the top 12 films Friday-Sunday, down from last year but up from the usual performance for this weekend over the past several years. Opening at around 2,000 theaters Friday (well below the 2,886 average theater count for opening weekends the last two years), Out of […]

  Preliminary numbers at Deadline present a Friday box office in which few titles moved more than 10% from Thursday, typical for the Christmas-to-New Year’s period.  The top 2, once again, were FROZEN (Disney) and THE HOBBIT: THE DESOLATION OF SMAUG (Warners/MGM), although with the first moving up around 7% and the other declining by […]