>Green Lantern and Mr Popper’s Penguins both come in at forecast, while weekend is down 23% from last year.Green Lantern opened with $21.4 million on Friday, and it looks like the Ryan Reynolds film will gross $56 million from Friday-Sunday.  The film is headed for $156 million in North America when it crosses the finish […]

> 2012 is off to a solid start with $135 million in business for the top 12 films — up 12% from a typical performance for the first weekend of the year but up sharply from the disaster that was 2011’s opening frame.  The Devil Inside exceeded our forecast and will be the #1 movie […]

> Deadline has early Saturday and weekend estimates, but they don’t clarify much.  As of right now, the claim is that COWBOYS AND ALIENS is at $26.2M for Friday/Saturday, with THE SMURFS at $25.9M.  If those numbers hold, logic would say that Smurfs should have the upper hand with its family Sunday matinee audience, but […]

  This week, as the clock ticks toward the start of the summer movie season, we’re taking a studio-by-studio look at each company’s line-up and prospects.  Last time we covered Sony, and today we’ll examine Universal. LAST SUMMER:  Universal’s 2013 summer was anchored by two gigantic sequels:  Fast & Furious 6 ($239M US/$789M worldwide) and […]

  If preliminary numbers at Deadline hold, what was supposed to be a fairly competitive box office weekend will instead be a romp for THE BUTLER (Weinstein).  It’s claiming a $9M Friday, which should give it at least $25M for the weekend.  That would be in line with the $26M opening for The Help in mid-August […]

WORLDWIDE STUDIO SCORECARD.  Updated look at 2016 by studio.   YEAR TO DATE BOX OFFICE. Looking at North American box office, 2016 to date is still +4% above last year and still +5% above the average for this point the past four years ($7.371 billion).  Over the same period, Hollywood films have grossed almost $19.7 billion worldwide when we […]

  OPENINGS:  After an interruption for The Batman, the MCU resumed its place at the top of popular culture with the arrival of DOCTOR STRANGE IN THE MULTIVERSE OF MADNESS (Marvel/Disney), which launched within the industry’s very high expectations at $185M in the US.  That’s roughly the same as Avengers: Age of Ultron ($191.3M), and […]

  OPENINGS:  GHOSTBUSTERS (Village Roadshow/Columbia/Sony) is reporting a $46M weekend (that number assumes the lowest Sunday drop in the Top 10, so it may come down a bit in finals), about 10% higher than the start for Independence Day: Resurgence and 20% higher than The Legend of Tarzan, all on similar $275M+ production/marketing budgets.  None […]