> The updated worldwide grosses rankings show that Rango (Paramount) has slightly expanded its lead (with more room to grow) and that Battle: Los Angeles (Sony) is poised to challenge The Green Hornet (also Sony) for #2.   Hop (Disney) enters the chart in the top 10, at #8, with some serious upside in the coming weeks.  It will probably […]

  Based on preliminary Saturday numbers at Deadline, adjustments from the morning’s weekend estimates will be minimal, although mostly in the wrong direction.  GOOSEBUMPS (Columbia/Sony) increased 31% from Friday to Saturday, a modest result for a family movie (Hotel Transylvania 2 jumped 56% on its 2d day of release), giving it a 2-day total of […]

  THE MAGNIFICENT SEVEN (Village Roadshow/MGM/Columbia/Sony), an expensive action movie in a month that doesn’t often feature them, and toplining the potent combo of Denzel Washington and Chris Pratt, is starting off moderately well but not exceptionally.  Preliminary numbers at Deadline have its opening day at $13M (including $1.75M from Thursday night), slightly ahead of […]

  OPENINGS:  Although unquestionably huge, and sure to be enormously profitable against roughly $250M in production/marketing costs, DEADPOOL 2 (20th) opened on the low end of expectations, about 5% below the first Deadpool at $125M.  The sequel has the very reasonable explanation that its forebear had the advantage of a Sunday that was part of […]

> A gigantic apology…the total for Team Salem is now correct.  Salem leads by about $75 million going into this weekend.  Thanks to the comment by “Anonymous” for spotting the error by Metcalf (unintentional, I swear!).  Updated totals for the first annual ShowBuzzDaily Summer Movie Draft show Team Salem $800,000 ahead of Team Metcalf through […]

Weekend #17 of 2016 forecasts for films opening wide and major returning films: NEW FILMS THIS WEEKEND April 22-24, 2016 Critics Positive ($ millions) Opening Weekend Forecast Domestic Total Projection Overseas Total Projection Worldwide Total Projection The Huntsman: Winter’s War Uni PG13 19% 24.0 64 195 259 Note: Although critic reviews are not related to the […]

  OPENINGS:  LOGAN (TSG/20th) was in full control of the weekend at $85.3M, and the most impressive part of that may be the 5% Saturday drop, an even better hold than Deadpool‘s 10% and the 12% for The Wolverine, let alone the 22% for the last X-Men movie.  That suggests excellent word of mouth, and although […]

  OPENINGS:  ALIEN: COVENANT (TSG/20th) slumped almost as badly on its 2d day of release as the unpopular Prometheus (22% vs 25%), and the result was a lackluster $36M weekend in the US–and even that number includes an aggressive estimate for Sunday.  Worse yet, with Covenant now playing in every major international market except China […]