The news didn’t get any better for BATTLESHIP (Universal) on Saturday.  According to preliminary numbers at Deadline, the aquatic disaster couldn’t even manage a 10% increase on its 2d day of release (in comparison, John Carter had a 25% bump on its first Saturday), and is headed for a horrible $25M opening weekend, $5M […]

> The tenth weekend of 2012 is looking to be solid in terms of total business but not at the runaway pace of the past few weeks.  The weekend is running 3% ahead of last year’s same weekend and 8% ahead of the multi-year average for this weekend.  The Lorax will remain the #1 film […]

  It’s clear, based on preliminary numbers at Deadline, that DIVERGENT (Summit/Lionsgate) isn’t going to reach prerelease hopes of an opening in line with the $69M of the original Twilight, much less that movie’s sequels or The Hunger Games.  The question is how low it will go.  Divergent had around $22M on Friday (which includes […]

  GODS OF EGYPT (Summit/Lionsgate) has been sitting around for so long that Gerard Butler managed to make next week’s London Has Fallen in the interim, and its own studio has been bleating about how the downside had been limited through tax rebates and foreign pre-sales, so the ensuing thudding flop isn’t much of a […]

  OPENINGS:  INDIANA JONES AND THE DIAL OF DESTINY (Paramount/Lucasfilm/Disney) barely scraped the bottom of weekend expectations with $60M, and that studio estimate assumes an very strong Sunday.  The extremely expensive tentpole–$400M+ in production and worldwide marketing costs–combined an elderly franchise built around an 80-year old star with mediocre reviews following an ill-advised Cannes premiere, […]

Based on Friday’s and Saturday’s grosses, weekend #4 of 2015 now looks like $142 million for the top 12 films Friday-Sunday, well above the norm for the fourth weekend of the year, which usually struggles to get above $100 million.  (See complete weekend track below.)  All credit goes to American Sniper, which is truly extraordinary. […]

  OPENINGS:  MISSION IMPOSSIBLE: ROGUE NATION (Skydance/China Film Channel/Alibaba/Paramount) had a solid Saturday hold, down 3% from Friday, and the studio is projecting a $56M weekend in the US, well ahead of the $47.7M opening of Mission 3, the only other entry in the series to have a conventional Friday opening.  (However, in 2006 movies […]

  OPENINGS:  Pundits have been quick to celebrate the current fade of the comic book genre, but the truth is that Hollywood hasn’t yet found anything to reliably replace it at the top of the box office.  After years of Marvel sagas kicking off the summer movie season with extravagant grosses, this year the studio’s […]