OPENINGS:  BIRDS OF PREY (DC/Warners) was supposed to be the year’s first tentpole smash, but at $33.3M in the US, it was a dismal disappointment, by far the lowest start for this generation of DC movie properties.  It was also weak overseas with $48M in all major markets except Japan and China (where of […]

  HOLDOVERS:  Once again, there were no significant openings this week.  And once again, the lack of competition didn’t help WW84 (DC/Warners, also on HBO Max), which had the worst hold of the top titles, down 46% to $3M.  It now seems unlikely to get much past $40M in the US, and it’s no longer […]

  A few notes:  this week’s newcomers opened along a range of dates, including Tuesday night, Wednesday, Friday night and Saturday, and those scheduling decisions had an affect on the totals below.  Also, the fact that Friday was Christmas Eve lowered the day’s ticket sales, probably by 30% or so.  (Something similar will apply to […]

  OPENINGS:  With little else new around, DRAGON BALL SUPER: SUPER HERO (Crunchyroll/Sony) seized the weekend with $20.1M, a bit lower than the studio’s Dragon Slayer: Mugen Train, which opened with $21.2M at about half the number of theaters.  Dragon Ball, like most anime titles, was heavily skewed to the M18-34 audience, and it may […]

> This weekend will feature a Pixar sequel aimed at kids and their parents, while young adults and older teens are the bullseye for an R-rated comedy starring Cameron Diaz, the queen of movies released the last weekend of June.  The weekend overall is looking like it will be slightly above this weekend last year. […]

  OPENINGS:  FAST X (Universal) arrived with $67.5M.  In the US, that was slightly below the $70M for F9, one of the first big-ticket movies to brave a wide pandemic-era release in May 2021.  In terms of the franchise as a whole (leaving aside spinoff Hobbes & Shaw), Fast X was the 7th highest of […]

>The second weekend of 2012 looks to be fairly anemic: $103 million for the top 12 films for the traditional three-day Friday-Sunday period.  This would be down 11% from the same weekend in 2011 and down 28% from the same weekend average for the past several years.  Basically, there is just not enough heat or […]

  OPENINGS:  In what Hollywood hopes will be the last weekend of drought for a while, the TV episodes packaged as DEMON SLAYER:  KIMETSU NO YAIBA – TO THE HASHIRA TRAINING (Crunchyroll/Sony) led the newcomers with $11.6M, a bit better than the $10.1M for last year’s Demon Slayer episodes.  In addition, the film earned $13.7M […]