Warner Brothers moved back into first place, pushing Disney back into second place in their recent tug of war.  Gravity enjoyed a nice week of overseas grosses, the bulk of the Warner Brothers gain this week.  Thor: The Dark World also generated some more overseas dollars, but not enough to allow Disney to keep pace.  Of course, […]

Based on Friday’s grosses, Weekend #51 of 2013 looks like $139 million for the top 12 films from Friday-Sunday, up substantially from the same weekend last year (see comparisons to previous years at the bottom).   Opening at 3,507 theaters Wednesday, Anchorman 2: The Legend Continues from Paramount grossed $13.2 million before Friday ($8.1 Wednesday and $5.1 Thursday) […]

Warner Brothers and Disney remain in a tight battle for the worldwide crown for 2013.  We will keep updating this over the next few weeks and declare a winner after the overseas grosses are fully counted.  The most significant films still grossing overseas are The Hobbit: Desolation of Smaug (for Warner Brothers) and Frozen (for Disney).  For a […]

  Note:  all weekend-to-weekend comparisons to Jan 31-Feb 2 will look better than usual because of last week’s Super Bowl Sunday, which sharply depressed box office for the day. OPENINGS:  THE LEGO MOVIE (Warners) is likely to outgross its $60M production budget by Sunday after a $17.1M Friday, and while that won’t cover the usual […]

  “Fanboy” movies typically do particularly well in Thursday night runs, and it was true last night for 300: RISE OF AN EMPIRE (Warners/Legendary), which pulled in $3.3M in screenings that began at 8PM.  That’s the same Thursday start as last summer’s Pacific Rim, which had a $37.3M opening weekend for Warners and Legendary, but […]

Weekend #14 of 2014 is looking like a robust $159 million for the top 12 films, 41% above the typical volume for this weekend the past few years ($113 million). Opening at around 3,900 theaters Friday (well above the 2,886 average theater count for opening weekends the last two years), Captain America: The Winter Soldier from Disney should average […]

  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 […]

  X-MEN: DAYS OF FUTURE PAST (20th) was fated to walk away with Memorial Day Weekend, and it’s starting off its run in high style, with a preliminary $36M (including $8.1M from Thursday night) reported at Deadline and elsewhere.  If that number holds, it would be the 3rd highest opening day of the year (behind […]