Based on Friday’s and Saturday’s grosses, weekend #28 of 2015 looks like $204 million for the top 12 films Friday-Sunday, above the norm for this weekend and way above last year’s weak weekend. Opening at 4,301 theaters Friday, Minions from Universal is on track for a $115.2 million opening three-day weekend (a little lower than yesterday’s outlook but still […]

  OPENINGS:  It’s likely that THE 355 (Universal) would have been challenged at the box office even in normal times, considering that its level of action spectacle is significantly lower than superhero movies can afford, and that the cast features performers who are extremely talented but with little proven appeal to ticketbuyers.  (The 27% score […]

  VENOM (Tencent/Columbia/Sony) is the first big-budget action movie to open since The Meg in mid-August, and that (plus a huge marketing campaign) seems to have gotten it past murderous reviews for an enormous start, the biggest ever in October.  Preliminary numbers at Deadline have opening day at $32.3M (including $10M from a Thursday that […]

  WORLDWIDE STUDIO SCORECARD.  Here is an updated look at the 2019 film slates by studio.   BOX OFFICE. Looking at North American box office, 2019 is now -5% below last year’s comparable span (1 point better than last week) and now basically even with this point the past four years ($7.325 billion).  Over the […]

  Most films will rise this weekend compared to last week, simply because New Year’s Eve is a bigger moviegoing occasion than Christmas Eve.  Generally, box office should rise 20% or so on Saturday, drop around 30% on Sunday, then jump 30-40% on New Year’s Day.  The first two weekends of 2018 should feature relatively […]

  By superhero movie standards, SHAZAM (DC/New Line/Warners) was moderately priced, with around $225M in production/marketing costs.  Preliminary numbers at Deadline put its opening day at $20M (including $5.9M from Thursday), and although that’s a cut below comic book blockbusters like Captain Marvel ($61.7M), Spider-Man: Homecoming ($50.8M) or Wonder Woman ($38.2M), it’s solidly in line with […]

Based on Friday’s grosses, Weekend #49 is on pace to fall below the  multi-year average for this weekend by 9% — ending a solid four-week winning streak at the box office.  One movie dared to open on one of the weakest weekends of the year (usually ranked #49 out of 52 weeks in terms of […]

> According to Deadline, nothing much changed for the new boxoffice arrivals on Saturday.  THE HELP is still far in front for the weekend, with a beautiful $19-20M second weekend, and it’s followed by RISE OF THE PLANET OF THE APES, with its own impressive $16-17M third round. (Apes now looks like it will pull […]