DIVERGENT (Summit/Lionsgate), in case you hadn’t heard, is purportedly The Next Big YA Thing.  It’s off to a $4.9M start in Thursday night shows that began at 8PM, and that’s a solid but–for this genre–unimpressive number.  YA movies, especially those aimed at young women audiences, are notoriously frontloaded, and back in November 2008, the […]

  The hunger for religious-themed movies hasn’t been dissipated at all by the recent Son of God, God’s Not Dead and Noah, as HEAVEN IS FOR REAL (TriStar/Sony) had a very healthy $3.7M start on Wednesday at 2417 theatres despite indifferent reviews (50% positive on Rotten Tomatoes), edging out CAPTAIN AMERICA: THE WINTER SOLDIER (Disney) […]

Based on Friday’s grosses, weekend #19 of 2014 looks like $127 million for the top 12 films Friday-Sunday, down 10% from the norm for this weekend (somewhat better than we expected due to the impressive strength of Neighbors).   Opening at 3,279 theaters, Neighbors from Universal grossed $19.6 million Friday, putting the film on track for a $49.7 […]

WORLDWIDE STUDIO SCORECARD.  The release of Maleficent has put Disney in a virtual three-way tie for second place (with Warner Brothers and Sony), each with around $1.35 billion worldwide for 2014 to date.  Fox remains comfortably in first place with $1.7 billion.  The other studios remain out of the running, particularly Universal, which was not helped at […]

Based on Friday’s grosses, weekend #26 of 2014 looks like $172 million for the top 12 films Friday-Sunday, 9% below the norm for this weekend and 6% below the same weekend last year as the lackluster summer 2014 rolls on.   Opening at 4,233 theaters, Transformers: Age of Extinction from Paramount grossed $41.1 million through Friday […]

Based on Friday’s grosses, weekend #30 of 2014 looks like $137 million for the top 12 films Friday-Sunday, better than our forecast earlier this week ($128 million) but still -8% below the norm for this weekend. Opening at 3,173 theaters, Lucy from Universal grossed $17.1 million through Friday and is on track for a $46.0 million […]

Weekend #34 of 2014 is looking like $111 million for the top 12 films this weekend, up 30% from the norm for this weekend and the fourth up weekend in a row after six straight down weekends. Opening at over 2,750 theaters Friday (just below the 2,886 average theater count for opening weekends the last two years), Frank […]

WORLDWIDE STUDIO SCORECARD.  Fox expanded its lead with $147 million worldwide this week, mostly from the release of The Maze Runner, pushing the studio to over $3.8 billion worldwide for the year to date.  Disney is in second with $2.6 billion, and Warner Brothers remains in third place with almost $2.5 billion.  In the chart below […]