OPENINGS:  No one expected THE CALL (TriStar/Sony) or THE INCREDIBLE BURT WONDERSTONE (Warners) to win this weekend.  Call, though, is overperforming, and by Sunday it should be in a position to recoup its $15M (plus marketing) cost–not a big win for Halle Berry, but one of the first she’s ever had as a solo […]

  OPENINGS:  After a painful post-Hobbit winter, Warners was in dire need of a hit, and Jackie Robinson became its great American hero, as 24 (Warners) had a very strong $9.1M opening day.  Word of mouth should be on the movie’s side–the challenge for the studio was to get people into the theaters in the […]

Looking at wide-release films in North America (those that play on at least 400 screens at some point), 2013 now totals just over $2.7 billion, down 12% from 2012 and down 6% from the prior four-year average 2009-2012.  Each year-to-date period below is defined as the first Monday after New Year’s Day through the most […]

Based on Friday’s and Saturday’s grosses, Weekend #22 of 2013 now looks like a solid $157 million for the top 12 films, up over 10% from comparable weekends the past few years.  Now You See Me is the one film that exceeded our forecast earlier this week, while the other opener (After Earth) and all of the major holdovers remain […]

The 24th weekend of the year is looking like a very good $201 million for the top 12 films, well above the same weekend the last few years.   Opening at over 4,200 theaters Friday (well into the top 10% of theater counts), Man of Steel from Warner Brothers should average $26,400 per theater for the […]

  It’s a best of times, worst of times kind of weekend for the newcomers. OPENINGS:  DESPICABLE ME 2 (Universal) is everything its makers could have wanted at the box office.  With a $30.2M Friday, it should have $140M in the US by Sunday (it won’t match the $97.9M Independence Day weekend of Transformers 3, but […]

  THE WOLVERINE (20th) is the weekend’s only big newcomer at the box office, and it got off to a healthy $4M start last night.  That number is particularly strong since Wolverine held off till 10PM to start its launch–unlike other summer openings that have begun their “Fridays” at 6-7PM on Thursday–and it was was […]

Based on Friday’s and Saturday’s grosses, Weekend #33 of 2013 looks like an okay $121 million for the top 12 films, up 6% from the average for this weekend the past few years but down 5% from last year’s comparable weekend. Opening at 2,933 theaters Friday, Lee Daniels’ The Butler from Weinstein grossed $8.3 million […]