>DeadlineHollywood is reporting Green Lantern earned $3.35 million at midnight plays (at 1,810 theaters).  This result is similar to recent midnight previews for Thor and X-Men: First Class.  (See Mitch Salem’s Green Lantern review HERE.)  This might indicate Green Lantern could open in the high-$50 million range, although we will stick with the published $55 […]

>   Despite the enormous 53% drop on Saturday, Warners is projecting only a 21% fall for HARRY POTTER AND THE DEATHLY HALLOWS (PART 2) on Sunday, which would be 2nd lowest in the week’s Top 10, behind only Disney’s WINNIE THE POOH (which figures to be strong in Sunday matinees).  If the Harry Potter […]

> Fuller numbers are in, and they show a surprising near-tie on Friday between RISE OF THE PLANET OF THE APES, THE HELP and FINAL DESTINATION 5, all at $7.3-7.8M for the day.  The Apes have the presumptive advantage over the weekend, because 2d weekends are less front-loaded than openings, but since The Help started […]

> The irony of the new DreamWorks/Disney is that thus far, their big “event” spectaculars have done only modest business–I Am Number Four opened with $19.5M and ended up with $55M domestically, and REAL STEEL might do about 25-30% better–while their “little” picture THE HELP has been a blockbuster, one of the most profitable films […]

> The holiday movie season is not off to a roaring start. BREAKING DAWN PART 1:  The giant franchise will of course win Thanksgiving weekend.  But its $12.5M Wednesday gross was down 12% from what New Moon did on the day before Thanksgiving in 2009, which suggests a 5-day weekend that might be at $58M […]

> Everyone wanted to go to the movies on the first full weekend of 2012. PARAMOUNT:  The studio went straight to its Paranormal Activity playbook to launch THE DEVIL INSIDE (pre-release screenings, months of buzz), and it all worked:  the picture should gross at least $30M in its opening weekend, and with a $1M production […]

> It’s too little to make any meaningful difference for JOHN CARTER (Disney), but according to Deadline, the giant-budgeted spectacle didn’t have a bad Saturday.  Preliminary numbers have Carter rising by around 30% over its Friday total, which could mean a weekend over $30M.  A nice weekend multiple, though, still won’t touch the mountain of […]

> The Games are barely slowing down. THE HUNGER GAMES:  We’ll find out soon enough whether any of the genuinely exciting rumors about possible sequel directors (Alfonso Cuaron, David Cronenberg) are true, because Lionsgate needs Catching Fire in the can by early 2013, when Jennifer Lawrence has to report for X-Men duty.  For now, THE […]