Labor Day Weekend is the only holiday that doesn’t make people gravitate to the movies, and this year will be no exception.  Based on preliminary numbers at Deadline, the 5-week old GUARDIANS OF THE GALAXY (Marvel/Disney), newly anointed as America’s #1 film of 2014 at approximately $262M (although it will never catch up with […]

  Strong Saturdays for both GONE GIRL (20th) and ANNABELLE (New Line/Warners) suggest that no matter who claims victory on Sunday morning, we may not really know who’s won the weekend until final numbers are available the next day.  According to preliminary box office figures at Deadline, Gone Girl climbed about 15% on Saturday to $15.3M, […]

  OPENINGS:  NIGHTCRAWLER (Open Road) and Ouija are in a dead heat for the weekend title, with Nightcrawler claiming a temporary $9000 edge at $10.909M.  We won’t know the real winner until tomorrow, but Ouija is already admitting a 52% Sunday drop, while Nightcrawler maintains that it will only fall 35% today.  That number is […]

The weekend predictions will return next week, when Exodus: God and Kings and Top Five are released nationally.  This weekend, typical for the post-Thanksgiving weekend, is extremely quiet.  Only The Pyramid is opening at a very small 589 theaters.

Weekend #5 of 2015 is looking like $104 million for the top 12 films this weekend, actually well above the normal volume for this weekend ($77 million), which is hobbled by the Super Bowl and its massive television audience.  American Sniper on Friday and Saturday should salvage the weekend somewhat, but there is very little […]

  CINDERELLA (Disney) had an enchanted Friday, according to preliminary numbers at Deadline, with $23M (that includes $2.3M from Thursday night), and since its target audience is all about weekend matinees, it should be at $70M and perhaps even $75M by Sunday.  That would be better than the $69.4M opening for Maleficent, which had a […]

WORLDWIDE STUDIO SCORECARD.  Universal remains a dominant #1, growing even more this week.  Unfriended helped a little with its domestic opening, but the big reason for the weekly again this week was Furious 7 which is exploding overseas.  As for the other openers this weekend, Paul Blart: Mall Cop 2 does not significantly improve Sony’s fortunes, nor does Monkey Kingdom for Disney. […]

WORLDWIDE STUDIO SCORECARD.     YEAR TO DATE BOX OFFICE. Looking at North American box office, 2015 to date is now +4% above last year and +5% above the average for this point the past four years ($3.482 billion).  Over the same period, Hollywood films have grossed $10.1 billion worldwide when we add overseas box office (that’s […]