Well, bah humbug. OPENINGS:  Start the spin machine:  THE HOBBIT: THE DESOLATION OF SMAUG (Warners/MGM) has opened with $31.1M, $6M below the start for last year’s An Unexpected Journey.  That’s more than a 15% drop, and if it continued throughout the weekend, Smaug could end up with a total around $70M.  However, the bulk […]

  OPENINGS:  The first “major” release of 2025, DEN OF THIEVES:  PANTERA (Lionsgate) hit its target with a $15.5M launch, almost exactly the same as the $15.2M start for 2018’s Den of Thieves.  That one reached $44.9M in the US and $80.5M worldwide (Pantera hasn’t yet opened internationally), and the economics this time should be […]

The 22nd weekend of 2012 is looking like a soft $130 million for the Top 12 films Friday-Sunday, down 15% from this weekend last year.  Snow White and the Huntsman is opening much stronger than forecast (and the weekend overall is consequently not quite the disaster we expected), but this is still the third weekend […]

Warner Brothers remains a mere $61 million ahead of second-place Disney, looking at worldwide grosses for films released in 2013.  Each of the top two studios reaped about $50 million this past week, mostly from overseas activity for The Hobbit: Desolation of Smaug (Warner Brothers) and Frozen (Disney).  For a complete ranking of 2013 films individually by worldwide performance click […]

  OPENINGS:  THE HOBBIT: AN UNEXPECTED JOURNEY (Warners/MGM), with its currently estimated $84.8M opening, has broken the previous December record (2007’s I Am Legend) by about 10%.  However, it’s also on track to be the first Lord of the Rings-related film to make less than $300M at the US boxoffice, despite being the first in […]

  OPENINGS:  We’re starting to get a feel for what this pandemic box office looks like, absent big-studio blockbusters.  This week’s HONEST THIEF (Open Road) opened at $3.7M in 2425 theatres (a weekend per-theatre $1525 average), just about the same as last week’s The War With Grandpa, even though they’re in completely different genres.  Honest […]

  The young, fanatically committed audience for ONE DIRECTION: THIS IS US (Sony) is the very definition of probable frontloading, so it’s no surprise that the concert doc debuted with a strong $2.7M last night at 7PM, the best Thursday night result since The Conjuring a month ago.  That’s almost as much as the full […]

  No authoritative boxoffice figures will be available until Sunday or Monday, as the studios would prefer that they not be associated with financial issues this weekend.   Although–properly–the focus of the stories on the senseless tragedy in Colorado has been on the madman who committed the actions, the studios are in a somewhat precarious position […]