The Dark Knight Rises opened with $88 million overseas in a modest 17 territories.  We’ll give Rises a preliminary overseas target of $490 million, slightly higher than 2008’s The Dark Knight, which grossed $469 million overseas.  If our overseas target is correct, that put puts the worldwide target for Dark Knight Rises at $980 million, just behind The Dark Knight‘s […]

>The weekend studio estimates (based on Friday and Saturday actuals and projections for Sunday) are coming in significantly stronger than the weekend numbers posted yesterday (based on Friday actuals only).  The box office volume for the top 12 films is now looking like an impressive $174 million for the weekend, up a very strong 29% […]

>Another strong week in North American movie theaters.  The full week box office (August 8-14) generated $236 million, up 16% versus the same week last year and up 10% versus the average week the past four years. Year-to-date box office is $6.677 billion, now down only 4.0% from this time last year and up 1.8% […]

> Deadline‘s preliminary numbers for Friday have JOHN CARTER (Disney) at around $10M for the day, which depending on how much it plays as a family movie on Saturday, should mean a $25-30M weekend.  That’s not a horribly low number–it’s one of the half-dozen highest openings of the year so far–unless you’re trying to earn […]

WORLDWIDE STUDIO SCORECARD.     YEAR TO DATE BOX OFFICE. Looking at North American box office, 2015 to date is still +5% above last year and +7% above the average for this point the past four years ($3.249 billion).  Over the same period, Hollywood films have grossed $9.8 billion worldwide when we add overseas box office (that’s […]

WORLDWIDE STUDIO SCORECARD.  Updated look at 2016 by studio. Warner Brothers moved into second place, pushing Fox into third place.  This is the first change in the studio rankings in weeks, thanks mostly to continued overseas strength from Suicide Squad and the strong first 10 days of Sully.   YEAR TO DATE BOX OFFICE. Looking at North American box […]

> RISE OF THE PLANET OF THE APES has a slew of positives going for it commercially:  the reportedly fairly low $93M production cost, the month of August ahead with its limited competition, strong support from an older audience that doesn’t flock to theatres on opening weekend, a genre and emphasis on visuals that should […]

  OPENINGS:  MAMA (Universal) had a 9% bump on Saturday, not bad for a horror movie, and should have a very healthy $33M by the end of the 4-day weekend.  BROKEN CITY (20th) and THE LAST STAND (Lionsgate), with their older-skewing audiences, had proportionately better Saturdays (up 19% and 25%, respectively), but there’s still such limited […]