MISSION IMPOSSIBLE: ROGUE NATION (Skydance/China Film Channel/Alibaba/Paramount) set its sights at a $50M opening weekend in the US (you could tell because the studio claimed the target was in the $40Ms), and it seems likely to get there.  Preliminary numbers at Deadline give the 5th entry in the franchise a $20M opening day (incuding […]

  MINIONS (Illumination/Universal) was expected to enfold the weekend box office in its little yellow fingers, and so it is.  Preliminary numbers at Deadline give it a $45M opening day, which appears to be the largest opening in the history of movie animation (the asterisk is because we now consider “Friday” to include Thursday night, […]

  Given the overwhelming fanboy appeal of PACIFIC RIM (Warners/Legendary), it’s not exactly a shock that the movie started strong with shows that started at 7PM Thursday night, earning $3.6M.  It’s probably in line for a solid Friday as well–the question will be what happens when the usually frontloaded genre crowd is done and the […]

  Preliminary numbers at Deadline present a Friday box office in which few titles moved more than 10% from Thursday, typical for the Christmas-to-New Year’s period.  The top 2, once again, were FROZEN (Disney) and THE HOBBIT: THE DESOLATION OF SMAUG (Warners/MGM), although with the first moving up around 7% and the other declining by […]

  Although it also stars (and is produced by) Ice Cube, RIDE ALONG (Universal) goes down in the books as a big win for Kevin Hart, the focus of the movie’s marketing campaign.  Based on preliminary numbers at The Hollywood Reporter, the action comedy is on its way to a $40M+ 4-day Martin Luther King […]

  Those waiting for Marvel to stumble will have to go on waiting.  Based on preliminary numbers at Deadline, THOR: RAGNAROK (Marvel/Disney) had a $46M opening day (including $14.5M from Thursday night), the highest for any Marvel Universe title released outside the May-July corridor.  Opening day was up 44% from the start of Thor:  The […]

  A weekend of sequels is dancing to the beat of MAMMA MIA! HERE WE GO AGAIN (Perfect World/Universal), which had a $15.1M opening day according to preliminary numbers at Deadline.  That’s up an impressive 53% from the first day of the original Mamma Mia, although some of the gap is due to the fact […]

> The Hollywood Reporter has preliminary boxoffice numbers for Friday, and as expected, PUSS IN BOOTS will be the easy weekend winner.  Its $9-9.5M on Friday, if it holds, would probably mean $36-38M for the weekend, which would be a Halloween weekend record, but considerably below other fall animated films like Megamind ($12.5M Friday for […]