The Saturday boxoffice news was better for some titles than others.  According to preliminary numbers at Deadline, TAKEN 2 (20th) held about even on Saturday, which is reasonable for an action-movie sequel.  Recent comparisons:  The Bourne Legacy had a 4% bump on its 2d day of release, while The Expendables 2 dropped 3%.  If […]

  New Year’s Eve box office results were all over the place, with kids still home from school while adults chose some movies (but not others) as their picks to see out the year.  Also, not all studios have yet reported their Tuesday numbers, notably Sony, Universal, Lionsgate and The Weinstein Company.  Still, here’s what […]

  OUIJA (Universal) had about the same hold on Saturday as Annabelle did 3 weeks ago, down 9% (in this case to $7.5M), according to preliminary numbers at Deadline, and that should be enough to get it to $20M for the weekend, easily enough for the win against little fresh competition. Ouija isn’t close to […]

  Although it’s possible for a horror or action movie to make some money over Labor Day weekend, no studio opens a movie it cares about for the holiday that repels moviegoers.  This weekend’s openings won’t change that rule.  THE LIGHT BETWEEN OCEANS (DreamWorks/Reliant/Participant/Touchstone/Disney) was probably envisioned as an awards-worthy project when it was originally […]

  Considering the almost laughably low level of the competition it faced, THE FATE OF THE FURIOUS (Universal) didn’t hold up well on its 2d Friday.  Preliminary numbers at Deadline have the day at $11.4M, down 75% from last week’s opening day.  That’s worse than the 72% Friday-to-Friday drop for Furious 7 (which was coming […]

  STAR WARS: THE LAST JEDI (Lucasfilm/Disney) was expected to be gigantic, but not quite as huge as 2015’s The Force Awakens, which benefited from a decade of pent-up expectations.  That’s exactly where it’s heading, as preliminary numbers at Deadline have Friday at $100.4M, of which $45M is from Thursday night.  That opening day is […]

  VENOM (Tencent/Columbia/Sony) is the first big-budget action movie to open since The Meg in mid-August, and that (plus a huge marketing campaign) seems to have gotten it past murderous reviews for an enormous start, the biggest ever in October.  Preliminary numbers at Deadline have opening day at $32.3M (including $10M from a Thursday that […]

  SNOW WHITE & THE HUNTSMAN (Universal) had a 5% Friday-to-Saturday bump, according to preliminary numbers at Deadline, which doesn’t say much for its word of mouth (the dreaded Battleship went up 11% on its second day of release).  That should still get Snow safely into the mid-$50Ms for the weekend, and now, like most […]