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 […]

  The weekend box office race may end up being quite close once matinees come into play, but NIGHT SCHOOL (Perfect World/Universal) took Friday, with preliminary numbers at Deadline putting it at $9.3M for the day (including $1.4M from Thursday night).  That’s below the $13M Friday for Kevin Hart’s Central Intelligence, and $12.9M for Get […]

> PARANORMAL ACTIVITY 3 continues Paramount’s license to print money–it’ll soon be in profit even with worldwide marketing costs calculated in.  Yesterday will probably prove to be by far the biggest day of its front-loaded run, but at those prices, who cares? Sometimes it’s not about the marketing–it’s about the movie.  It would be difficult, […]

Cartoons rule the multiplex. OPENINGS:  BRAVE (Pixar/Disney), with its $24.5M Friday, had the highest non-sequel opening day for a Pixar film, beating WALL-E‘s $23.2M.  It’s a little behind last year’s Cars 2, which started out with $25.7M, but should also be less front-loaded (Cars 2 fell 9% on its first Saturday, while WALL-E went down less than […]

  OPENINGS:  No one expected THE CALL (TriStar/Sony) or THE INCREDIBLE BURT WONDERSTONE (Warners) to win this weekend.  Call, though, is overperforming, and by Sunday it should be in a position to recoup its $15M (plus marketing) cost–not a big win for Halle Berry, but one of the first she’s ever had as a solo […]

  OPENINGS:  The $31.6M first day for THOR: THE DARK WORLD (Disney) was about 24% higher than the $25.5M opening for the first Thor, an increment likely to reduce as the movie’s run continues, since sequels tend to be more front-loaded.  A $200M US total would be more than 10% up from Thor‘s $181M.  Where […]

  OPENINGS:  DAWN OF THE PLANET OF THE APES (20th), with $27.7M on Friday and a likely $70M weekend, will probably have a significant US box office bump over its predecessor Rise ($176.8M, after a $54.8M opening), but it won’t necessarily be more profitable, since Dawn cost a reported $75M more to produce and probably […]

  GODS OF EGYPT (Summit/Lionsgate) has been sitting around for so long that Gerard Butler managed to make next week’s London Has Fallen in the interim, and its own studio has been bleating about how the downside had been limited through tax rebates and foreign pre-sales, so the ensuing thudding flop isn’t much of a […]