OPENINGS:  EVIL DEAD RISE (Warners) modestly exceeded expectations with $23.5M, although that was still below the franchise’s last reboot in 2013 at $25.8M (which only reached a $54.2M total in the US and didn’t spawn a sequel).  Horror has become the most dependable genre in Hollywood, and Evil Dead Rise is the only one […]

  OPENINGS:  ARGYLLE (Apple/Universal) arrived within blah expectations at $18M.  That makes it the third consecutive wildly expensive theatrical flop for Apple (with worldwide marketing included, costs were around $300M), and while the company has a few more projects on the calendar, including a pair of Brad Pitt vehicles, one has to wonder how many […]

>Real Steel is knocking on the $200 million worldwide door, as the overseas gross to date jumped above $100 million (outweighing a downgrade in our domestic total estimate).  Picking up steam, Paranormal Activity 3 doubled its overseas tally to $54 million, and it is just getting going.  (See the updated chart after the jump.) Making […]

>The worldwide grosses rankings have been updated, and Rango (Paramount) now claims the top spot, passing The Green Hornet (Sony), as expected in last week’s international report.  But we suspect that Rango still has some upside — the overseas number should easily exceed the movie’s domestic number, with $40-50 million more to come from outside […]

Paranormal Activity 4 opened this weekend with $27 million overseas from 33 markets, on its way to an estimated $110 million total overseas and a weak $67 million total domestic (according to ShowbuzzDaily projections).  That would give PA4 a worldwide total of $177 million, tied with PA2 as the lowest in the still-very-profitable franchise. The biggest gainer overseas this […]

The Croods was the big mover overseas this past week, up $38 million outside North America to $243 million overseas and $416 million worldwide.  The other big gainer outside of home was G.I. Joe: Retaliation (up $23 million overseas to $168 million overseas to date and just under $300 million worldwide). Slowing down a bit outside of the […]

International box office chart:

Updated STUDIO SCORECARD: TOTAL NORTH AMERICAN BOX OFFICE. Looking at wide-release films in North America (those that play on at least 400 screens at some point), 2013 now totals over $8.2 billion, now basically even with last year’s pace and 3% above the prior four-year average 2009-2012 ($8.005 billion). Each year-to-date period below is defined as […]