It was a strong multiplex weekend all over the world this week, which was good news for Hollywood and its overseas equivalents. OPENINGS:  Although David Fincher is considered one of cinema’s heavy hitters, he’s never been a blockbuster guy, and until this weekend, his biggest opening came a dozen years ago, with $30.1M for […]

WORLDWIDE STUDIO SCORECARD.  Fox had a great week worldwide last week ($167 million worldwide), partly from the domestic release of Gone Girl this weekend but also from strong overseas returns for The Maze Runner.  Fox is now over $4 billion for the year worldwide, the #1 Hollywood studio by far, and saddled with surprisingly few duds on its […]

  OPENINGS:  THE EQUALIZER (Columbia/Sony) was a bit softer on Saturday than Denzel Washington’s other hits at this box office level, up 8% compared to 11% for American Gangster and 19% for Safe House.  (Possibly because Equalizer is a terrible movie.)  That resulted in a $35M weekend that was slightly lower than Friday’s start had […]

WORLDWIDE STUDIO SCORECARD.  Universal and Sony each had weeks over $100 million, mostly because of the domestic releases of The Boxtrolls (Focus) and The Equalizer.  But both movies remain mired toward the bottom of the worldwide studio rankings. Scroll down for domestic and overseas grosses for each film individually so far in 2014.   YEAR TO DATE BOX […]

  OPENINGS:  THE MAZE RUNNER (20th) is off to a healthy start worldwide, leading the US with $32.5M and overseas with $37.9M, the latter in 47 territories (and such major areas as Western Europe and China still to come).  Those aren’t gigantic numbers, but as YA franchises go, Maze Runner was done on the cheap, […]

WORLDWIDE STUDIO SCORECARD.  Fox expanded its lead with $147 million worldwide this week, mostly from the release of The Maze Runner, pushing the studio to over $3.8 billion worldwide for the year to date.  Disney is in second with $2.6 billion, and Warner Brothers remains in third place with almost $2.5 billion.  In the chart below […]

WORLDWIDE STUDIO SCORECARD.  The studio rankings remain unchanged, although Warner Brothers had a nice week ($141 million worldwide the past seven days thanks to the domestic debut of Dolphin Tale 2 and a good start overseas for the sequel).  No other studio was over $100 million worldwide for the week, and most were well below that. Scroll […]

  OPENINGS:  NO GOOD DEED (Screen Gems/Sony) hit in a big way with an unexpected $24.5M start.  That’s not quite the equal of 2009’s Obsessed ($28.6M), but it’s close enough.  And while Obsessed had to contend with the opening of X-Men Origins: Wolverine in its 2d weekend, No Good Deed will face much less blockbusterish […]