OPENINGS:  The $23.5M opening for FURY (QED/Columbia/Sony) puts it at risk of being passed next weekend by the low-grade Keanu Reeves vehicle John Wick.  Fury has the distinction of being the lowest-grossing movie to open at #1 this year since Mr. Peabody & Sherman back in March, and that’s not what Brad Pitt in […]

> There are good movies and there are hits, and given the choice, there’s never been any doubt which Hollywood prefers. OPENINGS:  A March filled to the brim with wannabe blockbusters is off to a big start.  THE LORAX (Universal) may be a bad movie (spoiler alert–it is), but the studio sold the hell out […]

WORLDWIDE STUDIO SCORECARD. Scroll down for domestic and overseas grosses for each film individually so far in 2014. YEAR TO DATE BOX OFFICE. Looking at North American box office, 2014 is still running -6% behind last year and -4% below the average for this point the past four years ($9.192 billion).  Over the same period, […]

  OPENINGS:  LET HIM GO (Focus/Universal) had a more substantial marketing campaign than most recent arrivals, and it seemed to benefit modestly from the added resources with a $4.1M weekend, the same start that Honest Thief had a few weeks ago. In limited release, THE DARK AND THE WICKED (RLJE) opened with $65K at 68 […]

> Studios exaggerate the gross of Rio and Scre4m (shocking!).  Specialty films The Conspirator and Atlas Shrugged: Part 1 open to average results. The past week is up versus 2010 — the slump is not over but progress was made.  Compared to the Sunday Studio Estimates (which combine actual numbers for Friday and Saturday with a studio-supplied estimate […]

Weekend #19 of 2016 forecasts for films opening wide and major returning films: NEW FILMS THIS WEEKEND May 6-8, 2016 Critics Positive ($ millions) Opening Weekend Forecast Domestic Total Projection Overseas Total Projection Worldwide Total Projection Captain America: Civil War Dis PG13 93% 206.5 518 595 1,113 Note: Although critic reviews are not related to […]

> Green Lantern debuts on the Worldwide Ranking at #15, while Mr Popper’s Penguins appears outside the Top 20.  Pirates of the Caribbean closes in on $1 billion worldwide. Green Lantern debuts at #15 on the Top 20 Worldwide list with a very limited overseas release so far, while Mr Popper’s Penguins finds itself way […]

  OPENINGS:  Not to throw any cold water on the extremely impressive performance of THE PURGE (Universal), but it’s unlikely that the thriller will slip only 12% on Sunday, as Universal is forecasting, when the next-lowest Sunday estimate in the Top 10 is almost double that.  (The idea seems to be that after a 38% […]