OPENINGS:  THE EQUALIZER (Columbia/Sony) was just a tad below the opening day for Denzel Washington’s Safe House, $12.6M vs. $13.6M.  That suggests a $36-37M weekend, which would be the 3rd highest of his career, behind only Safe House and American Gangster.  More impressively, it continues a remarkable record in which every movie he’s made […]

  OPENINGS:  BOHEMIAN RHAPSODY (Regency/20th) is claiming a round-number $50M weekend, but even if that drifts down a bit in final numbers, it’s still a huge win.  The box office was steady from Friday to Saturday, which indicates a wide range of audience and strong word of mouth, and it has plenty of open road […]

  OPENINGS:  SPIDER-MAN: HOMECOMING (Marvel/Columbia/Sony) was considerably more front-loaded than initial enthusiasm suggested, dropping 27% on Saturday, and pushing its weekend total to $117M.  While the weekend result was still a very big number, that Saturday decline was far steeper than the 8-9% Day 2 drops for Wonder Woman and Guardians of the Galaxy 2 […]

  On Sunday mornings, the devout go to church, and movie studios lie.  (There’s not much overlap between the two groups.)  The studios lie (or fudge, if you’re sensitive about the L Word), fundamentally, because they can get away with it:  when “estimated” box office returns are announced on Sunday mornings, they’re simply repeated–one might […]

Despite the horrific murders in Aurora, Colorado at the midnight showing of The Dark Knight Rises, business remained quite strong in the nation’s movie theaters throughout Friday.  The 29th weekend of 2012 is looking like $242 million for the Top 12 films Friday-Sunday, up close to 50% from the multi-year average for this weekend.  Of […]

>   Hold all tickets for 2d place. OPENINGS:  As of now, THE PIRATES!  BAND OF MISFITS (Sony), THE FIVE-YEAR ENGAGEMENT (Universal), THE LUCKY ONE (Warners) and THE HUNGER GAMES (Lionsgate/Summit) are all projected to gross within a $243,000 range for the weekend, with Pirates on top with $11.4M and Engagement bringing up the rear […]

  OPENINGS:  GODZILLA, KING OF THE MONSTERS (Legendary/Warners) didn’t have the Saturday bump that Kong: Skull Island enjoyed, instead dropping 17%, which was slightly worse even than the first Godzilla‘s 16%.  The result was a $49M US weekend, and a US total that may only reach $125M.  Although the numbers overseas were bigger, they were […]

Based on Friday’s grosses, weekend #32 of 2014 looks like a very good $173 million for the top 12 films Friday-Sunday, well above our forecast ($152 million) and 26% above the norm for this weekend ($138 million). Opening at 3,845 theaters, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles from Paramount grossed $25.6 million through Friday and is on track for […]