OPENINGS:  GUARDIANS OF THE GALAXY VOL 2 (Marvel/Disney) had a solid Saturday hold for a blockbuster, down 9% on its 2d full day of release.  That compares to the performance of the Iron Man sequels, respectively down 11% and 10%, and much better than Avengers: Age of Ultron‘s 33% plunge, although a tad less […]

  OPENINGS:  KONG: SKULL ISLAND (Legendary/Tencent/Warners) is playing as a quasi-family movie, perhaps in response to the R-rated Logan and Get Out.  That gave it a much more muscular Saturday than similar big-budget monster movies, up 19% on Saturday where Godzilla fell 16% and Pacific Rim dropped 13%.  With that boost, Kong should hit its […]

Weekend #21 of 2012 (the traditional Friday-Sunday portion of this Memorial Day weekend) looks like it will total about $153 million for the top 12 films, down 29% from last year’s comparable weekend and down 11% from the four-year average for the weekend.  Two movies open Friday, Men in Black 3 and Chernobyl Diaries.  Although […]

>Weekend #15 of 2012 looks like it will be about $105 million for the top 12 films, down 11% from last year’s comparable weekend (dominated by Rio) and about even with the four-year average for this weekend.  After three weeks of blazing box office, The Three Stooges and The Cabin in the Woods should struggle […]

>No new wide releases this weekend, the final weekend of the year as we welcome the arrival of 2012.  We are estimating a box office volume of $145 million for Friday-Sunday for the top 12 films, up 27% from $114 million last weekend (which was limited by Christmas Eve on Saturday) and down only 2% […]

  OPENINGS:  The musical remake of MEAN GIRLS (Paramount) was within expectations at $28M for the 3-day weekend ($32M is anticipated with the inclusion of Monday’s MLK Day holiday).  The film, which was originally developed for streaming, had a moderate budget, so it should be on its way to a fair amount of profit.  The […]

  OPENINGS:  US (Blumhouse/Perfect World/Universal) slipped 12% on Saturday, and while that doesn’t compare to Get Out‘s amazing 17% increase on its 2nd day of release, it’s in the range of the 11% drop for It, and better than the 18% for both The Conjuring and the 2018 Halloween.  That pushed Us to a $70.3M […]

  OPENINGS:  As we had forecast on Friday night, the margin of victory for the weekend box office was razor-thin, and we won’t really know who won until final numbers are released tomorrow.  For now, HIDDEN FIGURES (20th) is $172K below Rogue One at $21.8M, but Disney’s Rogue One projection relies on a speculatively strong […]