INSIDE OUT (Pixar/Disney) is in line for the biggest non-sequel opening in the history of animation.  Preliminary numbers at Deadline have it winning Friday with $32.8M (that includes $3.7M from Thursday night), on its way to a weekend that should be at least $85M–and could be more, since word of mouth should be sky-high.  […]

  KONG: SKULL ISLAND (Legendary/Tencent/Warners) had a $20M opening day according to preliminary numbers at Deadline (that’s at the high end of numbers reported elsewhere earlier in the day), including $3.7M from Thursday night.  Even if that number holds, it’s little more than half the $38.4M opening day for Godzilla 3 years ago.  Godzilla had […]

  OPENINGS:  For ROGUE ONE (Lucasfilm/Disney), massive success was taken for granted, and the question was how big a standalone spin-off entry in the Star Wars canon could be.  The answer is pretty damn big:  its $155M US opening weekend is the 12th highest ever, and #3 for the year (behind $179.1M for Captain America: […]

Weekend #33 of 2012 looks like an unusually robust third weekend of August.  Four new films open, with The Expendables 2 an atypically strong entry for this late weekend.  The top 12 films this weekend should total $143 million, up over 35% from the pace for the same weekend the last few years. Opening at […]

  In its time of need, Hollywood looked to Pixar for salvation, and FINDING DORY (Pixar/Disney) is delivering.  According to preliminary numbers at Deadline, its opening day was $53M (including $9.2M from Thursday evening), more than any animated film has ever made in a single day, ahead of the $47.1M that Shrek The Third earned […]

  OPENINGS:  SPIDER-MAN: FAR FROM HOME (Columbia/Sony) owned the Independence Day holiday, with $93.6M over the 3-day weekend, and a $185.1M total since its Tuesday opening.  Comparisons are inexact due to the 6-day holiday start, but it was considerably ahead of The Amazing Spider-Man, which also had a 6-day opening (with July 4th on Wednesday […]

  OPENINGS:  INSIDE OUT (Pixar/Disney) had the largest opening for an animated non-sequel ever at $91.1M.  (Disney is claiming a slightly more abstract record as well, the largest opening for a film that isn’t based on any preexisting source material–excluding The Hunger Games, for example, because it began as a book–but the animation record will […]

Weekend #29 of 2012 looks like what last weekend should have been: $272 million for the top 12 films, up 50% from last year’s comparable weekend and up 67% from the four-year average for the weekend. Opening at 4,404 theaters, The Dark Knight Rises from Warner Brothers should average $43,600 per theater (for a $192 million […]