A Valentine’s Day in the middle of Presidents Day weekend allowed for strong Sunday studio estimates–in one case, suspiciously so. OPENINGS:  A couple of notable sidelights to the gargantuan success of DEADPOOL (Marvel/20th), which has the #17 opening of all time at $135.1M (probably $155M with the Monday holiday), is now the highest-opening R-rated […]

  OPENINGS:  FANTASTIC BEASTS: THE CRIMES OF GRINDELWALD (Warners) opened at $62.2M in the US, down 16% from the first Beasts.  In addition, it was more front-loaded, with a 16% Saturday drop compared to 12%.  Exit polls and reviews suggest that word of mouth won’t be as strong this time, so a $200M US total […]

Updated throughout: theater counts and critical sentiment for films opening this weekend. The 12th weekend of 2013 looks like it will be way off last year’s pace set by the opening of The Hunger Games, but the weekend will be closer to a more normal year.  The top 12 films Friday-Sunday should total $126 million, […]

  GLASS (Blinding Edge/Blumhouse/Buena Vista Intl/Universal) will easily win this MLK Weekend, but it’s not shaping up as the phenomenon it was envisioned to be–and we’ll see over the next few days whether it has a word of mouth problem.  According to preliminary numbers at Deadline, it had a $16.3M Friday (including $3.7M from Thursday […]

The 13th weekend of 2013 looks like it will be even with the pace for the comparable weekend the past few years.  The top 12 films Friday-Sunday should total about $144 million. Opening at a very high 3,719 theaters Thursday, G.I. Joe: Retaliation from Paramount should average a solid $10,300 per theater for the weekend (for a […]

  SHAZAM (DC/New Line/Warners) is going to win a bleak weekend at the box office, and even it doesn’t have much to boast about.  Preliminary numbers at Deadline have it dropping 68% from last Friday to $6.6M, worse than the Friday-to-Friday drops for Wonder Woman (-59%) and Justice League (-57%).  A $23M weekend would put […]

  The phenomenon of It having had its day, weekend box office is starting to look more familiar, which is to say subdued.  KINGSMAN: THE GOLDEN CIRCLE (MARV/20th) will take the weekend, but hardly in impressive fashion.  Preliminary numbers at Deadline have opening day at $15.7M, which includes $3.4M from Thursday night.  2 years ago, […]

Weekend #26 of 2014 (the halfway mark for the year already) is looking like $175 million for the top 12 films this weekend, 8% below the norm for this weekend and 4% below the same weekend last year, which featured two moderate openers rather than one big one (The Heat and White House Down).  Although Transformers should […]