MONDAY UPDATE:  Father’s Day was a holiday, all right… for some movies.  22 JUMP STREET vastly overestimated its appeal to dads, taking a sizable 30% hit on Sunday and falling an ugly $3M below its original weekend number to $57.1M.  HOW TO TRAIN YOUR DRAGON 2 was also a bit weaker than expected, down […]

  Holdovers saved the boxoffice this weekend. OPENINGS:  Although the studio flew to announce that a 5th installment will be opening a year from now, the weak start for PARANORMAL ACTIVITY 4 (Paramount) is a signpost to the (probably temporary) end of the franchise.  PA4, which desperately claimed an opening of $30.2M but will probably […]

WORLDWIDE STUDIO SCORECARD.  Updated look at 2016 by studio, with Fox continuing to dominate but Disney now in the game with Zootopia.  Note: We have amended the summary categories somewhat this year with the top category now reserved for films over $500 million worldwide and the lower category for films under $150 million worldwide.   YEAR TO […]

  OPENINGS:  THE EXORCIST: BELIEVER (Blumhouse/Morgan Creek/Universal) was at the low end of expectations with $27.2M, and it was also below projections internationally with $17.9M in 52 markets.  It’s hard to tell just what this means in terms of the bottom line, because while a $125M worldwide total wouldn’t look terrible against $30M in production […]

> As schools close and vacations begin, a lot of money is about to flood into Hollywood for about 2 blissful weeks.  But not enough to make up for the rest of a doleful year. SHERLOCK HOLMES:  GAME OF SHADOWS (Warners):  With a studio estimate that just barely managed to nudge above $40M–and needed an […]

  OPENINGS:  After a 15% Saturday bump to $16.7M, RIDE ALONG (Universal) seems assured of beating Cloverfield‘s $46.1M record for the 4-day Martin Luther King Day weekend (Ride Along is reporting $41.2M for Fri-Sun, where Cloverfield was at $40.1M).  Cloverfield ultimately reached $80M in the US, and that’s about where Ride Along should end up […]

  OPENINGS:  WRATH OF MAN (Miramax/UA/MGM) held solidly through the weekend and emerged with $8.1M, better than Nobody‘s recent $6.8M start, and not too far below the $10.7M for Guy Ritchie’s pre-pandemic The Gentlemen.  That film ended up with $36.5M in the US, and with the relative lack of competition Wrath faces, it could also […]

  WORLDWIDE STUDIO SCORECARD.  Here is an updated look at the 2019 film slates by studio. BOX OFFICE. Looking at North American box office, 2019 is now -6% below last year’s comparable span (1 point worse than last week’s comparison) and now basically even with this point the past four years ($8.852 billion).  Over the […]