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 -7% below last year’s comparable span (1 point worse than last week’s comparison) and still basically even with this point the past four years ($9.092 billion).  Over the […]

  OPENINGS:  The only new wide release on Halloween weekend was the low-budget horror movie COME PLAY (Focus/Universal), which was relatively impressive compared to last week’s $1.3M for Empty Man with $3.2M.  It seemed to be helped by pandemic considerations, because while normally a Saturday Halloween would be a down day, this year moviegoing appeared […]

WORLDWIDE STUDIO SCORECARD.  The studios are starting to separate from each other as we approach the midpoint of the year.  20th Century Fox is nearing $1.9 billion worldwide box office to date.  Fox had a decent week with an additional $148 million worldwide (mostly from the domestic release of The Fault in Our Stars).  Warner Brothers […]

  OPENINGS:  There were no truly wide openings this weekend.  However, a few low-budget films entered mid-level distribution.  The horror movie SHORTCUT (Gravitas) averaged $420 over the weekend at 725 theatres for a $305K total.  The other two arrivals were Sundance acquisitions.  THE LAST SHIFT (Sony) averaged $270 at 871 for a $235K total.  KAJILLIONAIRE […]

  OPENINGS:  THE GREAT WALL (Legendary/Universal) scraped its way to $18.1M in the US, and should add another $3M or so on Monday.  The $50M it will hope to reach here will barely pay for its US marketing campaign, so the spectacle lives or dies overseas.  Right now it’s at $244.6M in the rest of […]

  OPENINGS:  DJANGO UNCHAINED (Weinstein/Sony) and LES MISERABLES (Universal) are both success stories, but Django has pulled away from Les Miz over the past couple of days, and should outpace the musical by the end of the week.  Django appears likely to beat Inglourious Basterds and its $120.5M to become Quentin Tarantino’s biggest hit ever, […]

  OPENINGS:  Both of the weekend’s big arrivals found their audiences.  WRECK-IT RALPH (Disney) had to settle for $49.1M after Saturday’s 58% bump–not that huge for an animated title–but if those numbers hold, it’ll still be enough to set a record for (non-Pixar) Walt Disney Animation, beating the 48.8M for Tangled. FLIGHT (Paramount) had a […]

  OPENINGS:  ELVIS (Warners) opened at the higher end of low expectations with $30.5M.  That technically put it into a dead heat with Top Gun: Maverick for the weekend crown, although that’s misleading because like virtually all big-studio openings, Elvis essentially had a 4-day opening, while Maverick‘s weekend didn’t get to count any of its […]