> The Games are barely slowing down. THE HUNGER GAMES:  We’ll find out soon enough whether any of the genuinely exciting rumors about possible sequel directors (Alfonso Cuaron, David Cronenberg) are true, because Lionsgate needs Catching Fire in the can by early 2013, when Jennifer Lawrence has to report for X-Men duty.  For now, THE […]

Ten days into the three-week holiday movie season, 2012 is now 9% behind the average 10-day total over the last several years ($264 million this year for the first ten days versus $290 million on average 2004-2011).  However, 2012 remains 16% behind the last time Christmas fell on a Tuesday (2007 — $316 million the […]

STUDIO SCORECARD. Warner Brothers has jumped into second place in worldwide box office for the year to date, thanks to the opening of Man of Steel and to some extent continued overseas business for Great Gatsby and Hangover 3.  With the projected domestic total for Man of Steel, Warners is now the #1 studio domestically […]

  OPENINGS:  BAD GRANDPA (Paramount) romped to 1st place at the multiplexes this weekend with $32M, but perhaps more notably, it also made $8.4M in just 16 overseas territories.  That’s the same level as Jackass 3D, which ended up making $54M internationally, a tremendous success for such a low-budget franchise.  Bad Grandpa 2 seems all […]

  OPENINGS:  For both 3 DAYS TO KILL (Relativity) and POMPEII (TriStar/Sony/FilmDistrict), the only hope of salvation lies overseas.  3 Days, at least, has a relatively low production cost, but even if the reported $28M figure is accurate, its $12.3M US weekend won’t get it anywhere near recoupment of its worldwide marketing expenses.  Things are […]

  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 […]

WORLDWIDE STUDIO SCORECARD.   Scroll down for domestic and overseas grosses for each film individually so far in 2014. YEAR TO DATE BOX OFFICE. Looking at North American box office, 2014 is still running -5% behind last year and -3% below the average for this point the past four years ($7.784 billion).  Over the same […]

  Note:  due to last week’s low-grossing Super Bowl Sunday, all weekend-to-weekend comparisons appear unusually strong this week. OPENINGS:  THE SPONGEBOB MOVIE:  SPONGE OUT OF WATER (Nickelodeon/Paramount) notched the #5 February opening ever with $56M (although not quite in a league with last year’s The LEGO Movie, which was #2 with $69.1M).  The studios seem […]