May 12th, 2022
After an impressive opening week at the box office, Doctor-Strange in the Multiverse of Madness holds steady with its opening theater count of 4,534 theaters. The latest Marvel feature snagged an eye-opening $187.4 million in its opening weekend and currently enjoys a domestic cume of just shy of $223 million, with a worldwide total of $532 million. The film’s opening weekend places it comfortably in 11th on the record opening weekends chart, just ahead of Incredibles 2’s $182.4 million and just behind Avengers: Age of Ultron’s $191 million.
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April 21st, 2022
It should be a fun-filled weekend for moviegoers as not only are there plenty of indie films hitting theaters but we also see three new wide releases arrive on North American soil, joining last week’s box office leaders Sonic the Hedgehog 2 and Fantastic Beasts: The Secrets of Dumbledore. After amassing over $200 million in its first two weeks, the former drops two spots on the theater count chart this week, showing in 3,809 theaters, while the latter adds cinemas, coming in at 4,245 locations and becoming this week’s widest release.
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April 17th, 2022
Reports of the death of the Harry Potter franchise will most likely be greatly exaggerated in the coming days, but there’s no denying that Fantastic Beasts: The Secrets of Dumbledore is doing far worse than Warner Bros. would have hoped for when the first three films in the Fantastic Beasts franchise were announced back in October, 2014. Seven and half years is a long time in the film business, and the disruption caused by the pandemic did nothing to help this film. However, in the context of the performance of the previous two films in the franchise and the changes to the moviegoing audience caused by the pandemic, its opening, which Warner Bros. projects at $43 million as of this morning, is actually not far behind what our model predicted.
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April 14th, 2022
After a superb opening week at the box office, Sonic the Hedgehog 2 gains theaters this week, becoming the widest release in its second week, after taking a back seat to Morbius last week. By a narrow margin, the action-adventure sequel staves off newcomer Fantastic Beasts: The Secrets of Dumbledore, 4,258 to 4,208 theaters respectively.
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March 13th, 2019
It’s not a good week on the home market. There are some big releases, like Fantastic Beasts: The Crimes of Grindelwald, but none of them are good. There are a couple of contenders for Pick of the Week, but the The Adventures of Rocky and Bullwinkle and Friends: The Complete Series DVD is a re-release at a more reasonable price, while it is worth waiting to get the The Miseducation of Cameron Post: Special Edition Blu-ray. In the end, I went with a late screener, The Forbidden Photos Of A Lady Above Suspicion: Collector’s Edition Blu-ray. It is definitely the best bet for fans of Giallo and / or Film Noir.
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November 28th, 2018
Fantastic Beasts: The Crimes of Grindelwald fell more than $100 million to $83.3 million on 27,922 screens in 80 markets for totals of $322.2 million internationally and $439.2 million worldwide. Its only new market was Japan, where it debuted with $13 million on 1,008 screens. By comparison, the first Fantastic Beasts earned $15.5 million during its debut in that market. The film’s best holdover was Germany, where it added $7.5 million on 1,460 screens lifting its running tally to $23.2 million after two weeks of release. On the other hand, it plummeted 82% during its second weekend in China down to just $6.44 million for a two-week total of $52.11 million. The film likely won’t reach $500 million internationally and its worldwide total might be as much as $200 million shy of its predecessor. This is still enough to be profitable, but there is reason to be concerned about the franchise going forward.
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November 27th, 2018
The weekend box office was more lucrative than predicted with both Ralph Breaks the Internet and Creed II breaking records. Depending on how technical you want to be. Ralph Breaks the Internet led the way with $55.67 million over the three-day weekend and $84.47 million over five. This is technically the record for biggest Thanksgiving opening, as Frozen had a prestige opening the weekend before and only expanded wide on Thanksgiving. Nearly every other film on this week’s list also topped predictions helping this weekend to rise 26% from last weekend hitting $216 million over the three-day period. This was also 15% higher than the same weekend last year, which is a more important result. I was really expecting 2018’s lead over 2017 to be down significantly from its peak; however, instead it has stretched its lead to $1.04 billion or 11% at $10.53 billion to $9.49 billion.
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November 17th, 2018
Fantastic Beasts: The Crimes of Grindelwald opened in first place with $25.7 million on Friday. The film actually had better previews than Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them, but its Friday was 13% below its predecessor. This is a bad sign for its legs. Additionally, its reviews fell to just 40% positive, while it only managed a B plus from CinemaScore. On the positive side, the film is doing much better internationally and the film already has $74.3 million in just two days of international release. It will break even on just its international numbers, but the film’s poor reception with critics and moviegoers could hurt the rest of the installments in the Fantastic Beasts franchise.
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November 1st, 2018
October continued 2018’s phenomenal box office run, for the most part. There were a couple of films that missed expectations by $10 million or more, but on the other hand, Vemon and Halloween were smash hits and are now the first and second biggest October debuts of all time. Furthermore, 2018’s lead over 2017 is, as I’m writing this, just shy of $1 billion and if 2018 can maintain this lead, it will be one of the biggest year-over-year increases of all time. It won’t. The fun times end now. Why is that? Last November was amazing. There were only eight wide releases, but six of them earned more than $100 million. Three of those hit $200 million, including Thor: Ragnarok, which earned over $300 million. This year, there are a lot more movies opening in November, but it is a case of quantity over quality. No movie is expected to come close to $300 million and it would take a bit of luck just to have five $100 million hits. The film I’m looking forward to the most is Ralph Breaks the Internet, while it, Dr. Seuss’ The Grinch, and Fantastic Beasts: The Crimes of Grindelwald are all aiming for $200 million this month. Fortunately, even if 2018 is behind 2017’s pace by around $300 million, 2018 has built up such a large lead that it should still go into December with an insurmountable lead at the box office.
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November 26th, 2016
Moana remained the dominant film at the box office on Friday, pulling in $21.86 million. This is lower than the $23 million we were hoping for yesterday, but it still puts the film on pace to break the record for the biggest Thanksgiving opening, currently held by Tangled at $48.77 million / $68.71 million. (Frozen opened in limited release the week before Thanksgiving, so it technically doesn’t hold the record for best Thanksgiving opening, although it does have the best Thanksgiving weekend for an animated film with $67.4 million / $93.6 million.) Moana should earn just under $55 million over the three-day weekend for a five-day total of just over $80 million. This would put the film in a tie with Toy Story 2 for sixth place on the list of all-time best Thanksgiving weekends, depending on how well it does for the rest of the weekend. Furthermore, its 98% positive reviews and its A rating from CinemaScore suggest long legs going forward. It should still be in a lot of theaters on Christmas day.
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