It’s impressive to see The Martian bounce back to the number one spot at the box office, bringing its domestic take to $166 million. Gladiator is still Ridley Scott’s highest grosser to date, at $187 million, but The Martian will likely beat that without breaking a sweat. Alien, back in 1979 made $80 million, which is quite impressive considering it a …
As promising as the gloss critics had already given Straight Outta Compton, the multi-faceted bio-pic of rap group N.W.A. achieved something else this weekend that can only add to its sheen. Exceeding Universal’s best expectations, the first box-office estimates yesterday were in $56 million range — and today that amazing number was revised upwards to $60.2 mil. This places Straight …
“To a canary, the cat is the monster. We’re just used to being the cat.” If all goes as expected, Jurassic World’s domestic box office is going to make it one of the top three highest grossing films of all time. We’re probably more in Avengers or Dark Knight territory than we are Avatar and Titanic territory but it’s still worth …
Pixar’s Inside Out was in fewer theaters than Jurassic World but had almost the same per theater average, which means that if the movie had been in more theaters it very likely would have beaten the dino movie. Another surprise for the weekend is Dope’s impressive showing with 6 million. Dope was all the rage at Sundance and could be …
The headlines lately have ranged from shock to surprise to hope to despair about the films directed by women, films about women, and films aimed at women topping the box office. As we speak, Divergent, Cinderella and Fifty Shades of Grey will clock in as the year’s biggest hits, to say nothing of Home, which should take the box office …
Birdman did exceedingly well in limited release, with a $28,721 per theater average playing in just 50 locations. Whiplash needs a bit more word of mouth which it will get once the awards start rolling in. But with no major stars like Birdman has, it did respectable business with $5,778 per theater average in 46 locations, significantly less than Birdman. …
David Fincher’s Gone Girl is about to make in 4 weeks what Benjamin Button made in 18. Argo totaled out at $136 million, and didn’t get where Gone Girl has gotten until about 18 weeks. Gone Girl will likely hit $150 million before it leaves theaters. It’s estimated at $124 million right now. It continues to hold the zeitgeist and …
Gone Girl vaults to the top of David Fincher’s box-office chart with the best opening weekend of his career. $38 million; that’s 4.5 million tickets. Panic Room made $30 million selling 5.1 million tickets 12 years ago (in 2002, when Ellar Coltrane was 6 years old). In 2010, The Social Network had a $22 million debut weekend and went on …
Our teenagers today should be happy that they have become so heavily branded they no longer have much of a choice over how they spend their money. If it is built, they will come. They want to have a good time and they don’t particularly care how that good time is had. If you go by the critics, this is …
Boyhood has already made a cool $7 mil at the box office and Oscar season hasn’t even started yet in earnest. It is somewhat heartening to know that a movie like that can still make enough money to justify its existence. We are living the result of a multiple decade long audience conditioning experiment which has paid off well. Back in …
Who’s smiling a wicked smile now? Just 3 months ago, financial experts were predicting doom and gloom for Disney’s Maleficent. On April 1, Wall Street analyst Marci Ryvicker wrote that Maleficent “is maybe too dark and scary to be profitable… expectations for a Maleficent write-off seem relatively widespread.” Another analyst said, “It’s definitely in the ‘not a sure thing’ bucket.” …
Jennifer Lawrence has to be one of the biggest stars in the world right now. $158 million for the opening of Catching Fire. You can say it’s the franchise if you want. At the end of the day, does it really matter? Isn’t that just another way of saying it doesn’t count? Ditto for Sandra Bullock and the $245 million …
Only three Best Picture nominees have ever been number one for 3 consecutive weeks, and no black writer/director is among them. This film should hit $100 million without blinking. Here is how dominance at the box office has helped a film get a Best Picture nod, at the very least. Three weeks at number one: Unforgiven (winner) Erin Brockovich The …
All of the good word of mouth (sans some critics) has helped The Butler take the number one spot at the box office, very likely dragging people out who don’t go to the movies. There’s Oprah in the best performance she’s ever given (doesn’t get enough credit for being such a good actress), ditto Forest Whitaker, not to mention David …
Pacific Rim is a lot better than the box office results of the weekend would have you believe. Articles keep popping up about how fanboys had no impact and Twitter buzz meant nothing because at the end of the weekend, the vile Grownups 2 and Despicable Me 2 beat the wholly original, delightfully engaging Pacific Rim. Is it really much …
How has the year been shaking down in terms of box office numbers? For the big movies, at the mid-year point, it looks like this (from Box Office Mojo): 1 Iron Man 3 $405,929,319 4,253 2 Man of Steel $263,691,000 4,207 3 Oz The Great and Powerful $234,832,779 3,912 4 Fast & Furious 6 $233,980,000 3,771 5 Star Trek Into …
I was surprised to see how well Mud has been doing at the box office. Amid the tent-pole productions, the smaller films aren’t doing badly. They’re doing good enough, I think, to keep hope alive. Studios have cracked the code – give the people fewer choices and exactly what they want. Kind of like this.
Talk about top-heavy box-office. The Great Gatsby has collected $51 million on its opening weekend, coming in 2nd after Iron Man 3 with $72M. On virtually the same number of screens (3500 vs 3300) Gatsby earned 10x more than the closest 3rd place opener Pain and Gain at $5M.
Lincoln – $176 million – 12 Oscar nominations Django Unchained – $156 million – 5 Oscar nominations Les Miserables – $145 million – 8 Oscar nominations Argo – $126 million – 7 Oscar nominations Life of Pi – $109 million (but half a billion internationally) — 11 Oscar nominations Silver Linings Playbook – $98 million (will hit $100 soon enough) …
As we head into the Directors Guild this Saturday and this race comes to a sputtering close, it’s time to take another look at how the contenders have stacked up so far – in terms of international box office, really the big story is Life of Pi, which has made $525 million worldwide. But for these purposes, domestic box office …
