For the first time in, like, forever most of the Oscar frontrunners for Best Picture have either made $100 million or are barreling towards that as we speak. Box office for “adult fare” has been off the charts this year and IS THE STORY of 2012. Any reporter not talking about the money and Oscar this year is not doing …

Wowzer for all three of these box office stories. The first, Les Miserables hits $18 mil for its opening. That makes it the second highest opener on Christmas, behind Sherlock Holmes and the highest grossing opener for a musical ever. Django Unchained, in more theaters, came out with less of a take, at $15 million.  But Les Mis really had the …

Since Christmas falls on Tuesday this year, the usual sources of box-office savvy have been more cautious with forthcoming weekend predictions and it’s not easy to find estimates for the weeklong haul. Nikki Finke is down sick (get well soon!) so we don’t have the benefit of the inside track she taps for ticket-sales estimates. Although a holiday release holds …

This past weekend Lincoln increased its theater count and as a result passed Argo to become 2012’s highest grossing of the Oscar contenders so far. Still to come, Les Miserables, Zero Dark Thirty and Django Unchained. The Hobbit broke box office records in its opening, and The Dark Knight Rises and The Avengers remain the year’s highest grossing films overall. …

The Oscar best picture race has lit up the box office this season, something that hardly ever happens. The reason is that the domestic films this year out of the major studios have all been good.  Four movies upcoming with all probably be, at the very least, $100 million babies: Zero Dark Thirty, Les Miserables, Django Unchained, The Hobbit. This …

Argo isn’t just a Best Picture frontrunner amid the Oscar pundit circles; it is that rare word of mouth film that people “out there in the world” are talking about. Why, because it delivers in so many different ways. It doesn’t hurt that we are in the midst of an election season that has shades of Argo threaded throughout. You …

The Hunger Games opening weekend tally adds up to $155M domestic + $58.7M international for a total of $213.7M worldwide. Third biggest opening of all time. Deadline digs into the marketing strategy: What made Lionsgate’s promotional campaign for The Hunger Games so unusual and probably effective was that the studio stuck to the rare strategy of not showing any footage …

As we head into the Producers Guild tomorrow, it’s a good time to look at how our contenders, or those we think will be contenders, or might be contenders, or who could be contenders are faring in this Oscar season. The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo will become the highest grossing Best Picture contender behind The Help (and Bridesmaids if …

Ziyad Abul Hawa has done another spectacular job crunching the numbers to rank the year’s top movies up through the final weeks of summer.

DreamWorks/Disney holds tight to the #1 spot at the box-office as The Help cleans up for the 3rd week in a row. An estimated $18 million for the 4-Day Holiday Weekend and a total of $122 mil in one month. There’s a pre-order page already up on Amazon for the anticipated pre-Christmas release of DVD and Blu ray in editions …

Shame the Harry Potter series is ending just when it’s beginning to catch on. Deadline is reporting an astonishing haul of $43.5 million from midnight screenings, a healthy head-start on what’s shaping up to be a $180 million weekend in the US alone. Domestically, $45 million has been collected already in pre-sales for this opening North America weekend, including $27M …

Yesterday someone somewhere bought a ticket for Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides and pushed it past the $1 Billion mark in worldwide box-office earnings. It’s now the 8th film in history to gross over $1 Billion and the second film in the Pirate series to do so. It’s Walt Disney Studios’ 4 title to earn $1B, the 3rd …

“Comprehension is not a prerequisite of cooperation.” ~ The Matrix From the Avon Theatre in Stamford, Connecticut, via @NextProjection on Twitter. Don’t let your mouth write checks your ass can’t cash Don’t take your ass to movies your head can’t process.

Super 8 ticked up above most estimates to earn $37 million its opening weekend. Deadline notes that District 9 pulled in a nearly identical sum of 37.3 mil in 2009. Some may say, sure, but District 9 was rightly famous for the bang-for-the-buck Neill Blomkamp achieved with a modest $30 mil budget. But you may be surprised to learn JJ …

Very Small Array charts a steady 50-year decline in the quality of films moviegoers want to see most. Steepest nosedive occurs at the end of the 1970’s when the American New Wave suffered a backlash, studios pulled the plug on rebel directors, a decade of film-schooled artistry was ending, and the era of the modern marketing blockbuster began. If this …

The King’s Speech is making a boatload of cash at the box office. According to Pete Hammond, the film is so gangbusters in the UK it is as big as Avatar was last year. It is hitting big not just with the Brits but over here as well. It’s already up to $77 mil and shows no sign of slowing …

Adding up the weekend box-office estimates for the top Best Picture contenders, we find True Grit vaulting into 3rd place with a long trail ahead yet to ride. (Run, Little Blackie, run!) Wasn’t expecting too many surprises when I drew up a chart for the most successful BP hopefuls, but found a few anyway. Nice to see Shutter Island is …

Friday’s box-office numbers for True Grit tipped it into the #1 spot, and Deadline says the final tally for New Year’s Weekend has the Coen brothers’ biggest opener nearly tied for the top spot with Fockers 3.¬† Perhaps the most interesting stat is True Grit’s stamina. While Little Fockers fell 15% from last weekend, True Grit held fast with a …

It is time to once again take stock of the big money makers so far this year. Why does it matter? Because it does. Looking back through Oscar history and it’s clear that if there is one commonality, it’s that popular films that are also well-reviewed tend to do well in the Best Picture race, but particularly when there are …

Here are the studio grosses from Boxoffice.com. Poor Secretariat. I don’t know what happened there. To me it seemed like a no-brainer. We can put the stories about Social Network not doing well at the box office to bed, I think. It might lose out next weekend, but two weekends in a row for a talky drama with only one …