Amazon MGM Studios’ Challengers, starring Zendaya and directed by Luca Guadagnino, made $1.9M in previews, a figure $100K shy of what Universal’s Cocaine Bear did. The tennis sexy romcom is hoping to open to $15M for the weekend. Lionsgate and Kingdom Story’s Unsung Hero made $1.67M in previews. It’s important to note that for both
Box Office
Following a slightly stronger than projected first quarter at the international box office, and with some titles added to the release calendar later in the year, Gower Street Analytics has increased its global box office projection for 2024 to $32.3B. This is a 2.5% hike from the London-based firm’s previous 2024 estimate of $31.5B, but remains a
EXCLUSIVE: Sound of Freedom distributor Angel Studios says nearly 84% of the tickets furnished by “pay-it-forward” buyers who wanted other patrons to see the movie for free were ultimately redeemed. With Jim Caviezel starring as real-life anti-child-trafficking activist Tim Ballard, the film became a left-field box office smash in 2023, outdoing mega-budget Hollywood titles like
A film about the impact of divine intervention on a failing relationship has become the first Filipino title to surpass $16M at the global box office. Rewind crossed the the 900M Philippine pesos worldwide gross mark this week, a huge return for the local box office. The local record was previously held by Hello, Love,
Cinema export agency Unifrance’s annual international box office report for 2023 revealed on Tuesday that Russia was the top market in terms of admissions for French cinema last year. Given that Russia’s relations with Europe are at their lowest ebb since the end of the Cold War in 1991 as its ongoing war on Ukraine
EXCLUSIVE: Finnish director Aki Kaurismäki has achieved his best global box office in a decade with Cannes Jury Prize winner Fallen Leaves which has racked up a total gross of $12.4M, according to figures released by its producers. This is the director’s second highest box office result behind 2011 drama Le Havre. The Helsinki-set love story, about
I’m trying to stay optimistic. It takes some effort, as just about everyone seems to think the film business is a mess–strike-thinned schedule, cultural chaos, streaming models in flux. But, hey, the Golden Globes audience was up by half, never mind critical reaction to the show. There are still signs of life out there. So
In early January, it can feel natural to view everything as a portent of what’s to come in the next 12 months… but that’s thankfully not the case with the box office. Annually, this is a time for the industry when blockbuster holdovers from the previous year do battle with low potential studio releases that
B. Riley analyst Eric Wold, who has stayed generally bullish on the movie theater business despite its recent trials, is now warning investors that the arrival of a “down box office year” has made him “increasingly cautious.” In a note to clients about his 2024 outlook, Wold wrote that he expects the stock performance of
Gower Street Analytics has come up with an early estimate for 2024 global box office, projecting a roughly 5% downturn versus 2023 to $31.5B (Gower currently is pegging 2023 at $33.4B). This marks the first post-pandemic decrease in the London-based firm’s annual forecast. Should the figure hold, it would put the year -20% against the
Deadpool 3, Beetlejuice 2 and Ghostbusters: Frozen Empire top Fandango‘s list of most-anticipated wide-release movies in 2024. (See the full top 10 and other charts below.) The NBCUniversal-owned digital movie brand surveyed 8,000 ticket buyers about the titles they’re most looking forward to, and also gauged their mood heading into next year. About 81% of
Taylor Swift: ‘The Eras Tour concert film has become the highest-grossing concert film of all time, earning an impressive $178 million domestically since its debut on Thursday, October 12. Among the list of the top-grossing concert films at the domestic box office are the recently rereleased Renaissance: A Film by Beyoncé, Talking Heads concert film
Six months in, the strikes are over. Ten days out, the holidays begin. As for the movies—unfortunately, the most exciting part of the year is already behind us. It’s disconcerting to realize that there is no unavoidably dazzling, must-see, pop cultural event film on the schedule for the rest of 2023. Certainly, some fine pictures,
AMC Entertainment swung to a profit last quarter and saw revenue jump 45%, besting Wall Street forecasts. CEO Adam Aron found the numbers “quite satisfying.” But, he said, the short-term impacts of the writer’s and actor’s strikes will cause additional and needless challenges for AMC in 2024. Without taking sides as to who is to
Cinemark CEO Sean Gamble said Apple and Amazon, two behemoths of the tech world but newcomers to the wide-release movie business, are so far “very pleased” with their results. During a conference call with Wall Street analysts to discuss third-quarter results, the major exhibitor boss said Cinemark’s conversations with the two tech firms indicate they
EXCLUSIVE: The UK box office is booming thanks to Barbenheimer. According to seven-day figures from Comscore, this past week is the highest ever recorded at the UK and Ireland box office, with £66,373,575 clocked from all movies between July 21-27. The feat has been fueled by the Barbenheimer phenomenon, which has seen Greta Gerwig’s Barbie
Imax blew past Wall Street forecasts with sales up 32% at $98 million for the second quarter ended in June. Adjusted EPS was 26 cents a share – up 271%. The company swung to a net profit of $8.35 million (15 cents a share) from a loss of $2.85 million (negative 5 cents) the year
Mattel CEO Ynon Kreiz said last weekend’s blockbuster release of Barbie – the toymaker’s first-ever major theatrical film – is a moment that “will be remembered as a key milestone in our company’s history.” His comments came amid second-quarter numbers in line with Wall Street forecasts. “The Barbie movie is a showcase for the cultural
We knew Warner Bros’ Barbie and Universal’s Oppenheimer were going to be big — but not this big. Paramount’s Tom Cruise sequel Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning Part One learned that the hard way (65% Weekend 2 decline with $19.3M) by going one weekend before the dual tidal wave, trying to avoid the wake of
It was a magnificent movie weekend. Barbie, Oppenheimer, Sound of Freedom. All hits, a blow-out! So what else have you got? The question sounds obnoxious, like its near-cousin, the always infuriating: “What have you done for me lately?” But it’s an honest query, and an important one for a strike-bound, streaming-bent, pandemic-emergent industry that is
What was it W. B. Yeats wrote, that line Joan Didion lifted and twisted in her essay “Slouching Towards Bethlehem,” about West Coast chaos in 1967? Things fall apart; the center cannot hold. That’s how it felt on Thursday, a few minutes before lunch with some seasoned film executive-friends at the Academy Museum (Salad Niçoise
Asteroid City delivered a massive jolt to the arthouse and specialty world this weekend as the Wes Anderson film presented by Focus Features blew past records with an estimated $790k three-day gross and $890k estimated for the four-day weekend in just six theaters. That’s a per-theater average of $132,211 for the three days, and $148,901
Beau Is Afraid posted the top per-screen average of the year so far and the best limited opening for distributor A4 since Uncut Gems, grossing an estimated $320,396 at four locations in New York and LA for a hefty per screen average of $80k+ to sold out shows on both coasts. (Uncut Gems with Adam
Watching Jesus Revolution surge past $45 million in ticket sales for Lionsgate—matching or besting The Fabelmans, The Banshees Of Inisherin, Tár, Women Talking and Triangle Of Sadness, combined—it finally seems safe to say it. The faith-based audience is back. Between Covid and the culture wars, it’s been a rough few years for those who make,
Imax said today it expects to return to its pre-pandemic gross box office level of $1.1 billion in 2023, even as it reported revenue of $98 million for last year’s fourth quarter, down 10% from the year before. Earnings per share fell to 19 cents from 31 cents. CEO Rich Gelfond attributed the dip to the Chinese
Reading the tea leaves with regard to China in 2023 is even more difficult than usual. The country’s about-face on its longstanding zero-Covid policy has implications from geopolitics to economics and, closer to home for Hollywood, the state of the market after a dismal 2022. Exactly what those implications are is where the guesswork comes
Specialty film closes the book on a mixed 2022 this weekend with the limited release by Sony of Tom Hanks-starring A Man Called Otto; a literary doc by Lizzie Gottlieb from Sony Pictures Classics and Hirokazu Kore-eda’s latest from Neon via Cannes. Otto, by Mark Forster, is a remake of a Swedish film based on
Darren Aronofsky’s The Whale from A24 swam to the biggest limited opening of the year in NY and LA this weekend, beating the per screen record set by in late spring by the indie distributor’s Everything, Everywhere All At Once. The film starring Brendan Fraser sold out shows at all six theaters this weekend grossing
From its triumphant world premiere (with seven-minute standing ovation) at the Venice Film Festival, A24 opens Darren Aronofsky’s The Whale in theaters this weekend amid a whirl of Oscar buzz around star Brendan Fraser. The former action star carries the psychological drama as Charlie, a reclusive and severely obese English teacher trying to reconnect with his estranged teenage daughter. Deadline critic
It was fascinating to see my good colleague Valerie Complex describe, in her review of the Antoine Fuqua/Will Smith slavery drama Emancipation, having almost walked out of the film, not because it was unworthy, but because she found the depiction of Black suffering and death almost too much to watch. In the end, Complex stuck