Theater Averages: Café Tops Yearly Chart with an Average of $71,858

July 19th, 2016

Café Society earned first place on the theater average chart with an average of $71,858 in five theaters over the weekend. This is not only the best of the weekend, it is the best of the year so far, topping the previous champ, Captain America: Civil War, which had an average of $42,390 during its opening weekend. Second place went to Hillary’s America: The Secret History of the Democratic Party with an average of $24,938; however, while this is a great result for a documentary, digging just a little into the film’s numbers reveals major weaknesses. The film fell 50% from Friday to Saturday. That’s devastating. We will see if this is an anomaly or a portent when we get this coming weekend’s results. Ghostbusters and The Secret Life of Pets were neck-and-neck with averages of $11,612 and $11,604 respectively. More...

Weekend Wrap-Up: It’s No Secret that Life of Pets Will Get a Sequel

July 12th, 2016

As expected, The Secret Life of Pets earned first place on the weekend box office chart. However, almost no one was expecting it to dominate the way that it did with $104.35 million. There are some calling this film the best opening for a non-franchise animation film, but let’s face the facts... Universal started work on two or three sequels as soon as Friday’s Estimates came in. Meanwhile, Mike and Dave Need Wedding Dates has a good opening in the role of counter-programming with $16.63 million. Overall, the box office pulled in $217 million, which was 14% more than last weekend. More importantly, it is 1.3% more than the same weekend last year. Granted, this is lower than ticket price inflation, but since most people assumed the weekend would suffer a serious decline, this should be seen as a major victory. Year-to-date, 2016’s lead over 2015 grew a tiny bit hitting 2.4% at $6.00 billion to $5.86 billion. More...

Weekend Estimates: Pets Has Best Start for an Animated Franchise

July 10th, 2016

The Secret Life of Pets is storming to a massive opening weekend at the box office, with Universal projecting a $103.2 million debut for the Illumination Entertainment animated film. That’s just shy of the $115.7 million made by Minions this weekend last year, and the best opening ever by a non-sequel or spin-off animated film. This performance is particularly significant for Illumination, because it’s their first blockbuster from outside the Despicable Me universe. More...

Limited and VOD Releases: Few Fantastic Limited Releases

July 8th, 2016

Captain Fantastic is the only film on this week’s list that I think will do well in theaters. There are some films that are earning better reviews, like Our Little Sister, but no film on this week’s list has the same buzz as this film does. More...