The Weekend Report

The Hunger Games: Mockingjay, Part 2 took a 50% hit but still survived Thanksgiving contenders with an estimated $51.3 million weekend. (Figures reflect a three-day period.) The incoming crowd was right behind with Pixar’s The Good Dinosaur grossing $39 million and Creed, a Rocky continuation, clobbering $29.3 million. A third national release, Victor Frankenstein, fizzled with a $2.3 million tally.

Friday Box Office Estimates

The Hungry Finale is holding well going into its second 3-day weekend. The Good Dinosaur is running ahead of The Peanuts Movie, but behind the last Disney movie to open wide on Thanksgiving weekend, Tangled. And Creed is solid, not sensational, as it builds word of mouth that will probably make it the leggiest of the November movies. The Danish Girl arrives with over $50k per screen for 3 days on four.

The DVD Wrapup, Gift Guide II: Great American Dream Machine, McHale’s Navy, Brothers Quay, Shaun the Sheep, No Escape and more

At a time when public-broadcast stations were commonly referred to as “educational TV,” a show likened to an “intellectual ‘Laugh-In’” began production on New York City’s non-commercial WNET. “The Great American Dream Machine” was a weekly satirical variety television series. Its audience may have been miniscule compared to “Laugh-In,” but it was composed of hard-core liberals, media mavens and the next generation of opinion-makers. It didn’t take long for the show to bear fruit in the form of “The Groove Tube,” “Saturday Night Life,” “SCTV” and Kentucky Fried Movie. Watch the show today on DVD and you’ll recognize the forebears of Jon Stewart, Steven Colbert, Trevor Noah and John Oliver.

The Weekend Report

There you have it… the poor Hunger Games finale only opened to $101 million. Shocking. (Not really. Very profitable. Likely to top $700m worldwide.) Another “underachiever,” Spectre, will become the #2 all-time James Bond movie, domestically and worldwide by this time next weekend. Not a high opening for The Night Before. Julia Roberts doesn’t draw in The Secret in Their Eyes English-language remake. Good expansions for Spotlight and Brooklyn and a very strong four-screen launch for Carol.

Klady analysis to come…

Friday Box Office Estimates

The best reviewed Hunger Games entry also is now the smallest opener of the four movies. Lionsgate is spinning the story towards international, but there is no need for excuses. There’s still a lot of money to be made here. But it seems that the series shed lookie-loos after the second episode and is now all about the hardcore fans. Still, the movie is still looking at near $300 million domestic and over $700m worldwide.

The DVD Wrapup: Crumbs, Meru, Tenderness of Wolves, Living in Oblivion and more

As tiresome as most movies about our shared dystopian future have become, longtime fans of the increasingly predictable sub-genre shouldn’t give hope of finding something new and different until they’ve seen Crumbs, an instant classic from a place that looks as if it had already experienced the apocalypse and was left standing.

The Weekend Report

Shaken by half, it was nonetheless Spectre that stirred the top spot in weekend moviegoing with an estimated $35.2 million. Three wide releases offered scant challenge to the veteran operative. Seasonal comedy Love the Coopers slotted third with an OK $8.3 million while the Chilean mine disaster saga The 33 grossed $5.7 million. The gridiron glory of My All American faded fast at $1.4 million. A handful of films expanded, the most effective results for prior freshman class Spotlight, Brooklyn and Trumbo.

Friday Box Office Estimates

Another ugly weekend for new films as Hollywood revs up for award season. Love The Coopers is headed to a total domestic gross under $20 million. The 33—about the trapped Chilean miners, if you hadn’t heard—was barely marketed by Warner Bros, which is having a very uncharacteristic year, also seeing Our Brand Is Crisis drop from 2200 to 500 screens in Weekend 3. And Universal’s 10-screen release of Jolie-Pitt’s By The Sea is headed to a meager $10k per screen for the weekend. Katniss comes to the box office rescue next weekend… for the last time. But don’t sweat the trend pieces this week… it’s the movies and the (limited) marketing, simple as can be.

The DVD Wrapup: Stations of the Cross, Code Unknown, Julien Duvivier, Eric Rohmer and more

Ida revealed truths about the deeply engrained anti-Semitism of many of the faithful. Stations of the Cross is Dietrich Brüggemann’s tragic depiction of religious fundamentalism at its most destructive and, as such, can be construed as serving as an indictment of one particularly conservative Catholic order. This one is based in southern Germany, an area not immune to fanaticism.

The Weekend Report

There was never any doubt that the redoubtable 007 would lead the fall charge … just how much SPECTRE would exact. Sunday estimates pegged it at $72.4 million. Nonetheless there was sufficient room in the marketplace for a counter-programmer and The Peanuts Movie proved apt with a buoyant $44.5 million debut. The big match up was three exclusives, each opening on five screens. Spotlight focused on a Boston Globe investigation into clerical pedophilia; Brooklyn chronicled a young Irish woman’s immigration tale in 1960s America; and Trumbo detailed Hollywood’s 1950s dark blacklist era. Respectively they grossed $297,000, $179,000 and $76,800. The results ranged from great to respectable with each getting the sort of Friday to Saturday bumps that suggest strong positive word of mouth.

Friday Box Office Estimates

Spectre ghosts $27.4 million, with Daniel Craig more than doubling Snoopy’s mere $12 million with The Peanuts Movie.

The DVD Wrapup: Jurassic World, Back to Future, Inside Out, Toy Story, Benoit Jacquot and more

To paraphrase the Budweiser advertising jingle, “When you’ve collected $1.58 billion at the worldwide box office, you’ve said it all.”

The Weekend Report

There was nothing alien about America’s most popular movies as The Martian stayed on red ground with an estimated $11.5 million. It was the lowest-grossing weekend for 2015 movies. Burnt was crispest of the brunch with $5 million in fifth place. The political follies of Our Brand is Crisis begged for a recall with $3.4 million and Scout’s Guide to the Zombie Apocalypse was (un)dead at $1.7 million.