Industry News Archives - Critic Speak

Weekend Box Office: “Hobbit” an expected victor

Danny Baldwin — Sun, 16 Dec 2012 22:58:28 +0000

Peter Jackson’s “The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey” flooded megaplexes this weekend in a bevy of formats, from 2-D to 3-D to High Frame Rate 3-D to IMAX 3-D to IMAX High Frame Rate 3-D to… ah, you can figure out the other potential permutations on your own. Anyhow, it claimed the top spot at the […]

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Weekend Box Office: “Skyfall” reclaims lead

Danny Baldwin — Sun, 09 Dec 2012 19:37:51 +0000

Another calm weekend at the box office before the Christmas madness sets in. “Skyfall” took back the top slot from “The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn – Part 2,” which slid to third place. The DreamWorks animated film “Rise of the Guardians” rose to second. The only newcomer was the FilmDistrict dump “Playing for Keeps,” which […]

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Weekend Box Office: Pitt and Dominik’s “Killing” opens softly

Danny Baldwin — Sun, 02 Dec 2012 18:59:52 +0000

It wasn’t entirely unexpected that “Killing Them Softly” with Brad Pitt opened poorly at the box office (I predicted the gross within a half a million dollars in this week’s Box Office Beat column), but any time a major movie star’s film tanks in wide release, it’s news. “Killing Them Softly” raked in a measly […]

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Weekend Box Office: “Twilight,” “Skyfall,” “Lincoln” beat openers

Danny Baldwin — Mon, 26 Nov 2012 00:19:47 +0000

The “five-day weekend” over Thanksgiving has become a less popular time for Hollywood studios to release hot new movies than it used to be. As a result, the top three box office performers this year were films in their second and third weekends of release: “The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn – Part 2” at the […]

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Weeekend Box Office: “Twilight” closes well

Danny Baldwin — Sun, 18 Nov 2012 18:14:21 +0000

Just as I predicted in this weekend’s Box Office Beat column, the final installment of the “Twilight Saga” franchise, “Breaking Dawn – Part 2,” was able to duplicate the box office success of its predecessor and gross in the $140m opening weekend range — $141.3m, to be exact. That’s a strong finish for what has […]

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Weekend Box Office: “Skyfall” soars

Danny Baldwin — Sun, 11 Nov 2012 18:02:23 +0000

As I predicted in this week’s edition of Box Office Beat, “Skyfall” ended up earning the biggest opening weekend of any James Bond film to date, surpassing the last installment, “Quantum of Solace,” by about 30 percent. “Skyfall” grossed $87.8 million over the three-day and an even $90.0m when accounting for Thursday IMAX preview shows. […]

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Weekend Box Office: Sandy no match for “Wreck-It Ralph” and “Flight”

Danny Baldwin — Sun, 04 Nov 2012 19:56:51 +0000

Going into the weekend, there was a general feeling that the aftermath of Hurricane Sandy would depress grosses, especially with about 300 theaters along the Eastern Seaboard closed on Friday. But it did anything but–in fact, one could make a case that the box office actually improved this weekend because there was little else for Northeasterners to do–as […]

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Weekend Box Office: “Argo” bests all openers in down frame

Danny Baldwin — Mon, 29 Oct 2012 06:10:43 +0000

In its third weekend of release, Ben Affleck’s period crowd-pleaser “Argo” showed no signs of slowing down at the box office, dropping just 24.9 percent from last weekend for another $12.4m. Even more impressively, “Argo” beat all four new wide releases by a sizable margin. While the impending Hurricane Sandy undoubtedly had a negative effect […]

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Weekend Box Office: “Paranormal Activity 4” tops unremarkable frame

Danny Baldwin — Sun, 21 Oct 2012 18:40:18 +0000

As expected, “Paranormal Activity 4” earned the top spot at the domestic box office this weekend, but it did so without grossing anywhere near as much as the previous couple installments. #4’s $30.2m opening was down 42.5 percent from #3’s $52.6m and down 25.8 percent from #2’s $40.7m. Perhaps people heeded the advice of our […]

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Weekend Box Office: “Taken 2” fends off flurry of new competitors

Danny Baldwin — Mon, 15 Oct 2012 03:09:33 +0000

“Taken 2,” the ‘Liam Neeson is still a badass, in case you were wondering’-billed sequel, once again topped the North American box office chart this weekend, adding $22.5 million to the till for an $86.8m domestic cume. The revenge pic should easily surpass $100m by the end of next weekend. It probably won’t hit the […]

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