No thread for this yet? I think this is one of the more interesting parts of box office tracking, personally, so after such a mediocre year I'm curious to see what happens.

So for starters, the Top 12 for this weekend is at $135.46 million, the second best number for the first weekend of the year ever, behind only 2010. So that's promising.The rest of January is also promising, with Taken 3 and Selma next weekend, followed by a hopefully potent combo of broad comedy (Wedding Ringer), awards contender/America Fuck Yeah war movie (American Sniper), live-action family film (Paddington), and miscellaneous action thriller (Blackhat). The next two weekends also have some potential for breakouts, that should almost certainly be stronger than I., Frankenstein, Labor Day, and That Awkward Moment.

Other thoughts for the rest of the year?

January should be up and on par with 2009 and 2010.

February should be average; while it has no Lego Movie, Fifty Shades of Grey should propel Valentine's Day to be huge, and SpongeBob also has 100 million potential. Focus could match Non-Stop maybe? IDK, the studio must really think they have a hit with that to spend 100 million

March should be very strong, with Cinderella doing at least 200 million, Divergent at least 150, and Home hopefully doing better than the last few Dreamworks films. Add in Get Hard, In the Heart of the Sea, Chappie, and the month could be big.

April should start out strong, but there is no other 100 million movie I see, And Furious 7 won't hold as well as CA2, so it will have to open really big

May will likely be up from last year, but outside of Avengers, it is full of question marks. Can Tomorrowland be another POTC? Will Spy do Tammy or Bridesmaids numbers? Will Pitch Perfect 2 be like Anchorman or Austin Powers? Will 21st century audiences be interested in Mad Max?

June looks strong too, and could be a record breaker if Jurassic World and Inside Out live up to potential. July looks miles better than last year with Minions and Ant-Man. August will probably be down though, with no sure hits really at all. even Fantastic Four might not do well.

September should finally break the record. Maze Runner and Hotel Transylvania 2? October has The Jungle Book, which should break the October opening record, even though it won't out gross Gravity in the long run.

November is going to be insane. Bond and Peanuts should combine for minimum 150 million OW, Mockingjay 2 should increase from the last, and The Good Dinosaur, like Frozen, will have the whole month to itself as the main family event for those Star Wars would be too intense for.

December has Star Wars, but the first two weeks look shitty like this year. It may not be enough.

Good start to the year. The rest of the month is very strong (ok it will weaken towards the end).

Good summation zwackerm.

Still a bit early to call December. MI5 is there and so to is Joy. Both should be substantial hits even with SW there and I'm sure other counter-programming will get scheduled.

Let's start with January....Its going to be huge but still shy of 2010 because of last week where even the holdovers might not propel it to huge numbers. Still going to be HUGE.

Feb has potential but it will be difficult to match last year.

I just hope this is the year we finally crack 1.4B+ in admissions. I mean it's been long overdue, like six years overdue to be exact and with this years very promising crop of films I see no reason for it not happen unless the BIG films end up massively overpredicted.

I'm also expecting us to reach that 11B mark in total gross.

Well American Sniper is going to prove pretty helpful this year.

2015 doesn't need help, it was always going to crush 2014.

Indeed. But it will help in that quest and then some.

Yep the great start of AS will really help the moviegoing for rest of the year. I mean the more trailers people see with movies the more they want to see them in theaters and one movie propels business for other movies, that's definitely helping the year. MALES (young as well as old) with Taken 3 and AS will definitely be attracted to see more movies this year.

The pattern that has developed over the last decade is this:

A year of increased admissions is followed by 2 years of decreased admissions.

2006 up, 2007 & 2008 down
2009 up, 2010 & 2011 down
2012 up, 2013 & 2014 down

So this year should be an up year.

Going for reference from 2009 though, it's not good enough to have just one massive hit like Sniper when everything else does badly.

2009 had hit after hit every week, ignoring legs, they opened well enough to make an impact. I'm not sure we actually have that this year. Both Wedding Ringer and Paddington didn't exactly hit that breakout target even if they did well. Blackhat didn't exist.

This was 2009:

1. Marley and Me $24.3
2. Gran Torino $29.5m (Unborn overperformed)
3. Paul Blart $31.8m (Though My Bloody Valentine, Notorious and Hotel for Dogs all overperformed)
4. Paul Blart $21.6m (Underworld disappointed slightly)
5. Taken $24.7m
6. He's Just Not That Into You $27.8m (Coraline did well though Panther 2 disappointed massively)
7. Friday the 13th $40.6m
8. Madea Goes to Jail $41.0m
9. Madea Goes to Jail $16.2m (Jonas Bros massively disappointed, this was probably one of the only weak ones of the year)
10. Watchmen $55.2m
11. Race to Witch Mountain $24.4m (this was slightly disappointing)
12. Knowing $24.6m (ILY Man did decently)
13. Monsters Vs Aliens $59.3m (Haunting in Connecticut overperformed)
14. Fast and Furious $70.9m
15. Hannah Montana $32.3m
16. 17 Again $23.7m (very so slightly disappointing)
17. Obsessed $28.6m
18. Wolverine $85.1m
19. Star Trek $75.2m
20. Angels & Demons $46.2m (perhaps a little disappointing, but expectations weren't so high anyway)
21. NATM2 $54.2m (slightly disappointing though not expected much more, TS disappointed but still made $42.6m)
22. Up $68.1m
23. The Hangover $44.9m
24. The Hangover $32.8m (Pelham disappointed)
25. The Proposal $33.6m
26. Revenge of the Fallen $108.9m
27. Revenge of the Fallen $42.3 (IA3 and PE slightly disappointing but still made $41.7m/$66.7m and $25.3/$40.1m over July 4th)
28. Bruno $30.6m (slightly disappointing? don't remember)
29. Half Blood Prince $77.8m ($158.0m from Wed opening I think?)
30. G-Force $31.7m (Ugly Truth overperformed $27.6m)
31. Funny People $22.7m (slightly disappointing)
32. GI Joe $54.7m
33. District 9 $37.4m
34. Inglorious Bastards $38.1m
35. Final Destination $27.4m
36. Final Destination $12.4m (LD = weak)
37. Tyler Perry $23.4m
38. Cloudy $30.3m
39. Cloudy $25.0m (wow at the drop! didn't realize that)
40. Zombieland $24.7m
41. Couples Retreat $34.3m
42. Where the Wild Things Are $32.7m (LAC $21.0m PA $19.6m)
43. Paranormal Activity $21.1m
44. This is It $23.4m (think it was massively overpredicted)
45. A Christmas Carol $30.1m (disappointing)
46. 2012 $65.2m
47. New Moon $142.8m (Blind Side $34.1m)
48. New Moon $42.8m (Blind Side 40.1m)
49. Blind Side $20.0m (I think this was best performance over TG before Frozen/CF)
50. Princess and the Frog $24.2m
51. Avatar $77.0m
52. Avatar $75.6m (Sherlock $62.3m Alvin $48.8/$75.5m & It's Complicated $22.1m)

That is only 2 weekends, one of which was Labour Day that had a weekend winner below $20m.

There are 37 weekends where the weekend winner was above $25m which is 71.2% of all weekends.
There are 32 weekends where the weekend winner was above $30m which is 61.5% of all weekends.

Maybe they are misleading but this year, more than any other recent year, seemed like a neverending rollercoaster without really any down period compared to other years.

Although Sniper will be probably holding well and dominating the charts with weekends above $30m, the next 2 weekends may not see any other opener above $15m.

February's 3rd and 4th weekends are suspect, entirety of April besides Fast 7 looks dodgy.

Last weekend of July and most of August are also not convincing.

We'll see. I hope for another banner year.

I have to agree with everything BK said in his last two posts. While Sniper's overperformance will be greatly appreciated I still don't believe this year has quite tapped into the batshit craziness of 2009 just yet. I think AS is the result of the last four months of 2014 being complete shit, and it's pretty much the EVENT film we never got. However, that won't be enough to save the year. As, BK already pointed out Wedding Ringer and Paddington didn't exactly breakout big, Selma is underperforming, Tak3n is meh so far, and WIB2 is free falling fast. Then we got this weekend where it looks like the only opener that's going to do decent business is TBND, and even that won't hit breakout status.

Next week's prospects don't look all that rosy either unless Project Almanac somehow does Chronicle numbers which is highly unlikely. I honestly don't think we will get another exciting overperformance until 50 Shades of Gray comes out, and that movie could easily fade after OW.

People need to stop saying the final months of 2014 were shitty. They obviously were expected to be much bigger and can't compare to 2013 or 2012. But they are certainly on par with years like 2011, 2010, 2008, 2006 and 2007.

EH! three out of those five years weren't that great admissions wise. Sure 2008 had a fantastic summer, but outside of Twilight breaking out and a solid Christmas there wasn't much else happening.

Even when you compare 2014 to that year it still looks pretty pathetic, but nothing beats the shittiness of 2011, and sadly admissions for that year were slightly higher.

Two of the openers combined won't make $10m.

Something has to prop up the rest of the box office once Sniper starts to come down.

Next week, besides Sniper, we might only have Almanac make above $10m, and barely too.

I think SpongeBob can break out to 35m+ and Jupiter Ascending can do 25m+.

Yeah really its better to track against 2013 or better yet 2009/2010.

oh and: #$11.7+billionintotaladmissionsin2015bitch

18 posts and I didn't see much tracking yet..

2015 is no 2015bitch.

Shades and Spongebob opened well but will burn out quicker.

The market is shallow as fuck.

2015 is 6% ahead of 2014,m and currently ahead of 2013,12, and 11 as well. It is still running 5% behind 2010, but the rest of the year should propel it past it. With April to be about on par with last year and May to be well up on last year for at least the first two weeks (though I'm starting to feel PP2 and Mad Max could combine for 80-85 million), the lead looks to only get bigger.

I'd say Home and Furious 7 succeeded on their own merits, not purely because they were released in 2015.

Trainwreck+Ant-Man should equal 100 million together. Pixels+Paper Towns should make at least 80 million. Should easily match last year.

Also don't forget that Sep/October are absolutely loaded with a bunch of potentially high quality films, plenty of star power as well as big crowd pleasers.

July will be fine as long as Ant-Mam doesn't tank.

It Will do minimum 150 m.

Biggest film of July will be Minions. Rest will be small hits surrounding it.