Making a successful movie is tough. It takes skill. It takes craft. It takes, often, a little bit of luck. But sometimes, you gotta have something extra: You gotta have Hart. Night School, starring funny people Kevin Hart and Tiffany Haddish, roared to first place with an estimated $28 million in its weekend debut. ‘Course, […]

A win is a win, even if it’s an ugly one. But some are uglier than others. On the surface, The Predator did just fine. More than 30 years after the original Predator spent a whole movie hunting future California governor Arnold Schwarzenegger, its cinematic progeny returned to Earth, invaded more than 4,000 movie theaters […]

As the rest of Hollywood ponders what makes a profitable movie, the brain trust behind The Conjuring franchise seems to have it all figured out. Case in point: The Nun, the fifth installment in what Warner Bros. calls its Conjuring Universe. Made for a relatively paltry $22 million, The Nun scared up $53.5 million in […]

Better to be crazy and rich than happy, apparently. At least when it comes to movie titles. Crazy Rich Asians cruised to its second-straight box-office victory in a style befitting its title. The sweet, sassy romcom wooed moviegoers out of an estimated $25 million, nearly twice the haul of its nearest competitor. The film showed […]

The prehistoric monster that stars in The Meg (the shark, not Jason Statham) would never be mistaken for something you’d throw in a tiny aquarium with a plastic treasure chest. Still, for its makers at Warner Bros., the megalodon is proving to be one gold fish. The Meg came out this weekend fins-a-flying and ready […]

What’s an impossible mission? Out-adorabling Winnie-the-Pooh, that’s what. But out-earning him? Yeah, that’s possible. Mission: Impossible – Fallout took the No. 1 slot for the second-straight weekend in convincing, if not dominating, fashion, forcing a bevy of newcomers to fight for the leftovers. Tom Cruise’s lastest cinematic display of derring-do collected about $35 million in […]

Tom Cruise, the AARP’s favorite action hero, is well known for doing most of his own stunts. Whether it’s hanging off a helicopter or scaling a cliff face or jumping from a building (which led to a broken ankle this time ‘round), Cruise is loathe to let a stuntman or CGI have all the fun. […]

Movie audiences preferred visceral vigilante violence to ABBA-themed sentimentality over the weekend. Denzel Washington’s R-rated sequel The Equalizer 2 knocked off Mamma Mia! Here We Go Again in a bit of a surprise finish. Specifically, The Equalizer 2 pulled in an estimated $35.8 million compared to Mamma’s $34.4 million. (Both of those figures, for the […]

Vampires never seem to get old. That’s true of the immortal undead creatures themselves. (Well, mostly.) And it seems to be true of movies starring them as well. Drac’s back again this week, taking a bite out of the box office (though, thankfully, nothing else) in Hotel Transylvania 3: Summer Vacation. Sony’s surprisingly family-focused threequel […]