box office

With some of the year’s biggest movies only a month or two away, the box office seems to have entered a holding pattern. Some of the new releases are minor hits. Others crash and burn. Right now, Hollywood just seems to be crossing their fingers and hoping for the sweet, sweet summer movie season to come along and save them (or at least the April release of Furious 7). In other words, every new release underperformed this weekend.

We're knee-deep in the summer movie season and the hits just keep on coming. Despite mixed buzz, 'Maleficent' opened very strong, not coming close to the massive numbers of the past few weekends, but certainly holding its own. However, the success of Disney's latest live action effort meant that the weekend's other big release, Seth MacFarlane's 'A Million Ways to Die in the West,' fared less well.

September may traditionally be a wasteland of half-baked films unfit to open in a proper month, but the lack of competition can actually be a good thing. Could 'Prisoners,' a film made specifically for an adult audience, have opened as well as it did if it was released in a busier month? Probably not.

If someone glanced at this weekend's box office, they could be forgiven for thinking they accidentally stepped into some kind of time portal. After all, films called 'Evil Dead' and 'Jurassic Park' were in the top five.

You can't imagine two films more different than 'The Croods' and 'Olympus Has Fallen,' but right now the two of them sit on top of the box office chart, both temporarily linked by the fact that a bunch of people apparently wanted to see them this weekend. It's the first time in forever that two films have opened to over $30 million at the same time...but it wasn't golden for all of the new release

Eventually, the popular opinion on zombies is going to shift and people are going to stop watching 'The Walking Dead' and buying zombie-themed video games, but that day is not today. People still love zombies and if the opening weekend is any indication, they love 'Warm Bodies.'

You really only need to say one thing about the opening weekend of Kathryn Bigelow's 'Zero Dark Thirty': it made more in three days than 'The Hurt Locker' did in its entire run. If there's anything that's going to alleviate getting snubbed for at the Oscars in the Best Director category, it's that.

Hey there, ‘Total Recall.’ You know how you were supposed to be pretty big movie? Well, hopefully you’re sitting down because, well…you’re not. You see, there’s this little thing called ‘The Dark Knight Rises‘ that isn’t a remake of a much-beloved film and it doesn’t star Colin Farrell and people actually seem to generally kinda’ like it. Yeah, sorry buddy. You didn’t stand a chance.

In its second week of release, strong word-of-mouth and positive reviews propelled ‘The Help’ past ‘Rise of the Planet of the Apes’ to take the number one spot at the box office this weekend, while ‘Apes’ moved to the number two slot. ‘The Help’ earned $20.5 million, while ‘Rise of the Planet of the Apes’ pulled in $16.3 million.

‘Rise of the Planet of the Apes’ was number one again this week, joining ‘Thor’ and ‘Transformers: Dark of the Moon’ as one of only three films this summer to hold the top spot for two weekends in a row. The film adaptation of the best-selling novel, ‘The Help,’ came in second, with horror flick ‘Final Destination 5,’ previous weekend box-office champ ‘The Smurfs,’ and the low-budget action comedy

This weekend, parents and kids will have plenty to choose from with two family-friendly movies opening nationwide. The first is, of course, the long-awaited 'Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 2,' the eighth and final movie in the wildly popular franchise. Critics are raving 'Harry's' farewell, which is sure to help position it as one of the biggest, if not the biggest, movie of the year.

Boosted by unexpectedly strong word-of-mouth and generous reviews, 'Transformers: Dark of the Moon' was number one for the second weekend in a row, becoming the top-grossing movie of 2011 thus far with a total take of $261.0 million. Coming in second, the Jennifer Aniston-featured dark comedy 'Horrible Bosses' earned an estimated $28.1 million, while the family flick 'Zookeeper' came in third with