The Invisible Man, a Universal Pictures monster movie made for $7 million, took the #1 slot at the box office this weekend with a cool $29 million. Alternatively The Mummy, a Universal Pictures monster movie made for north of $150 million, opened to $31.7 million in 2017. Let this be a lesson that studios don’t have to “event-ize” everything budget-wise to make a film that’s respectable, popular, and effective, as evidenced by the incredibly similar debut numbers and incredibly different budgets here. Indeed, The Invisible Man was greenlit in the wake of Universal scrapping its …

Focus Features is having a heck of a time with Downton Abbey being a veritable cash cow at the box office during its opening weekend. The movie, a continuation of the story laid out in the popular TV series of the same name created and written by Julian Fellowes, earned $31 million domestically in its opening weekend. As was the case on Friday, the international receipts for Downton Abbey were almost neck-and-neck with the domestic ones. Overseas, the movie pulled in $30 million, making for a $61.8 million global gross. This is pretty major for a movie …