>Just a quick update to say that going into the weekend Team Metcalf’s lead is now down to $45 million in the first annual ShowBuzzDaily Summer Movie Draft.  Next update after the weekend numbers are in. (A Request From Team Salem to All Readers:  Please ignore my review of 30 Minutes Or Less and go […]

> RISE OF THE PLANET OF THE APES pulled in around $1.25M in its Thursday midnight screenings.  This is better than the $800K that Cowboys & Aliens managed last week, but dwarfed by the $4M Captain America earned and Thor‘s $3.3M.  (Let’s not even talk about Harry Potter.)  This supports Mitch Metcalf’s prediction that Apes […]

> TIFF’s Midnight Madness program is exactly what you think it is:  10 flat-out, unapologetic genre movies that premiere each night at midnight in front of a raucous crowd at the 1200-seat Ryerson Theatre.  In any given year, the Madness may include unexpected gems like last year’s Insidious and 2006’s Borat, interestingly weird pictures such […]

> 50/50:  Worth A Ticket –  A Genuinely Feel-Good Cancer Comedy With The Big C renewed for its third season on Showtime, the concept of a comedy getting laughs from the experiences of a cancer patient is no longer especially shocking, which means that the new 50/50 has to be judged on its comedy-drama merits, […]

> The new 3D action-fest IMMORTALS got off to a reasonably good start with $1.4M in Thursday midnight screenings.  This isn’t anything spectacular, but it’s slightly higher than the $1.3M RISE OF THE PLANET OF THE APES made in its midnight runs, and far better than the $550K pulled in last week by A VERY […]

> The Golden Globes are given out by 80 international journalists whose opinions, when they’re not voting on these awards, are of no importance whatsoever to anyone on the planet other than their particular loved ones.  But the combination of a usually entertaining TV show (hosted again this year by Ricky Gervais) and enough years […]

  SNOW WHITE & THE HUNTSMAN (Universal) had a 5% Friday-to-Saturday bump, according to preliminary numbers at Deadline, which doesn’t say much for its word of mouth (the dreaded Battleship went up 11% on its second day of release).  That should still get Snow safely into the mid-$50Ms for the weekend, and now, like most […]

> Hollywood Hearts this weekend. OPENINGS:   It turned out that THE VOW (Screen Gems/Sony) was indeed slightly more frontloaded than SAFE HOUSE (Universal), but not by enough to rob it of 1st place.  Vow‘s massive $41.7M haul was higher than any opening weekend for a Julia Roberts, Sandra Bullock or Katherine Heigl vehicle–ever.  (Cut to […]