THE BIG YEAR:  Watch It At Home – Very Small Pleasures   THE BIG YEAR is an amiable, good-natured comedy that’s so insubstantial it seems to fly out of your memory even as you’re watching it.  If it had been a low-budgeted indie that turned up at a film festival, it might have felt […]

    ONE FOR THE MONEY:  Not Even For Free – Another Heigl Misfire   Movie stars are, make no mistake, trademarks.  Consumers who invest in 2 hours of George Clooney or Will Smith expect the same kind of reliable enjoyment that they get from a can of Coke or a pair of Nikes.  And […]

  THE FIVE-YEAR ENGAGEMENT:  Watch It At Home – If Only The Engagement Were A Little Shorter…   Judd Apatow, as both director (The 40=Year Old Virgin, Knocked Up) and producer (Bridesmaids, Superbad, Pineapple Express, TV’s new Girls) has brought a tremendous amount of first-class comedy to large and small screens in recent years.  But […]

Team Salem’s slate in the second annual ShowbuzzDaily Summer Movie Draft now stands at $556 million, with a lot of upside left in Amazing Spider-Man, significant business left for Brave, and three movies left to open. Team Weil is now at $228 million, with two very big movies opening the next two weeks (Ice Age: Continental Drift this Friday […]

The 32nd weekend of 2012 is looking like a halfway decent $138 million for the Top 12 films Friday-Sunday — despite being down a moderate 4% from the same weekend last year, this weekend is actually up 8% from this comparable weekend over several years.             The Bourne Legacy from Universal […]

This weekend will be respectable — the top 12 films should total around $93 million, very typical for this weekend most years, although down 13% from last year when Moneyball and Dolphin Tale both opened.  Four films from very different genres open this weekend, none of which should break out significantly.  Also, The Master expands […]

The weekend looks like a decent $125 million for the top 12 films, a little better than it looked yesterday (now slightly beating the multi-year average for this weekend).  Each of the three openers had good Saturday grosses and are exceeding the predictions in Wednesday’s  ShowbuzzDaily Weekend Forecast. The ShowbuzzDaily Domestic Final estimates for films opening wide this […]

The weekend looks a little softer than it did yesterday ($131 million for the top 12 films rather than $142 million).  The Hobbit is looking like an $85 million opening weekend instead of almost $99 million.   Still a record December opening weekend (beating I Am Legend’s $77.2 million opening weekend December 14-16, 2007) but not at […]