>Love was in the air Tuesday night, as The Vow grossed $11.6 million on Valentine’s Day, shattering the mid-week Valentine’s Day record of $7.5 million for Hitch in 2005, as reported at the Hollywood Reporter.  The Vow was up from a more typical $3.3 million Monday. Business was also brisk for the more male-oriented action […]

> THE HUNGER GAMES has an excuse. Last night at midnight, The Hunger Games began its long-awaited run in theatres by grossing $19.7M.  Which is, by any estimation, a lot of money–the most ever earned by a non-sequel, and the 7th highest midnight ever.  But… it’s less than half the $43.5M of the midnight record […]

> The Marvel superhero audience likes to get its sleep.  Despite the fact that THE AVENGERS is expected to do record-challenging business this weekend, last night’s midnight screenings totaled $18.7M–a tremendous amount of money, to be sure, the 8th largest midnight opening of all time, but 8th place isn’t where Avengers mostly expects to be.  […]

  POINT BLANK – Worth a Ticket:  A Thrill-Ride with Subtitles   The most gripping Hollywood thriller of the summer is… in French.  (But not for long.)  This isn’t a complete surprise:  POINT BLANK‘s director/co-writer Fred Cavaye may not be a household name, but he made the film Anything For Her, the 96-minute thriller that […]

With his second movie opening this past weekend, Team Salem has crossed the $100 million mark in the second annual ShowbuzzDaily Summer Movie Fantasy Draft.  Salem’s slate totals $107 million through Sunday, still trailing Team Metcalf’s $765 million tally (with half of his films already released). Team Weil has one film open (Battleship) and stands […]

  Sundance is sometimes thrilling, but it can also be an ordeal.  Especially when the films are good, but not great.  And even more so if you arrive with limited tickets, and are left to the tender mercies of the Wait List lines (which, given Sundance’s idiosyncratic approach to Wait Lists, requires standing on each […]

The weekend continues to look very close to the way it did yesterday morning.  Madagascar 3: Europe’s Most Wanted looks like $35.5 million, according to the studio estimate this morning (down a decent 41% from the opening weekend and hitting our forecast in Wednesday’s ShowbuzzDaily Weekend Predictions).  Prometheus is looking like more like a 60% […]

  Warning:  this piece will discuss details of the storyline of THE DARK KNIGHT RISES as well as the other Batman films.  GIANT SPOILERS WILL ABOUND; proceed at your own risk. Christopher Nolan is remarkable among the great directors of action films–Steven Spielberg, David Lean, James Cameron, John Ford, certainly Michael Bay–in that while working […]