Philip Seymour Hoffman, now ridiculously,  shockingly dead at 46, had two films at Sundance this year, and as will always happen, the way one thinks of those movies changes in the light of this awful event. Neither film, the John LeCarre adaptation A MOST WANTED MAN or John Slattery’s feature directing debut GOD’S POCKET, […]

Weekend #42 of 2015 is looking like $125 million for the top 12 films this weekend, somewhat above the norm for this weekend (see comparisons below). Goosebumps from Sony should open with a $27.5 million weekend. The film is on track for around $95 million domestic. Overseas the film could bring in $185 million, giving it a worldwide box […]

KILLER ELITE:  Watch It At Home – Neither Killer Nor Elite   The new KILLER ELITE takes little from Sam Peckinpah’s 1975 action movie apart from its title (Peckinpah used “The” in his) and the general notion of mercenaries and ex-spies double-crossing each other.  This isn’t a huge loss, as the 1975 version was part […]

Based on Friday’s grosses, weekend #8 of 2015 looks like $112 million for the top 12 films Friday-Sunday, somewhat above the norms for this weekend.   Opening at 2,575 theaters Friday, The DUFF from CBS Films and Lionsgate/Summit is on track for an $11.1 million opening three-day weekend (above our $7.5 million ShowBuzzDaily forecast earlier this week). The […]

    THE IDES OF MARCH:  Watch It At Home – An Excellent Play Becomes a Merely Good Movie   The Ides of March, one of the most eagerly awaited of this year’s festival crop, is more entertaining than it is good. Oddly both low-key and melodramatic, claptrap and high-minded drama, it represents a series […]

The busy Christmas film season gets going this weekend with the opening of The Hobbit.  Not much else is happening at the box office as the movies from the last two weeks are pretty much dead and the Thanksgiving movies are getting a tad stale.  But the prequel to the uber-nerd extravaganza that is J.R.R. […]

  The Sundance Film Festival saved its most high-profile announcements for today, releasing the titles of its Narrative and Documentary Premieres.  The lion’s share of the festival movies that reach theatres/VOD will come from this group, which feature the most prominent filmmakers and actors.  Here are a few of the most immediately promising: ACOD:  A […]

WORLDWIDE STUDIO SCORECARD.  Here is the updated 2015 Scorecard, with Universal pulling past Warner Brothers by a nose.  Each studio has a nearly identical profile of its slate: one successful blockbuster, an expensive sci-fi/ fantasy movie that tanked domestically but it is somewhat bailed out by some overseas business, and one or two outright bombs. […]