THE LORAX:  Not Even For Free – A Seussian Mess   It may not be pretty, but surely it’s true–Credit must go where credit is due.  In this case, that means the Universal Pictures Marketing Department, which as it turns out has done a splendid job these last few weeks of hiding just […]

>Dr. Seuss’ The Lorax joins the worldwide box office chart this week, already ranked #7 out of 45 films released the last three months, but that ranking is based on a current zero tally of overseas receipts.   Based on recent animated films, we would expect The Lorax to gross somewhat more than its domestic […]

> Now the only question is when they announce the start of  pre-production on LORAX 2. OPENINGS:  It turned out THE LORAX (Universal) wasn’t frontloaded at all.  Quite the contrary, its 80% Saturday bump put the movie through the roof, a triumph of great marketing over cruddy filmmaking.  Lorax is currently the 3d highest March […]

>The weekend studio estimates (based on Friday and Saturday actuals and projections for Sunday) are coming in slightly stronger than the weekend numbers posted yesterday (based on Friday actuals only).  The box office volume for the top 12 films is now looking like an excellent $153 million for the weekend, up 27% from last year’s […]

> Deadline is reporting a fairly spectacular Saturday for THE LORAX (Universal), considering the size of its Friday:  $32M, representing more than an 80% increase from the day before.  As a point of comparison, Horton Hears A Who! increased only 40% on its second day of release.  If this number holds, it puts Lorax in […]

> There are good movies and there are hits, and given the choice, there’s never been any doubt which Hollywood prefers. OPENINGS:  A March filled to the brim with wannabe blockbusters is off to a big start.  THE LORAX (Universal) may be a bad movie (spoiler alert–it is), but the studio sold the hell out […]

> The ninth weekend of 2012 is another good one, running 13% ahead of last year’s same weekend and 9% ahead of the multi-year average for this weekend.  This is the fourth weekend in a row that 2012 volume beats both the easy target of last year’s depressed levels as well as the more difficult […]

  PROJECT X:  Not Even For Free – Don’t RSVP   How is it that no one has yet produced a 3D found-footage movie?  You’d think the combination of the most (usually) mind-numbing gimmicks of the past decade would be a commercially sure bet, but so far it’s an untapped market. Meanwhile we have PROJECT […]