A DANGEROUS METHOD:  Watch It At Home – A Visit to Dr. Cronenberg’s Clinic   Throughout his career, David Cronenberg has been fascinated by twin compulsions:  the aberrant and the repressive.  The former was at the forefront of what are still his most celebrated films a quarter-century later, squishy biological horror movies like Videodrome […]

      ACT OF VALOR:  Watch It At Home –  Fast Forward When They’re Not Shooting   If there were a genuine national military crisis, and a small group of expert soldiers were needed to protect the interests of the country, would you want George Clooney or Brad Pitt behind the triggers of those […]

Pixar’s Brave has a modest $13.5 million overseas to date, obviously with a big international potential as it rolls out around the world.  Pixar films generally have a healthy multiple over the domestic gross, which we are projecting to be $219 million based on the opening weekend.  An overseas target of $320 million seems reasonable […]

The 30th weekend of 2012 is looking like a weak $119 million for the Top 12 films Friday-Sunday, down 30% from the same weekend last year.  The Dark Knight Rises continues to fall significantly off the pace of 2008’s The Dark Knight, and the two films opening this weekend were stillborn.  Some will say people […]

The summer’s two powerhouses crossed significant milestones in worldwide box office, with Marvel’s The Avengers getting to $1.5 billion and The Dark Knight Rises crossing $1 billion.  Avengers is the #3 movie on the all-time worldwide box office list (far behind #2 Titanic‘s $2.185 billion).  Dark Knight Rises is currently #12 all time (just behind #11 Alice in Wonderland‘s $1.024 billion).  Conceivably, […]

The Past Week: Total Box Office Volume All films in wide release playing between October 8 and October 14 grossed a decent $167 million, up 7% from the four-year average for the week and up 44% from the same week last year.    The past six weeks remain 1% above the four-year average box office […]

  Sundance, like most major film festivals, makes an extended process out of the unveiling of its yearly offerings, and today the festival announced its 2013 competition entries (fiction and documentary, US and foreign), as well as the avant-garde NEXT category.  The really high-profile Premieres and the sometimes more commercial Midnight titles are among those […]

Based on Saturday’s grosses, Weekend #52 is now on pace for $168 million, very similar to the outlook yesterday.  However, Django Unchained and Les Miserables continue to move in opposite directions.   Yesterday, it looked like both films would be around $29 million for the weekend (with Les Mis only $400,000 behind Django).  But based […]