It was all so cute when it started… David Yates’ 2009 HARRY POTTER AND THE HALF-BLOOD PRINCE is surprisingly funny at times–surprising, because in all other ways the film was, up to that point, by far the grimmest entry in the series.  It’s curiously structured:  part romantic comedy, complete with love potions and pining […]

  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 #24 of 2014 is looking like a very sturdy $201 million for the top 12 films this weekend, 31% above the norm for this weekend and 2% above the same weekend last year. Opening at over 4,100 theaters Friday (well above the 2,886 average theater count for opening weekends the last two years), How to Train Your […]

WORLDWIDE STUDIO SCORECARD.  Here is an updated look at the 2019 film slates by studio. BOX OFFICE. Looking at North American box office, 2019 is now -6% below last year’s comparable span (two points better than last week) and now basically even with this point the past four years ($5.987 billion).  Over the same period, […]

      THE RAVEN:  Watch It At Home – Not Much Tell-Tale Heart (Or Brain)   Sometimes less-than-great minds think alike, too.  The idea of Edgar Allen Poe as a detective investigating strange phenomena was at the center of ABC’s busted pilot Poe last year (see our pilot report here), but it seems the […]

> Now that we’ve all taken a breath after the extraordinary success of The Hunger Games (and Lionsgate has had a chance to count its money), Hollywood’s real blockbuster season is about to begin, and indications are that it’s going to start off with a bang.  Audience tracking surveys normally begin measurement about 3 weeks […]

Based on Friday’s and Saturday’s grosses, weekend #21 of 2015 now looks like $143 million for the top 12 films Friday-Sunday, significantly below the norm for this weekend.  A definite clunker Memorial Day Weekend at the box office. Opening at 3,972 theaters Friday, Tomorrowland from Disney is on track for a $32.2 million opening three-day weekend (better than it looked yesterday […]

> X-Men: First Class grossed $64 million overseas this weekend, a little more than it achieved domestically this weekend.  If it hits $168 million in North America (as the ShowBuzzDaily Domestic Final model shows), it could be a $370-400 million picture worldwide. The Hangover Part II is up to $152 million overseas through this weekend.  […]