WAR HORSE:  Watch It At Home –  Spielberg’s Beautiful Muzak   Earlier this year, audiences were presented with Super 8, J. J. Abrams’s pastiche of Steven Spielberg’s classic sci-fi adventures from the 1970s and 80s (Spielberg was a producer on the project).  Now with WAR HORSE, we have Spielberg’s own pastiche:  of John Ford, […]

  OPENINGS:  Considering that it’s based on a series of novels, GOOSEBUMPS (Columbia/Sony) was certainly intended to be the launch of a new franchise for Sony.  It took the weekend in the US with $23.5M and should hold well next week with no new family competition (things get tougher after that with Halloween and The […]

WORLDWIDE STUDIO SCORECARD.  Paramount got off the mat with the release of Transformers: Age of Extinction, pushing the studio over $1.0 billion worldwide for the year to date and into 5th place and now above Universal.  Disney ($1.66 billion worldwide for 2014 to date) moved slightly above Sony ($1.65 billion) thanks to continued overseas grosses […]

> In just her second feature film as a director (her first was 2006’s Oscar-nominated Away From Her), Sarah Polley demonstrates that she’s already a filmmaker with rare grace and sensuality in TAKE THIS WALTZ, which premiered tonight at the Toronto Film Festival.  Blessed with yet another superb lead performance by Michelle Williams, Polley’s film […]

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 […]

> Despite the gloom of yesterday, this weekend is now looking like it will be up slightly versus 2010.  Saturday business was higher than expected for films across the board, with the exception of Scre4m.       Based on Saturday’s performance, Rio is now headed for about $40.0 million this weekend.  The Saturday “bump” for Rio was […]

Based on Friday’s grosses, weekend #9 of 2015 looks like $86 million for the top 12 films Friday-Sunday, down significantly from the norms for this weekend and the first down weekend since January 9-11.   Opening at 3,323 theaters Friday, Focus from Warner Brothers is on track for a $18.5 million opening three-day weekend (somewhat below our […]

> Watch It At Home:  For Fans of Florescent Green Another summer weekend; another superhero epic.  What used to be an extravagant event genre is now hard-pressed to muster more than a yawn.  What is there to say about GREEN LANTERN?  Well, it’s better than January’s sophomoric Green Hornet, so at least it’s got color […]