WORLDWIDE STUDIO SCORECARD.  Here is an updated look at the 2017 film slates by studio. YEAR TO DATE BOX OFFICE. Looking at North American box office, 2017 to date is still down -1% from last year and now +2% above the average for this point the past four years ($9.518 billion).  Over the same period, Hollywood films have grossed […]

  The big box office news this weekend is happening far from these shores, as AVENGERS: AGE OF ULTRON (Disney) opens in slightly over half the world in advance of its US launch next Thursday night.  It had already racked up $44.5M just from Wednesday/Thursday results in some of those territories.  Here, a soft pre-Avengers weekend allowed FURIOUS […]

Life without The Voice isn’t so much fun. NBC:  Even in our DVR society, where people can watch what they want pretty much when they want, lead-ins still matter.  Thus the replacement of The Voice with oldster reality show OFF THEIR ROCKERS (2 episodes at 1.5/1.8), caused both GO ON and THE NEW NORMAL to […]

>   A few notes: these projections are for original episodes (no repeats) aired in the 4th quarter of 2011.  Series premieres will likely be .3-.4 higher, thanks to network marketing pushes, and then tend to go down over time.  We’ll be updating the numbers after we see full pilots and also as we get […]

  The Martin Luther King Day holiday tends to be a day off more for schoolchildren than for adult employees, meaning that at the boxoffice, it benefits family movies–of which there’s a distinct shortage right now.  For adult-oriented films, the Friday gross is often around 25-30% of the 4-day weekend total (with new openings at […]

> Disclaimer:  Network pilots now in circulation are not necessarily in the form that will air in the Fall.  Pilots are often reedited and rescored, and in some cases even recast or reshot.  So these critiques shouldn’t be taken as full reviews, but rather as a guide to the general style and content of the […]

THE WEEK.  For the recently completed week ending Sunday (January 28-February 3, 2013), CBS of course dominated with the Super Bowl, achieving a preliminary 9.04 adult 18-49 rating for the week.  This assumes about a 40.6 rating during prime time on Sunday (estimated from the 35.3 non-time-zone-adjusted fast national rating).  Last year, NBC scored a 7.66 rating […]

>The past week (seven days ending Sunday) came in up 11% versus last year’s comparable week.  Year-to-date box office is now down 7% versus last year.    The Past Week: Total Box Office Volume All films in wide release playing between June 6 and June 12 grossed a strong $222 million, up 5% versus the […]