> Watch It At Home:  Petty larceny. Sometimes casting can be too good:  Keanu Reeves playing a guy who pretty much sleepwalks through his own life is practically redundant.  His whole style, from the very start of his career in the Bill and Ted pictures (more than 20 years ago!), has been to lag a […]

  A bad night everywhere but at ABC. DEMOGRAPHIC DETAIL: For each broadcast program (or hour segment), the chart below displays preliminary key advertiser demographics (adult 18-34, 18-49 and 25-54 ratings), audience skews (women 18-49, men 18-49 and adults 50+ shares) and total viewership (thousands of people over the age of 2). Ratings analysis and comparisons […]

The 10PM hour was taken up by news shows concerning some of the saddest of recent events. FOX:  Lacking a news division of its own (let’s pretend its affiliated cable network doesn’t exist), FOX aired its regular line-up.  FRINGE was up 0.2 at 1.1, tying the rerun KITCHEN NIGHTMARES at 8PM. ABC:  The LAST MAN […]

  OPENINGS:  With the pandemic raging throughout the country and about 20% fewer theatres open than last week, box office numbers plunged across the board.  There were no truly wide openings, but the Jackie Chan vehicle VANGUARD (Gravitas) opened at 1375 theatres with a low $400K start, a per-theatre weekend average of just $290. Similarly, […]

> The weekend multiples this week are a little high for movies that skew to women like Something Borrowed, Jumping the Broom and Water for Elephants due to Mother’s Day, when many families treat mom to a flick. The Thor number looks a little less impressive when you compare it to mid-level comic book movies […]

  In a 3-way battle of marquee unscripted shows, the senior member of the club took the win. DEMOGRAPHIC DETAIL: For each broadcast program (or hour segment), the chart below displays preliminary key advertiser demographics (adult 18-34, 18-49 and 25-54 ratings), audience skews (women 18-49, men 18-49 and adults 50+ shares) and total viewership (thousands of […]

  Based on preliminary numbers at Deadline, the boxoffice generally showed an uptick from Thursday, which was at it should be for the last Friday of the year.  (In 2007, the last time Christmas fell on a Tuesday, Friday was generally up 10-25% from the day before.)  Some of the biggest titles, though, remained flat. […]

> DISCLAIMER: These initial impressions are based on the clips (usually 3-5 minutes) released by the networks to use in their Upfront presentations and for promos.  They’re chosen to sell the show, not to accurately represent it.  So take the reactions below with a large satchel of salt–we may well feel differently about these shows […]