An atypical night of programming on CBS helped out the competition. NBC:  Everything on the line-up was up:  DATELINE by 0.2 to 1.4, GRIMM by 0.3 to 1.6 and even DRACULA by 0.2 to 1.1. ABC:  A strong night here as well, with LAST MAN STANDING up 0.2 to 1.4, THE NEIGHBORS up 0.1 […]

Based on Friday’s grosses, Weekend #49 of 2013 looks like $87 million for the top 12 films from Friday-Sunday, right on target for the usually slow post-Thanksgiving weekend.   Opening at 2,101 theaters Friday, Out of the Furnace from Relativity grossed $1.9 million Friday and is on track for a $5.5 million opening weekend (below the already bearish […]

  Networks like to issue news on Fridays in the hope that the items will be lost in the ether, and here are some updates that managed to escape. The back half of the season for SCANDAL is going to be even more rocket-paced than the series already is, because ABC cut the show’s order […]

  Last night, the hills were, without a doubt, alive. NBC:  What’s on the drawing board this morning at NBC?  Hello, Dolly with Miley Cyrus?  Kanye West in Fiddler On the Roof?  Katy Perry as Mame?  Sweeney Todd with Eminem and Taylor Swift as the serial-killing cannibals?  (Actually, that one…)  In what has to be […]

  Picking five dramas as the best of television (or “television,” as it’s more properly referred to these days) is a tough task, and the Writers Guild just announced its nominees, all of them worthy and yet hardly the only possible choices:  BREAKING BAD, THE GOOD WIFE, HOMELAND, HOUSE OF CARDS and MAD MEN.  At […]

  AFTERNOON UPDATE:  MODERN FAMILY and ARROW both rose 0.1 in final numbers, particularly good news for ARROW, now at 1.2.  Their respective teammates, however, fell by the same amount, as both SUPER FUN NIGHT and THE TOMORROW PEOPLE slipped 0.1. WEDNESDAY CABLE:  Frank Darabont won’t be duplicating his THE WALKING DEAD success with MOB […]

  We noted yesterday that one of the useful things a pre-Oscars awards group can accomplish is mixing new titles and talent in with the conventional wisdom pool of front-runners, and the National Board of Review did that today.  A full list of its winners is here, but the headline is that the group (which […]

The 49th weekend of the year is looking like $97 million for the top 12 films Friday-Sunday, down from last year but up from the usual performance for this weekend over the past several years. Opening at around 2,000 theaters Friday (well below the 2,886 average theater count for opening weekends the last two years), Out of […]