The weekend looks highly promising for THE CONJURING (Warners), which haunted up $3.3M in screenings that began 7PM on Thursday night.  Although other summer openings have had similar mid-$3M starts (including The Great Gatsby and World War Z), the closest analogue here is probably the $3.4M earned by low-budget The Purge in its Thursday […]

  Here’s something you don’t see every day:  the highest rated broadcast network among 18-49s last night was… Univision.  All the English-language networks (every one of which featured at least some original programming) were also-rans. CBS:  BIG BROTHER had the night’s biggest number, up 0.2 from last week to 2.3.  That was also up 0.1 […]

  Our parade of studio summers continues. We’ve reviewed Disney, Warner Bros, Paramount, and Sony, and today’s focus is on 20th Century Fox. Fox has had a distinct strategy this summer, counterprogramming with comedy and animation while all the other studios were duking it out with massive action movies, and holding its own spectacles for […]

  Cable Highlights:  In the morning’s overnight ratings, last night’s ESPY AWARDS on ESPN rose a healthy 0.3 from last year to a 1.9 household rating, giving host Jon Hamm a nice lead-in to this morning’s Emmy nomination for Best Drama Actor. But while last year the awards finished with a 1.2 adult 18-49 rating, this […]

  Nominations were announced this morning for the 65th Annual Emmy Awards, and as always there are a slew of them–a complete list is here.  Also as usual, the nominees are a mix of a lot of familiar names and titles with a few exciting new ones.  This year, though, the most revolutionary newcomer isn’t […]

  Until this summer’s Under the Dome, the list of successful scripted summer shows on the broadcast networks was a short one.  In fact, in recent years it’s consisted mainly of ABC’s Canadian cop drama ROOKIE BLUE.  Blue isn’t anywhere near Dome‘s current level in the ratings (so far this season it’s been in the […]

  We’re continuing our review of how Hollywood has been faring this summer on a studio-by-studio basis.  We’ve taken looks at Disney, Warner Bros, and Paramount, and today our crosshairs are trained on Sony. So are a lot of other crosshairs.  Sony has been in the news this summer for all the wrong reasons.  Major […]

The 29th weekend of the year is looking like $178 million for the top 12 films, about normal for this weekend on average the past few years but down significantly from last year, which was dominated by the opening of The Dark Knight Rises and the madness of the theater shooting in suburban Denver. Opening at […]