Things didn’t improve for AFTER EARTH (Sony) on Saturday.  According to preliminary numbers at Deadline, Will Smith’s gift to his son Jaden (and, some say, to the Church of Scientology) increased only a miniscule 3% in its second day of release, and probably won’t top $27M for the weekend.  The caper sleeper NOW YOU […]

  It’s still not officially true– in fact, Deadline reports that the deal has hit “a snag”–but all signs are that the once and future king of Greendale Community College, Dan Harmon, is returning to COMMUNITY for its 5th NBC season.  More than that, despite prior rumors that he might come back as a glorified […]

  There’s so much product in the marketplace right now that overall numbers for the summer movie season seem fairly robust–but looked at title by title, we see two blockbusters (Iron Man 3 and Fast & Furious 6) and then a lot of films that will be happy to hit breakeven. OPENINGS:  Expectations were low […]

Based on Friday’s grosses, Weekend #22 of 2013 looks like a decent $154 million for the top 12 films, up around 10% from comparable weekends the past few years.  Generally, box office is lower than we forecast on Wednesday.  Now You See Me is the one film that exceeded our forecast, while the other opener […]

  A steadily unimpressive night. CBS:  The season finale of MIKE & MOLLY, pushed back because of a tornado storyline, was all but buried among reruns on Thursday night, and it only managed a series-low 1.8, even below the BIG BANG THEORY rerun that preceded it with a 2.0.  After that, procedural reruns were at […]

  NBC’s decision, announced today, to bring back its series HANNIBAL for a second season (probably again at midseason) provides some insight into how the network television business has changed, and will continue changing.  By any traditional ratings analysis, renewing Hannibal would seem as insane as one of its many darkly murderous characters:  although technically […]

  First, our abject apologies.  We were working from inaccurate ratings numbers this morning when this was first posted, and consequently our charts were off.  We’ll try to make sure that doesn’t happen again.  Here were last night’s real results: NBC:  A post-tornado Oklahoma City benefit concert HEALING IN THE HEARTLAND was less than an […]

The 22nd weekend of the year is looking like a very good $186 million for the top 12 films, up 30% or more from the same weekend in previous years.    Opening at over 3,000 theaters Friday (a slightly above average theater count), After Earth from Sony and starring Will and Jaden Smith should average $12,100 […]