Live awards shows have been surging in the DVR age, and last night it happened again. ABC:  The BILLBOARD MUSIC AWARDS blew away the competition with a 3.6 (peaking at 3.9 in the 9-9:30PM half-hour), the show’s highest rating in 10 years and up a huge 1.2 from last year.  Before that, the season finale […]

Looking at wide-release films in North America (those that play on at least 400 screens at some point), 2013 now totals just over $3.1 billion, down 13% from 2012 and down 5% from the prior four-year average 2009-2012.  Still a very mediocre year.  Each year-to-date period below is defined as the first Monday after New […]

Updated International Box Office numbers below.  Iron Man 3 moved up $72 million overseas in the past week, reaching over $700 million overseas to date.  If Iron Man 3 ends with, let’s say, $820 million overseas, the latest Marvel film will end with $1.24 billion: near The Avengers ($1.512 billion worldwide) and blowing past Iron Man ($585 million worldwide) and Iron Man 2 ($624 […]

  OPENINGS:  In order for STAR TREK: INTO DARKNESS (Paramount) to hit its $70.6M weekend studio estimate (and $84.1M over 4+ days), it will need to have the best Sunday hold in the top 10 by a substantial margin.  Paramount has it slipping only 24%, when the next-lowest drop is 30% (and that’s also for […]

Based on Friday’s and Saturday’s grosses, Weekend #20 of 2013 looks like $147 million for the top 12 films, somewhat above the same weekend last year but slightly below the four-year average for the weekend.  Star Trek Into Darkness had a decent Saturday but is still performing well below our expectations. Opening at 3,762 theaters […]

  OPENINGS:  STAR TREK: INTO DARKNESS (Paramount) is the first underperformer of the summer, and there will be plenty of harrumphing and speculation about why that is.  With Sunday likely to be much weaker than last weekend’s Mother’s Day, Darkness will be hard-pressed to match in 4 days (plus Wednesday night screenings) the $79.2M that […]

  Only one show last night topped a 1.5 rating. ABC:  An 8PM SHARK TANK only managed a 1.2, but the 9PM season finale zoomed up to a 1.9, easily the highest-rated show of the night (but down a tick from last week).  2d highest:  the 1.5 for 20/20, although that was down 0.2 from […]

Based on Friday’s grosses, Weekend #20 of 2013 looks like $145 million for the top 12 films, somewhat above the same weekend last year but slightly below the four-year average for the weekend.  Star Trek Into Darkness opened at #1 for the weekend but is performing well below our expectations. Opening at 3,762 theaters Thursday, Star […]