Early Saturday boxoffice numbers at Deadline show no great surprises for the weekend’s offerings.  Any hope that EVIL DEAD (TriStar/Sony/FilmDistrict) would have the staying power of a Mama faded with the demon-filled gorefest’s 24% Saturday drop (although it should be noted that Saturdays in general will start looking lower with studios now treating “Friday” […]

  OPENINGS:  Saturday will tell the tale on EVIL DEAD (TriStar/FSony/FilmDistrict).  Its $11.9M Friday was stronger than the $10.1M/10.2M starts for The Texas Chainsaw Massacre 3D and Mama earlier this year (although it comes with a $1.8M asterisk from Thursday night screenings), and the question is whether word of mouth will lead to a solid increase […]

  Vegas doesn’t travel well. CBS:  It’s probably time for VEGAS to cash in its chips after a weak 0.9 Friday debut.  The number was particularly ugly because the shows that surrounded it, UNDERCOVER BOSS and BLUE BLOODS, were so much stronger, with Boss at 1.5 (up 0.1) and Bloods even at 1.4.  That means […]

Based on Friday’s grosses, Weekend #14 of 2013 is looking pretty good: $135 million for the top 12 films in North America, up 16% from the comparable weekend the past few years.  The two new openers this weekend are on track to beat our forecast, and The Croods continues to play quite well in its […]

  Preliminary numbers at Deadline have the remake of EVIL DEAD (TriStar/Sony/FilmDistrict) on track for a solid weekend win, with $11.5M on Thursday night/Friday and a probable front-loaded weekend in the mid $20Ms.  That would put it midway between the January horror launches of Texas Chainsaw Massacre ($21.7M) and Mama ($28.4M), and it’ll probably end […]

Here is how the week is shaping up for the top cable telecasts (in bold) and top broadcast programs (in regular type) for this week through Thursday, ranked by adult 18-49 rating.  The complete ranking for last week is provided on the left for comparison.

  Hannibal doesn’t have much of an appetite.   NBC:  The positive spin on HANNIBAL‘s 1.6 debut is that it’s better than NBC has done in that awful timeslot in roughly a year, and a considerable boost from its lead-in.  Nevertheless, a 1.6, mired in last place for the hour, is hardly anything to celebrate, […]

  Roger Ebert, after enduring cancer with extraordinary fortitude for over a decade, passed away today.  Ebert was one of the smartest, hardest-working and most passionate film critics of his generation, and almost certainly the most famous.  Although he was devoted to criticism expressed in writing–both in newspapers (and books) and, later in his career, […]