THE HOBBIT: AN UNEXPECTED JOURNEY (Warners/MGM) will shatter all the December records it was expected to shatter, but based on preliminary numbers at Deadline, its projected $85M weekend is somewhat soft, considering that it had $37.5M on Friday alone.  That’s about a 2.25 weekend multiple, considerably lower than The Avengers (2.57) or Skyfall (2.77) […]

>Thanks to strong weekday business, the past week is up 5% versus last year.  The year-to-date total is now down 14% from last year (after being off as much as 26% in February).  The Past Week: Total Box Office Volume All films in wide release playing between May 2 and May 8 grossed $206 million, up […]

  GREY’S ANATOMY still has some life. DEMOGRAPHIC DETAIL: For each broadcast program (or hour segment), the chart below displays preliminary key advertiser demographics (adult 18-34, 18-49 and 25-54 ratings), audience skews (women 18-49, men 18-49 and adults 50+ shares) and total viewership (thousands of people over the age of 2).R Ratings analysis and comparisons follow […]

Based on Friday’s grosses, Weekend #52 is on pace for a solid $166 million thanks to three movies at or near $30 million for the Friday-Sunday period.  However, the two big openers are not living up to the promise of their initial Christmas Day grosses.  Les Miserables opened with $18.1 million Tuesday (a strong #1 […]

> DISCLAIMER: These initial impressions are based on the clips (usually 3-5 minutes) released by the networks to use in their Upfront presentations and for promos.  They’re chosen to sell the show, not to accurately represent it.  So take the reactions below with a large satchel of salt–we may well feel differently about these shows […]

  OPENINGS:  Even though THE DISASTER ARTIST (A24) was at just 840 theatres, its $6.4M weekend had no trouble topping its woeful newcomer competition.  That total (which may come down a bit in finals, because A24 tends to be optimistic in its Sunday estimates) translated into a $7700 per-theatre weekend average, notably better than the […]

  THE VOICE is looking awfully tired. DEMOGRAPHIC DETAIL: For each broadcast program (or hour segment), the chart below displays preliminary key advertiser demographics (adult 18-34, 18-49 and 25-54 ratings), audience skews (women 18-49, men 18-49 and adults 50+ shares) and total viewership (thousands of people over the age of 2). Ratings analysis and comparisons follow […]

NBC’s prime time Wild Card game Saturday night (Minnesota at Green Bay) easily destroyed the competition — a 9.2 rating with Adults 18-49 from 8-11 pm against a 1.9 rating combined for CBS (0.8), FOX (0.7) and ABC (0.4).   The 9.2 fast national rating should rise to around a 10.6 rating in the official nationals. But […]