Mitch Metcalf’s Friday Box Office Report will return later today after some computer issues are resolved.  Meanwhile, it looks like this weekend’s box office predictions were very accurate:  the lone opener, PLAYING FOR KEEPS, is headed for $6.2M this weekend, just a shade below the $6.5M Showbuzzdaily Forecast.

> Early numbers for Friday and Saturday suggest that the first day, at least, of Hurricane Irene didn’t do enormous damage to the boxoffice.  Deadline reports that THE HELP had a healthy Friday-to-Saturday bump of 38%, on its way to a $14.5M weekend which would be only $1M below Mitch Metcalf’s pre-storm weekend prediction.  Similarly, […]

        NETWORK FINALS:  Now that the NFL adjustments are in, we can see more clearly how the networks’ regular programming fared last night: ABC:  The season finale of THE GONG SHOW was steady at 0.4.  A special episode of TAKE TWO was abysmal at 0.2, and the regular 10PM airing held the […]

NOTE: A Presidential address at 9:00 pm ET delayed the start time for broadcast programs at 9 and 10 pm ET Friday by about 15 minutes. More accurate ratings will be available Monday afternoon with the official nationals for broadcast and cable Friday.  Today we’ll limit our comments to the 8PM shows, with more detailed […]

  NETWORK UPDATE:  ABC’s DEMOCRATIC DEBATE rose 0.2 in final numbers, although it was still nowhere near its Republican counterparts, and FOX’s UFC LIVE climbed by the same amount.  Once SATURDAY NIGHT FOOTBALL was removed from CBS’s NY and Dallas ratings, the network plunged by 0.4/0.5/0.6 respectively over primetime’s 3 hours.  Broadcast Official Nationals Program […]

> Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides opens huge overseas, almost topping Fast Five in its first weekend.    The table below shows the domestic and international grosses for the Top 25 films (out of the 47 movies released between January and April at over 500 theaters).  Fast Five is still the #1 film worldwide released between January and […]

  OPENINGS:  As summer kick-off weekends go, the $92M for THE AMAZING SPIDER-MAN (Sony)–which may go down by $1M or so in final numbers tomorrow, given an aggressively high Sunday estimate–was pretty mild.  It came in below the openings of 2007, 2008, 2010, 2012 and 2013 (above only the first Thor and the first Wolverine […]

>Metered market overnight ratings were very strong for The Grammys on CBS, which averaged a 22.0 household rating and 33 share from 8-11 pm.  60 Minutes began the night with a solid 10.4 rating and 16 share, followed by the show itself (which ran to 11:30) which averaged around a 26 rating and 38 share. […]