> Not Even For Free It was a feel-good story last weekend when the expensive shambles called Sucker Punch went down, defeated by the relatively low-budget family comedy DIARY OF A WIMPY KID:  RODRICK RULES.  (Mitch Metcalf’s weekend boxoffice roundup is here.)  The story would have been better, though, if Wimpy 2 were any good. […]

  Nothing was going to touch the finale of THE BIG BANG THEORY. DEMOGRAPHIC DETAIL: For each broadcast program (or hour segment), the chart below displays preliminary live+same day 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 […]

  It won’t be #1 for the full weekend, but the story on Saturday was DJANGO UNCHAINED (Weinstein/Sony), which–according to preliminary numbers at Deadline, at least–had its second straight day of splendid growth (+17%) and is challenging THE HOBBIT: AN UNEXPECTED JOURNEY (Warners/MGM) for the day’s lead with $11.2M.  It appears as though Django will […]

  OPENINGS:  Almost all the “early Friday” numbers turned out to be overly optimistic, but THE HEAT (20th) is still having a great opening, with a $13.6M first day that should put it in the neighborhood of a $37M weekend.  That puts it ahead of Melissa McCarthy’s $34.6M opening with Identity Thief, and remarkably enough, […]

  Fridays aren’t going to be very interesting this fall. 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 […]

> Disclaimer:  Network pilots now in circulation are not necessarily in the form that will air in the Fall.  Pilots are often reedited and rescored, and in some cases even recast or reshot.  So these critiques shouldn’t be taken as full reviews, but rather as a guide to the general style and content of the […]

        NETWORK FINALS:  As will now be typical on Sundays, there were football-driven adjustments.  NBC’s SUNDAY NIGHT FOOTBALL ended up at 7.0, 60 MINUTES at 2.2, and BOB’S BURGERS at 0.4.  In addition, the early NCIS: LA rerun lost 0.1 in final numbers.         Broadcast Official Nationals Program Ratings […]

  HOLIDAY BOX OFFICE NOTES:  We only have partial international numbers for the weekend box office, and those we have reflect the fact that in some European and Latin American markets (including the UK), theatres are entirely closed on Christmas Eve or Christmas Day.  In the US, the 4-day Christmas weekend means there are 3 […]