NOTE: All ratings below distorted by 9 NFL Preseason games in 18 major markets. ABC, NBC and FOX ratings inflated by major local pre-emptions. The CBS ratings are below are unreliable. Viewing in Los Angeles (from 5-8 pm PT) is not included in the fast nationals and will added to the official ratings for Saturday […]

  AMERICAN SNIPER (Village Roadshow/Warners):  Depending on how one characterizes Titanic, American Sniper is on track to become the #3 or #4 “serious drama” of all time, behind that film, The Passion of the Christ ($370.8M) and Forrest Gump ($330.3M).  Even if this weekend’s studio estimate of $64.4M turns out to have been tinkered with […]

Last night’s breakout star has a day job.  Someone sign the President to a development deal… in four years. CW:  The gambit of launching EMILY OWENS MD while the debate occupied all the other broadcast networks didn’t work, as the show debuted with a weak 0.5.  That didn’t even hold the 0.6 lead-in it had […]

NOTE: ABC, CBS and NBC ratings below inflated by local prime time pre-emptions for NFL Monday Night Football (nationally on ESPN): ABC (in Los Angeles), CBS (in Minneapolis) and NBC (in New Orleans). 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), […]

  Note:  due to last week’s low-grossing Super Bowl Sunday, all weekend-to-weekend comparisons appear unusually strong this week. OPENINGS:  THE SPONGEBOB MOVIE:  SPONGE OUT OF WATER (Nickelodeon/Paramount) notched the #5 February opening ever with $56M (although not quite in a league with last year’s The LEGO Movie, which was #2 with $69.1M).  The studios seem […]

  Ugliness abounds, unless your title is Argo. OPENINGS:  CLOUD ATLAS (Warners) will be the tallest tree in the weekend’s bonzai forest, but that’s small comfort for a movie that cost $100M (plus heavy marketing) and probably won’t make much more than $10M for the weekend, based on its $3.5M Friday.  This, sadly, is why […]

  OPENINGS:  Even in a normal box office marketplace, a mild rom-com with no big-name stars like THE BROKEN HEARTS GALLERY (TriStar/Sony) probably wouldn’t have made much money, and it has both a low production budget and limited marketing costs going for it.  All that being said, though, there’s nothing about a $1.1M weekend at […]

  OPENINGS:  WRECK IT FALPH (Disney) is proving itself to be a canny mix of kid-friendly action with a video game millieu that can appeal to adults.  It’s Walt Disney Animation’s most Pixar-ish production to date (although the divisions are separate within Disney, John Lasseter supervises both), and headed for a $50M+ opening.  What Ralph […]