No great disconnects between Saturday’s estimates and Sunday’s, although one number needs some scrutiny. OPENINGS:  RISE OF THE GUARDIANS (DreamWorks Animation/Paramount) was at the top of the new arrivals, but with a very disappointing $24M weekend ($32.6M over 5 days).  At that rate, it’s going to have to struggle to hold onto its theatres […]

> Compared to the ShowbuzzDaily Forecasts, the weekend numbers for the three opening movies were in the right rank order, although Hop vastly exceeded its forecast.  Source Code and Insidious were much closer to their predictions.  At the end of the day, Hop should be considered a success for Universal, the ultra-low cost Insidious will be a success […]

Based on Friday’s and Saturday’s grosses, weekend #12 of 2015 looks like $123 million for the top 12 films Friday-Sunday, a little better than it looked yesterday but still below the norms for this weekend.   Opening at 3,875 theaters Friday, Insurgent from Lionsgate/Summit is on track for a $54.0 million opening three-day weekend (better than yesterday’s estimate and […]

  ABC announced its midseason premieres and timeslots today, and while most of them were predictable (a pair of shortform reality series to fill in for the Dancing With the Stars results show between cycles on Tuesdays, replacements for the canceled 666 Park Avenue and Last Resort), the news wasn’t good for Happy Endings and Don’t […]

> Once there was a time when Broadway musicals didn’t have to say anything about society, politics, art, literature, or really much of anything.  They were exercises in style, excuses for glamorous people to get up on stage in fancy costumes and sing tuneful, ingenious songs while dancing up a storm.  That’s the world of […]

  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 […]