OPENINGS:  After last week’s Barbenheimer fireworks, the box office for new movies returned to earth–with a thud in the case of HAUNTED MANSION (Disney), which was at the bottom of projections at $24.2M.  With the exception of Guardians 3, it’s been a tepid summer for Disney, and Haunted Mansion carries production/marketing costs in the […]

> So what just happened, and what’s likely to happen next?  Here’s a quick look at what’s new in Panem: FINAL NUMBERS:  It turns out THE HUNGER GAMES wasn’t such a hit after all, earning a measly $152.5M in its first 3 days of release, instead of the estimated $155M.  Actually the discrepancy was pretty […]

  AFTERNOON UPDATE:  2  BROKE GIRLS and THE VOICE both climbed 0.1, and that was it for the adjustments on original programming.  At 10PM, all the reruns were up 0.1. MONDAY CABLE:  WWE (USA) was as usual in the lead, although at 1.7 it was down 0.2 from last week.  On VH1, BASKETBALL WIVES was […]

  OPENINGS:  IF (Paramount) was at the low end of projections with $35M, although that was an improvement over where it seemed to be headed after Friday’s $10.4M.  The key was strong family turnout on Saturday, but while IF benefited from being the first major release for that demographic in the 11 weeks since Kung […]

> Frontloading strikes again. THE HUNGER GAMES (Lionsgate/Summit), with $18.9M on its 2nd Friday, is behaving like a sequel, even though it isn’t one.  It’s down 72% from opening day, which is consistent with the second Fridays of mega-sequels like The Dark Knight (down 65%), Twilight:  New Moon (-76%), Breaking Dawn Part 1 (-77%), Harry […]

  OPENINGS:  THE AMAZING SPIDER-MAN 2 (Sony) is still several days from its US opening, but the superhero spectacle already has $132M in the bank after a $67.2M 2d weekend in 42 international territories–which don’t yet include such lucrative areas as China, Brazil and France.  It should be over $150M before any US ticketbuyer has […]

  OPENINGS:  It was a blah MLK Weekend at the box office, driven by soft openings.  Over the 3-day weekend, ONE OF THEM DAYS (TriStar/Sony) was reported to have a very narrow lead with $11.6M, but it was expected to fall into 2nd place with $14M including the Monday holiday.  The good news for Sony […]

>Nobody wanted to watch TV last night. ABC: The premiere of Shonda Rhimes’ SCANDAL tied PRIVATE PRACTICE‘s 2.1 season low, a very unencouraging start. This followed new series lows for GREY’S ANATOMY and MISSING (2.8 and 1.4, respectively), making for a night of failure. FOX: AMERICAN IDOL fell to a series low 3.8, but even […]