> 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 […]

Based on Friday’s grosses, Weekend #52 is on pace for a solid $166 million thanks to three movies at or near $30 million for the Friday-Sunday period.  However, the two big openers are not living up to the promise of their initial Christmas Day grosses.  Les Miserables opened with $18.1 million Tuesday (a strong #1 […]

> DISCLAIMER: These initial impressions are based on the clips (usually 3-5 minutes) released by the networks to use in their Upfront presentations and for promos.  They’re chosen to sell the show, not to accurately represent it.  So take the reactions below with a large satchel of salt–we may well feel differently about these shows […]

  OPENINGS:  Even though THE DISASTER ARTIST (A24) was at just 840 theatres, its $6.4M weekend had no trouble topping its woeful newcomer competition.  That total (which may come down a bit in finals, because A24 tends to be optimistic in its Sunday estimates) translated into a $7700 per-theatre weekend average, notably better than the […]

  THE VOICE is looking awfully tired. 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 and comparisons follow […]