PARANORMAL ACTIVITY 3:  Worth A Ticket – More Minimalist Bumps In the Dark   The PARANORMAL ACTIVITY franchise is a movie studio’s dream come true.  The concept itself demands a no-star cast, a very limited number of settings and a bare minimum of special effects (the third and latest entry in the series cost […]

  A superhero comes to the rescue. CW:  ARROW gave the beleagurered little network the best news it’s had literally in years, with a colossal (for CW) 1.3 rating that beat NBC in its first half-hour and was only narrowly behind in its second.  That also lifted SUPERNATURAL to a snappy 1.0 at 9PM. ABC:  You couldn’t call NASHVILLE a […]

>ABC led a very quiet Saturday night with a 1.2 Adult 18-49 from 8-11 pm in the preliminary fast nationals.  Wipeout at 8 pm averaged a 0.9 from 8:00-8:30 and 1.0 from 8:30-9:00, winning the hour.  ABC continued its winning ways from 9-11 pm with a 20/20 special, My Extreme Affliction (about people with extraordinary […]

  An oddity of this year’s box office is that while a few very big hits (American Sniper, 50 Shades of Grey, The SpongeBob Movie) have pushed the total 2015 take well above last year’s start, there have been no shortage of high-profile failures alongside them, including Mortdecai, Jupiter Ascending, Focus and Blackhat.  Add to […]

  It’s too soon to tell just how GODZILLA: KING OF THE MONSTERS (Legendary/Warners) will fare based on its $19.7M opening day (including $6.3M from Thursday), per preliminary numbers at Deadline.  The reason is that the two previous installments of what Warners calls its “Monsterverse” have had strikingly divergent trajectories at the US box office.  […]

    NETWORK UPDATE:  The final SUNDAY NIGHT FOOTBALL of the season adjusted to 7.9 in final numbers, up an impressive 2.1 from last week’s finals.  Also due to football, 60 MINUTES climbed 0.4 in final numbers to 2.8, UNDERCOVER BOSS was up 0.2 to 1.6, the first LIMITLESS rerun gained 0.1 to 0.8, and the […]

WORLDWIDE STUDIO SCORECARD.  Updated look at 2016 by studio. Warner Brothers moved into second place, pushing Fox into third place.  This is the first change in the studio rankings in weeks, thanks mostly to continued overseas strength from Suicide Squad and the strong first 10 days of Sully.   YEAR TO DATE BOX OFFICE. Looking at North American box […]

  SNOW WHITE AND THE HUNTSMAN:  Worth A Ticket –  Not a Disneyland Ride   Just to be clear, the new SNOW WHITE AND THE HUNTSMAN bears about as much resemblance to this spring’s Mirror Mirror as The Dark Knight did to the 1960s Batman TV series.  Sure, there are some familiar aspects–an evil queen […]