Melissa McCarthy is a movie star. OPENINGS:  She co-stars with Jason Bateman (who is also a producer of the movie), but there’s no doubt that IDENTITY THIEF (Universal) is being sold on McCarthy’s back, and the movie is off to a great $11.2M opening day.  Frontloading and East Coast weather may hold it back […]

>DeadlineHollywood is reporting Green Lantern earned $3.35 million at midnight plays (at 1,810 theaters).  This result is similar to recent midnight previews for Thor and X-Men: First Class.  (See Mitch Salem’s Green Lantern review HERE.)  This might indicate Green Lantern could open in the high-$50 million range, although we will stick with the published $55 […]

The AUDIENCE MAP series continues with a look back at the complete 2014-2015 television season.  The CW’s primetime lineup is shown below.  As a reminder, the programs are arranged by broadcast schedule, with each show placed on the night it spent most of the season.  The audience share for each of 30 gender-age subgroups is noted […]

No good news for anyone last night. ABC:  It was never clear why ABC renewed BODY OF PROOF, which had marginal ratings last season (reportedly foreign sales played a part, as the network’s in-house studio produces the show), but last night’s season premiere certainly didn’t justify the decision.  Despite very little competition on the other […]

> Reviews have been coming in progressively worse for Cars 2, dropping from 50% positive at RottenTomatoes to 37% as of Friday morning.  In line with this trend is Mitch Salem’s review of the film.  The words “lazy” and “phoning it in” seem to summarize what reviewers think, and that does not bode well for […]

Weekend #23 of 2015 is looking like $154 million for the top 12 films this weekend, very much on par with the same weekend the past few years. Spy from Fox should open with a $39.5 million three-day weekend. Early reviews at RottenTomatoes are loving: 96% positive overall so far. Spy is on track for around $133 million domestic. Overseas the […]

Post-Sweeps malaise. NBC:  Cleveland must be feeling pretty good about its preemptions last night, as the 9-11PM regular network schedule averaged under a 1.0 rating, with 0.9s for a new 1600 PENN and rerun SVU, and a 1.0 for an OFFICE rerun.  COMMUNITY held even at 1.1 at 8PM, followed by 0.9 for a PARKS […]

>Transformers 3 is doing good but not great business (midway between the first and second in the series), but the overall weekend is looking like it is up only marginally from last year thanks to weak holds by Cars 2 and Bad Teacher. Transformers: Dark of the Moon opened well and looks like it will […]