OPENINGS:  THE EQUALIZER (Columbia/Sony) was a bit softer on Saturday than Denzel Washington’s other hits at this box office level, up 8% compared to 11% for American Gangster and 19% for Safe House.  (Possibly because Equalizer is a terrible movie.)  That resulted in a $35M weekend that was slightly lower than Friday’s start had […]

No one will ever confuse the ratings for MAD MEN with those of TRUE BLOOD, but it was the former moving in the right direction with its season finale last night.  The Season 5 finale was the show’s highest rated, with what should be around a 0.9 rating in 18-49s, and 2.7 million viewers, up […]

Updated ratings for the NCAA Men’s Basketball Tournament through the third Saturday of March Madness (the Semfinals). Two games have been added to the CBS averages. CBS is now averaging over 7.7 million viewers 2+ for the tournament to date this year, up a big +28% from last year and the best performance in recent years, as […]

Weekend #41 of 2014 is looking like $126 million for the top 12 films this weekend, up 19% from the norm for this weekend. Opening at around 3,000 theaters Friday (above the 2,886 average theater count for opening weekends the last two years), Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day from Disney should average a barely […]

Only fans of cooking shows found something to watch besides basketball. FOX:  The network’s Gordon Ramsay double feature held up well, with HELL’S KITCHEN and MASTERCHEF both essentially flat from last week at 2.2/2.0. ABC:  The NBA FINALS owned the night, and once the game’s preliminary 6.0 goes up in final numbers, ABC’s evening will […]

  This was the weekend that the COVID-19 crisis hit the box office in earnest, and while that fact pales in importance compared to the human cost of the pandemic, it’s going to represent a multi-billion dollar hit that will reverberate through the lives of many throughout the world.  As bad as the numbers below […]

  FURY (Columbia/Sony) was expected to dominate the multiplexes this weekend, and it will indeed have no trouble notching the win, but it’s not performing with particular strength.  Preliminary numbers at Deadline give it a $8-9M Friday ($1.2M of it from Thursday night), which suggests a weekend no higher than $25M.  That compares to $37.5M […]

Talent and cooking, cooking and talent–what network audiences want this summer. NBC:  AMERICA’S GOT TALENT was the dominant show of the evening with a 3.2.  The rest of the schedule was below a 2 (1.9 for more US OLYMPIC TRIALS, 1.6 for LOVE IN THE WILD), but it was enough for a tie to win […]