Based on Friday’s and Saturday’s grosses, weekend #19 of 2015 looks like a wobbly $120 million for the top 12 films Friday-Sunday, a little better than yesterday’s estimate ($117 million) but still well below the norm for this weekend. Opening at 3,003 theaters Friday, Hot Pursuit from Warner Brothers is now on track for a $13.3 million opening three-day weekend […]

  OPENINGS:  Under the current circumstances, the 5-day $17M opening ($9.7M Friday-Sunday) for THE CROODS: A NEW AGE (DreamWorks Animation/Universal) counts as a win, with comparisons to the original Croods or any other Thanksgiving release fairly pointless.  The film also earned $19.2M in China and $1.6M in 6 smaller international markets.  New Age reportedly had […]

Several TV institutions tottered last night. ABC:  It’s going to be awfully hard to justify a back order for LAST RESORT, which plunged 0.4 to a terrible 1.3.  Perhaps even scarier for ABC was GREY’S ANATOMY.  The show has been steadily sinking since its season premiere (last night’s episode was the first of the fall […]

> After a hiatus so long that it seemed as though CW had found its own witchcraft to create more repeats of THE SECRET CIRCLE than there’d been original episodes to start, the series finally returned to original episodes. WHERE WE LEFT OFF:  The major revelation of the fall finale was that heroine Cassie (Britt […]

      NETWORK FINALS:  There were no changes from this morning’s preliminary numbers.         Broadcast Official Nationals Program Ratings Chart     CABLE HIGHLIGHTS:  ESPN’s NBA doubleheader was at 0.83/0.73.  VH1’s BLACK INK CREW dipped 0.03 to 0.48.  On Discovery, a special episode of GOLD RUSH was at 0.44. leading in […]

  OPENINGS:  The only new arrival this weekend certain of profitability is THE CONJURING 2 (New Line/RatPac/Warners).  It’s already earned $40.4M in the US (just lightly behind the first Conjuring‘s $41.9M opening) and $50M in 44 overseas markets, and although horror movies and sequels are usually frontloaded, even in a worst cast scenario it will […]

    THE IDES OF MARCH:  Watch It At Home – An Excellent Play Becomes a Merely Good Movie   The Ides of March, one of the most eagerly awaited of this year’s festival crop, is more entertaining than it is good. Oddly both low-key and melodramatic, claptrap and high-minded drama, it represents a series […]

  The afternoon NFL switch between CBS and FOX will change things up for those networks each week. 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 […]