Note:  The Father’s Day tide is expected to lift virtually all movie boats on Sunday, and the studios have factored that into their weekend estimates.  However, next weekend’s declines may be steeper than usual as a result. OPENINGS:  MEN IN BLACK: INTERNATIONAL (Tencent/Columbia/Sony) was the latest big-budget franchise entry to perform dimly, with a […]

  AFTERNOON UPDATE:  SURVIVOR widened its lead over AMERICAN IDOL by 0.1, and that was the only change from this morning for the new episodes.  On ABC, reruns of THE MIDDLE, SUBURGATORY and MODERN FAMILY all went up 0.1 (but the new MIXOLOGY didn’t), and the rerun NASHVILLE dropped 0.1. WEDNESDAY CABLE:  As we prepare […]

  BROADCAST FINALS ABC:  After reruns at 0.39/0.31, a SOUL OF THE NATION special was at 0.18. CBS:  Reruns at 0.26/0.24/0.23. NBC:  AMERICA’S GOT TALENT gained 0.03 to 0.68, and HOT WHEELS was down 0.03 to 0.30. FOX:  BEAT SHAZAM rose 0.07 to 0.26, and DON’T FORGET THE LYRICS was up 0.05 to 0.25. CW:  […]

>Dancing with the Stars returned to ABC’s schedule with a preliminary 3.5 rating from 8-10 pm, down from a 5.3 rating for the spring premiere last year on the comparable night.  The Voice averaged a 4.5 rating with young adults, down from a 5.2 last week and a 6.2 two weeks ago.  In the metered-market […]

  OPENINGS:  The weekend’s tallest dwarf was WAR DOGS (RatPac/Warners) with a soft $14.3M start.  The 12% Saturday drop indicates that word of mouth isn’t great, and early international numbers are weak as well, with $6.5M in 31 markets.  War Dogs cost $125M+ in production and worldwide marketing, and it seems likely to add to […]

  AFTERNOON UPDATE:  The HOW I MET YOUR MOTHER finale climbed an extra 0.1 in final numbers and the FRIENDS WITH BETTER LIVES lost 0.1, but the ugly numbers for the latter were in the quarter hours, where MOTHER had a 6.0 from 8:45PM-9PM, and then fell more than half to 2.8 when BETTER LIVES […]

  OPENINGS:  NO HARD FEELINGS (Columbia/Sony) slightly exceeded tracking expectations with $15.1M, but those expectations were themselves quite low.  With production and worldwide marketing costs in the neighborhood of $100M, the film will need to hold strongly for the next several weeks to reach any profit, and while it has the hard-R comedy field to […]

>The weekend studio estimates (based on Friday and Saturday actuals and projections for Sunday) are coming in significantly stronger than the weekend numbers posted yesterday (based on Friday actuals only).  The box office volume for the top 12 films is now looking like a soft $206 million for the weekend, up 89% from last year’s […]