Author Archive
 

 

BEHIND THE FRIDAY BOXOFFICE: 6/7/13

  OPENINGS:  THE PURGE (Universal) will be instantly profitable by the end of its high $30Ms weekend, and while a great deal of that is due to the $3M production budget, a US marketing spend of only $20M (less than half t...
by Mitch Salem
 

 
 

THE SKED’S SUNDAY NETWORK SCORECARD – 1/27/13

Even the one football game no one cares about can score well enough to win the night. NBC:  The PRO BOWL, a game so uninteresting that there’s been recurring discussion about ending it altogether, had a 3.3 in preliminar...
by Mitch Salem
 

 

 

SHOWBUZZDAILY Midseason Finale Review: “The Blacklist”

  THE BLACKLIST adequately completed the first act of its season’s mission with tonight’s fall finale–but the tough part is still to come.  NBC largely adopted a conservative schedule this season–a...
by Mitch Salem
 

 
 

BEHIND THE FRIDAY BOX OFFICE – 9/20/13

  OPENINGS:  PRISONERS (Warners) came in at $7M on Friday, a bit less than the initial $7.5M estimate.  That could indicate cooling word-of-mouth as the evening went on, or just overenthusiastic estimators.  The number ...
by Mitch Salem
 

 

 

EARLY FRIDAY BOX OFFICE: “Captain Marvel” Super-Heroic, Holdovers Fade

  CAPTAIN MARVEL (Marvel/Disney) is delivering the jolt the 2019 box office desperately needed.  Preliminary numbers at Deadline put opening day at $62M ($20.7M from Thursday night).  That’s far higher than the $38...
by Mitch Salem
 

 
 

THE SKED”S PILOT + 1 REVIEW: “A Gifted Man”

> A lot can happen between the creation of a TV pilot in the spring and production of episodes for the regular season:  a writing/producing team is hired, audience focus groups weigh in, networks and studios (which may hav...
by Mitch Salem
 

 

 

THE SKED SEASON FINALE REVIEW: “Major Crimes”

  MAJOR CRIMES has been doing for TNT what it was created to do–that is, fill the hole left by the departure of the network’s long-running hit The Closer–and it’s earned the Season 2 renewal it̵...
by Mitch Salem
 

 
 

OscarLand: The Day Arrives

  Provocative, almost existential questions have circled this year’s Oscars since seconds after the nominations were announced.  Should the awards, and the Motion Picture Academy’s voting membership, mirror th...
by Mitch Salem
 

 

 

THE SKED’S TUESDAY NETWORK SCORECARD – 10/30/12

  An extra hour of THE VOICE pulverized much of the competition. NBC:  THE VOICE, extended for an extra Tuesday hour, dominated the night with 4.6 (up 0.3 from last week’s 1-hour episode) and provided a huge lead-...
by Mitch Salem
 

 
 

THE SKED’S SUNDAY NETWORK SCORECARD – 8/11/13

  We don’t have data yet for the season premiere of Breaking Bad, which frankly is of more interest than any of the blah network numbers last night. CBS:  The 0.3 boost for 60 MINUTES (to 1.2) is probably mostly due to ...
by Mitch Salem
 

 

 

THE SKED Midseason Premiere Review: “The Walking Dead”

  THE WALKING DEAD:  Sunday 9PM on AMC The back half of THE WALKING DEAD‘s fourth season began by bringing the series back to square one:  isolated figures wandering without a clear goal through an anonymous landsc...
by Mitch Salem
 

 
 

SHOWBUZZDAILY Toronto Film Festival Reviews: “Peterloo” & “Viper Club”

  PETERLOO (Amazon – November 9):  Not so much a movie as an illustrated historical recitation.  Mike Leigh’s film concerns the brutal 1819 government militia attack on civilians listening to a public address...
by Mitch Salem
 

 

 

THE SKED SEASON FINALE REVIEW: “2 Broke Girls”

      With the spring decline of New Girl‘s ratings, 2 BROKE GIRLS became the only remaining breakout comedy hit of the 2011/12 broadcast season.  The truth is, it’s still not all that good.  Tonigh...
by Mitch Salem
 

 
 

SHOWBUZZDAILY @ TORONTO:: “Iceman”

Michael Shannon is brilliant in ICEMAN, but it has to be said that he’s brilliant in just about the same way that he was in Take Shelter, in Revolutionary Road, on Boardwalk Empire, and even in The Runaways (althoug...
by Mitch Salem
 

 

 

THE SKED: “Devious Maids” Takes A Walk to Lifetime

  It’s rare for a busted network pilot to find a home somewhere else, but DEVIOUS MAIDS, which had been created by Desperate Housewives‘ Marc Cherry initially for ABC (and by its in-house studio), has accomplis...
by Mitch Salem