Author Archive
 

 

TRUST: Tangled Interweb

> Worth A Ticket. Of all the “Friends” who kept America company in its collective living room for a decade, David Schwimmer has taken the most concerted step away from the work that made him famous.  While Cour...
by Mitch Salem
 

 
 

WEEKEND STUDIO ESTIMATES APR 1-3: Hop Shines But Weekend Sags

> Based on actual box office numbers Friday and Saturday (and studio projections for Sunday), Hop is now looking like a $38 million weekend, far exceeding the ShowbuzzDaily forecast.  Source Code now exactly...
by Mitch Salem
 

 

 

Box Office Footnotes – 4/1/11

> Hop will be–by far–Russell Brand’s biggest opening as a featured performer:  both Forgetting Sarah Marshall and Get Me To the Greek opened to around $17M.  All of which makes this week’s open...
by Mitch Salem
 

 
 

FRIDAY APR 1 NUMBERS: Hop Surprisingly Strong

> Based on Friday’s numbers, Hop is blowing past the ShowbuzzDaily Forecast, according to preliminary weekend estimates.  While not quite the $56 million opening for Despicable Me and certainly no...
by Mitch Salem
 

 

 

THE SHOWBUZZDAILY REVIEWS: “In A Better World,” “Rubber” & “Super”

In recent years, the Oscar for Best Foreign Language Film has come to stand for not much more than a fair level of craftsmanship and a comfortable pitch of moral predicament (The Secret In Their Eyes, Departures, and The Counte...
by Mitch Salem
 

 
 

MOVIE SCHEDULING: Method to the Madness

> So how do certain movies end up on certain weekends?  There is an art and a science to the scheduling of approximately 150 wide-releases each year.  This is the first in an occasional look at the scheduling of movie...
by Mitch Salem
 

 

 

HOP: Easter Egg Over Easy

> Watch It At Home People complain that Hollywood doesn’t take risks, but Universal went and hired the director of Alvin and the Chipmunks to make a movie about a musical-minded, free-spirit digitally animated character w...
by Mitch Salem
 

 
 

SOURCE CODE: If At First You Don’t Succeed…

> Worth a ticket. They say that the definition of madness is repeating the same action with the expectation of a different result.  But that diagnosis doesn’t allow for this:  a man (Jake Gyllenhaal) wakes up an...
by Mitch Salem
 

 

 

INSIDIOUS: What’s That Noise?

> Worth a ticket. The director and writer of Saw, James Wan and Leigh Whannell, combine again to bring us–hey, where are you going?  No, seriously:  don’t run away.  Leaving aside that Saw is rather u...
by Mitch Salem
 

 
 

DIARY OF A WIMPY KID–RODRICK RULES: Shortbus

> Not Even For Free It was a feel-good story last weekend when the expensive shambles called Sucker Punch went down, defeated by the relatively low-budget family comedy DIARY OF A WIMPY KID:  RODRICK RULES.  (Mitch Me...
by Mitch Salem
 

 

 

TUESDAY MAR 29 NUMBERS: Limitless Back on Top

> Limitless moved back to #1 Tuesday and increased a healthy 12% from Monday (significantly better than the average 4% increase for March movies on their second Tuesday).  Sucker Punch drops to #2 with a 4% decli...
by Mitch Salem
 

 
 

MONDAY MAR 28 NUMBERS: Sucker Punch Sneaks Into First

> Sucker Punch moved into the #1 spot, declining 68% percent, in line with the 67% average decline for March movies on day four.  Limitless declined 68% (also in line with the 69% average for March films on day 11, the sec...
by Mitch Salem
 

 

 

ARCHIVE REVIEWS: “Prince of Persia” and “Moon”

> SOURCE CODE is this weekend’s major live-action opening, so here’s a look at some recent work by its star Jake Gyllenhaal and its director Duncan Jones. Gyllenhaal has had a curious Hollywood career thus far, and ...
by Mitch Salem
 

 
 

WEEKEND ACTUALS: In Line with Studio Estimates; Week Better than Forecast

>Compared to the ShowbuzzDaily Forecasts (which called for a tie between the movies opening this weekend), Diary of a Wimpy Kid: Rodrick Rules slightly exceeded the forecast and Sucker Punch slightly missed the forecast (t...
by Mitch Salem
 

 

 

BOX OFFICE FOOTNOTES – 3/26/11

Warners is claiming that Sucker Punch cost around $80M, which given the scale of the film suggests either admirable cost-effectiveness or a lowball number–in any case, word of mouth is likely to be terrible (see my review...
by Mitch Salem