With 400,000 Americans showing up every year at the Indy 500 and 200,000 more buying tickets to see NASCAR’s premiere event The Daytona 500, you would think that the most creative minds in Hollywood would be looking for a way
Universal’s Fast & Furious will be “burning rubber” this weekend at America’s multiplexes as the original street-racing cast reunites after some sub-par chapters of the franchise. The original The Fast & The Furious hit theatres in 2001 under the direction
It is an excellent weekend for Dreamworks Animation. Although the credit crunch prevented financing that would allow exhibitors to undertake the digital conversion of more of its theatres, Monsters vs. Aliens is benefiting spectacularly from the 2,075 or so standard
Jeffrey Katzenberg has been the film industry’s strongest proponent of 3-D over the past few years, and this weekend his advocacy will start paying dividends for Dreamworks Amimation. Monsters Vs. Aliens will debut with 4,104 playdates. That makes it the
It was another good weekend for Summit Entertainment. The distributor behind last year’s meteoric hit Twilight has scored a solid hit with the Alex Proyas-directed Knowing, starring Nicolas Cage. Despite shaky word-of-mouth and negative reviews, the sci-fi thriller got a
Zack Snyder’s Watchmen, with domestic distribution rights owned by Warner Bros and international distribution rights being handled by Paramount ( oh, and by the way, Fox also has skin in this game thanks to its recent litigation), is off to
After winning the Oscar for Shakespeare in Love, Gwyneth Paltrow has been shamefully idle (Shallow Hal, anyone?) Even her latest film, Two Lovers, co-starring Joaquin Phoenix, premiered, depressingly unnoticed, at the Sunshine Cinema on New York’s Lower East Side. But
The Academy Awards have never been generous and fair in recognizing comedies. In 1934, the near-perfect romantic comedy It Happened One Night became the first film to win Best Picture, Best Actor: Clark Gable, Best Actress: Claudette Colbert and Best
Alma Rubens, Early Studio Portrait Many persons who have followed my career on the screen and stage mistake me for a Jewess. This belief perhaps was strengthened when I married Ricardo Cortez, my third husband, the only one I ever
The Drew Barrymore-produced romantic comedy He’s Just Not That Into You has made the jump from catch-phrase to self-help book to movie hit. With an all-star cast this classic ‘chick flick” appears to be winning the weekend after posting a
After a spectacular $1 billion dollar-grossing January for the movie industry, Hollywood trots out four new titles for the first weekend of February. The first month of ’09 was nothing short of spectacular, featuring nine releases with 3-day openings of
Liam Neeson is officially a full-fledged action star. The Irish-born actor has often played heroes, whether it was Oskar Schindler in Steven Spielberg’s masterpiece Schindler’s List, the wise Qui-Gon Jinn in Star Wars: Episode I – The Phantom Menace or
In 2006, Magnolia released the French sci-fi action thriller District B13, written and produced by Luc Besson and directed by his longtime collaborator Pierre Morel. The US domestic engagements grossed an estimated $1.2M, but previously, the movie delivered a solid
The chubby guy on the Segway rallied for a come-from-behind win over the Beckinsale-less Underworld sequel, but regardless, it was a 1-2 finish for Sony. When I originally predicted that Paul Blart: Mall Cop as the likely weekend winner over
Michael Sheen has two movies in release this weekend. The classically-trained Welsh actor plays Lucien in the wildly commercial Underworld: Rise of the Lycans (Sony), opening on about 3,000 screens, and he plays David Frost in Frost/Nixon (Universal), expanding to
Paul Blart: Mall Cop (Sony), My Bloody Valentine 3-D (Lionsgate) and the Sean Combs’-produced hip hop biopic Notorious (Fox Searchlight) lead a strong-performing quartet of wide releases as Hollywood seems headed for the biggest 4-day Martin Luther King Jr. Holiday
True to their nature, the British Academy of Film and Television Awards, issued their decidedly stuffy list of nominees today, and Slumdog Millionaire (Fox Searchlight) and The Curious Case of Benjamin Button (Paramount) led the way with 11 nominations apiece.
The Martin Luther King Jr. holiday weekend brings four new wide releases to America’s multiplexes along with one major expansion. The Monday holiday means stronger-than-average business on Sunday and a bonus fourth day of steady sales, especially for younger-skewing movies.
Once upon a time there was a blacklist in Hollywood. Liberals still refer to it as McCarthyism, but they can’t even get that right. Joseph McCarthy was a U.S. senator and had nothing to do with Hollywood. It was the
SUNDAY 10AM: As I first reported Friday night, Clint Eastwood is king this weekend at the box office, and although Gran Torino (Warner Bros) didn’t quite reach $30M, its final 3-day studio estimate of $29M is still easily the best
A year ago, Fox scored a January hit with the female-geared 27 Dresses. The Katherine Heigl vehicle chick-flick opened with $23M on the weekend of January 18 en route to a nifty $76.8M domestic gross. Now Kate Hudson has produced
Steve Mason is on Facebook and now also on Twitter. SUNDAY MORNING: In Studio 3-Day Estimates, the top 5 for the first weekend of 2009 remain the same as the order of finish for Christmas weekend. Marley & Me (Fox)
Steve Mason is on Facebook and now also on Twitter. SUNDAY MORNING: Dog lovers everywhere united to make Fox’s Marley & Me the #1 Christmas weekend movie with an expected $51.18M in the Thursday-thru-Sunday period for a Per Theatre Average
In the movie business, there are no real holidays, and tonight, while the studio executives are nestled all snug in their beds, visions of big Christmas Day box office receipts dance in their heads. Five major wide releases arrive in
The final studio estimates are in, and, as I first wrote Friday night, Jim Carrey’s Yes Man (Warner Bros) is the weekend winner, although the performance of the film was softer-than-expected. When the movie started with a soft $6.7M on
With Fox still smarting from the underwhelming start for Baz Luhrmann’s Australia (just over $32M so far), they unleash The Day the Earth Stood Still on Friday. This is a big budget remake of the 1951 classic from 4-time Oscar
The Golden Globe nominees will be announced this Thursday, December 11 at 5am Pacific. Announcement day for the Hollywood Foreign Press Association is always the official start of the Academy Award season, and the stakes are very high for pictures
In Israel, Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama says he would offer “big sticks and big carrots” to Iran in an effort to halt that country’s nuclear program.
Reuters: Viacom, owner of movie studio Paramount and MTV Networks, requested the information as part of its $1 billion copyright infringement lawsuit against the popular online video service and its deep-pocketed parent, Google.
AP: Paramount Pictures has teamed with with Los Angeles-based developer FanRocket to launch the VooZoo application Monday on Facebook.