Movies

As the motion picture industry looks to get back on track at the box office, and avoid being the laughing stock of streamers, the latest question begged is: What was Sony thinking when they decided to move Hotel Transylvania: Transformania onto the Oct. 1-3 opening weekend of MGM’s Addams Family 2? Both Halloween-centric animated movies

Kate Horton, who previously ran the Royal Court Theatre in London and has held executive roles also at the Royal Shakespeare Company and National Theatre, will take over for Scott Rudin as executive producer of The Music Man, the upcoming Broadway revival starring Hugh Jackman and Sutton Foster. With the hire, The Music Man confirms what

Refresh for latest…: International box office markets this weekend were again rife with holdovers doing solid business, while also awaiting a new major title to swing summer into full gear. Lionsgate/Millennium’s Stateside champ, The Hitman’s Wife’s Bodyguard was the only signifiant new opener this session with an estimated $7.8M in its debut in 21 overseas

Specialty box office is ready for liftoff. With Los Angeles and New York completely peeling back restrictions on theater capacity for the first weekend, we are starting to see rays of hope illuminate the limited release space. Meet The Blacks 2 blasted expectations last week by posting a $1M+ debut (per screen average of $2,533).

Regal Cinemas is taking over the cinema space occupied by the Arclight Sherman Oaks in Sherman Oaks, CA. The L.A. Times reported that Cineworld-owned Regal Cinemas signed a lease yesterday with the mall landlord Douglas Emmett Inc. Regal will reportedly sink $10M into renovating the cinemas bringing it up to date on par with its

It’s thrilling to watch Lionsgate make a run at the box office top spot with The Hitman’s Wife’s Bodyguard, a grown-up comedy. Not a kiddie fantasy, like Peter Rabbit 2 or Cruella. Not a Covid-era placeholder, like The War With Grandpa, or a streaming event, like Borat Subsequent Moviefilm. But a rough, raucous, R-rated action

Pacific Theatres Exhibition Corporation, which includes Arclight Cinemas, is really not set to reopen anytime soon. The exhibition company released a statement today that they’re filing Chapter 7 in order to liquidate their assets for creditors. As we previously reported, AMC is closing on a deal to take on the leases of Pacific’s multiplexes at

Update: Sony is moving their fourthquel to Oct. 1. The pic was slated to go this summer on July 23. Some of this could very well have to do with the fact that the domestic marketplace isn’t fully back yet: Portions of Canada are still closed and capacity restrictions average around 66%, this despite the

In what could be a harbinger for Broadway’s post-Covid protocol, Springsteen on Broadway has announced that audience members must be vaccinated with an FDA-approved vaccine, a policy no doubt disappointing to the many Canadians and Europeans who have received the AstraZeneca vaccine. Producers of Springsteen on Broadway announced Tuesday night that the show, which will

Lionsgate got out early with the Millennium Ryan Reynolds-Samuel L. Jackson action comedy sequel The Hitman’s Wife’s Bodyguard with an official Wednesday debut plus last weekend paid sneaks; all totaled they’ve accumulated $3.9M at 2,940 locations. The whole reason why Lionsgate went early is to collect as much cash as possible before Universal’s F9 comes in next weekend,

Freestyle Love Supreme, the improvisational rap musical revue co-created by Lin-Manuel Miranda, is returning to Broadway’s Booth Theatre for a strictly limited three-month engagement in October, producers announced today. “If live theater is coming back, so is FLS,” said Miranda, who co-created the show with Thomas Kail and Anthony Veneziale. “Our most important collaborator is

AMC Entertainment will present a weeklong AMC Black Picture Showcase at select theaters nationwide starting Friday to celebrate Juneteenth. The newly established national holiday commemorates the abolishment of slavery in the U.S. The exhibitor said tickets will cost $5 to shows of “classic, contemporary and culturally relevant, black-led films.” The seven films in the lineup

The Book of Mormon, the Tony-winning musical comedy by Trey Parker, Matt Stone and Robert Lopez, will resume Broadway performances at the Eugene O’Neill Theatre on Friday, Nov. 5, producer Anne Garefino announced today. But there might well be some changes. The show’s writers will begin rehearsals with the cast in the Fall, having agreed

AMC Boss Adam Aron said he was kicking the tires of Arclight Cinemas’ locations after they went out of business — and he meant it. Word is that the No. 1 exhibitor is close to absorbing the leases for the multiplexes at Caruso Properties’ The Grove in Los Angeles and Americana in Glendale, CA. These

Third-party streaming viewership stat org Samba TV reports this morning that 693k U.S. households watched In the Heights on HBO Max in their live+3-day window. The news comes in the wake of the Warner Bros. feature musical losing the No. 1 spot at the weekend B.O. to the third session of Paramount’s A Quiet Place Part II, $11.5M to

Sony just put two big films on the 2022 schedule: David Leitch’s Bullet Train on April 8, 2022, and the Jack Black-Ice Cube comedy Oh Hell No which Justin Kroll just reported on for July 1, 2022. Bullet Train will also show in Imax. Lots already dated on April 8 including Paramount’s Sonic the Hedgehog 2, an untitled Disney live-action movie,

Refresh for latest…: With no major new releases, this was a strong holdover weekend at the international box office, led by last week’s champ, New Line/Warner Bros’ The Conjuring: The Devil Made Me Do It, followed by Disney’s Cruella and Paramount’s A Quiet Place Part II. In the case of Conjuring 3, it crossed $100M

Hidden Empire Film Group’s comedy/horror romp The House Next Door: Meet the Blacks 2 scared up a $1.064M opening weekend (per screen average of $2,533) with writer-director Deon Taylor and his team huddling right now over where and how much to expand the run — but expand it they will. Taylor’s thrilled with the $$

Sony is reporting the Thursday night previews to Peter Rabbit 2: The Runaway which began at 4pm yesterday at 2,572 theaters, and the long-awaited Will Gluck directed sequel grossed $900K. The first Peter Rabbit in February 2018 didn’t hold any previews. Sony earlier in the week was expecting $8M-$10M, but the sequel could very well do in the teens

SATURDAY UPDATE: Refresh for updates While it appeared that the summer box office was dusting itself off from the pandemic over the last two weeks, both newcomers Warner Bros. highly anticipated Jon M. Chu directed Lin-Manuel Miranda musical In the Heights and Sony’s Peter Rabbit 2: The Runaway are currently filing less than spectacular results respectively with a No.