Movies

In a major shift one of the nation’s premier arthouses, Karen Cooper will be exiting as director on June 30 after 50 years running the Film Forum in New York City. Deputy Director Sonya Chung will assume the role. Cooper has led the nonprofit cinema since its first iteration in 1972 as a 50-seat loft

EXCLUSIVE: James Wan has been labeled by fans for being responsible for killer doll movies, specifically his Conjuring franchise spinoff, Annabelle. “It’s funny, I really hadn’t done that yet,” says the horror auteur. And that was his prime reason to create M3GAN with screenwriter Akela Cooper. “In my previous doll movies — they don’t kill

Reading the tea leaves with regard to China in 2023 is even more difficult than usual. The country’s about-face on its longstanding zero-Covid policy has implications from geopolitics to economics and, closer to home for Hollywood, the state of the market after a dismal 2022. Exactly what those implications are is where the guesswork comes

Lionsgate has entered into a theatrical distribution agreement with Canada’s Cineplex Pictures for its 2023 slate which counts 11 titles. Starting with Gerard Butler’s Plane on Jan. 13, Cineplex Pictures will release throughout Canada such movies as Jesus Revolution starring Kelsey Grammer and John Wick: Chapter 4 starring Keanu Reeves. There’s also Are You There God? It’s

James Cameron believes Avatar: The Way of Water will break even, and is confident Disney will proceed with the sequels. Had Avatar 2 not been a moneymaker, there was a question about whether Cameron would realize his full vision of three more sequels despite the fact that he’s been in production on them. Cameron comments

Alcarràs, winner of the Golden Bear in Berlin, opens on five screens in New York, Los Angeles and Chicago, presented by Mubi; Quiver Distribution releases Candy Land in nine theaters; and Sony’s Tom Hanks-starring A Man Called Otto, UAR’s Women Talking and IFC Films’ Corsage move into moderate expansions as the broader specialty market barrels

FRIDAY PM: For an early January weekend falling after New Year’s Day and before MLK, it’s sure not sleepy. Some adult films may have a hard time working at the box office as moviegoing comes out of the pandemic, but you can bet the house on horror films. Universal has a vibrant No. 2 winner

Sony Pictures will open Legendary Pictures’ The Machine on May 26.  The Peter Atencio directed movie takes place 23 years after the original story that inspired it. In the pic, comedian-star Bert Kreischer faces a familial crisis and the arrival of his estranged father (Mark Hamill) when the ghost of his booze-soaked past arrives: a murderous

Global box office for 2022 reached nearly $26B, a 27% gain on the previous year, according to Gower Street Analytics. Of the estimated $25.9B total, the international box office represents $18.4B, a 16% increase on last year at current exchange rates, the total being dragged down by China. Stripping out that market, overseas is estimated

James Cameron’s Avatar: The Way of Water has now officially, and as projected, crossed the $1 billion mark at the international box office with Tuesday’s grosses included. What’s more for this 20th Century Studios/Disney juggernaut, at $1,482.5M worldwide through Tuesday, the epic sci-fi sequel is next on its way to yet another milestone and will

Judge Marvin Isgur on Wednesday told parties to the Cineworld bankruptcy that they need to speed things up as debtors and creditors hash out a restructuring plan for the giant movie chain, including closing theaters, wrapping up lease negotiations with landlords, and advancing an overall sale process. “We are not going to stick around forever.

Big holiday ticket prices, bonus performances and large audiences spurred a hefty surge of nearly 50% in Broadway box office last week (ending Jan. 1) over the previous week, with productions including Funny Girl, MJ, Six, Beetlejuice and & Juliet among the shows smashing house records. With 20 of the 33 shows adding a ninth

No surprise here: Walt Disney is the No. 1 studio at the box office, not just worldwide with $4.9 billion, but also domestic with $2 billion and overseas with $2.9 billion. This comes after an initial New Year’s weekend which saw Avatar: The Way of Water overperforming, that pic contributing close to $1 billion abroad.

Exhibition giant Cineworld, which filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy in the U.S. last September, has said it will not sell off any of its assets individually, and has clarified that neither it nor its advisors have participated in discussions with AMC regarding the sale of any of its cinemas. This comes about two weeks after

MONDAY AM UPDATE: Sunday came in stronger for Avatar: The Way of Water than Disney expected, grossing a great $24.4M to what was thought to be $21M. That’s the third biggest New Year’s Day haul of all-time after The Force Awakens ($34.3M) and James Cameron’s first Avatar ($25.2M). Avatar 2‘s New Year’s Day was even

China’s box office in 2022 dropped 36% versus 2021, reaching a little over RMB 30B ($4.35B). According to Chinese state media, citing figures from the China Film Administration, 85% of the 2022 revenue was generated by local movies, led by The Battle at Lake Changjin II with RMB 4.07B ($636M at historical rates, per comScore).

Sony’s A Man Called Otto began the first phase of a three-step rollout this weekend in an exclusive run at four LA and NY theaters, grossing $60k, for a $15k per screen average, over the three-day weekend. The four-day estimated gross is $75K, or an $18.7k PSA. The test for the remake of the Swedish film

Updated: The aftermath of Covid’s 2020-21 closure of cinemas will continue to be felt in 2023 as the domestic box office claws its way back to what many sources believe is an $8 billion-$9 billion result. On the high end, it’s a 22% jump from what Comscore is expecting 2022 to final at, that being

Specialty film closes the book on a mixed 2022 this weekend with the limited release by Sony of Tom Hanks-starring A Man Called Otto; a literary doc by Lizzie Gottlieb from Sony Pictures Classics and Hirokazu Kore-eda’s latest from Neon via Cannes.  Otto, by Mark Forster, is a remake of a Swedish film based on

FRIDAY PM UPDATE: Avatar The Way of Water‘s 3rd Friday is on its way to $22M+, which is up 15% from its second Friday of $19.2M a week ago and will put the sequel’s 15-day total at around $380M. Today’s gross is also bigger than Rogue One‘s third Friday of $18.2M. This looks to be