Movies

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

The motion picture industry remains in a state of rehabilitation. Just look at the majors’ domestic box office alone. Back in 2019, four studios grossed over a billion apiece, with Disney-Fox reaping $4.28 billion alone. This year, only three studios grossed $1 billion or more. And while we do get down to the nitty gritty,

After earning the highest grossing Tuesday of 2022 with $24.1M, 20th Century Studios/Disney/Lightstorm’s Avatar: The Way of Water also notched the best Wednesday of the year yesterday with $20.4M beating Top Gun: Maverick‘s June 1 take of $14.8M, and Avatar 2‘s first Wednesday of $14.4M. At a running total of $337.9M through 13 days, the

AMC Entertainment has rejiggered is board, announcing the election of two new directors and one who is exiting. The former Sundance Institute chief and Miramax production president Keri Putman, a big advocate for independent film, as well as Dee Clark, who has worked in information technology at Hasbro, Mattel, Warner Music and Apple, will join

Any cynicism about a broken down Christmas box office, impacted by weather, was wiped away Tuesday as 20th Century Studios/Disney/Lightstorm’s Avatar: The Way of Water racked up $23.8M sending its domestic cume to $317.1M. In addition, the sequel flew past the $1 billion mark at the worldwide box office. Director James Cameron has told the

WEDNESDAY UPDATE:, Refresh for latest… James Cameron’s Avatar: The Way of Water has officially topped the $1B global mark. As we wrote yesterday (see below), the 20th Century Studios/Disney sequel got to the milestone with Tuesday’s grosses. This benchmark has been met in just 14 days of worldwide release.  Way of Water now has bragging rights

Adam Aron said today he’s asked the theater chain’s board of directors to freeze his compensation for 2023 given the decline in AMC stock. “Biggest inflation in 40 years, so in 2023 companies will grant large % salary raises. But I do not want “more” when our shareholders are hurting. So, I recommended to the

“I had a bit of a crisis of faith as we were cutting the movie together,” admitted James Cameron of his billion-dollar-grossing Avatar: The Way of Water. “It was too violent. I wanted a balance between the beauty, the epiphany, the kind of spiritual aspect of the film, with the action, and I felt it

Damien Chazelle’s $80M 1920s-set Hollywood epic Babylon went up in a blaze of fire at the domestic box office this past weekend with an awful $5.3M four-day start. Say what you will about harsh winter conditions impacting moviegoing across the country, however, this movie, which was greenlit by a previous Paramount regime and greatly supported

Coming out of its second weekend, James Cameron’s Avatar: The Way of Water has banked an estimated $855.4M globally through Sunday. The sophomore session added $168.6M at the international box office in 52 markets for a $601.7M running cume. Also overseas, 20th Century Studios/Disney’s highly-anticipated sequel passed Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness and

New Yorkers braved the cold this weekend for Corsage at two theaters ( IFC Center, Film at Lincoln Center) as Marie Kreutzer’s biopic of Empress Elisabeth of Austria starring Vicky Krieps grossed an estimated $32,000 over the three-day weekend for a robust $16k per screen average. The four-day estimate for the IFC Films biopic of