Movies

The shoe finally fell today as giant theater chain Cineworld filed for Chapter 11. The bankruptcy includes a $1.94 billion debtor-in-possession financing facility from existing lenders to keep things running. Cineworld expects to emerge from Chapter 11 in the first quarter of 2023 and meanwhile will pursue “a real estate optimisation strategy in the US,”

Broadway gave Billy Crystal a fine send-off last week, with the star’s Mr. Saturday Night musical grossing more than $1 million during its final week of performances. That number – $1,014,614, to be precise – is a big jump over the show’s weekly box office takes in recent months. About 98% of seats at the

Film premieres and headlines spilling from a trio of festivals either in full swing (Venice), just starting (Telluride) or queued up (Toronto) have indie exhibitors and distributors the most hopeful since Covid hit that a stream of new films could fire up the arthouse market. Todd Field’s Cate Blanchett-starrer TÁR (debuted to a six-minute standing ovation

This was yet another soft weekend at the international box office with no major fresh titles and as summer fully closes out in Europe and beyond. On the positive side, the UK’s National Cinema Day helped buoy that market with ticket prices slashed to £3 at 643 participating theaters on Saturday. There were 1.6M admissions

Labor Day weekend saw blockbusters old and new buoyed by cheap tickets, as was a limited openings like Saloum with multiple sold out screenings at two theaters, including every showtime on Saturday. Over 3,000 theaters, including IFC Center and Alamo Drafthouse LA, where the French-Senegalese indie film began a qualifying run, offered $3 tickets for

SATURDAY AM UPDATE: “Estimates aren’t worth a whole lot this morning thanks to the brilliant idea of National Cinema Day,” cried one industry source to us this morning. They were speaking about the challenges for studio box office analysts to peg exactly what’s going to be No. 1 over the 4-day holiday weekend. Despite all

National Cinema Day is underway with 3,000+ participating theaters (30,000 screens) offering $3 tickets, discounted concessions and a four and a half-minute preshow sizzle reel with peeks of upcoming titles from A24, Amazon Studios, Disney, Focus Features, Lionsgate, Neon, Paramount, Sony and Sony Pictures Classics, United Artists Releasing, Universal and Warner Bros. Trailers include Avatar 2:

Neon in association with National Geographic Documentary Films said director Sara Dosa’s Fire of Love will cross $1 million at the box office this weekend, becoming the biggest documentary release of the year for combined domestic and international gross. The film opened this summer and is entering its ninth week in theaters nationally. It will stream

Yes, exhibitors, it is cold out there. Despite a 91% rebound in the annual summer domestic box office, from $1.755 billion in 2021 to $3.35 billion per Comscore (that’s through Aug. 30), and a 90% explosion in admissions for the May-Labor Day period per EntTelligence, from 153M to 291M over the same period, some feel

EXCLUSIVE, UPDATED with quote and social media data: The Olivia Wilde-directed Don’t Worry Darling doesn’t open until September 23, but on tracking, the film is off to a promising start, trending hot with 17- to 24-year-old women and also young guys. In sum, Harry Styles fans. And as far as all those tabloid behind-the-scenes Don’t

Executives from China Film Group were recently treated to a screening of footage from Disney/20th Century Studios’ Avatar: The Way Of Water, receiving a surprise greeting from filmmaker James Cameron in the process. China Daily reported the news which Deadline has confirmed. Cameron beamed in with a video to say “thank you” in Mandarin and

Most of the 21 Broadway productions on the boards last week showed some signs of summer doldrums, with 17 shows reporting drops in box office over the previous week. Still, with The Music Man back on the roster after a week’s hiatus, the overall total box office take of $23,513,592 was up about 6%. Total

Here in its near entirety are the streaming and some theatrical dates for Netflix’s fall and holiday movie lineup. Many of these streaming dates have already been out there, i.e. the TIFF world premiere Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery hitting the service on Dec. 23 (yet still not theatrically dated). However, there’s 13 movies getting

Similar to recent weeks, we’re still in a holding pattern at the international box office, awaiting major new wide studio releases. There were a few milestones this session, however, and Japan has in general been a bright spot with local pic One Piece Film: Red and the continued thrum of Top Gun: Maverick while the

A glum weekend box office overall (one of the worst of the year) wasn’t so awful for specialty, relatively speaking, with Breaking passing $1M on 900 screens and Spanish-language The Good Boss at $27K on 15. Both are a far cry from pre-pandemic numbers but did hit the new normal for limited releases – reaching

SATURDAY AM UPDATE: The bowels of the summer box office have been reached, with Sony’s new C CinemaScore horror movie The Invitation leading with $6M-$7M at 3,114 theaters. Like the late Andy Rooney, I get a lot of mail from sources. But in this instance, it’s about why it’s important to be gentle when covering the

In an encouraging sign for specialized product, Sony/3000 Pictures/Hello Sunshine’s Where the Crawdads Sing has crossed the $100 million benchmark globally. Getting there on Tuesday, the feature adaptation of the Delia Owens novel sits at $78.8M domestic and $21.5M from the international box office. Crawdads initially released domestically in mid-July with $17M; a good win

Cohen Media Group hopes a Spanish film can dent the tough market for foreign language fare, Bleecker Street is out with a hostage drama and A24 presents Owen Kline’s directorial debut about a teenage cartoonist as the arthouse market flexes more muscle than it has in weeks. The dearth of new releases itself nudged some

EXCLUSIVE: Start spreading the news! A new musical loosely based on Martin Scorsese’s 1977 film New York, New York will begin performances on Broadway, theater to be announced, in March 2023. Opening night will be in April, with Tony and Olivier Award winner Susan Stroman on board to direct and choreograph. The show — of

Roadside Attractions movies following their releases on the big screen will now be found on Hulu after the distributor signed a multi-year output deal with the streamer for the post-theatrical Pay 1 window. Hulu will get exclusive U.S. streaming rights to upcoming Roadside Attractions films as Call Jane, Oscar nominee Phyllis Nagy’s feature directorial debut