Movies

Universal/Illumination’s Minions: The Rise of Gru bowed in China today (Friday), grossing an estimated RMB 21.74M ($3.2M), including midnights. This was good for the biggest opening day of a Hollywood animated film during the pandemic. Overall, and not including China’s Friday, Rise of Gru has grossed $461.2M at the international box office for $807.7M worldwide.

“People are catching up on films,” is how one arthouse executive described the current moment in specialty, which echoes the slowdown in studio wide releases. August can be slow ahead of a trio of festivals – Venice, Toronto, New York – and a ramp up to awards season. It can also offer an less obstructed

Lionsgate thriller Fall will make an estimated $2.5+ million this weekend at 1,548 locations for a PSA of about $1,618. The audience (54% male and 61% over 25, according to PostTrak) was broader than it might have been after a company founded by director Scott Mann swapped dozens of f-words, moving Fall from an R

Tony winner Jesse Tyler Ferguson and nominee Jesse Williams are suiting up again as stars of the baseball-themed Take Me Out, which is set to return to Broadway in the fall. The hit revival will re-take the field October 27 at the Schoenfeld Theatre for 14 weeks, it was revealed today. Written by Richard Greenberg and

China’s Bona Film Group, producer of such hits as The Battle At Lake Changjin, made its debut on the Shenzhen stock exchange on Thursday, with shares closing the day at RMB 7.24 ($1.07). This was a 44% increase from the initial public offering price of RMB 5.03 ($0.74) per share and put the market capitalization

Two wide studio releases will hopefully prevent this summer from reaching another low at the box office after last weekend’s $67.3M. If there’s one movie that’s going to pull ahead, sources are betting on Crunchyroll’s Dragon Ball Super: Super Hero. That distributor has proven in a short amount of time that they can draw a

Cineworld, the globe’s second largest exhibitor, today provided an update on its current trading, liquidity position and capital structure. The company, which also owns Regal in the U.S., said it is in “active discussions with various stakeholders and is evaluating various strategic options to both obtain additional liquidity and potentially restructure its balance sheet through

Disney is filling the desert that’s left at the fall box office by moving up New Regency/20th Century’s David O. Russell movie Amsterdam to Oct. 7. The pic was previously scheduled to open on Nov. 4. The pic, which received a name title and dropped a trailer at April’s CinemaCon, is set in the ’30s, and follows

EXCLUSIVE: Two months into their run as Warner Bros Pictures Group Co-Chairs and CEOs, Michael De Luca and Pamela Abdy, have hammered out a multi-year deal to handle the international distribution of MGM’s theatrical titles, commencing with Luca Guadagnino’s Bones and All in November and continuing with the 2023 slate and beyond; the second title under

EXCLUSIVE: Magnolia Pictures has snapped up domestic rights to Hunt, the feature directorial from Squid Game Emmy nominated star Lee Jung-jae, which made its world premiere at this year’s Cannes Film Festival in the Midnight section. Magnolia Pictures plans a December theatrical release. A stylish espionage action film set in the 1980s, Hunt follows two agents in Korean

Sony’s Bullet Train was the global and international box office leader for the studios during its sophomore frame with an added $17M from 61 overseas markets for an offshore cume of $60M and global riding the rails past $100M for $114.5M through Sunday. The international holdover markets dropped 40%; word of mouth is good and

EXCLUSIVE: With today’s business included, Universal Pictures is crossing the $3B mark at the global box office for 2022 so far, becoming the first studio to reach the milestone since 2019. The grosses broken out to date are $1.74B at the international box office and $1.281B domestically. This is the eighth time Uni has topped

A handful of smaller films will start to test audience enthusiasm for movie theaters without big tentpoles. It’s been a rocky summer for specialty releases, and an uphill climb as arthouses emerge from Covid jitters with franchise films sucking up oxygen and screens. But superheroes are on hiatus. “There isn’t giant competition from tentpoles,” said

Those cricket noises you’re hearing are the sounds of the summer box office slowing down. Sony’s No. 1 movie from a week ago, David Leitch’s Bullet Train, will hold the top spot again this weekend in a session that technically doesn’t have any uber-wide releases backed by a multimillion-dollar major studio campaign spend. The Brad Pitt

There will be more Kung Fu Panda. Universal has set a March 8, 2024 theatrical release for the fourth installment to the Jack Black voiced franchise which has grossed $1.8 billion through three movies. The first movie, which was released in 2008, received an Oscar nomination in the animated feature category. No directors are set as of

Sony Pictures Classics has announced October-December release plans for The Return of Tanya Tucker; Salavatore: Shoemaker Of Dreams; The Son; Living; and Turn Every Page. Additionally, it said, One Fine Morning, written and directed by Mia Hansen-Løve and starring Léa Seydoux, and Davy Chou’s Return To Seoul, which were both acquired out of Cannes, will

EXCLUSIVE: Universal Pictures International is forming a new partnership with Emirates-based Majid Al Futtaim Distribution which will see the latter release Universal movies in Saudi Arabia and other GCC countries (Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, UAE) and Egypt. In Lebanon and Cyprus, Uni will retain its longstanding distribution relationship with Four Star Films. The new deal,

Broadway’s heavy hitters withstood New York’s heatwave last week, with MJ, Dear Evan Hansen and Hamilton selling out and Hadestown, Harry Potter and the Cursed Child, Into The Woods, Moulin Rouge!, Six, The Book of Mormon, The Lion King and The Music Man coming very close. In all, the 23 Broadway productions took in $27,682,655

China has set an August 19 release date for Universal/Illumination’s Minions: The Rise Of Gru. This will be the first major tentpole from Hollywood to hit the market since Universal’s own Jurassic World Dominion which has grossed $157.4M there through Sunday and during an extended nine-week run; it is the biggest studio import of 2022.

The domestic box office is about to go into a funk for two-and-half months due to the lack of tentpole product, but shares of AMC Entertainment keep on trucking. Following Thursday’s news that the world’s No. 1 exhibitor was awarding APE investors with one AMC preferred Equity share for each AMC Class A common stock,