Movies

Who says people don’t want to go to the movies and are complete lemmings for streaming? Comscore this morning reports that the October domestic box office clocked $638M, the highest month to date during the pandemic beating July’s $583.8M. Seventy-five percent of October’s figure was driven by major studio event pics Sony’s Venom: Let There

EXCLUSIVE: Pixar’s Toy Story spinoff Lightyear is poised to head to infinity and beyond at the box office. Deadline learns that the teaser for the Chris Evans-voiced, Angus MacLane-directed Pixar movie clocked 83 million views in its first 24 hours after dropping Wednesday. That number not only beats the 24-hour traffic of teasers from Toy Story 4 (62M), Soul (32M) and

Saturday AM Update: The first Halloween in two years during the pandemic is taking its toll on the domestic box office, a grey cloud which many saw coming, with many trick-or-treating or heading to parties tonight. Essentially, whenever the holiday falls on a Sunday, it’s poised to gut the weekend. And, yes, we can blame

Focus Features presents Edgar Wright’s Last Night In Soho, a twisty psycho-thriller with a great soundtrack, as Wes Anderson’s The French Dispatch goes wider, testing the appeal of a director whose films have been called the arthouse equivalent of Marvel. Last Night, a time-bending genre tale, unspools on just over 3,000 screens, not exactly specialty

MGM/Eon/Universal’s No Time To Die brought James Bond to China today, with an RMB 52M ($8.1M) No. 1 opening (including a smattering of Thursday midnights). This is the third biggest Hollywood opening day of 2021 in the market and is ahead of the launch days of the most recent comps Dune (+33%) and Free Guy (+53%).

Update: Sony has moved up its release of Sam Raimi production 65 from May 13, which was in the second weekend of Disney/Marvel’s Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness, another film directed by the filmmaker to April 22, 2022. On its new date, 65 stands alone as the only major studio wide release. The movie leaves behind on May 13,

Imax sales surged last quarter as it delivered $142 million in global box office sales — up 100% year-over-year. It’s since broke records for the high-grossing month of October, with Dune being the latest hit Stateside, and said it expects an accelerating pipeline of blockbusters set for exclusive theatrical release to further build consumer momentum

The Broadway League, which announced last summer that it would not release weekly box office figures – known in the industry as the grosses – due to the modified and even erratic performance schedules of this year’s productions, has decided to release weekly box office totals, the trade organization said today. “Due to the increased

In mid-September, Gower Street Analytics projected global box office for 2021 would come in at $20.2B. The London-based film tech company has now increased its estimate to $21.6B, with the possibility of hitting a nice round $22B. The reason for the shift is primarily driven by the strong performance of October titles including China’s The

EXCLUSIVE: We hear that the pre-sales for United Artists Releasing’s Sylvester Stallone’s Rocky IV: Rocky vs. Drago, which will debut in Fathom locations on Nov. 11, are a pandemic record for the special events company, 120% ahead of the next closest title at the same point in time. Stallone’s new cut has 40 extra minutes

UPDATED, 9:59 AM: Sony Pictures Classics said today that its film Mothering Sunday will get a limited release on February 25 in Los Angeles and New York following its weeklong awards-qualifying run in November. The pic, which premiered at Cannes in July, will expand to other markets in the ensuing weeks, the distributor said. Mothering Sunday

Refresh for latest…: There were milestones aplenty this weekend at the global and international box office with three Hollywood heavy-hitters reaching important new benchmarks. Among them, MGM/Eon/Universal’s No Time To Die crossed both $400M overseas and $500M worldwide while Sony’ Venom: Let There Be Carnage topped $350M globally. The weekend leader, however, was Warner Bros/Legendary’s

Wes Anderson’s The French Dispatch did what a glum arthouse market was waiting for, revved it up with a smashing three-day average. “If Wes builds it, they will come,” said an elated Searchlight Pictures after a two year wait to get the film into theaters. It opened in 14 markets and in a total of

Legendary and Warner Bros. sci-fi epic Dune excavated $5.1M from 6PM showtimes at 3,200 theaters. The Denis Villeneuve directed adaptation of the Frank Herbert novel was made available on HBO Max streaming service as early as 3PM PST/6PM EST. In China, Legendary East is reporting $6.5M opening day for Dune at 10,500 cinemas/28,274 screens. The pic is ranking as

Denis Villeneuve’s sci-fi epic Dune hit China today with an estimated RMB 42 million ($6.5 million) on 28,274 screens and a 34.3% share of the market. While we do not yet have a social score, Friday’s estimate would portend a weekend in the $20M+ neighborhood as we noted coming into the session. Handled in China

Sony will now open the Denzel Washington directed drama A Journal for Jordan on Christmas Day instead of an initial launch on Dec. 10 in NYC and LA with a wider break on Dec. 22. In the John Burnham Schwartz and Virgil Williams screenplay adapted from the Dana Canedy article, 1st Sgt. Charles Monroe King (Michael B.

After a long Covid delay, The French Dispatch opens this weekend with distributor Searchlight Pictures and the industry hoping the whimsical Wes Anderson’s film brings a touch of Grand Budapest Hotel-ish coin to the specialty box office. Hoping, but not counting on it, as the box office take beyond studio tentpoles has been largely dour

Since being screened to great fanfare before the press since late August, Warner Bros. and Legendary’s $165M sci-fi epic Dune finally lands in U.S. theaters as well as 40 overseas markets, including China with an eye on a global weekend in the $70M+ range. Already, the Denis Villeneuve directed epic, which carries a Rotten Tomatoes of 87%

It’s quite clear that the availability of Warner Bros. theatrical slate on HBO Max day-and-date this year has impacted the studio’s U.S. box office results. This has either led to a film seeing a big drop in weekend 2 at the B.O. after a solid first weekend or in the case of New Line’s Sopranos prequel

MGM/Eon/Universal’s No Time To Die is crossing $368M at the international box office and $474M worldwide with today’s business included — and that confirms something we’ve been expecting from Mr Bond. To wit: the 25th 007 movie is now the No. 2 Hollywood movie globally and overseas of 2021; both benchmarks, in studio terms, coming