Movies

SATURDAY AM UPDATE:  Refresh for more analysis With no new wide releases, and New Line’s Mortal Kombat pushed to next weekend, Warner Bros./Legendary’s Godzilla vs. Kong is still in charge with $2.075M on Friday, -47% from a week ago, at 3,001 theaters and a current running total of $74.9M. The three-day is expected to be $7.1M, -49% with

The closure of Pacific Theatres and ArcLight may have sounded alarm bells over the dire state of exhibition due to the coronavirus pandemic, but theater owners are especially frustrated, anxious and unnerved that a signature government lifeline so far has struggled to get up and running. The Shuttered Venues Operators Grant (SVOG), as the Small Business

Imax CEO Rich Gelfond earned $6.9 million last year, down slightly from $7.1 million in 2019 as the pandemic shuttered theaters and Imax screens around the world. The package included base pay of $1.2 million and a stock award valued at $5.5 million. Imax, while hard hit like the rest of the industry, was able

EXCLUSIVE: The last thing we needed to hear as the box office and exhibition were rebounding from the pandemic was a piece of bad news, but word spread like wild fire in distribution and exhibition circles that the Arclight Cinemas and Pacific Theatres won’t be reopening. The chain, owned by Decurion, has issued a statement

Ahead of the summer release of Sony Pictures Animation’s Hotel Transylvania: Transformania, Moscow’s Dream Island Theme Park has officially opened its new “Hotel Transylvania” attraction. This comes as Transformania, the final chapter in the $1.3B franchise, is due for rollout beginning July 23 in North America and internationally from August 4. It is currently scheduled to hit Russia on

With a confirmed, and late-breaking, re-release date, Peter Jackson’s The Lord Of The Rings: The Fellowship Of The Ring has been scheduled to hit China’s movie theaters tomorrow (April 16). The second film, The Lord Of The Rings: The Two Towers, will follow next Friday, April 23. The Oscar-winning New Line trilogy will play in

EXCLUSIVE: The Tiffany Haddish and Billy Crystal dramedy Here Today has been picked up by Sony Pictures Worldwide Acquisitions’ Stage 6 Films and will open in theaters on May 7. Crystal directed the movie, repping his eighth time directing and his third on a feature film. Crystal co-wrote the screenplay with his fellow Saturday Night Live alum and

EXCLUSIVE: Universal executive Xavier Albert, who has been Managing Director for France since 2016, is taking on a dual-market role with the studio and will also become Managing Director for Italy. Albert will take over the MD Italy post from Richard Borg who is retiring in July after 30 years with the Universal Pictures International

Two of the country’s major theatrical venues announced reopening plans today, with the Ahmanson Theatre in Los Angeles and the Kennedy Center in Washington D.C. set to house Broadway productions in November and October, respectively. In Los Angeles, the Ahmanson’s 2021-22 season will start later than previously announced – instead of an August opening with

Sony’s Kevin Hart and Woody Harrelson action comedy The Man From Toronto has set a release date of Jan. 14, 2022. The pic was taken off the theatrical release calendar as the pandemic took hold.  At one point, it was scheduled to open on Nov. 20. Hart owns two of MLK’s biggest openings for Ride Along, ranked third

Refresh for latest…: Warner Bros/Legendary’s Godzilla Vs Kong continues to dominate the global and international box office, now with a $288.3M cume offshore for $357.8M worldwide. It will soon cross Tenet globally and overseas. Domestically, it has overtaken Tenet to become the No. 1 grossing movie of the pandemic era. The full overseas weekend was

(Interactive chart with estimates below) This week, Atlas Entertainment’s The Girl Who Believes in Miracles grew to 900 runs in 175 markets (up from 640 runs in 154 markets) as it tallies its weekend best at $604,000 with its cumulative box office total doubling to $1,326,000. In its second weekend, the Rich Correll-directed drama posts

Here’s something nobody was expecting during the pandemic at the global box office: An event film which is bound to profit. Film finance sources have been telling us that as Legendary’s Godzilla vs. Kong hits $357.8M WW today, the pic is already set to bring cash back to Warner Bros. –an estimated $96.4M currently–even with the

EXCLUSIVE: We also learned today that Paramount’s Snake Eyes: G.I. Joe Origins movie is moving up from its Oct. 22 release date to July 23. The G.I. Joe movies play younger and it only makes sense for the new standalone from EOne/Hasbro to play the summer. The first movie, G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra also played the summer

Warner Bros. pandemic hit Godzilla vs. Kong grossed $3.88M on Friday, which will yield an estimated $12.9M second weekend at 3,084 theaters (+20), -60%, on its way to $69M domestic by the end of tomorrow. In the Legendary title’s first week, the monster movie has grossed $60M, making it the top grossing pic stateside during the pandemic

In a snap, Universal was ready to backfill July 2 today with its long-awaited Blumhouse sequel The Forever Purge with the news of Paramount/Skydance’s Top Gun: Maverick leaving the Fourth of July weekend for Nov. 19. The last two Purge movies, 2018’s The First Purge and 2016’s Purge: Election Year played the July 4th corridor. The Forever Purge moves up from July 9. The

2ND UPDATE, 12:12 PM: The bunny trail is busy again. Sony said today that its Peter Rabbit 2: The Runaway is moving up two weeks from Fourth of July weekend to June 18. The move comes just hours after after Paramount announced that its Top Gun: Maverick exited its July 2 slot and Blumhouse’s The Forever Purge is taking that

AMC Entertainment shares were up more than 16% in midday trading in the midst of an aggressive rally powered by Gozilla Vs. Kong‘s $285 million global box office that “destroys lingering concerns around theatrical window importance and demonstrates a solid path to resurgence,” according to one Wall Street analyst. In a note early Monday, Eric

We first told you that Skydance sold the Chris Pratt sci-fi film The Tomorrow War to Amazon Studios for $200M, and now that deal has closed with the streamer setting a July 2 drop date in 240 countries and territories. It’s the second Paramount release that Amazon has picked up after Coming 2 America which

Third-party streaming ratings firm Samba TV reports that 3.6 million households watched at least five minutes of Warner Bros./Legendary’s Godzilla vs. Kong on HBO Max in the pic’s first five days from March 31 to April 4. While HBO Max didn’t provide any official viewership figures on Godzilla vs. Kong, previous data from Samba shows that