Film

Sony, which was last seen at CinemaCon in 2018, brought the confab back to post(ish)-pandemic life today. Its President of the Motion Picture Group, Josh Greenstein, took center stage and reiterated the Culver City lot’s “commitment to protecting and preserving the theatrical window.” That drew a great roar from the Caesar’s Palace Colosseum crowd. Despite

Of course, any kind of day and date release puts exhibitors in competition with the studios’ streaming services, and no doubt there’s a loss of cash in the collapse of the theatrical and PVOD window. However, the worst takeaway from dynamic windows is piracy, plain and simple. Such was the message from CinemaCon’s first panel

Sean Penn’s Flag Day raised a $1,656 per screen average from 24 runs this weekend, a glum opening for the father-daughter family drama from United Artists Releasing. The film, directed and starring Penn as the most notorious counterfeiter in U.S. history, along with daughter Dylan Penn, targeted an older, sophisticated demo that’s proving hard to

Some say CinemaCon shouldn’t even be taking place this week. That Las Vegas is a hotbed for the virus. How the whole conference should have been virtual (actually, some studio presentations were entirely filmed). That exhibition and the domestic box office aren’t even back to form yet, with the year-to-date total at $1.964 billion as

There are a majority of adult-skewing movies opening this weekend that were poised to perform poorly, and that would still be the case if they were in a pre-pandemic marketplace. However, there are two bright spots to be thankful for: Disney/20th Century Studios’ Free Guy is holding up significantly better than expected, bound for an estimated

The Delta Variant, streaming wars and surging piracy loom large as CinemaCon launches Sunday at Caesars Palace in Las Vegas, the first in-person gathering of theaters owners and Hollywood studios since the pandemic struck 18-months ago. The virus has slashed registered attendees to circa 2,000 from 3,500 pre-pandemic, with a sizeable European contingent entirely shut

United Artists Releasing opens Flag Day, directed and starring Sean Penn, in a uneven specialty market where the Delta Variant spike has theaters in key cities requiring proof of vaccination, theaters are hard to book, and hits have been rare since the industry reopened. Eventually “We’ll crack the code, because good movie and good stories

Remember that blood bath that was suppose to occur between two major studio animated family films during the first weekend of October? Well, as reporter earlier this week Sony decided to go into talks with Amazon to sell off their Hotel Transylvania 4, and now MGM/United Artists Releasing is taking their sequel Addams Family 2

Jockey, which won the Sundance Film Festival U.S. Dramatic Special Jury award for star Clifton Collins Jr.’s acting, will hit New York and LA theaters on Dec. 29. Sony Pictures Classics acquired the film out of the Park City, Utah festival. The movie will expand across the country following its exclusive debut. Directed by Clint Bentley

EXCLUSIVE: Landmark Theatres has entered into a long-term lease for the Scottsdale Quarter luxury multiplex in Scottsdale Arizona which was previously occupied by dine-in-cinema iPic Theatre. This is Landmark’s first theatre in the market. The eight-screen plex will reopen this fall after being shuttered since the end of the January 2020. “We are very excited

Those distributors with new movies this weekend will find they can easily blame any soured performance at the box office on the delta variant and vaxx cards being required at NYC, San Francisco, and New Orleans cinemas. But, let’s not forget one huge thing: It’s late August, and that means it’s the season for lower

Marvel, Fast & Furious and Ryan Reynolds movies aren’t the only titles that had to sit out and wait for their theatrical release during the pandemic, but also highly anticipated indie pics like David Bruckner’s The Night House. Before Covid, a slice of the world got a glimpse of the Rebecca Hall haunted lake real estate title

Universal has set a release date of April 7, 2023 for Fast and Furious 10, Deadline can confirm. That returns the Fast & Furious franchise to its holy Easter weekend stomping ground where F7, the highest grossing title in the series was launched in 2015 to $147.1M domestic, and finaled at $353M domestic, $1.5 billion global. Universal followed with Fate

EXCLUSIVE: NEON and Topic Studios have set a Nov. 5 release date for Pablo Larrain’s Spencer which stars Kristen Stewart as Princess Diana. The pic takes place during the Christmas holidays with the royal family at the Sandringham estate in Norfolk, England, when Diana decides to leave her marriage to Prince Charles. Steven Knight penned the

Shawn Levy had a fantastic weekend at the box office. Not only did his long-awaited 20th Century Studios Ryan Reynolds film Free Guy overperform in the face of a daunting pandemic with a $28.3M domestic start, the videogame-inspired romantic comedy repped a huge win for original tentpole material on the big screen. “This is the first

As we first told you, Sony’s fourthquel Hotel Transylvania: Transformania was heading to a streamer. Turns out, that’s bound to be Amazon in what we hear are early talks. While Disney has been doing rather well with the theatrical component of its day-and-date family movie Jungle Cruise with subsequent weekend holds of -55% and -43% for the pic’s

Sony Pictures Classics’ The Lost Leonardo had a notable debut on three screens on a quiet weekend for specialty openings. The film about da Vinci’s Salvator Mundi painting opened to $13,209 with a per screen average of $4,403 ahead of a national release. The distributor has been a steadying presence a tough arthouse climate. Its

It’s fascinating to watch local governments — New York, San Francisco, Los Angeles, New Orleans — rush to enact Covid vaccine requirements for entry to the publicly accessible spaces of private business, including, yes, movie theaters. I’m not equipped to judge the ultimate propriety or efficacy of such mandates. Frankly, the complexities posed by breakthroughs,

Sunday AM Update: Those having any concern that the pandemic is wrecking complete havoc at the box office can rest a bit easy as Disney/20th Century Studio’s Free Guy smashed expectations with a $28.4M opening weekend. Worldwide the Shawn Levy-directed movie is at a $51M start. Something more to applaud is the fact that stateside business

UPDATE, writethru: Disney/20th Century Studios’ Free Guy led the game at global turnstiles this session with a $51M worldwide debut. That includes domestic’s over-performance of $28.4M, and a $22.5M start in 41 material markets at the international box office — the latter in line with pre-weekend expectations. The offshore debut on the Shawn Levy-directed pic