Film

SATURDAY AM: Final with chart Some parts of the weekend box office are alive, and some are dead, and that which is vibrant is Paramount’s second weekend of Smile, which — as we mentioned during the weekend preview — was apt to steal No. 1 away from newcomers Lyle, Lyle, Crocodile and Amsterdam. The Parker

Today Focus Features opens Tár, the strikingly original return of Todd Field, in four locations in NY and LA. The film premiered at Venice winning star Cate Blanchett Best Actress as musician and conductor Lydia Tár. Early this week, it seemed to mesmerize a sold-out Alice Tully Hall at the New York Film Festival. A 97%

Universal has dated a brand new M. Night Shyamalan thriller on the theatrical release calendar for April 5, 2024. No further details were revealed. This is the weekend after Easter. No other wide releases are schedule on the weekend for the new Shyamalan movie. This is Shyamalan’s sixth movie with Universal. The four which they’ve

Lionsgate has just dated three theatrical release for next year: the Sebastian Maniscalco inspired biopic About My Father starring the comedian and Robert De Niro for Memorial Day weekend May 26; the untitled Adele Lim comedy on June 23 and The Expendables 4 for Sept. 22. About My Father will open up against Disney’s The

Predictions are always a hazardous thing. And I truly hope this one is wrong. But it sure looks like the movie box office, disastrously low in September, will be stuck on the bottom again this month. September is rarely a great month for ticket sales, but last month is better left undiscussed. Putting aside the

Production has wrapped on The Blind, a biopic of Duck Dynasty patriarch Phil Robertson with a theatrical release date slated for Sept. 22, 2023 as distribution plans are being finalized. Set in the 1960s Deep South and shot on location in Louisiana, The Blind shares never-before-revealed aspects of Robertson’s life as he seeks to conquer

Broadway held fairly steady at the box office last week, with recent arrivals Leopoldstadt and The Piano Lesson leading the pack of fall newcomers with grosses of $758,988 and $704,051, respectively. In all, Broadway’s 25 current shows took in $25,208,583 for the week ending Oct. 2, a slight 4% slip from the previous week, possibly

Don’t underestimate the second weekend of Paramount’s horror movie Smile. The Parker Finn directed and written title, which has provided many in town that horror remains a bankable genre for the big screen after a $22.6M opening, has a shot of possibly upsetting Sony’s family movie Lyle, Lyle, Crocodile and 20th Century Studios/New Regency/Disney’s upscale

UPDATE, writethru: There was a varied offering at the international box office this weekend with newcomers from Hollywood and offshore markets, as well as notable holds, as we inch closer to full-on action later in October.  Big overseas entries included Mani Ratnam’s historical epic Ponniyin Selvan: Part 1 in a strong debut in India and

A Pulitzer Prize can be a burden, one must assume, trumpeting expectations and pumping reputations from a distance. Martyna Majok‘s Cost of Living won the trophy in 2018, and that victory has been mentioned often in the lead-up to the play’s opening on Broadway tonight in a Manhattan Theatre Club production at the Samuel J.

Sarigama Cinemas’ Ponniyin Selvan: Part One crashed the weekend box office at no. 6, looking at $4+ million on 500 screens for a per theater average of $8,260, the biggest of the top ten. The Tamil-language historical epic being billed as India’s Game of Thrones is based on a Tamil history book series that’s read

Well, that’s that. After all the controversies and badly handled original castings and headlines and backstage bruisings and firings or resignations or whatever they were, Funny Girl is, as so many suspected all along, the musical that Lea Michele was born to lead. Broadway’s new Fanny Brice is, to put is simply and without exaggeration,

Imax is out this Sunday with Brandi Carlile: In The Canyon Haze – Live from Laurel Canyon on 31 screens nationwide, an encore of a live event that reps a milestone for the large format exhibitor. The concert was broadcast Thursday from LA’s storied Laurel Canyon neighborhood to 87 Imax theaters (there would have been

Updated: This year’s arthouse breakout, Everything Everywhere All at Once has hit the $70M mark finally at the domestic box office with its global ticket sales now at $103M. The film from Dan Kwan and Daniel Scheinert crossed $100M a while ago. The pic previously broke records as A24’s highest grossing ever, both on a worldwide

SATURDAY AM: Paramount and other studios are calling Smile at a $19M opening. In a deja vu to last weekend with New Line’s Don’t Worry Darling, another genre pic, this R-rated horror film has received a B- CinemaScore and a severe 69%/53% definite recommend on Comscore/Screen Engine’s PostTrak, a standard audience reaction for such fare.

No surprise here, but we hear Regal has shuttered 12 of its 542 multiplexes as parent company Cineworld remains in Chapter 11 bankruptcy. Those 12 include Anaheim Hills 14, Calabasas Stadium 6, Westpark 8 in the Los Angeles market; Crow Canyon Stadium 6 in the San Francisco area, the Broadway Faire in Fresno, CA; Richland

Paramount’s horror movie Smile struck up $2M in Thursday night previews that started at 7 p.m., a figure that’s just above M. Night Shyamalan’s Old from summer 2021, which did $1.5M in its previews, and just under Universal/Blumhouse’s Black Phone Thursday previews which were $3M in June. Paramount is expecting a high-teens start this weekend,

The Piano Lesson led the pack of Broadway’s recent arrivals at the box office last week, with the August Wilson revival starring Samuel L. Jackson, John David Washington and Danielle Brooks grossing $795,306 for its first seven performances at the Ethel Barrymore Theatre. Coming in a close second, in terms of gross receipts, was Leopoldstadt,

Cineworld plans to file its reorganization plan by Oct. 31, an attorney for the giant chain said today at a hearing. It also won’t be forced to state its case in a Canadian appeals court next month for reneging on a merger agreement with Cineplex. Judge Marvin Isgur of the Southern District of Texas, who

There might be a box office surprise this weekend in Paramount’s horror movie Smile. Yes, we’re serious. The pic, from writer-director Parker Finn, was developed by Paramount Players, and the studio took a wait-and-see approach as to where would land — on Paramount+ or theatrical. Then Paramount held a test screening, and Smile played to great