Film

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

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

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

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

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,

Refresh for latest…: Coming in just slightly ahead of pre-weekend projections, Sony’s Bullet Train pulled into 57 overseas markets for a $32.4M international box office launch. When including the domestic start, the global debut is $62.5M. The Brad Pitt-starrer rode to the biggest offshore opening for a non-IP studio film since Tenet, and is tracking similar to Murder

A24’s Bodies Bodies Bodies hit theaters with the per-screen average this weekend in a limited opening,  and the second best of the year. That record was set last spring with Everything Everywhere All at Once as the indie distributor piles up successes. Halina Reijn’s Gen-Z whodunnit comedy grossed $226,526 on six screens in NY and

AMC Entertainment saw revenue surge and net losses continue to narrow last quarter on a string of blockbusters led by Top Gun: Maverick. Comparisons with 2021 aren’t hard but exhibitors are seeing ticket sales moving closer to 2019 levels. The nation’s biggest movie chain saw sales of $1.16 billion compared with $444.7 million for the

Sony’s Bullet Train, starring Brad Pitt, saw $4.6M in Thursday previews which began at 3pm at 3,596 locations. The pic is estimated to bring in around $30M this weekend as summer’s last big tentpole before a two-and-month drought sans four quad movies. Interesting to note, though not necessarily a comp since it was branded IP, is that Bullet

Cinemark, which saw box office momentum buoy second quarter financials, said August and September will be tougher as new release volume dips. CEO Sean Gamble told Wall Street on a post-earnings call that the nation’s third largest exhibitor is optimistic on the business, but that the pace of an ongoing recovery depends on consumer sentiment

A New Zealand-based platform where fans track, review and share lists of movies old and new is an increasingly influential marketing tool for specialty film with budgets tight and audiences harder to reach. Letterboxd, founded as a passion project by Auckland tech entrepreneurs Matthew Buchanan and Karl von Randow just over a decade ago, recently

Speaking on CinemaBlend’s ReelBlend podcast yesterday, Quentin Tarantino held forth on the experience of seeing Top Gun: Maverick. “Normally I don’t talk about new movies that much because I’m only forced to say only good things, but in this case I f***ing love Top Gun, the Maverick movie. I thought it was fantastic,” Tarantino said.

This is it. This is pretty much the end of summer. Sony is pulling in Bullet Train, the last big tentpole of a summer that has grossed $2.9 billion domestic through the end of July per Comscore, +142% from the same pandemic period a year ago, but off 17% from the May-July summer frame in 2019. July

Sony will be opening the Alcon Entertainment animated movie on February 16, 2024. Chris Pratt voices Garfield and Samuel L. Jackson plays a brand-new character, Vic who is Garfield’s father in the Mark Dindal directed movie. David Reynolds wrote the screenplay. Alcon Entertainment acquired the rights from the creator of the Garfield comic series and

EXCLUSIVE: Amazon Studio’s Prime Video is charging into the fall season with a bevy of awards contending and crowd pleasing movies, the list of dates which you can find below. Many of these will be having splashy world premieres at the Toronto International Film Festival, i.e. My Policeman, Lena Dunham’s Catherine Called Birdy, with the

EXCLUSIVE: Germany has long been a powerhouse in football (aka soccer), winning four World Cups between 1954 and 2014. Now the country is developing a taste for American football. Germany’s got its own American football league, the GFL. Among the teams are the Munich Cowboys (not to be confused with the Dallas Cowboys), the Berlin