Broadway was back to full power last week (New York City’s latest blackout bypassed the theater district), rebounding 12% to $34M from the previous week’s summer-without-a-Saturday box office bruising. With nearly all 29 of the productions resuming their regular eight-performance schedules for Broadway’s Week 8 (ending July 21) , the expected boosts in box office
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Refresh for latest…: With a mighty roar, Disney’s The Lion King was the No. 1 movie in all of its opening markets this weekend, adding $269.4M at the international box office. The adaptation of the classic animation debuted in 51 new hubs, which joined China after its early bow last week. Through 10 days, the
UPDATED with more numbers and analysis. Specialty newcomers are mostly wilting in the heat this weekend. Meanwhile, though, second-week holdover The Farewell from A24 packed a wallop with an expansion and Bleecker Street’s The Art of Self-Defense jumped to well-over five hundred runs for a seven-figure, three-day gross. Riding the wave of music-oriented documentaries, Sony
WRITETHRU after 5:27PM post: If you’re a major motion picture studio that skipped Comic-Con this year, that might have been a good idea. After skipping San Diego Comic-Con last year, and in the wake of wrapping up what is billed as “The Infinity Saga” across 23 movies, the Marvel Cinematic Universe returned in raging force to
Marvel boss Kevin Feige made it official Saturday at the studio’s Comic-Con panel that Avengers: Endgame is clicking past Avatar‘s $2.7897 billion global box office this weekend to become the biggest film of all time at the box office. It took nine years, but it finally happened. There is currently a gap of $500K in
On the heels of other successful music-oriented non-fiction titles, Sony Pictures Classics’ David Crosby: Remember My Name opens in New York and Los Angeles this weekend. The doc, spotlighting the long-time rocker, headlines a fairly busy weekend of new Specialties making their debuts. Freestyle Releasing is going day and date with aging superhero feature Supervised,
Universal confirmed that David Gordon Green and Danny McBride’s successful reincarnation of John Carpenter’s Halloween franchise is indeed returning — with not one but two new films. The studio said Friday that Halloween Kills will bow on October 16, 2020, and Halloween Ends, is set for October 15, 2021. Watch the video announcement below. The
The Walking Dead movie is officially official. After the flagship AMC series took the stage in Hall H at Comic-Con, moderator Chris Hardwick revealed a short teaser for the untitled feature film starring Andrew Lincoln after the cast and creators of TWD left the stage. The teaser included a caption, “Rick Grimes Returns Only In Theaters.” Universal
FRIDAY UPDATE: Disney’s The Lion King continues to prey on the international box office with a cume through Thursday of $130.5M. That’s made up of a running $76.6M cume from China, where it released early last weekend, and $53.9M from 42 other offshore markets which opened Wednesday and Thursday. On Thursday, the Jon Favreau-directed adaptation
EXCLUSIVE: We’re hearing from non-Disney sources that Jon Favreau’s The Lion King reboot is doing some smashing business tonight with an estimated $22M-$25M off showtimes that largely started at 6PM (there were 5pm select fan screenings). Again with these estimates, sometimes they can fall outside the range we’re hearing from sources, but overall, it’s a great start.
Movie ticket prices fell 1% in both the second quarter and the first half of 2019, according to the latest figures from the National Association of Theatre Owners, but admissions and box office remain in the red. Average ticket prices came in at $9.26 in the second quarter, compared with $9.38 a year ago, with
It’s not one fine day for Beautiful: The Carole King Musical. The hit show’s producers said it will end its nearly six-year Broadway run on October 27. Based on the songs of its titular pop legend and her inner circle, Beautiful earned seven Tony nominations in 2014 and won a pair, including one for lead actress Jessie Mueller.
EXCLUSIVE: Similar to Sony’s partnership with Amazon Prime on Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle and Hotel Transylvania 3: Summer Vacation, the studio’s teaming up with Target and Atom Tickets to offer moviegoers an advance paid screening to the Rovio sequel The Angry Birds Movie 2 on Saturday, Aug. 3 ahead of pic’s Aug. 14 release. Angry Birds Movie 2 will
It will be quite a few more sunny days before Warner Bros makes its trip to Sesame Street. The studio’s untitled film adaptation of the children’s TV classic has moved from its January 15, 2021, to that summer: The pic now will open on June 4, 2021. Warners also said today that its legal drama Just
There really aren’t any sober domestic projections on Disney’s The Lion King: Many see the Jon Favreau-directed remake heading for a record July opening, feasibly toppling 2011’s Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 2 ($169.1M). Even though Sony’s Spider-Man: Far From Home exceeded estimates with a $185M 6-day opening, some analysts’ still have shell shock over
What the Constitution Means to Me, playwright-performer Heidi Schreck’s Tony-nominated Pulitzer Prize finalist, has recouped its $2.5 million Broadway capitalization, producers announced today. The milestone arrived with the week ending July 14, with six weeks left in the Broadway engagement. The production will deliver a full return of capital to investors. The recoupment comes during
With the plug pulled on its Saturday night, Broadway got zinged with a 10% tumble at the box office last week. While other factors entered the equation – there were three fewer shows on the boards than the previous week – the cancellation of 26 individual performances due to the Manhattan blackout no doubt took
Refresh for latest…: The arachnomania continues as Sony/Marvel’s Spider-Man: Far From Home captured another $100M from the international box office this weekend, lifting the offshore cume to $572.5M. That sends the Tom Holland-starrer sailing past 2007’s Spider-Man 3 to become the top offshore grosser of the franchise. With $847M through Sunday globally, FFH is within
Awkwafina traverses two cultures in Lulu Wang’s Sundance ’19 hit The Farewell, which A24 opens in New York and Los Angeles this weekend. While the Specialty circuit was mostly on pause over the holiday weekend last week, the second weekend of July is seeing a notable group of indie/limited releases making its way to theaters.
Disney’s The Lion King roared off to a $14.5M start in China on Friday (including Thursday night previews). This is a terrific launch for the CGI/live-action adaptation of the classic 1994 animated picture and is better than the opening days of comps The Jungle Book ($11.6M) and Beauty And The Beast ($12.4M). Social scores on
Don’t expect moviegoers in Louisiana’s Gulf Coast to head to Sam Raimi’s Category 5 hurricane/alligator movie Crawl this weekend, or any title for that matter. With Tropical Storm Barry expected to dump 25 inches of rain after it reaches landfall Saturday as a Category 1 hurricane, AMC is shutting down all New Orleans and Baton Rouge
Paramount’s alligator-Florida hurricane thriller Crawl is off to a solid start with $1M off 7PM previews last night. Industry tracking has the Alexandre Aja-directed movie in the $10M-$12M in the shadow of Sony’s Spider-Man: Far From Home‘s second weekend which is expected to be in the low $40Ms, down in the low 50%-tile. Exhibitors we hear
When will the Sleeping Giant wake up? In the second half of every year for the past 10, the grown-up audience has opened its eyes, stretched its legs and gone to the movies in numbers big enough to make a certified hit of at least one non-animated, not-too-scary, non-sequel drama. If ascent to the year-end
Disney’s The Lion King will take pride of place this weekend in China where it’s bowing ahead of the rest of the world. With anticipation and a clear runway for the opening, the CGI/live-action adaptation of the 1994 classic is poised for a $50M-$60M three-day bow, per industry projections. The Middle Kingdom debut could notch
Universal’s Fast & Furious Presents: Hobbs & Shaw landed on tracking this morning and the expectation is that the film will make between $55M-$65M. The Dwayne Johnson-Jason Statham pic opens on Aug. 2 largely around the world in 64 markets with China coming later on Aug. 23. Once some tracking services report this morning, there’s
Deadline has confirmed that STX’s Dave Bautista action comedy My Spy is moving off its August 23 release date to a TBA date during Q1 2020. Word is that the studio wants to put some room between My Spy and Bautista’s other action comedy from 20th Century Fox. Stuber, which opens this weekend. We hear that