National Amusements, the Redstone family holding company, was placed on negative credit watch by ratings agency S&P Global after shares of ViacomCBS – which NAI uses as debt collateral – skidded so low over the past three weeks that the parent technically defaulted on a bank loan. That’s a headache for NAI but also a
Exhibition
Disney/Pixar’s Onward made $2 million on Thursday night in box office previews, according to the Burbank, CA studio, from shows that started at 6 PM. Previous previews around this range include Disney’s Dumbo ($2.6M, $45.9M opening), Monsters University ($2.6M, $82.4M opening), Moana (which previewed on a Tuesday before Thanksgiving with $2.6M, 3-day of $56.6M, 5-day much greater due to Thanksgiving
EXCLUSIVE: Disney/Pixar’s family film Onward has been banned in multiple Middle East markets due to the film’s minor reference to a lesbian relationship. In the movie, about two teenage elf brothers in a mythical world who embark on a quest for magic, there is a passing reference to an LGBTQ relationship between two secondary characters.
Despite the swelling panic about the coronavirus, the global business for Disney/Pixar’s elf fantasy feature Onward should turn out to be solid. To date, there aren’t any theaters closed in the U.S. (nor do sources expect any in the near future), certainly not in a grave way like China’s which has seen its nationwide exhibition
Sony has dated Melanie Laurent’s feature adaptation of Kristin Hannah’s international bestseller The Nightingale for December 25, 2020. With the Christmas debut of Greta Gerwig’s PG-rated Little Women last year, Sony saw a multitude of women flock to that movie, which grossed more than $203 million worldwide and earned six Oscar noms, winning one for Costume Design.
5th Update Sunday AM: Moviegoers didn’t have a problem finding Blumhouse’s The Invisible Man on Saturday with the Leigh Whannell movie racking up $11.1M, a 12% surge over Friday’s $9.9M for a weekend that Universal is calling at $29M (some rival estimates have it in the low $28M range). Even more commendable: if you back out those
EXCLUSIVE: Seventeen years after the release of Bad Boys II, Sony’s Bad Boys For Life dominated domestic, overseas and global turnstiles in its mid-January debut. On Saturday, it will cross $400 million globally, with current cumes through Thursday at $193.1M domestic and $204.1M from the international box office. Bad Boys 4 is in the works.
Universal–Blumhouse’s The Invisible Man made its first appearance last night at 7PM shows nationwide with $1.65M, an an amount of cash that’s near both studios’ previous collaborations, Get Out ($1.8M Thursday) and Split ($2M). Both 2017 titles overperformed their $20M-predicted tracking at the time, with Split posting a $40M start, and Get Out taking $33.3M. Invisible Man, directed and written by Leigh
As a precaution due to the outbreak of the coronavirus in Italy, AMC Theatres boss Adam Aron mentioned today on the exhib chain’s 4Q 2019 earnings call that the exhibitor has closed 22 of its 47 theaters in the country for a week. Since Monday, the number of cases of the coronavirus has spiked from
The Parasite train keeps on gaining traction. The four-time Oscar-winning Bong Joon-ho dark comedy is crossing $50M right now at the domestic box office — but the real question is, can it beat Life Is Beautiful’s box office gross of $57M. If it maintains its momentum, signs are pointing to yes. As its Imax run comes to
John Krasinski’s A Quiet Place Part II, the sequel to his surprise 2018 Paramount-Platinum Dunes $341M-global grossing genre hit A Quiet Place, arrived on tracking this morning with a projected opening of $60M. The sequel hits theaters on March 20, and is on track to beat the first film’s $50.2M domestic opening. A Quiet Place Part
It’s not as if Universal anticipated the opening of its gaslight thriller The Invisible Man to coincide with the guilty verdict handed down this week to movie mogul Harvey Weinstein in his sexual misconduct trial. But the Blumhouse-produced movie written and directed by Leigh Whannell arrives in cinemas at a moment when the #MeToo movement
Paramount’s Sonic the Hedgehog got off to a solid start on Thursday night, scoring $3M from shows that began at 5PM at 3,150 locations. That number is the same as what Dreamworks Animation’s How to Train Your Dragon: The Hidden World made last year with a $3M Thursday off 6pm showtimes before going to a $55M opening weekend. Other
The first Disney release of 2020, Pixar’s Onward, arrived on tracking today with a $44 million projection. Some believe that the forecast for the March 6 release is low and could go higher. The movie directed by Dan Scanlon and featuring the voices of Tom Holland, Chris Pratt, Octavia Spencer and Julia Louis-Dreyfus is set in a suburban
Rian Johnson’s Lionsgate/MRC whodunit Knives Out has sailed past the $300M mark worldwide. It’s the latest milestone for the box office anomaly that is becoming the second-highest-grossing original movie of 2019 behind Us and also whipping Quentin Tarantino’s Once Upon a Time in Hollywood’s $142.4M stateside. More amazing: This Thanksgiving release is still in the domestic
As Neon rides the awards season wave with Bong Joon Ho’s cinematic masterpiece Parasite, they aren’t stopping with delivering genre titles that speak to their brand. This weekend Neon will debut their chilling thriller The Lodge directed by Severin Fiala and Veronika Franz. Written by Fiala, Franz, and Casci, The Lodge follows a family that decides to spend
When you’re doing a movie trailer launch nowadays and need to grab everyone’s attention, it helps to throw a concert. Universal’s trailer for F9 (aka Fast & Furious 9), since dropping its near four-minute trailer on Friday ahead of the Super Bowl, has clocked a massive 439.3 million global views across YouTube, Twitter and Facebook. And
In expanding to the deeper parts of its DC universe, Warner Bros is launching Suicide Squad spinoff Birds of Prey and the Fantabulous Emancipation of One Harley Quinn this weekend, repping the comic book label’s continued march into R-rated fare post Joker and Watchmen. It is projected for a worldwide start between $110 million-$125 million, a take that
We knew this was going to happen. By Oscar Sunday, if not before, Greta Gerwig’s feature revival of Louisa May Alcott’s Little Women will cross $100M at the domestic box office, a huge 33% surge in its domestic tally since notching six Oscar noms on Jan. 13 including Best Picture. While Gerwig already demonstrated her flair
EXCLUSIVE: For a second year in a row, I hear Sony Pictures will not be holding an onstage presentation at this year’s CinemaCon, which runs from March 30-April 2 in Las Vegas. I understand Sony will make a return to CinemaCon at some point in the future, and will support this year’s confab in other
Focus Features said Wednesday that it has set a May 29, 2020 domestic release date for Irresistible, the new film written and directed by Jon Stewart. The political satire, produced by Stewart and Plan B Entertainment, revolves around what happens when a small Wisconsin town becomes the main attraction of our political circus. After the
Sony’s Bad Boys for Life, a sequel 17 years in the waiting, previewed at 3,154 theaters last night making a great $6.36M. That amount for the R-rated film is bigger than American Sniper‘s $5.3M preview, which turned out to be the record opener over the 2015 MLK holiday with a 4-day of $107.2M. Sony is seeing a $38M
Streaming and other leisure-time enticements appeared to take a bite out of movie ticket sales in 2019, with total admissions declining nearly 5% to 1.244 billion, according to the National Association of Theater Owners. Although the 2019 tally was slightly higher than the 1.236 billion recorded in 2017, the totals for both 2017 and 2019
After Will Smith notched the biggest-grossing film of his career with last summer’s $1 billion hit Aladdin, can he keep the box office heat wave going with Martin Lawrence in reviving their Bad Boys franchise? The third film, Bad Boys for Life, finally arrives over MLK weekend 13 years after the second movie, with a projected take
Sony Pictures said Tuesday that Greta Gerwig’s Little Women will be released February 14 in China. The news comes a day after the latest adaptation of Louisa May Alcott’s iconic novel scored six Oscar nominations including Best Picture. The film recently passed $100 million at the worldwide box office, with its current global cume at
Amazon is set to open Les Misérables in limited release this week, but if you’re expecting a musical based on the Victor Hugo novel, you’ll have to look elsewhere. Directed by Ladj Ly, the film only shares a name with the popular Broadway musical. The drama tackles the issue of police brutality in France, showing that
Golden Globe Best Picture Winner for Drama, 1917, got off to a bang on Thursday with $3.25M in previews that began at 7PM in 2,900 theaters. The Sam Mendes-directed WWI pic, which debuted in 11 theaters in cities like NY, LA and DC, on Christmas Day, goes wide today in 3,434 theaters. The movie is
As blockbusters battled it out at the box office, the specialty space hit high notes with Judy, flew with The Peanut Butter Falcon, shined with Uncut Gems and gave us one helluva Farewell. Major box office strides were made in 2019 with fare from indie, art-house-driven distributors that delivered confident numbers, proving that audiences are craving bold and
In early December, Disney became the first studio in history to cross the $10B mark globally. Now that 2019 has drawn two a close, the numbers have jumped even higher. For the calendar year, The Walt Disney Studios has posted a combined global gross of $13,151.7M across both Disney and Fox releases. That reps $4,328.3M
Editors note: The 2019 domestic box office figures are for the period of January 1-December 29. We will update further on January 2. With the total 2019 domestic box office expected to ring up close to an estimated $11.4 billion according to Comscore, down 4% from last year’s banner $11.88B, and the forecast that 2020