Written, directed and starring Julie Delpy, the family drama My Zoe from Blue Fox Entertainment hit theaters this weekend before dropping on VOD on May 25. As the big banner and specialty box office attempt to find its footing as restrictions of the pandemic lift at a cautious glacial pace, the film managed to add some
Streaming
Paramount Pictures CEO Jim Gianopulos gets it; just like Disney CEO Bob Chapek gets it: You can’t have a successful streaming service without big theatrical event films. The two go hand-in-hand, so don’t try and muddy the waters. Big screen drives big franchises, which in turn drives streaming features and spinoff series. Exclaimed Gianopulos at
Harry Macqueen’s Supernova opened in 330 theaters this weekend, bringing some warmth to the specialty box office space. The Bleecker Street drama starring Colin Firth and Stanely Tucci is garnering tons of awards season buzz and has added some fuel to the specialty fire that has been struggling to stay afloat for almost a year.
The IFC Films documentary MLK/FBI from filmmaker Sam Pollard (Two Trains Runnin’, Eyes on the Prize) makes its debut in select theaters today as well as on demand. The release aligns with Martin Luther King Jr. Day on January 18 and it is super relevant to America’s wild inequity and racist treatment of the Black community —
The past year — and even the events of the past week in this country has been a struggle for a lot of people. More specifically, the pandemic and Covid-19 has claimed the lives of over 360,000 people and there are thousands of families in mourning. They are grieving — and this includes children. The
John Stephens, the outgoing CFO of WarnerMedia parent AT&T, defended the company’s move to release its 2021 film slate concurrently on HBO Max and in theaters and cited Warner Bros. century-long relationship with Hollywood talent — with some disgruntled at the move and the way it was communicated. “We’ve got a long history of working
If 2020 began with promise, all that changed as every industry tradition we took for granted was stripped away without warning. The pandemic has seen nearly 20 million positive cases in the U.S. alone, and soon 350,000 will be dead. Every facet of entertainment was impacted: live theaters and movie theaters closed, production in TV
A word for stocks in 2020: epic — as in monumental, as a bona fide crash in the spring alternated thereafter with convulsions of angst and optimism reflecting a world turned upside down by the first global pandemic in a century. Major indexes from the Dow Jones to the Nasdaq, S&P 500 and Russell 3000
The specialty box office and streaming space is ringing in 2021 with a peppering of new titles starting with Shadow in the Cloud starring Chloë Grace Moretz, which opens in select theaters and drops on VOD and digital starting January 1, 2021. Directed by Roseanne Liang who co-wrote the script with Max Landis, Shadow in the
Leading the charge this week in streaming and specialty titles is Netflix with two films that have been garnering awards season buzz with their star wattage and prestige storytelling. First up, is the highly anticipated Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom adapted from two-time Pulitzer Prize winner August Wilson’s play of the same name. Set in 1920s
EXCLUSIVE: CAA is the latest to blast WarnerMedia on its decision to place its entire 17-film slate on HBO Max at the same time the films are released in U.S. theaters in 2021. Sources said that at an agency staff meeting, CAA president Richard Lovett read aloud a letter that he sent to WarnerMedia CEO
Editor’s note: Michael Shamberg is a tenured film and TV producer whose credits include Contagion, Get Shorty, The Big Chill, Erin Brockovich, Out of Sight, Pulp Fiction, A Fish Called Wanda and many others. With the Warner Bros announcement that all its 2021 films will premiere online at the same time as in theaters, it’s
Can cinemas play day-and-date releases from Warner Bros after continually refusing to show Netflix films? The big circuits have to be feeling really stupid now: If they had only made a deal with Netflix last year on Martin Scorsese’s The Irishman at a 45-day window instead of emphatically rejecting one, perhaps this looming apocalypse brought on
WarnerMedia CEO Jason Kilar jumped on the phone today to talk more about the revolutionary theatrical-HBO Max window for the studio’s 2021 slate. That big decision comes strictly down to the pandemic, and the studio aiming to maximize their movies as revenue events on its new streaming service HBO Max, as well as helping those
“There is no way to sugarcoat this for the theater operators,” said one Wall Streeter as exhibition stocks plunged Thursday on WarnerMedia’s bombshell – a reimaging of its entire 2021 release slate that hit an exhibition industry already teetering on the brink. Cinemark shares– up earlier in the session — lost nearly 22% of their
WarnerMedia didn’t have to wait until Wonder Woman 1984 debuted both on HBO Max and in theaters: The Burbank, CA-based studio is putting its entire 2021 theatrical slate on HBO Max for their respective first month of release, concurrent with a global cinema release. Following the one month HBO Max access period domestically, each film
A major acceleration of Hollywood studio and travel advertising could inject up to 10% in incremental ad spending on national television in the second half of 2021, spending that won’t be present this year, according to the latest forecast by Group M. National TV ad spend will fall by 7.9% this year but next year
STX’s Mikael Marcimain thriller Horizon Line will debut on EPIX in 2021 followings the pic’s transactional platform launch on Jan. 12. The movie will be available then for the purchase of $14.99 or to rent at $6.99. From the creators of 10 Cloverfield Lane and The Shallows, Horizon Line follows estranged couple, Sara (Allison Williams) and Jackson
As we enter the long holiday weekend of Thanksgiving during an era where box offices are struggling and more weight is being on streamers, there are still titles making theatrical debuts while the digital film landscape has plenty to consume as people recover from their turkey-induced tryptophan haze. It all starts with three films spotlighting
EXCLUSIVE: The Sarah Paulson thriller Run has become Hulu’s most watched feature title ever during its opening weekend, and has ranked as the most talked about Hulu Original Film to date on Twitter, Deadline has learned. Through the pic’s first three-days, which began on Nov. 20, Run has beat not only previously watched Hulu Originals Films, but
Amazon is set to find the beat with the upcoming Sound of Metal starring Riz Ahmed which hits select theaters today before moving to Prime Video on December 4. The film marks the feature directorial debut of Darius Marder, who co-wrote the movie with Abraham Marder. Sound of Metal follows punk-metal drummer Ruben (Ahmed) who begins to experience intermittent hearing
EXCLUSIVE: No final decision has been made, but Deadline hears that the uncertainty of the future theatrical marketplace has Disney looking at launching a number of its upcoming tentpole family films on Disney+ instead of the theatrical release bows that were envisioned when the films were developed and green lit. At this point, the films
STX’s acquisition Songbird will be skipping theaters in exchange for a premium VOD release starting Friday, December 11. STX picked up the KJ Apa-Sofia Carson pandemic thriller produced by Invisible Narratives back in August. The movie was one of the first to shoot in Los Angeles during the pandemic under COVID-19 safety guidelines. The film
Neon will bring some passionate romance in Ammonite this weekend. The period pic starring Kate Winslet and Saoirse Ronan opened at the Toronto International Film Festival in September where it immediately garnered buzz as an Oscar favorite. Written and directed by Francis Lee, Ammonite is set in the 1840s and follows once-acclaimed paleontologist Mary Anning (Winslet),
If you’re dying to know what the total revenue reap was from Disney’s combined PVOD/Disney+-overseas theatrical release experiment of Mulan, well, we just have to wait for the studio’s investor day on Dec. 10. That’s when they’re reportedly going to tell us more. Disney CEO Bob Chapek said on today’s year-end earning call that he was “pleased
Walt Disney blew past Wall Street estimates last quarter although it swung to red and revenue fell with Disneyland shuttered, and movie theaters in major markets dark. It’s the last showbiz giant to report financials in the latest earnings round and the most anticipated as its sprawling businesses touch most of media and entertainment for
This weekend, Focus Features will bring to theaters the feature adaptation of Let Him Go starring Oscar winner Kevin Costner and Oscar nominee Diane Lane. Directed and written by Thomas Bezucha, the suspense thriller is based on Larry Watson’s popular 2013 novel of the same name. The story follows retired sheriff George Blackledge (Costner) and
Lionsgate posted soft quarterly earnings with revenue of $745 million down 20% from $938 million the year earlier and below Wall Street expectations. The motion picture producer and distributor, which just announced it’s laying off 15% of its global motion pictures group, said it swung to a net loss of $18.4 million from a $1.8
The specialty streaming space will be On the Rocks this weekend — so to speak. Sofia Coppola’s father-daughter dramedy is set to drop on Apple TV+ on Friday and it seems like light-hearted movie-watching fare from the Oscar-winning filmmaker. Deadline’s resident critic Pete Hammond seems to sign off on the sentiment that this will bring a
Donna Langley, chairman of Universal Filmed Entertainment Group, and Ann Sarnoff, chair and CEO of Warner Bros had the same reaction Thursday when asked if their companies had any interest in buying movie theaters. They laughed. “We have no plans to do that currently,” Langley said, appearing with Sarnoff and CBS CEO George Cheeks on