Film

EXCLUSIVE: Sony Animation’s Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse is doing some serious business tonight according to box office sources, accumulating $16M off previews that began at 3PM at 3,562 theaters. That’s the second best preview night ever for an animated movie after Disney/Pixar’s Incredibles 2 ($18.5M) from June 2018. Disney/Pixar’s Toy Story 4, with $12M, is

Julie Benko, who has built a devoted following as the Funny Girl understudy and alternate Fanny Brice, will originate her first Broadway role this fall in the new musical Harmony by by Barry Manilow and Bruce Sussman. Benko will play the role of Ruth, producers Ken Davenport, Sandi Moran and Garry Kief announced today. The

In a rare situation for a Disney tentpole, particularly a live-action title based on a treasured classic animated musical, The Little Mermaid looks to bank more at the domestic box office ultimately than overseas, with $300M-$350M U.S./Canada to $260M abroad. At that level, per finance sources, off a reported $250M production cost and $140M global

Last night at the world premiere of Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse there was a huge sigh of relief from the mass of animators inside Westwood’s Regency Village Theater: the $100M budgeted sequel to the Oscar winning animated movie, Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse, was done; having completed post-production literally just ten days ago after a five-year

EXCLUSIVE: The Will Rogers Motion Picture Pioneers Foundation has created the Erik Lomis Leadership Award, which will be bestowed at the charity’s 30th Annual Film Row Charity Golf Classic. Modeled after the Payne Stewart Award given annually by the PGA Tour, which is given to a player whose values align with the character, charity, and

Talk about legs — or, more appropriately, wings: Paramount/Skydance’s Top Gun: Maverick is still playing in Japanese cinemas a full year on from its debut. Continuing on from a stratospheric and super-leggy run, the sequel, on its 365th day of release, became Tom Cruise’s biggest film ever in the market. In doing so, it overtook

Refresh for latest…: Disney’s live-action take on The Little Mermaid is doing swimmingly at the domestic box office, with a three-day opening of $95.5M and a four-day projection of $117.5M. Factoring in the international box office bow of $68.3M, that makes for an estimated $163.8M global debut through Sunday. The offshore launch is lower than

Refresh for latest…: Apart from big new opener The Little Mermaid, which we detailed here, this weekend was notable for propelling Universal’s Fast X past the $500M mark globally, and Disney/Marvel’s Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 to over $730M worldwide. The Fast & Furious franchise had, earlier this week, crossed $7B globally while the

A24’s Julia Louis-Dreyfus-starrer You Hurt My Feelings will top an estimated $1.7 million in limited nationwide release for the four-day holiday weekend, at the high end of expectations on 912 screens. That puts it at no. 8 at a domestic box office where Little Mermaid is making all the waves. Breakdown: Friday – $474k; Sat.

Broadway’s box office was up a bit during the final week of the 2022-23 season, with only a few productions reporting slips from the previous week, including two – Funny Girl and Grey House – that saw temporary declines due to Covid cases within their casts. Last week, Funny Girl announced that Lea Michele had

The arthouse box office hasn’t recovered quickly post-Covid, but one of the oases for the sector, even by pre-pandemic benchmarks, has always been a Wes Anderson movie. This summer we have his latest all-star absurdist comedy, Asteroid City, which just premiered at Cannes, which begins its limited run on June 16. How big has Anderson

EXCLUSIVE, late Thursday PM: Sources are telling us that Disney’s Rob Marshall directed The Little Mermaid is singing some high notes tonight of $10M+ in previews. Should that figure exceed $10.8M it will rep the 6th highest preview performance among PG and G rated titles in motion picture history. Tracking pegged the Halle Bailey movie

“It was a contributor to the specialty box office, and I hope it will be again,” says Laemmle CEO Greg Laemmle of MoviePass, the subscription service that unsurprisingly went bankrupt in early 2020 after offering a movie a day for ten bucks a month. A co-founder Stacy Spikes, who was pushed out amid strategic differences

UK-based global theater chain and parent of Regal Cinemas said overnight it expects to emerge from Chapter 11 in July. The news comes as nearly 100% of its legacy lenders agreed to an amended and restated restructuring agreement and backstop that have been months in the making. There had been some holdouts. The giant exhibitor

Universal’s Fast & Furious franchise has reached a new milestone, spinning past $7B at the global box office. Getting there, it becomes the fifth series of films to the mark, doing so with 11 titles. It’s currently the No. 5 franchise of all time, and is tied with Warner Bros’ Wizarding World for the fewest

Imax chief executive Rich Gelfond said he’s never seen China let as many U.S. titles into country as early as they have this year. After a slowdown in the pace that caused some angst in Hollywood, there’s been a steady stream of releases — although not necessarily a surge in ticket sales — with The

Disney’s return to live-action takes of their animated vault in the fullest theatrical form happens this weekend with Rob Marshall’s The Little Mermaid which is eyeing a $180M worldwide start. The majority of that number will be made stateside with $120M for the four-day Memorial Day weekend holiday, and around $100M over three days. At