Film

As we first told you, Sony’s fourthquel Hotel Transylvania: Transformania was heading to a streamer. Turns out, that’s bound to be Amazon in what we hear are early talks. While Disney has been doing rather well with the theatrical component of its day-and-date family movie Jungle Cruise with subsequent weekend holds of -55% and -43% for the pic’s

It’s fascinating to watch local governments — New York, San Francisco, Los Angeles, New Orleans — rush to enact Covid vaccine requirements for entry to the publicly accessible spaces of private business, including, yes, movie theaters. I’m not equipped to judge the ultimate propriety or efficacy of such mandates. Frankly, the complexities posed by breakthroughs,

Sony Pictures Classics’ The Lost Leonardo had a notable debut on three screens on a quiet weekend for specialty openings. The film about da Vinci’s Salvator Mundi painting opened to $13,209 with a per screen average of $4,403 ahead of a national release. The distributor has been a steadying presence a tough arthouse climate. Its

UPDATE, writethru: Disney/20th Century Studios’ Free Guy led the game at global turnstiles this session with a $51M worldwide debut. That includes domestic’s over-performance of $28.4M, and a $22.5M start in 41 material markets at the international box office — the latter in line with pre-weekend expectations. The offshore debut on the Shawn Levy-directed pic

Documentaries about a da Vinci and a dictator, a Pablo Larraín drama with Gael Garcia Bernal, a Donnie Yen martial arts thriller by the late Benny Chan, and CODA, Apple’s record-busting Sundance acquisition, make specialty bows this weekend as the arthouse sector fights through a slow reopening. “The market is still finding a balance right

EXCLUSIVE:  We hear that New Line’s 8-Bit Christmas will premiere exclusively on HBO Max on Nov. 25th, in all countries where the service is available, meaning U.S. and Latin America. Here in the U.S., that date is Thanksgiving Day, a prime time for watching holiday movies on the couch. 8-Bit Christmas will be distributed by

Disney/20th Century Studio’s Free Guy is off to a very hopeful start, clocking $2.2M last night from previews that started at 6PM.  It’s a number that’s just under the Thursday night of Disney’s Dwayne Johnson-Emily Blunt family movie Jungle Cruise which made $2.7M. That film had Thursday night as a pure theatrical window before becoming available day-and-date on

Disney CEO Bob Chapek continued to emphasize the flexibility of the studio’s controversial theatrical-day-and-date Disney+ Premier model given the uncertain times of Covid. “We value flexibility in being able to make last minute calls,” said Chapek on today’s earnings call without indicating any additional future dynamic window releases beyond the studio’s recent summer handful of Cruella,

Booksmart star Beanie Feldstein has been set to star as Fanny Brice in Funny Girl, which will serve as the first Broadway revival of the iconic musical that premiered in 1964 with Barbra Streisand in the role. It is scheduled to begin performances in spring 2022 at a Broadway theatre to be announced. The new

After the industry’s and Black Widow star Scarlett Johansson’s ire over Disney’s day-and-date strategy, Disney returns to the theatrical-window form this weekend with Free Guy, the video game-inspired romantic comedy starring Ryan Reynolds and directed by Shawn Levy. It’s Disney’s first wide release respecting a theatrical window since 20th Century Studios’ horror pic The Empty Man

AMC Entertainment CEO Adam Aron sees two things protecting the circuit in the face of surging Covid cases trigered by the Delta variant – its own Safe & Clean protocols, and vaccinations. “To our knowledge there has not been a single transmission of Covid by an AMC guest over the past year,” he said. “Most

Disney/Pixar’s sea monster story Luca has been granted an August 20 release date in China, signaling that the end of the giant market’s latest unofficial blackout period may be afoot. While Luca will take a prime slot amid a series of local holdovers and is the first Hollywood studio title to release since June, its

UPDATED  with full cast: Producers of the upcoming Broadway musical MJ, which begins previews December 6 at Neil Simon Theatre ahead of opening night February 1, has unveiled the full cast joining Myles Frost as Michael Jackson. The show originally had been set to begin previews in mid-2020 before the Broadway lockdown. It features a

EXCLUSIVE: Samba TV has updated the running U.S. viewership on Disney+ Premier’s Dwayne Johnson-Emily Blunt adventure film Jungle Cruise and it’s 1.5M U.S. households through the pic’s first ten-days. Multiply that by the pic’s in-home purchase price of $29.99 for Disney+ subscribers and Jungle Cruise has taken in $44.985M stateside in those homes clocked by Samba TV.

Refresh for latest…: After debuting to $6.7M from five overseas markets last weekend, Warner Bros/DC’s The Suicide Squad moved into wide offshore release this session, taking $35M from 69 total international box office markets. This is a touch below the like-for-like opening of 2020’s disappointing Birds Of Prey ($36.6M at today’s rates) and under the

It was a triumphant second weekend for indie Stillwater from Focus Features, which hit the $10 million mark in 2,611 theatres (up by 80) and 233 DMA’s in North America, where it was no. 5. The Matt Damon-starrer held up strongly from its debut, dipping 45% — compared with a 64% drop for The Green

Warner Bros. fired up James Gunn’s The Suicide Squad last night, the studio’s first Thursday preview in a long time arguably since pre-pandemic; the DC R-rated ensemble seeing $4.1M off showtimes that began at 7PM; the biggest for a R-rated movie during the pandemic. Previously, Universal/Blumhouse’s R-rated The Forever Purge made $1.3M on its Thursday night.

Sony Pictures Classics has set a Nov. 19 New York and Los Angeles theatrical release for their British romantic drama Mothering Sunday. SPC picked up the movie in September and gave it a world premiere at Cannes last month. The pic will further expand to other U.S. markets after its initial late fall release. Starring Odessa