Exhibition

Warner Bros went completely virtual at CinemaCon with a pre-recorded hour-long reel sans executives onstage. We understand that it had nothing do with Covid, nor any kind of day-and-date head ducking, rather their senior ranking domestic and international distribution guys were unable to attend the confab for respective personal commitments. Warners does have other members
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“Thank God for each and every one of you,” MGM Motion Picture Group chairman Michael De Luca told theater owners and managers in the crowd at CinemaCon on Tuesday. “There is no industry without all of you. There is no Hollywood without all of you.” Today’s kickoff to the MGM reel presentation repped the studio’s
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Here’s something no one saw coming at CinemaCon, unless you could decipher the three-hour block Sony reserved for its presentation: The studio surprised those who braved the mid-pandemic Las Vegas confab tonight with a screening of Jason Reitman’s Ghostbusters: Afterlife.  The pic hits theaters on Veterans Day, Nov. 11. In the follow-up to the classic 1984
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Sony, which was last seen at CinemaCon in 2018, brought the confab back to post(ish)-pandemic life today. Its President of the Motion Picture Group, Josh Greenstein, took center stage and reiterated the Culver City lot’s “commitment to protecting and preserving the theatrical window.” That drew a great roar from the Caesar’s Palace Colosseum crowd. Despite
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Of course, any kind of day and date release puts exhibitors in competition with the studios’ streaming services, and no doubt there’s a loss of cash in the collapse of the theatrical and PVOD window. However, the worst takeaway from dynamic windows is piracy, plain and simple. Such was the message from CinemaCon’s first panel
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Refresh for latest…: Disney/20th Century Studios’ Free Guy leveled up to take the No. 1 spot at the international box office in its sophomore session with $17.1M from 46 markets for a $53.1M cume to date. The overseas drop was a very strong 26%, with some markets seeing increases and amid No. 1 openings in
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Sean Penn’s Flag Day raised a $1,656 per screen average from 24 runs this weekend, a glum opening for the father-daughter family drama from United Artists Releasing. The film, directed and starring Penn as the most notorious counterfeiter in U.S. history, along with daughter Dylan Penn, targeted an older, sophisticated demo that’s proving hard to
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The Delta Variant, streaming wars and surging piracy loom large as CinemaCon launches Sunday at Caesars Palace in Las Vegas, the first in-person gathering of theaters owners and Hollywood studios since the pandemic struck 18-months ago. The virus has slashed registered attendees to circa 2,000 from 3,500 pre-pandemic, with a sizeable European contingent entirely shut
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United Artists Releasing opens Flag Day, directed and starring Sean Penn, in a uneven specialty market where the Delta Variant spike has theaters in key cities requiring proof of vaccination, theaters are hard to book, and hits have been rare since the industry reopened. Eventually “We’ll crack the code, because good movie and good stories
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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
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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,
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EXCLUSIVE: We’re hearing very loud rumblings from exhibition that Sony is poised to relocate Venom: Let There Be Carnage and Hotel Transylvania: Transformania.  In the case of Venom 2, it’s to another destination on the release calendar. First we heard January, then Oct. 15; Sony hasn’t decided I hear what the new date is or whether they’ll continue to stay put on
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AMC Entertainment saw revenue surge to $444 million last quarter from a pandemic-stalled $18.9 million a year ago. Net losses narrowed to $349 million from $561 million. Both beat Wall Street estimates, plumping the volatile stock by more than 7% in late trading. The nation’s biggest theater chain which struggled mightily to avoid bankruptcy for
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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
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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
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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
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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.
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UPDATED with TIFF exit: Clifford the Big Red Dog, Paramount’s CG/live-action movie that was unset from its planned September 17 release, will also not world premiere at next month’s Toronto Film Festival. It had been set as a Gala Presentation via the pic’s Canadian rightsholder eOne, which confirmed the news today that it was removing
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Science fiction drama Nine Days from Sony Pictures Classics opens in four theaters in a specialty market buoyed by recent releases like Roadrunner: A Film About Anthony Bourdain and Pig. New York’s arthouse scene, outpaced by LA of late, is perking up, distributors say (Ailey numbers were super there) and moviegoers are rewarding unique films
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Paramount Pictures has curbed the planned September 17 release of Clifford the Big Red Dog, its CGI/live-action take on the beloved kidlit character. We hear that the studio is looking for a more family-friendly release date for the pic, which also had been announced as a Gala Presentation at the Toronto Film Festival in September. The title’s
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