Updated: As the first big movie theater chain to publically address the coronavirus situation in the U.S., AMC Theatres announced today that they’re reducing capacity in each of their auditoriums by at least 50% starting tomorrow Saturday, March 14 and continuing until April 30, 2020. As the largest theater chain in the U.S., one would
Exhibition
We just got word that Regal Cinemas is the next biggest chain stateside to enforce a reduced auditorium capacity size of 50% where applicable and “with state mandates on social gatherings” says the exhibitor. AMC just recently announced a similar policy. Of the distribution bosses we’ve spoken to, we hear that they don’t expect any
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 was in technical default on a bank loan. That’s a headache for NAI but
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
The specialty box office is headed towards the second star on the right and straight on till morning with Benh Zeitlin’s magical adventure Wendy, a fresh reimagination of J.M. Barrie’s classic tale of Peter Pan. The pic from Searchlight Pictures is Zeitlin’s follow up to his Oscar-nominated Beasts of the Southern Wild, which was released
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 Thursday night at 7 PM shows nationwide with $1.65 million, 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
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, with Bong Joon Ho’s four-time Oscar-winning dark comedy crossing $50 million 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
“The impact in 2020 from Corvid-19 (coronavirus) on the motion picture business cannot be overstated,” a finance source recently told us. That’s as the closure of cinemas in China alone is approaching a loss of $2B to the global box office, while the disease has now seen spikes in Korea and Italy. What looked in
It’s not as if Universal and Blumhouse 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
Paramount’s Sonic the Hedgehog got off to a solid start Thursday night, scoring $3 million from shows that began at 5 PM at 3,150 locations. That number is the same as what DreamWorks Animation’s How to Train Your Dragon: The Hidden World made last February — a $3M Thursday off 6 PM showtimes — before soaring to a
While a post-Oscars box office boost was already expected for Bong Joon Ho’s Parasite tonight even with Best International Film and Best Director wins, now with a Best Picture win, the pic has a shot to go into the $40M-plus zone, possibly even more. The NEON release, after winning the Palme d’Or at the Cannes Film
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