Universal

James Cameron climbs the ladder to cut the net for winning Deadline’s 2022 Most Valuable Blockbuster Movie Tournament after Avatar: The Way of Water cleared over a half-billion dollars in profit after all ancillaries. Given the sleeper nature of this sequel, and given the overall boom expected from this year’s global box office to $32
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While streamers typically get by on thrifty marketing budgets, pushing content largely on their menus, most motion picture studios, like Universal, still have all the superpowers in the world to blast a movie out of a canon. But here’s something to keep in mind as we detail Universal’s promo playbook below in propelling Illumination/Nintendo’s Super
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Deadline’s Most Valuable Blockbuster tournament took a hiatus during the pandemic as movie theaters closed for the majority of 2020-2021 and theatrical day-and-date titles on both the big screen and studios’ respective streaming platforms became more prevalent. Coming back from that brink, the studios have largely returned to their theatrical release models and the downstream
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Deadline’s Most Valuable Blockbuster tournament took a hiatus during the pandemic as movie theaters closed for the majority of 2020-2021 and theatrical day-and-date titles on both the big screen and studios’ respective streaming platforms became more prevalent. Coming back from that brink, the studios have largely returned to their theatrical release models and the downstream
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THURSDAY UPDATE, Refresh for latest…: With numbers now in for the 44 overseas markets that opened on Wednesday, Illumination/Nintendo/Universal’s The Super Mario Bros Movie had a more than peachy debut with $34.7M through yesterday at the international box office. Combined with Wednesday’s domestic bow, the global one-day total is $66.4M. Several milestones/records were set in
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Illumination/Nintendo/Universal’s Super Mario Bros Movie doesn’t need a mushroom to get bigger, it just organically is. Out of the gate today Wednesday, sans any Tuesday previews, the feature take of the classic game is looking at $26M, for what’s translating into a $86.2M 3-day, $127.5M Wednesday through Sunday haul. Interesting, even though its opening day
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EXCLUSIVE: Illumination/Universal/Nintendo’s Super Mario Bros Movie just landed on tracking this morning ahead of its Easter weekend release, and the animated film is shaping up to make at least $85M-$90M+ over its Wednesday through Sunday launch and that’s on the conservative side. Given the fervent response by fans to trailers, it would not be shocking
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“‘Nobody likes to watch people getting eaten by lions.” Apparently this was the response by the late Sumner Redstone during his National Amusement exhibition days after he saw a screening of the 1981 Tom Skerritt lion movie, Savage Harvest, relayed to me by an exhibition source who overheard him. As funny as Redstone’s reaction was, it’s
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Universal/DreamWorks Animation’s How to Trian Your Dragon will return to the big screen, but as a live-action feature adaptation with the franchise’s 3x Oscar nominated and Golden Globe winning filmmaker Dean DeBlois returning to write, direct and produce the newest entry. How to Train Your Dragon is based on the book series by Cressida Cowell.
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Universal/DreamWorks Animation’s Puss in Boots: The Last Wish had a happy Valentine’s Day, swashbuckling to a new global milestone. The spinoff sequel crossed $400M with Tuesday’s numbers bringing the worldwide kitty to $401.5M. The split is $160.1M domestic and $241.4M at the international box office.  The Oscar nominated pic from directors Joel Crawford and Januel
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In a turnabout, China is handing out release dates for Hollywood movies at a clip these days — and with a fair bit of notice. Yesterday, we learned that Paramount/eOne’s Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves will go day-and-date on March 31, and today comes news that Universal/Blumhouse/Atomic Monster’s hit M3GAN has been granted a
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With this year’s domestic box office expected to rise to $9 billion, of course, the major studios are taking Super Bowl LVII ad spots seriously. The big game, which last year attracted 112M viewers, remains an enormous bullhorn when it comes to drawing attention to your tentpole, and this year, starting with Disney/Marvel Studios’ Ant-Man
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Universal/DreamWorks Animation’s Puss In Boots: The Last Wish is a bonafide puss in loot, as it will cross the $300M mark globally with today’s grosses included.  The highly reviewed sequel and Shrek spinoff is at $297.8M with Sunday’s worldwide actuals included. Directed by Joel Crawford and Januel Mercado, the adventure has surpassed Croods: The New
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EXCLUSIVE: James Wan has been labeled by fans for being responsible for killer doll movies, specifically his Conjuring franchise spinoff, Annabelle. “It’s funny, I really hadn’t done that yet,” says the horror auteur. And that was his prime reason to create M3GAN with screenwriter Akela Cooper. “In my previous doll movies — they don’t kill
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NBC Universal chief Jeff Shell was coy yet clearly jazzed today about the possible merger of prolific horror producers Jason Blum and James Wan’s respective companies — Blumhouse and Atomic Monster – saying “I can’t confirm it,” but, “If that should happen, we are going to be in an absolutely impregnable position.” He spoke at the UBS media conference today. The two
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EXCLUSIVE: Timothy Scott Bogart’s movie Spinning Gold, about his music-producer father Neil Bogart and the iconic label Casablanca Records that he built, will hit theaters on March 31, 2023. The release and distribution will be handled by Hero Partners in partnership with Howling Wolf Films, with Universal Pictures Home Entertainment distributing across transactional home entertainment.  Neil
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Universal’s release of Blumhouse, Miramax and Trancas’ Halloween Ends saw a Thursday night of $5.4M from 3,200 theaters. Showtimes began at 5PM. That figure is +11% from last year’s Halloween Kills‘ previews which were $4.85M. The third Halloween movie from David Gordon Green in a subset trilogy within the franchise is set to make around
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