MGM’s No Time to Die is officially heading to April 2, 2021, Easter weekend, and vacating its Nov. 20 release date. Interestingly enough, this puts No Time to Die on the same weekend with Universal’s F9. Universal is handling overseas on No Time to Die, so it will be interesting to see what falls out there down the road. “MGM, Universal and
Universal
Universal said Friday that F9 is moving to May 28, 2021, which is Memorial Day weekend. The move comes after MGM moved its James Bond pic No Time to Die to April 2, 2021 — which had been the release date of the latest installment of the Fast and the Furious franchise. Universal is handling
Universal is moving up The Croods: A New Age from its Dec. 23 release date to Wednesday, Nov. 25. This move indicates the studio’s confidence that Disney will move Pixar’s Soul out of the Thanksgiving stretch according to recent reports, that movie still scheduled to debut on Nov. 20 on the same weekend of MGM’s No Time to Die.
Universal Pictures’ Jennifer Lopez romantic comedy Marry Me will be released on Valentine’s Day Weekend, Friday, Feb. 12, 2021. The feature takes the place of the untitled Universal romantic comedy on the release schedule. Marry Me squares off against Disney/Marvel’s Eternals and Paramount’s Lee Daniels’ Billie Holiday movie on its new date. As we first reported, the
Word was leaking that more wide release date changes were afoot in the wake of Warner Bros.’ Wonder Woman 1984 postponing from Oct. 2 to Christmas Day and here we have Universal/MGM/Bron/Monkeypaw’s Candyman moving from its Oct. 16 date to an unset future date in 2021. All studio partners are assessing a new date, and the latest
Universal will be releasing Blumhouse’s Freaky on Nov. 13. The black horror comedy, directed by writer-director Christopher Landon (Happy Death Day, the Paranormal Activity franchise) follows a teenage girl who switches bodies with a relentless serial killer, The Butcher. Kathryn Newton of Blockers and HBO’s Big Little Lies stars as 17-year old Millie alongside Vince Vaughn who plays the
AMC Entertainment saw revenue plunge to $18.9 billion for the second quarter ended from in June from $1.5 billion the year before as it swung to the red, no surprise for the nation’s – and world’s — largest theater chain, that saw most locations shuttered completely for the entire three months. The company swung a
On today’s earnings call for the No. 1 financially challenged exhibitor AMC, CEO Adam Aron took the high road in not damning Disney for their recent seisimic-shifting choice to take Mulan to Disney+ instead of theaters where the streaming service is available. “You might thing I’m disappointed that Mulan is moving, but AMC has no bigger friend
Cinemark CEO Mark Zoradi weighed in this morning on all the noise that Universal and AMC stirred up last week with their plan to crunch the theatrical window to 17 days. “Consistent with our past practices, Cinemark does not comment on the actions of our competitors. That said we believe an exclusive theatrical window is critically
The CEO of the nation’s fourth-largest exhibitor warned studios not to “leave a good party in pursuit of a bad one” but called the debate over PVOD overblown. Greg Marcus, chief of Marcus, said consumers are likely to drift away from watching video-on-demand relesaes when things normalize post-pandemic. “The market for PVOD may not be
AMC Entertainment announced Monday it’s officially concluded a complex, and controversial, restructuring of approximately $2.6 billion of its debt that included an exchange and fresh capital raise. The news came as iyd new distribution deal with Universal Pictures continues to roil the industry. Holders of more than 87% of senior subordinated notes participated in an
The hope for NBCUniversal CEO Jeff Shell in the studio’s new unprecedented 17-day theatrical window collapse-PVOD deal with AMC Theatres is to make more money in the post theatrical windows which have waned in recent years. “Movies are our lifeblood,” said the NBCUniversal pro-PVOD exec, “Over the last couple of years, it’s become more increasingly
EXCLUSIVE: Those in town assuming that one of the other big exhibition circuits will fall in line with AMC and seek their own 17-day theatrical window-PVOD deal with Universal will soon realize that it will be a cold day in hell. Cineworld CEO Mooky Greidinger, who oversees the world’s second largest chain, exclusively tells Deadline
After AMC CEO Adam Aron publicly threatened that he would never play Universal movies as along as the studio had a plan for simultaneous theatrical-PVOD releases like Trolls World Tour, the world’s No. 1 exhibitor and the Hollywood studio have broken bread with the following multi-year agreement: Universal and Focus Features releases will play at
Update, July 9: Universal is opening its Bob Odenkirk action thriller Nobody a week earlier on Feb. 19, 2021 instead of Feb. 26, 2021. The pic is now the only wide entry on that date, moving away from a weekend where Paramount put their Michael B. Jordan-Tom Clancy movie Without Remorse. PREVIOUS, April 7: Universal Moves Bob
Universal is moving a group of Blumhouse titles deeper into the theatrical release calendar including Miramax-Trancas International co-productions Halloween Kills and its sequel Halloween Ends, and The Forever Purge. In addition, MGM-Bron Creative-Monkeypaw’s Candyman is moving three weeks later. David Gordon Green’s Halloween Kills, which is in post, moves from Oct. 16 to Friday, Oct. 15, 2021 which is where
The Disney catalog joined Universal’s this weekend in playing whatever theaters were open at the box office as the majority of exhibition’s 5,9K theaters remain shuttered nationwide due to COVID-19. Overall, ticket sales continued to be distressed. Disney’s 2016 Oscar-winning hit Zootopia took the top spot with an estimated $280K, putting its liftime total at $341.5M,
M. Night Shyamalan’s next movie now has a release date. Universal said Tuesday that it will release the writer-director’s untitled thriller on July 23, 2021. The pic, details of which are under wraps, stars Eliza Scanlen, Thomasin McKenzie, Aaron Pierre, Alex Wolff and Vicky Krieps. On Monday, Deadline scooped that Abbey Lee, Nikki Amuka-Bird and
EXCLUSIVE: Updated with figures for Infamous…For a second time, Universal/Blumhouse’s Elisabeth Moss horror movie The Invisible Man has taken the top spot at the box office. That win, in the pic’s 16th weekend, reps its second No. 1 finish since opening over the February 28-March 1 weekend, thus stepping on the nine-week streak of the studio’s DreamWorks
Universal/Amblin’s Bios is the first to move off Oct. 2 after Warner Bros. plopped Wonder Woman 1984 on that new date, and will now go on April 16, 2021. With New York theaters and some prime offshore territories not really open yet, Warner Bros. made some seismic release date changes which has everyone jumping in
Buried in AMC’s 1Q 2020 earnings release on page 3 today was the statement, “While we are in active dialogue with Universal, no movies made by Universal Studios are currently on our docket.” The note comes a little bit more than a month after AMC CEO and President Adam Aron alerted the studio in a
Universal and Blumhouse are taking their Kevin Bacon–Amanda Seyfried psychological thriller You Should Have Left straight into homes on Friday, June 19 for a North America PVOD release. The pic was directed by Jurassic Park and Mission: Impossible scribe David Koepp which he adapted from the German novel by Daniel Kehlmann. Bacon and Seyfried star as a couple seeking
Universal–Blumhouse’s The Forever Purge, which was dated for July 10 prior to Warner Bros.’ The Tenet, is now unset. Solstice Studios’ Russell Crowe road rage movie Unhinged on July 1 remains the first wide release back for those cinemas reopening. We hear there is no determination yet as to whether Forever Purge goes to PVOD, which is where Universal released Trolls World
EXCLUSIVE: When the Danny Boyle-directed fable Yesterday was released last June, it was viewed as a bright spot for counter-programming at a moment when Toy Story 4 owned the box office leading into Spider-Man: Far From Home. The Universal/Working Title film, which grossed over $153.7M worldwide, did well enough to make it onto a list
Universal has set aside a number of release dates for event pics the studio plans to program in 2022. Disney and Warner Bros. do this all the time, and its a way of letting the competition know that there’s a title coming down the road. First date is MLK weekend, Jan 14 against 20th Century
Days after Jeff Shell’s statements in the Wall Street Journal spurred AMC boss Adam Aron to embargo the studio’s films, the NBCUniversal CEO acknowledged the company’s commitment to theatrical, but that PVOD will still be part of the equation. “The question is when we come out of this (pandemic), what is going to be the model?
Not to deflate the rousing round robin of mudslinging between AMC, Cineworld and Universal, but this whole OMG melee between exhibition and studios over PVOD, theatrical-window crunching and hurt feelings is poised to calm down soon. Some industry insiders believe the situation has already eased, and the statements made Thursday morning on Comcast’s Q1 earnings
The International Union of Cinemas (UNIC) has weighed in on the debate around Universal’s decision to release Trolls World Tour digitally during the pandemic. Yesterday, Universal CEO Jeff Shell revealed that the PVOD release, which the studio pivoted to after cinemas were shuttered by coronavirus, had generated close to $100M in revenues. Shell added that
EXCLUSIVE: Following yesterday’s flurry of dramatic exchanges involving AMC, the National Association of Theatre Owners and Universal, Regal Entertainment owner Cineworld Group has now added its voice to the chorus of windows controversy surrounding Trolls World Tour. The world’s second biggest circuit says its policy with respect to the window “is clear, well known in
Universal has responded to AMC boss Adam Aron’s note tonight to Universal Studios Chairman Donna Langley in which he told the studio that the chain won’t be playing their titles at their global venues. Essentially Uni says they “absolutely believe in the theatrical experience and made no statement to the contrary.” But… “As we stated