Movies

Reading the tea leaves with regard to China in 2023 is even more difficult than usual. The country’s about-face on its longstanding zero-Covid policy has implications from geopolitics to economics and, closer to home for Hollywood, the state of the market after a dismal 2022. Exactly what those implications are is where the guesswork comes

Competition is good for business, even when it comes to competing movies about evil dolls. Between seven horror movies (see our ranking of all 7 Chucky films) and two seasons of television, Chucky might be the OG MVP of serial murders, but there is a new killer doll on the block, and she’s looking to

Alcarràs, winner of the Golden Bear in Berlin, opens on five screens in New York, Los Angeles and Chicago, presented by Mubi; Quiver Distribution releases Candy Land in nine theaters; and Sony’s Tom Hanks-starring A Man Called Otto, UAR’s Women Talking and IFC Films’ Corsage move into moderate expansions as the broader specialty market barrels

It’s rare in Hollywood to create a sequel to a movie that is held in as high if not higher regard than the original. It’s even rarer when the sequel in question is the predecessor to one of the best sci-fi films of all time, Ridley Scott’s Alien. However, that is precisely what James Cameron

FRIDAY PM: For an early January weekend falling after New Year’s Day and before MLK, it’s sure not sleepy. Some adult films may have a hard time working at the box office as moviegoing comes out of the pandemic, but you can bet the house on horror films. Universal has a vibrant No. 2 winner

It’s surprisingly rare that a movie that is a massive box office smash is also talked about in awards conversations, but such is the case right now with Top Gun: Maverick. The movie, while now the second highest grossing film of 2022, still made nearly $1.5 billion and it’s been nominated for the Golden Globe

Global box office for 2022 reached nearly $26B, a 27% gain on the previous year, according to Gower Street Analytics. Of the estimated $25.9B total, the international box office represents $18.4B, a 16% increase on last year at current exchange rates, the total being dragged down by China. Stripping out that market, overseas is estimated

As Billie Eilish turned 21 just days before the holiday season kicked off, the singer has accomplished more before hitting America’s legal drinking age than most could dream in a lifetime. The celebrity just toured the world, including becoming the youngest performer to headline Coachella along with providing the latest James Bond theme and earning

Judge Marvin Isgur on Wednesday told parties to the Cineworld bankruptcy that they need to speed things up as debtors and creditors hash out a restructuring plan for the giant movie chain, including closing theaters, wrapping up lease negotiations with landlords, and advancing an overall sale process. “We are not going to stick around forever.

The legendary faux feud between Hugh Jackman and Ryan Reynolds continues, as the actor behind Wolverine took to social media in an effort to derail the Oscar chances for a song his Deadpool 3 co-star performs in Spirited. And while Jackman tries to hilariously stop his fake foe’s chances this award season, Reynolds has responded

Big holiday ticket prices, bonus performances and large audiences spurred a hefty surge of nearly 50% in Broadway box office last week (ending Jan. 1) over the previous week, with productions including Funny Girl, MJ, Six, Beetlejuice and & Juliet among the shows smashing house records. With 20 of the 33 shows adding a ninth

A vacation can be a pricey proposition for just about anyone. You have to consider elements like travel expenses (such as plane tickets or fuel costs), lodging and more, and those sums only increase when one has a family. In most cases, celebrities end up paying a pretty penny as well when they go on

MONDAY AM UPDATE: Sunday came in stronger for Avatar: The Way of Water than Disney expected, grossing a great $24.4M to what was thought to be $21M. That’s the third biggest New Year’s Day haul of all-time after The Force Awakens ($34.3M) and James Cameron’s first Avatar ($25.2M). Avatar 2‘s New Year’s Day was even

Over the holiday, James Cameron transported audiences to the mythical land of Pandora courtesy of his Avatar sequel, where the Na’vi – and a rebel soldier named Jake Sully (Sam Worthington) – fight off human invaders to protect the natural resources of their environment. The storyteller says that he has enough narratives to sustain at

Sony’s A Man Called Otto began the first phase of a three-step rollout this weekend in an exclusive run at four LA and NY theaters, grossing $60k, for a $15k per screen average, over the three-day weekend. The four-day estimated gross is $75K, or an $18.7k PSA. The test for the remake of the Swedish film

James Cameron has finally ushered in the release of Avatar: The Way of Water, and it only marks the first phase of what’s to come for the multi-billion-dollar IP. By this point, it’s no secret that Cameron and his team are working on multiple follow-ups that are in various stages of production. The prospect of

The motion picture industry remains in a state of rehabilitation. Just look at the majors’ domestic box office alone. Back in 2019, four studios grossed over a billion apiece, with Disney-Fox reaping $4.28 billion alone. This year, only three studios grossed $1 billion or more. And while we do get down to the nitty gritty,

David Fincher’s Fight Club wasn’t always considered the seminal film it is today. (Edward Norton and Brad Pitt both have spoken about the movie being booed at early screenings.) Though thanks to home video, the adaptation of the Chuck Palahniuk novel of the same name has become a cult classic that is hard to imagine,

FRIDAY PM UPDATE: Avatar The Way of Water‘s 3rd Friday is on its way to $22M+, which is up 15% from its second Friday of $19.2M a week ago and will put the sequel’s 15-day total at around $380M. Today’s gross is also bigger than Rogue One‘s third Friday of $18.2M. This looks to be

Allison Williams starred in a few well-received YouTube shorts before being cast by Judd Apatow in the critically praised HBO series Girls. From this television series, created by and starring Lena Dunham, the young actress began to make a name for herself, and her career soon evolved, as she took on roles, like her villainous

AMC Entertainment has rejiggered is board, announcing the election of two new directors and one who is exiting. The former Sundance Institute chief and Miramax production president Keri Putman, a big advocate for independent film, as well as Dee Clark, who has worked in information technology at Hasbro, Mattel, Warner Music and Apple, will join

The Hangover became the highest-grossing R-rated comedy in 2009 domestically. It even managed to sneak into first place at the weekend box office ahead of Pixar’s Up! One of the comedy’s core cast members, Ed Helms, spoke about the panic and anxiety he felt due to The Hangover’s fame, painting us a picture of the

WEDNESDAY UPDATE:, Refresh for latest… James Cameron’s Avatar: The Way of Water has officially topped the $1B global mark. As we wrote yesterday (see below), the 20th Century Studios/Disney sequel got to the milestone with Tuesday’s grosses. This benchmark has been met in just 14 days of worldwide release.  Way of Water now has bragging rights

Part of the reason the James Bond movies have such good behind-the-scenes stories to share is the fact that there are so many who’ve auditioned to be a part of that world who either didn’t get in or found their way in later. That’s not only true with the men who could have been Bond,

“I had a bit of a crisis of faith as we were cutting the movie together,” admitted James Cameron of his billion-dollar-grossing Avatar: The Way of Water. “It was too violent. I wanted a balance between the beauty, the epiphany, the kind of spiritual aspect of the film, with the action, and I felt it

Ever since there have been famous people, there’ve been celebrity couples. This can be a downside to fame, as it makes one’s personal life into a very public matter. JLo and Ben Affleck know this all too well, as their first relationship and recent reunion have made countless headlines. It turns out that Affleck and

Damien Chazelle’s $80M 1920s-set Hollywood epic Babylon went up in a blaze of fire at the domestic box office this past weekend with an awful $5.3M four-day start. Say what you will about harsh winter conditions impacting moviegoing across the country, however, this movie, which was greenlit by a previous Paramount regime and greatly supported

When she made her breakthrough role as Penny Lane in Almost Famous, Kate Hudson wasn’t the first person from her family to enter the entertainment industry. In fact, she’s the daughter of Housesitter actress Goldie Hawn and musician Bill Hudson, and the stepdaughter of actor Kurt Russell. Since articles have been rolling out recently about

New Yorkers braved the cold this weekend for Corsage at two theaters ( IFC Center, Film at Lincoln Center) as Marie Kreutzer’s biopic of Empress Elisabeth of Austria starring Vicky Krieps grossed an estimated $32,000 over the three-day weekend for a robust $16k per screen average. The four-day estimate for the IFC Films biopic of

Barbiecore has been a big look over the past year as Greta Gerwig’s Barbie movie has ramped up and celebrities like Florence Pugh have rocked the newly popular pink hue. Of course, Megan Fox is not one to ignore a hot trend, and went full Barbiecore for a recent event with Machine Gun Kelly. Her