OPENINGS:  PAIN & GAIN (Paramount) is a “relationship” movie, not in the sense of the relationships between the movie’s characters (oh God, no), but the relationship between the studio and its director, Michael Bay.  This was a passion project for Bay, and Paramount agreed to let him make it–and oh, by the way, also […]

  Another dim night for most of the networks. NBC:  Last night marked the season’s final Friday airing of GRIMM before it moves to Tuesdays, and its send-off was unpromising, a 1.3 that was down 0.2 from its last new episode 3 weeks ago.  As could be expected after last week’s breaking news in Boston, […]

Based on Friday’s grosses, Weekend #17 of 2013 is looking like a very weak $80 million for the top 12 films, down 34% from the average the past few years for this weekend and down 18% from the same weekend last year.  Michael Bay’s Pain and Gain opened fairly quietly — not a total disaster but […]

  PAIN & GAIN (Paramount) may take the last weekend before the summer movie season starts, but based on the preliminary numbers at Deadline, it’s not going to win very impressively, with a $7M Thursday night/Friday that should give it a $17-19M weekend, right where Mitch Metcalf’s weekend predictions had put it.  Pain was shot on […]

  Less than 24 hours after its airing as an episode of The Vampire Diaries, CW has ordered the spin-off series THE ORIGINALS for the 2013-14 season.  (My review is here.)  Last night’s rating was a lackluster 0.9, but it was an awful night overall for the networks, and the response to the pilot has […]

  Today NBC announced renewals of the dramas that everyone knew would be renewed:  REVOLUTION, GRIMM, CHICAGO FIRE, PARENTHOOD (thank god!) and LAW & ORDER: SVU.  It’s worth noting that while all the renewals are completely justifiable by NBC standards, they give the network five hours of primetime next season that will be unlikely to […]

  IRON MAN 3 (Disney) added some territories to its overseas footprint on Thursday, and had a huge $23.3M day, giving it a total of $36.5M in just 2 weekdays, with many more territories to open today.  It’s been pulling ahead of Iron Man 2 in many markets, and opening not far behind The Avengers, […]

  So much for the excitement of May Sweeps.  The NFL Draft on ESPN may not have helped, but an alarming number of network shows last night hit season and even all-time series lows. FOX:  Oh, how AMERICAN IDOL‘s fortunes have tumbled.  Last night it hit an all-time low 2.7, down 0.3 from last week […]