The weekend looks a little softer than it did yesterday ($131 million for the top 12 films rather than $142 million).  The Hobbit is looking like an $85 million opening weekend instead of almost $99 million.   Still a record December opening weekend (beating I Am Legend’s $77.2 million opening weekend December 14-16, 2007) but not at […]

  THE HOBBIT: AN UNEXPECTED JOURNEY (Warners/MGM) will shatter all the December records it was expected to shatter, but based on preliminary numbers at Deadline, its projected $85M weekend is somewhat soft, considering that it had $37.5M on Friday alone.  That’s about a 2.25 weekend multiple, considerably lower than The Avengers (2.57) or Skyfall (2.77) […]

  OPENINGS:  This weekend consists of THE HOBBIT: AN UNEXPECTED JOURNEY (Warners/MGM) and then everything else.  Hobbit set a December opening day record with $37.5M, and it will set the opening weekend record for the month (currently held by I Am Legend with $77.2M), but it’s worth noting that its number isn’t very much higher […]

The 10PM hour was taken up by news shows concerning some of the saddest of recent events. FOX:  Lacking a news division of its own (let’s pretend its affiliated cable network doesn’t exist), FOX aired its regular line-up.  FRINGE was up 0.2 at 1.1, tying the rerun KITCHEN NIGHTMARES at 8PM. ABC:  The LAST MAN […]

Based on Friday’s grosses, Weekend #50 is on pace to exceed the  multi-year average for this weekend by a very solid 27%, and the $142 million total for the top 12 films is the best since December 14-16, 2007 ($152 million).  This weekend is all about Peter Jackson’s The Hobbit, which is on track to […]

  It’s impossible to know at this point how the unspeakable events in Newtown on Friday will affect family behavior over the weekend, and even though this tragedy, unlike the Aurora massacre in July, has no direct connection to movies or theaters, the crowds that might have attended matinees of a four-quadrant event like THE […]

  The cash has started pouring in for THE HOBBIT: AN UNEXPECTED JOURNEY (Warners/MGM).  In 3100 theatres, the film earned $13M in midnight screenings last night.  That was considerably higher than the $8M earned by the midnights for Return of the King, but King was in2003, before the phenomenon of midnight releases had really taken hold […]

Another Thursday where football simulcasts could affect ratings on 2 networks.  For now, at least, Scandal is having a moment. ABC:  The midseason finale of SCANDAL, pre-football adjustment in Philadelphia, is at what would be a new series high 2.7, its third high-scoring week in a row.  (Even after any revision, the show will easily […]