THE ARTIST RETURNS — BUT NOBODY CARES

Oscar winner The Artist did OK at the box office in its initial run, earning $44 million, even without ever hitting the top ten. But it earned nearly twice that amount overseas. So executives at the Weinstein Co. figured that there must be a bigger audience for the movie at home, too, and they decided [...]

WHAT HAPPENED TO NETFLIX’S CHIEF SPOKESMAN?

Mystery surrounds the sudden departure of Netflix spokesman Steve Swasey, a ten-year veteran of the online movie renter. Swasey was regarded as the public face of the company, handling, among other matters, questions concerning the embarrassing series of awkward moves by CEO Reed Hastings last year to transform the company into a streaming media provider. [...]

THE AVENGERS SMASHES MORE RECORDS

The Avengers cast dark shadows over Johnny Depp’s latest weirdness — and over everything else at the weekend box office as well. The Disney/Marvel superhero spectacle became the first movie ever to gross more than $100 million over what trade reporters call a sophomore stanza, wiping out Avatar‘s previous record of $75.6 million. Its estimated [...]

AVENGERS LIKELY TO KEEP DARK SHADOWS IN ITS SHADE

As The Avengers continues to steamroll over the box office, it’s likely to flatten the the latest Johnny Depp-Tim Burton collaboration, Dark Shadows — a film that would otherwise have easily become the top ticket seller. Today’s (Friday) Los Angeles Times said that it expects the opening of the movie to be “good but not [...]

MOVIE REVIEWS: DARK SHADOWS

The critics appear equally divided over Dark Shadows, and we’re referring not just to how they line up for or against the movie but also, in many cases, to how they render their individual reviews. Take Roger Ebert’s in the Chicago Sun-Times, for example. He hails Johnny Depp’s performance as “pitch perfect,” playing the character [...]

AVENGERS MAY BE SETTING MIDWEEK RECORDS, TOO

Disney/Marvel’s The Avengers continued to rack up ticket sales during midweek that would have been the envy of any studio on a weekend. On Monday, the movie earned $18.9 million, followed by $17.7 million on Tuesday. Those would appear to be near-record — or possibly record — figures for a film that did not open [...]

SONY LOSES RECORD $5.7 BILLION — BUT FILM STUDIO SOARS

Sony’s motion picture unit was the one bright spot on the parent company’s dismal annual SEC filing today (Thursday), which reported a record loss of $5.7 billion, including a loss of $3.2 billion in the most-recent quarter. Over the weekend, however, Sony Films became the year-long domestic box office leader, with $518.1 million in ticket [...]

STUDY: TAX INCENTIVES A GOOD INVESTMENT FOR STATES

According to a study by the accounting firm Ernst & Young for the Motion Picture Association of America, state tax incentives for the movie industry have a trickle-down effect (what the study calls “multiplier activity”) that boosts businesses that have little to do with the film business. The report, titled Evaluating the Effectiveness of State [...]

DESPITE HACKING SCANDAL, NEWS CORP’S NET SURGES 47 PERCENT

associated with the British telephone hacking scandal that brought down its most profitable newspaper, The News of the World, but the company nevertheless reported a 47-percent surge in net income in its third quarter to $937 million versus $639 million for the same period a year ago. “Once again, News Corporation showed strong operational momentum [...]

REPORT: MARVEL AND PARAMOUNT EXECS FEUDING AGAIN

Marvel executives are reportedly angry over published reports that Paramount stands to pocket at least $115 million in fees for The Avengers and Iron Man 3 without having to shell out a dime in costs, the New York Post reported today (Wednesday), citing unnamed sources. According to those sources, Paramount might have held on to [...]

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