BOX OFFICE AWAKENING AS UNDERWORLD SEQUEL TAKES OFF (Updated)

The top two films at the weekend box office performed well above expectations and helped push the overall gross more than 30 percent above the same weekend a year ago, according to studio estimates. Sony Screen Gems’s Underworld: Awakening debuted ahead of the pack with an estimated $25.4 million (it made an additional $13.4 million […]

CONTRABAND LAUNDERS $28.5 MILLION

Final box-office figures came in slightly below studio estimates for the 3-day and 4-day Martin Luther King Jr. holiday weekend. Nevertheless, Universal’s Contraband starring Mark Wahlberg, performed far better than pundits had forecast, earning $24.3 million for the three-day period and $28.5 million for the four-. The 3D re-release of Disney’s Beauty and the Beast […]

CONTRABAND: A LICENSE TO PRINT MONEY

Universal’s Contraband, starring Mark Wahlburg, smuggled $24.5 million into the U.S. box office over the weekend and is expected to increase that amount to around $29 million over the four-day Martin Luther King Jr. holiday. Most box-office pundits had figured it would earn around $20 million. Disney’s 3D digital re-release of Beauty and the Beast […]

WILL BEAUTY AND THE BEAST RETURN AT #1?

There’s a strong possibility that the belle of the box-office ball over the Martin Luther King holiday will be Walt Disney’s Beauty and the Beast — all decked out in digital 3D stateliness. The 3D conversion is said to have cost the studio about $10 million, and box-office pundits are conservatively forecasting that it should […]

MOVIE REVIEWS: CONTRABAND

Critics are divided almost equally over the merits of Contraband, the new thriller starring Mark Wahlburg as a retired smuggler forced to return to his old business. On the one hand, there’s Roger Ebert who dismisses the movie as “this crap” in his review in the Chicago Sun-Times. On the other hand, there’s Joe Morgenstern […]