ANOTHER JUMP IN BOX-OFFICE BUCKS FOR JUMP STREET

The debut of Sony’s R-rated 21 Jump Street actually performed better than the studio’s already outstanding estimates had indicated on Sunday. Final figures released on Monday disclosed that the movie starring Jonah Hill and Channing Tatum brought in $36.30 million over the weekend — $1.3 million more than the studio’s estimate. Veteran box office analyst [...]

BRITISH MUSIC RETAILER LAUNCHES VIDEO-ON-DEMAND SERVICE

HMV, Britain’s largest music and video retailer, is launching a beta version of its video-on-demand rental service today (Thursday) in the hope of offsetting slumping in-store sales. The retail chain said that it is partnering with FilmFlex, a joint venture between Sony Pictures TV and Disney that operates as a middleman — it calls itself [...]

CARS 2 RACES FAR AHEAD OF COMPETITION

Demonstrating yet again that when it comes to home video sales, it’s difficult to beat movies targeting kids, Disney’s Cars 2 sold nearly as many units as every other movie on the retail shelves put together last week. Surprisingly, 17 percent of the Cars discs sold were in the Blu-ray 3D format, although only a [...]

DISNEY TEAMS UP WITH YOUTUBE

Reversing its traditional go-it-alone policy, the Walt Disney Co. announced today (Monday) that it will partner with Google’s YouTube to create a co-branded online video channel for family entertainment early next year. The New York Times, which first reported the deal on Sunday, said that it reflected the fact that the number of visitors to [...]

CAPTAIN AMERICA WHIPS JACK SPARROW

Paramount Home Entertainment’s Captain America: The First Avenger sent Disney’s Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides to the plank last week. The Marvel superhero debuted in first place on the DVD and Blu-ray Disc charts, according to Nielsen VideoScan First Alert. According to Home Media magazine, Blu-ray Disc sales for Captain America accounted for [...]

FOOTLOOSE TRIPPED BY REAL STEEL

Paramount’s Footloose, which held a slim lead at the box office on Friday and Saturday, lost its footing on Sunday and wound up in second place for the weekend as Disney/DreamWorks’s Real Steel made a comeback, thanks to Sunday’s influx of family audiences at many theaters. Neither film had much to boast about, however. Real [...]

STEEL CUTS LOOSE (Updated)

There was another photo finish at the box office again this weekend. Preliminary estimates put the second week of Disney/DreamWorks’s Real Steel in the lead with $16.3 million, with Paramount’s Footloose close behind with $16.1 million. But there was a strong possibility that those two films could switch positions when the final tally is announced [...]

HULU OWNERS DROP PLANS TO SELL THEIR VIDEO SITE

Unable to find a buyer willing to pay anything close to their asking price, the owners of the TV video site Hulu have announced their “decision to terminate the Hulu sale process.” The bickering owners — News Corp, which contributes mostly Fox TV shows to the website; Disney, which contributes mostly ABC shows; Comcast, which [...]

FAST FIVE DEBUTS AT NO. 1 ON DVD SALES CHART

Universal’s Fast Five raced ahead of the competition, debuting in first place on Nielsen VideoScan First Alert’s DVD sales chart for last week. (The chart does not provide actual sales figures.) Hot on its heels, however, was Disney’s re-release of The Lion King: Diamond Edition, which was still being shown in theaters (in 3D) last [...]

MORE 3D RE-RELEASES COMING FROM DISNEY (Updated)

Following the striking success of the re-release of The Lion King in 3D — it has sold more than $80 million worth of tickets since its release less than three weeks ago — Disney is planning similar 3D reboots for additional past hits, including 1991′s Beauty and the Beast, Finding Nemo, Monsters, Inc. and The [...]

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