SONY RETURNS TO THE BLACK AFTER FIVE YEARS

Sony Corp has posted its first full-year profit in five years, attributing much of its turn-around to the box office successes of its film and home-video divisions. The company reported full-year income of $458 million versus a loss of $5.7 billion a year ago. In particular the company cited the box-office success of The Amazing […]

SKYFALL DRAWS RECORD CROWDS IN CHINA

The James Bond movie Skyfall, which opened last Monday in China, took in $35 million during its first week, according to the website 21cn.com. It was a record for a 2D film, the website said, and was exceeded only by James Cameron’s 3D Avatar, which opened in China with $46 million in its first week […]

SKYFALL FALLS VICTIM TO CHINESE CENSORS

The James Bond film Skyfall is the latest Hollywood production to be subjected to the caprice of Chinese censors. In advance of its opening on the mainland on Monday (it opened in Hong Kong last November), a scene, shot in Shanghai, showing a French hitman shooting a guard in the elevator lobby of a skyscraper […]

BEN-HUR RIDES AGAIN

And lo, the return of James Bond and the Hobbit will beget the return of Ben-Hur. According to Deadline.com, the success of Skyfall and The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey has so raised MGM’s standing that it now plans to remake the 1959 blockbuster (a silent version, directed by Cecil B. DeMille, was also produced in […]

PRODUCERS ANNOUNCE NOMINEES FOR PGA AWARD

The producers of some of the year’s biggest blockbusters as well as those of critically acclaimed art films comprised an eclectic list of nominees for the 2012 Producers Guild Award announced on Wednesday. Barbara Broccoli and Michael Wilson, the James Bond filmmakers who are generally overlooked at awards season, were among the nominees for Skyfall, […]

THE HOBBIT NEARS $500 MILLION OVERSEAS

The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey took an expected journey to the top of the overseas box office over the weekend; what was unexpected was the profitability of the journey, now in its third week. The film dipped just 12 percent from a week ago in those markets where it was playing last week, and it […]

THE HOBBIT HOPS BACK TO FIRST PLACE

Peter Jackson’s The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey may have taken a back seat to two newcomers, Les Misérables and Django Unchained on Christmas Day, but it came galloping back, overtaking both films over the weekend with an estimated gross of $32.9 million to record its third consecutive weekend box-office victory. It was down just 8.6 […]

LOUSY BOX OFFICE? IT WAS WORSE LAST YEAR

Ticket sales at the box office looked pretty dismal last weekend, but they weren’t nearly so bad as some forecasters had predicted. In fact, they turned out to be 6 percent better than they were a year ago during the comparable weekend, when New Year’s Eve opened with $13 million. The top film this past […]

IN FIFTH WEEK SKYFALL RISES TO NO. 1 (Updated)

In a slow weekend at the box office, Skyfall, the 23rd James Bond thriller, rose to No. 1, pushing The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn — Part 2 to third place, behind the third week of the animated Rise of the Guardians. The numbers for each of the top three were nothing to cheer about. Skyfall […]

LITTLE NEED TO BUY MOVIE TICKETS IN ADVANCE THIS WEEKEND

This weekend could very well see the fewest tickets sold at the box office this year. FilmDistrict decided to launch its romcom Playing for Keeps this weekend in order to avoid having to compete with the upcoming holiday blockbusters, which begin rolling out next weekend with the first installment of The Hobbit trilogy. However, Daily […]

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