COMCAST EXEC FORECASTS REVIVAL OF NBC, UNIVERSAL

If it weren’t for its NFL telecasts, NBC would rank dead last among the major networks. Among the six major film studios, its corporate sibling Universal Pictures ranks fifth. But all that apparently hasn’t discouraged its controlling owner, Comcast Corp., whose CFO and vice chairman, Michael Angelakis, told a media conference Thursday that his company [...]

GOODBYE, $60 MOVIE RENTALS; WE HARDLY KNEW YE

Bowing to pressure from theater owners, Universal has scrapped plans for a test of Premium Video on Demand (PVOD) that would have made its upcoming Tower Heist available for a $60 rental fee in two markets, Atlanta and Portland OR, three weeks after it hit theaters. Two large exhibitors, Cinemark and National Amusements had threatened [...]

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 [...]

YOU TUBE MOVIES JUMP ACROSS THE POND

YouTube, which launched an online movie rental service in the U.S. and Canada in May, has expanded it to include the U.K., Britain’s Guardian newspaper reported today (Monday). According to the newspaper, the Google-owned website has sighed “U.K.-specific” deals with Sony, Warner Bros., Universal and Lionsgate. The article did not indicate how the deals are [...]

$60 TO RENT A MOVIE? IS THAT A TOWER HEIST?

How much will consumers be willing to shell out to watch a movie while it is still playing in theaters? Universal apparently believes that $60 sounds like a reasonable figure. It will soon find out. They’ll be making their Eddie Murphy-Ben Stiller comedy Tower Heist available via video-on-demand at that price beginning on November 23 [...]

UNIVERSAL HOME VIDEO TO RELEASE BIGGEST BOX SET EVER

Some analysts have suggested that a principal reason for the recent fall-off in DVD sales is that many consumers have already filled their shelves with the product and that they simply have no room left for more. If that is the case, then Universal Home Video may be bucking the odds bigtime with its planned [...]

WILL MOVIEGOERS GO APE OVER LATEST PLANET?

How much of a rise will 20th Century Fox’s Rise of the Planet of the Apes give the box office? Not an especially big one, according to box-office forecasters, who were notably way off in their calculations last week, when they predicted that Universal’s Cowboys & Aliens would do much more business than it did [...]

THE SMURFS TAKES THE LEAD

After a rare weekend photo-finish race at the box office between Universal’s Cowboys & Aliens and Sony/Columbia’s The Smurfs, which saw Cowboys come out ahead by about $800,000 when the final results were announced, The Smurfs has staged a comeback. In midweek business on Monday and Tuesday, the live/animated feature earned $10,669,520 while Cowboys lassoed [...]

BRIDESMAIDS SURPRISES AT BOX OFFICE

Lightning struck for a second weekend in a row as Thor easily held on to its top position at the box office with $34.7 million, bringing its total after ten days to $119.5 million. But the result that surprised most box-office analysts turned out to be the $26.3 million nabbed by Bridesmaids. Not only was [...]

FAST FIVE SETS OVERSEAS RECORD FOR UNIVERSAL

Fast Five has given Universal its biggest overseas gross for a single weekend in the studio’s history. Widening to 6,979 locations in 58 countries in its third week overseas — it opened in several key markets a week before its domestic debut — the movie took in $86.6 million — without the benefit of 3D [...]

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