SAW 3D CARVES $24M OUT OF BOX OFFICE

Lionsgate’s Saw franchise seemed to get a new lease on death over the weekend (even though the studio had been touting the seventh film in the franchise as the final one), reinvigorated, it would appear, by 3D. Saw 3D took in $24.2 million according to studio estimates, $10 million more than the last installment of […]

FOX, CABLEVISION END BLACKOUT

Fox TV and Cablevision reached an agreement late today (Saturday) that will end the 16-day blackout of Fox television programing primarily in the New York area.

MGM CREDITORS APPROVE SPYGLASS DEAL

MGM creditors on Friday approved a prepackaged bankruptcy plan under which they would become owners of the beleaguered studio, which would be run by Spyglass Entertainment partners Gary Barber and Roger Birnbaum. In doing so, they rejected an alternate plan pushed forward by activist investor Carl Icahn that would have merged MGM with Lions Gate […]

WORLD SERIES RATINGS: GAME 2 STRIKES OUT

Ratings for Thursday’s Game 2 of the World Series between the San Francisco Giants and the Texas Rangers were again far behind last year’s Game 2 between the New York Yankees and the Philadelphia Phillies. The game averaged just 11.71 million viewers, versus 18.90 for Game 2 of the 2009 Series. The final half-hour of […]

COST OF POLITICAL TV ADS SOAR

Candidates for state and local office may be raising funds for their campaigns via the Internet but they are spending them mostly on local television, the Los Angeles Times reported today (Friday). Indeed, the newspaper noted, politicians are virtually ignoring the web when it comes to advertising in a rush to grab time on local […]

CBS AND RELIANCE TO CREATE INDIAN CHANNELS

CBS is coming to India. The network’s production arm, CBS Studios, is teaming up with India’s Reliance to launch Big CBS Prime next month, with two other Indian channels in the planning stages, Big CBS Spark, targeting a youth audience, scheduled to debut in December, and Big CBS Love, targeting women, set to premiere in […]

HAWAII FIVE-0‘S ORIGINAL DANNO DIES

James MacArthur, best remembered for his role as Detective Dan Williams on the original Hawaii Five-0 (“Book ’em, Danno”), has died in Florida at age 72. MacArthur, who had an 11-year-run on the show, mostly in the ’70s, never escaped identification with the character. Likewise he was perpetually identified as the “scion of theatrical royalty” […]

THE HORROR! THE HORROR! 2

Halloween weekend is certain to be dominated by two low-budget horror flicks, with the debut of the seventh Saw movie, this one in 3D, expected to outdraw the second week of the intentionally low-tech Paranormal Activity 2. Last year the two franchises went head-to-head against each other with the first Paranormal, which expanded wide after […]

MOVIE REVIEW: SAW VII 3D

Like its predecessors, Saw VII 3D was not screened in advance for most critics. But Roger Moore, who reviews movies for the Orlando Sentinel and the Knight Ridder Tribune news service, managed to get a look at the film — and his review demonstrates why Lionsgate, Saw‘s studio, and other studios generally do not show […]

REDBOX SWITCHING TO SETTOP BOX

Kiosk operator Redbox is planning to follow a course similar to that of Netflix, gradually transitioning to online rentals, the company said Thursday as corporate parent Coinstar released third-quarter results showing Redbox’s operating income growing 149 percent to $29.7 million on revenue of $305.5 million, up 54 percent. Faced with analysts’ concerns about its longterm […]

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