SUMMER TENTPOLE MOVIES ARRIVING ON DVD

It may be a lousy time of the year at the box office, but all those big summer blockbusters are now arriving on DVD and Blu-ray. And making a big splash. Last week, Paramount Home Entertainment’s Thor hit the top of the Nielsen VideoScan First Alert sales chart, displacing the previous week’s winner, 20th Century […]

BRIDESMAIDS: WHAT A RECEPTION!

If executives at one studio were wringing their hands over the failure of Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides to crack the $100-million mark, executives at another were no doubt pumping them in the air after learning that Bridesmaids declined just 20 percent in its second week to $20.9 million. It managed to beat […]

STRANGER TIDES IS NO TSUNAMI

Question: When is a weekend box-office haul of $90.1 million considered a disappointment? Answer: When it’s the result for a Pirates of the Caribbean sequel, that’s when. On Stranger Tides wasn’t expected to surpass the $114 million that the last sequel, At World’s End, did in 2007, let alone the $135.6 million that Dead Man’s […]

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 […]

THOR WINS, BUT BRIDESMAIDS CATCHES THE BOUQUET

Showbiz blogger Nikki Finke joked on Sunday — at least, we presume that she was joking — that the surprising success of Bridesmaids over the weekend has caused her to pack up and leave town. “I was so convinced that this rare R-rated event comedy featuring women burping and farting for our female amusement wouldn’t […]

PRIEST MAY NEED ONE

It’s officially only the second weekend of the summer movie season, and already a movie is opening without its being shown to critics in advance — a fate usually reserved for dregs of the season that are tossed out in late August or early September. The movie is Priest, starring Paul Bettany — and if […]

MOTHERS DAY WAS BUSY AT BOX OFFICE

Far more families went to the movies on Sunday — Mothers Day — than the studios had estimated. That was particularly good news for two romantic comedies which forecasters last week thought would have a hard time cracking $10 million. Jumping the Broom, which surprised Hollywood gurus when the studio estimated on Sunday that it […]

THOR: THE SOUND OF DISTANT THUNDER

Marvel’s Thor may not have been among the most popular superheroes to grace the pages of the publisher’s comic books, but as a movie character, portrayed by Australian actor Chris Hemsworth, he certainly has held his own. With an estimated $66-million opening, he beat out the original X-Men ($54.5 million), The Fantastic Four ($58.1 million), […]

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 […]

THOR LIKELY TO THUNDER AT THE BOX OFFICE

So, can a 3D superhero flick directed by a man generally associated with movie versions of Shakespeare’s plays attract an audience as big as last week’s for a heist thriller spun off from a street racing franchise? Most forecasters doubt that Thor will be able to do so, but, then again, last week they underestimated […]

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