NBCUNIVERSAL LOOKING HEALTHIER UNDER COMCAST

It goes without saying that owning the television network that broadcasts the Super Bowl can be beneficial to a company’s financial health during the first quarter of any year. But Comcast’s purchase of NBCUniversal in January 2011 has reaped benefits for the company in other ways as well, pushing its first-quarter profits to $1.224 billion, […]

NBCUNIVERSAL LOOKING HEALTHIER UNDER COMCAST

It goes without saying that owning the television network that broadcasts the Super Bowl can be beneficial to a company’s financial health during the first quarter of any year. But Comcast’s purchase of NBCUniversal in January 2011 has reaped benefits for the company in other ways as well, pushing its first-quarter profits to $1.224 billion, […]

ON DVD PUSS IN BOOTS IS THE CAT’S MEOW

As expected, the DVD sales chart was dominated last week by the debut of DreamWorks Animation’s Puss in Boots. Nielsen VideoScan First Alert observed that the movie, a prequel to Shrek, earned twice as much as the No. 2 DVD finisher, Universal’s Tower Heist and the No. 3 finisher, The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn — […]

MUPPETS FAIL TO BREAK BREAKING DAWN‘S HOLD ON FIRST PLACE (Updated)

Where’s Oscar the Grouch when you need him? Many box-office forecasters had predicted that this would be the weekend when Disney’s The Muppets took over first place from Summit Entertainment’s The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn — Part 1. After all, they reasoned, Disney’s Tangled brought the last Harry Potter movie down over the same weekend […]

WEEKEND BOX OFFICE RISES 12 PERCENT ABOVE LAST YEAR

With a slate of debuting films performing at the high end of expectations or above and last week’s top film dropping only 25 percent in its third week, the weekend box office wound up 12 percent above its total for the same weekend a year ago. The easy winner was Relativity Media’s Immortals, which grossed […]

IMMORTALS KILLS AT WEEKEND BOX OFFICE

There was a lot more life in Immortals than most box office pundits had expected. The swords-and-sandals epic that drew thumbs-down reviews from nearly every major newspaper critic, debuted with an estimated $32 million. Even Relativity Media, which produced it, had figured it would probably earn around $25 million for the three-day weekend. Those same […]

WILL ACADEMY FIRE OSCAR CO-PRODUCER BRETT RATNER? (Updated)

UPDATE: Late today (Tuesday) Ratner resigned as co-producer of the Oscar telecast. After apologizing (a second time) for his offending remark about gays, Ratner said: “As difficult as the last few days have been for me, they cannot compare to the experience of any young man or woman who has been the target of offensive […]

PUSS LIFTS DREAMWORKS ANIMATION’S SHARES

What a difference a weekend makes! Shares of DreamWorks Animation shot up 12 percent on Monday on word that its latest feature, Puss in Boots, declined only 3 percent over the weekend — the smallest drop for a movie during a non-holiday period ever — as it wound up with $33.1 million. A week ago, […]

TINTIN DOMINATES OVERSEAS BOX OFFICE

Overseas, Steven Spielberg’s The Adventures of Tintin easily captured the No. 1 spot for the second weekend in a row with $40.8 million in ticket sales. Since opening on Oct. 26, the animated film has earned $125.3 million in 45 countries. The film dominated the market in most countries, particularly the U.K., where it racked […]

A BEVY OF COMEDY WRITERS ASSEMBLED FOR OSCARCAST

Call it the Academy Awards Comedy Show, because that is what it will apparently amount to, judging from a Los Angeles Times report today (Monday) that describes how co-producer Brett Ratner has brought on board a host of comedy writers for the February telecast — from those working on such TV shows as Saturday Night […]

Next Page »