MONDAY AM writethru: Yes, Virginia, there is a Santa Claus, and he’s delivering the motion picture industry a $9 billion-plus year at the domestic box office, a feat many thought was unimaginable with the lack of a mega-tentpole over the holiday, coupled by a Q4 impacted by the double strikes. The numbers were compiled from
Look Back & Look Ahead
There will be blood at the box office in 2024. And not the type that comes with two studio tentpoles going at each other. Nah, as Barbenheimer showed this past year, that’s actually great for business. We’re talking the red-ink kind, and it will be felt on both sides, studios and cinemas, with the latter
Warner Bros. Discovery is reaching back to its past to celebrate a century of entertainment in a new, four-part documentary series. Narrator Morgan Freeman will guide viewers through “100 Years of Warner Bros.,” offering clips from past TV shows and films, along with takes from the directors, actors, and executives who created the magic, and
A flying ace, rampaging dinosaurs, Marvel, DC, Minions and battling blue aliens on a distant planet were among the highlights of 2022 for the Hollywood studios at the global and international box office. Still, it was yet another year of transition, with worldwide grosses reaching an estimated $26B — a 27% increase on 2021 but
The motion picture industry remains in a state of rehabilitation. Just look at the majors’ domestic box office alone. Back in 2019, four studios grossed over a billion apiece, with Disney-Fox reaping $4.28 billion alone. This year, only three studios grossed $1 billion or more. And while we do get down to the nitty gritty,
Updated: The aftermath of Covid’s 2020-21 closure of cinemas will continue to be felt in 2023 as the domestic box office claws its way back to what many sources believe is an $8 billion-$9 billion result. On the high end, it’s a 22% jump from what Comscore is expecting 2022 to final at, that being
There are multiple ceremonies planned for Saturday, September 11, to mark the 20th anniversary of the 9/11 terrorist attacks. But before then, all the major networks and streamers are rolling out programming to commemorate the lives lost and provide perspective on one of the darkest days in U.S. history. For an exhaustive schedule of 9/11
If 2020 began with promise, all that changed as every industry tradition we took for granted was stripped away without warning. The pandemic has seen nearly 20 million positive cases in the U.S. alone, and soon 350,000 will be dead. Every facet of entertainment was impacted: live theaters and movie theaters closed, production in TV
If 2020 began with promise, all that changed as every industry tradition we took for granted was stripped away without warning. The pandemic has seen nearly 20 million positive cases in the U.S. alone, and soon 350,000 will be dead. Every facet of entertainment was impacted: live theaters and movie theaters closed, production in TV
A word for stocks in 2020: epic — as in monumental, as a bona fide crash in the spring alternated thereafter with convulsions of angst and optimism reflecting a world turned upside down by the first global pandemic in a century. Major indexes from the Dow Jones to the Nasdaq, S&P 500 and Russell 3000
It was supposed to be a year when the playing field became even. After losing to Disney for four years in a row, with the Burbank studio setting an industry record in 2019 of $13.2 billion global box office, a new major studio was set to become the domestic king. “I think 2020 is going