Box office collection news

Broadway continued its winter freeze last week, with box office dropping 11% to a slim $16,494,289 for its meager 21-show roster. Attendance for the week ending Jan. 23 was 152,135, a slip of 6% from the previous week. The reduced roster – the previous week had 25 productions on the boards – did seem to help at least some per-show attendances: In all, total attendance was at 75% of Broadway capacity, a noticeable jump from the previous week’s 66%. The figures also reflect the reduced prices of the twice-annual Broadway Week promotion (actually, nearly a month this year, ending Feb. 13), with two-for-one tickets available at many shows. Despite a modest $108 average ticket price, many potential theater-goers apparently remained reluctant to venture out during New York’s still-concerning – if significantly receding – Omicron wave. No Broadway production last week saw any canceled performances last week due to illness. Still, four productions were gone from the roster, … [Read more...] about Broadway Box Office Slides 11% To $16M As Roster Drops To 21 Shows

More bragging rights for Sony , the studio dedicated to the theatrical window and distributor of the highest grossing movie of the pandemic, Spider-Man: No Way Home ; their Marvel sequel Venom: Let There Be Carnage now counts $213.517M at the domestic box office, clicking past the 2018 first title’s $213.515M. Venom: Let There Be Carnage made $18,5K at 725 theaters yesterday. Venom: Let There Be Carnage opened over the Oct. 1-3, 2021 weekend and made $90M which for a minute was the highest domestic opening during the pandemic, before Spider-Man: No Way Home pushed it to second for the Covid era with $260.1M. The first Venom got to its final stateside gross in 112 days, and the sequel is pulling ahead in 117 days, not too shabby by pandemic standards. In the wake of Spider-Man: No Way Home becoming the 4th highest grossing movie of all-time at the U.S./Canada box office with currently $723M, Venom 2 ‘s ticket sales are just another indicator that … [Read more...] about ‘Venom: Let There Be Carnage’ Passes Domestic Box Office Of First Film, More Proof There’s Moviegoing During Pandemic

Editor’s Note : The original story included erroneous characterization of the Puerto Rican characters in West Side Story as immigrants, which has been removed. We regret the error. Sunday AM Update: After Saturday update, refresh for more analysis, updated weekend chart The opening weekend of Disney/ 20th Century Studios / Amblin ’s West Side Story, the first feature musical from Oscar-winning filmmaker Steven Spielberg , isn’t anything to shout from the rooftops about. It had a $4.1M Friday, including previews, a $3.8M Saturday, and a weekend that’s at $10.5M . Imax and PLFs repped 33% of the weekend’s ticket sales. West Side Story is being released with a theatrical window, and its results are under that of another Broadway Hispanic and Latino feature musical released earlier this year. That being Warner Bros. In the Heights, which fizzled with a $11.5M start off a theatrical and HBO Max day-and-date debut. Now, it’s par for the course … [Read more...] about ‘West Side Story’ Isn’t Kicking Up With $10M+ Opening: What That Means Right Now During Another Pandemic Holiday – Sunday Update

The Portland City Attorney apologized Tuesday to the Department of Justice for not turning over riot-police training materials that included a right-wing meme about bashing “dirty” hippies. “In retrospect, I agree that we should have provided the material to DOJ sooner,” wrote city attorney Robert Taylor in a letter dated Jan. 25. “I take responsibility and apologize.” The mea culpa comes days after the feds formally rebuked the Portland Police Bureau for covering up its use of a Proud Boys meme in training materials. A slide from a crowd-control PowerPoint developed for Portland police featured the “ Prayer of the Alt Knight ” — a meme showing a riot cop bashing a long-haired citizen, with an overlay of text that reads, in part:  “Woe be unto you, dirty hippy… I shall send among you, My humble servants with hat, and with bat; That they may christen your heads with hickory, And anoint your faces with pepper spray.” (The meme is linked to the “Fraternal Order of … [Read more...] about Portland Police Used a Proud Boy Meme in Their Training Materials. The Feds Want Answers

Downton Abbey: A New Era is a movie that could truly bring older adults back to cinemas, and Focus Features , Universal International and Carnival Films are going to put the title in the best place possible in hopes that Covid eases. The companies have moved the sequel from its original March 18 release date to May 20 in the U.S. and April 29 in the UK. In the U.S, Downton Abbey 2 moves to a weekend where the only other major studio wide release is Warner Bros’ family animated film DC Super Pets. The sequel’s move from the March 18-20 weekend leaves STX’s Guy Ritchie title Operation Fortune: Ruse de guerre as the only studio wide release that weekend. Warner Bros’ The Batman on March 4 is expected to do $100M-plus business, and there aren’t any wide release movies programmed during the weekend of March 11-13. In Downton Abbey: A New Era, the characters go on a grand journey to the South of France to uncover the mystery of the Dowager Countess’ newly … [Read more...] about ‘Downton Abbey: A New Era’ Release Date Shifts To Early Summer

There is a meditative quality to both Joe Rogan and Jordan Peterson ’s work that sucks you in. For Rogan, it is his voice — a soft, curious, always credulous murmur that lends itself to explaining complicated topics. Watching Rogan deconstruct a mixed martial arts fight can be a genuine pleasure for fans of the sport, like listening to a close friend really nerd out over something they’re passionate about. Peterson is not as blessed sonically — he sounds like Kermit the Frog as a freshman philosophy major — but he too projects the same blithe confidence in his own words that can make almost any topic sound compelling. The only problem is, Joe Rogan and Jordan Peterson are two of the dumbest people on earth. The wildly successful podcast host and self-help author’s careers have intersected and built on one another multiple times, as their core audience of disaffected young men is largely the same. Their paths crossed once again this week in a four-hour marathon conversation on … [Read more...] about Joe Rogan and Jordan Peterson Wax Idiotic on Climate Change and What It Means to Be Black

Frank Mullen didn’t want the moment to end. After several years of scaled-back commitments with his band Suffocation, retirement was finally in sight for the 48-year-old, who during the past three decades has garnered a reputation as not only one of the most ferocious vocalists in the death-metal subgenre but also, improbably, one of the most entertaining. The last hometown show on his final run of North American shows with the band, dubbed the Farewell Frank Tour, had entered the home stretch. The Long Island quintet, a hard-touring act with a rabid international following and secure elder statesmen status in their style, was onstage Friday at New York’s Gramercy Theatre, playing one of its “hits,” “Liege of Inveracity,” the opening track off its 1991 debut, Effigy of the Forgotten . The band reached the song’s climax — a grinding, caveman-simple half-time riff of the sort that has earned Suffocation a designation as one of the godfathers of a sound known as “slam” — and in the … [Read more...] about Farewell, Frank Mullen: Suffocation’s Death-Metal Maestro Goes Out on Top

A review of this week’s The Book of Boba Fett , “The Return of the Mandalorian,” coming up just as soon as I open a petting zoo… We have to start by acknowledging that calling this an episode of The Book of Boba Fett feels like a stretch. Yes, Fennec Shand pops up at the very end. But for nearly all of its running time, this is basically The Mandalorian Season Two and a Half — a chance to catch up with Mando, see how he’s doing without his adorable pal Grogu, and just enjoy him in action. It’s almost the inverse of how so many of Mandalorian Season Two’s episodes were devoted to seeding spinoffs like this series, with Mando seizing back control of his own mini-franchise for a week. Disney+ This proves a mixed bag, though more for The Book of Boba Fett as a whole than for this individual installment of it. This is by far the new show’s most entertaining episode, but what does it say that this happens when it’s not really a Boba episode at all? In general, … [Read more...] about ‘The Book of Boba Fett’ Recap: The Crossover Strikes Back

EXCLUSIVE : LAist Studios , the podcast division of Southern California Public Radio, is launching a slew of new audio series. The company, which is behind series such as California City, Norco ’80 and California Love , has set six new shows for 2022. Developed under LAist Studios executive producer Antonia Cereijido, the slate includes Imperfect Paradise, Snooze, K-Pop Dreaming, Lost Chapter: The Forgotten Revolutionary, Human/Nature and The Big Burn (full details below). Herb Scannell, President and Chief Executive Officer, SCPR said, “When LAist Studios launched over just two years ago, we committed to creating a space for vibrant and innovative voices that reflect the ethos of Los Angeles to harness the power of audio storytelling. The diversity of our city is what makes LA so special and LAist Studios seeks to capture that in all that we do, beginning with our commitment to being a studio where all areas of production are staffed by creators and storytellers of … [Read more...] about LAist Studios Launches Podcast Slate With California-Focused Audio Series

The CBS upfront, now under the umbrella of ViacomCBS , will return to its longtime home at New York’s Carnegie Hall on May 18. The news follows commitments from rivals Fox and NBCUniversal in recent days, both of which have slated multiple in-person upfront events. Disney has indicated it is taking a fresh look at the approach to its upfront, which has long been held at Lincoln Center. The last year for the annual upfront extravaganza, which typically stretches for several weeks in the spring when cable and streaming are combined with broadcast TV, was 2019. Covid neutralized the live upfronts in 2020 and last year, forcing everything online. As media companies look to shore up advertising in a landscape upended by streaming, the idea of pressing the flesh in person has proven appealing. Jo Ann Ross, president and chief advertising revenue officer of domestic ad sales for ViacomCBS, has been a longtime fixture at the upfront event. One year, she wore a dress … [Read more...] about ViacomCBS Confirms Return To Carnegie Hall With In-Person Upfront In May