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26 Dec 2011 10:43

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U.S.: 2011 box-office’s big drop: Major stars, horror flicks, family films flop

  • $500 million the expected drop in box office between 2010 and 2011
  • 4.5% decline the fall in box office this year, partly blamed on the lack of “Avatar”
  • hits The biggest hit of 2011? “Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 2,” which scored $381 million in the U.S. alone. The latest “Transformers” and “Twilight” movies also scored this year.
  • bombs On a $150 million budget, “Mars Needs Moms” only made $39 million worldwide. Horror films struggled, and even major stars like Tom Hanks and Julia Roberts were no longer bankable.
  • surprises The two biggest were “Bridesmaids” (a female-focused twist on the Apatow film) and “The Help,” both of which had solid box-office runs. The secret? Both were aimed at older audiences. source
  • » Better news in 2012? Possibly. With such high-profile films as “The Hunger Games” and a remake of “21 Jump Street” hitting the theaters, it’s entirely possible that 2012 could hold up way better than 2011. And as “The Lion King” showed this year, 3D remakes are proving to be especially financially sound. Two fairly large ones — “Star Wars: Episode One” and “Beauty and the Beast” — will hit the box office in 2012.
Posted by Ernie Smith • 0 Comments • Permalink

10 Aug 2011 20:13

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Culture: J.K. Rowling’s Pottermore = Kinda like Beatlemania

  • A first look at Pottermore: While the latest project from J.K. Rowling isn’t quite ready to be released, the BBC was able to get a glimpse at some of the site’s features. Here’s a peek at Ollivander’s wand shop and some of 4 Privet Drive. source
Posted by samimain • 0 Comments • Permalink

17 Jul 2011 19:45

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Politics: Sarah Palin’s “The Undefeated” loses its throne right away

  • $169M the amount Harry Potter’s final film made — the biggest single weekend gross ever, BTW, but one that was very front-loaded
  • $75k the amount Palin’s “The Undefeated” made this weekend in 10 theaters (roughly — see, the distributor didn’t report exact estimates)
  • .04% share of Palin’s box-office take to Harry Potter’s take, which is like comparing an ant to an elephant, but still pretty fun source
  • » A huge amount of spin here: ARC Entertainment threw out a press release today claiming that “The Undefeated” actually did quite well amid adversity.  “We expect word-of-mouth to keep ticket sales strong and we will definitely expand the film to a wider national audience,” said  Trevor Drinkwater, the distributor’s CEO. “With merely three weeks of preparation and a virtually non-existent traditional advertising spend, the film did exceptionally well.” The distributor also noted that the film did the kind of business a film would normally require millions in advertising for. Which, let’s put it simply, isn’t true. Two fairly low-budget films this weekend — Errol Morris’ “Tabloid” and the poorly-reviewed “Snow Flower and the Secret Fan” — still managed to have larger grosses than Palin’s film despite the fact that all three films showed in less than 30 theaters. And on top of that, the movie has gotten plenty of traditional media coverage in part due to its star. A dud is a dud. Sorry.
Posted by Ernie Smith • 0 Comments • Permalink

17 Jul 2011 11:20

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Politics: Sarah Palin documentary not exactly off to the best start

  • ten number of theaters the Sarah Palin documentary, “The Undefeated,” opened in this weekend — mostly conservative test markets
  • three people were in a recent Orange County showing — including a fairly lonely reviewer for The Atlantic; the other two left after 20 minutes source
  • » A pretty bad test weekend: While some estimate that Palin’s film could make as much as $4 million over its entire run — good for a rally-the-troops conservative film — the weekend that they chose to test it is one where most filmgoers of all political persuasions are preoccupied with Harry Potter. But one thing to keep in mind — if she decides to run, the film could do a lot better. For what it’s worth, the other two girls in the theater with Atlantic editor Conor Friedersdorf probably thought “The Undefeated” was an action movie, so maybe she’ll get some business from confused moviegoers.
Posted by Ernie Smith • 0 Comments • Permalink

16 Jul 2011 13:02

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Culture: Final “Harry Potter” flick makes more in day than we’ll see in our lifetimes

  • $92.1 million the size of the opening day take for “Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 2” on Friday
  • $43.5 million the amount of that take that came from midnight showings ALONE; both numbers are records source
  • » To put this in perspective: The previous opening-day record was set by 2009’s “The Twilight Saga: New Moon,” which scored a comparatively modest $72 million first-day opening. Oh yeah, of the 137 movies Box Office Mojo ranks on this list, only seven were released in the ’90s — meaning nearly all of the other movies on the list were released in the past decade. The oldest movie in the top ten of the list is from 2006. By the way, the final film in the “Harry Potter” saga is within $70 million of topping the $158.4 million single-weekend record, set by “The Dark Knight” in 2008 — which means there’s a good chance that it will.
Posted by Ernie Smith • 0 Comments • Permalink

04 Jul 2011 17:58

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Culture: Daniel Radcliffe steps away from the bottle, sets an example

  • Harry Potter liked to party. At least until he deduced that alcohol wasn’t such a boon to his personality: “I became so reliant on alcohol to enjoy stuff… I’m actually enjoying the fact I can have a relationship with my girlfriend where I’m really pleasant and I’m not f–king up totally all the time.” In addition to doing away with his drinking habit, Radcliffe has his sights set on doing away with the “curse” of being a successful child star: “If I can make a career for myself after Potter… in the biggest film franchise of all time, no other child actor who comes after will ever have to answer those same bloody questions.” We applaud Radcliffe’s determination, but we’re skeptical if one Daniel Radcliffe could ever cancel out, say, one Kirk Cameron. (Image courtesy of Warner Bros. Pictures) source
Posted by Chris Tognotti • 0 Comments • Permalink

27 Dec 2010 13:54

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Tech: Amazon has record-setting holiday season, led by the Kindle

  • 158 units sold each second, and 13.7 million overall source
  • » And the key factoid? Amazon’s best-selling item of all-time is the third-generation Kindle, which only came out a few months ago. That’s not the best-selling technology item. No. It managed to top the final book in the “Harry Potter” series for the mantle of Amazon’s biggest seller of all-time. At $139, guess they found their price point. And guess we have egg on our face.
Posted by Ernie Smith • 0 Comments • Permalink
 

21 Nov 2010 12:25

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Culture: Latest Harry Potter scores massive box-office opening

  • $125.1
    million     the amount that the not-in-3D-at-all “Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 1” made in its first weekend
  • $102.7
    million     the amount that the next highest opener in the series, “Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire,” made in its first weekend in 2005 source
  • » One of the best openings of all-time: While it didn’t top 2008’s “The Dark Knight,” it did score the sixth-best opening of all-time and helped continue the series’ run as the most popular franchise in Hollywood history. What’s a Hogwart?
Posted by Ernie Smith • 0 Comments • Permalink

20 Nov 2010 11:28

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Culture: New Harry Potter movie casts spell on everyone except us

  • $24
    million     the amount “Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, Part 1” made in its midnight showings Thursday
  • $61.1
    million     the amount the film made in its first full day in theaters – the fifth biggest single-day gross ever source
Posted by Ernie Smith • 0 Comments • Permalink

05 Aug 2010 20:47

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Culture: “Harry Potter” starlet Emma Watson has a new name: Winona Ryder

  • You wanna be like that, Hermione? Really? You want to cut off your hair and destroy the childhoods of millions of kids? Go ahead. But don’t say we didn’t warn you, Winona. (Disclosure: We have ZERO interest in Harry Potter. We just like bandwagons.) source
Posted by Ernie Smith • 0 Comments • Permalink
 
 
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