Week of « Prev | Next »
2 articles
'Lego' To Build Big Opening this Weekend
6 February 2014 5:00 PM, PST
Coming off two slow frames, the box office should pick up substantially this weekend. With its broadly-appealing brand, strong sense of humor and unique animation, The Lego Movie is poised for one of the best February openings ever. The Monuments Men should also do decent business*though poor reviews could hold it back a bit*while Vampire Academy seems like the latest young-adult miss.Now more than ever, studios are constantly looking to make movies out of pre-existing brands. Conventional wisdom holds that these brands come with a built-in fanbase, which in turn means it's easier to sell the big-screen version at home and abroad. When it comes to toy brands, this strategy has been hit-or-miss: the Transformers and G.I. Joe movies were all successful, while Battleship was an epic failure. For a number of reasons, The Lego Movie looks like it's going to easily avoid the Battleship scenario. The »
- Ray Subers <[email protected]>
'Lone Survivor' Leads Best January in Four Years... >
4 February 2014 2:50 PM, PST
Led by Afghanistan war drama Lone Survivor, total domestic box office wound up at $894 million in January. That's a noticeable improvement over the past three years, but pales in comparison to 2010's record $1.06 billion.After opening in New York and Los Angeles in late December, Lone Survivor expanded nationwide in early January. On opening weekend the movie grossed an outstanding $37.8 million, which at the time was the second-highest start ever in January. Thanks to strong word-of-mouth, Lone Survivor held well through the remainder of the month, and ended up passing $100 million total. It's already earned more than Zero Dark Thirty ($95.7 million) and is on track to also top Black Hawk Down ($108.6 million) soon. This is a resounding success for Universal Pictures, who executed a marketing campaign that smartly played up the heroism of the soldiers while avoiding any of the moral ambiguity that often clouds modern war movies.Frozen continued »
- Ray Subers <[email protected]>
2 articles
company.