EXCLUSIVE: Scientists, explorers, lovers. Katia and Maurice Krafft, the stars of the Oscar-nominated documentary Fire of Love, were all those things. On Valentine’s Day, National Geographic and Neon are bringing the film about the ill-fated couple back to theaters for one night only. The engagement will see the film play at several theaters in New
Oscars
Can we finally talk about movies for a minute? I mean, those of us who aren’t full-blown, always on-it awards professionals. The Republicans have had their Speakership brawl. The Democrats have observed their J6 vigil. The Twitter Wars have settled into the usual trench exchange between Left and Right. And the weary nation having survived
It was fascinating to see my good colleague Valerie Complex describe, in her review of the Antoine Fuqua/Will Smith slavery drama Emancipation, having almost walked out of the film, not because it was unworthy, but because she found the depiction of Black suffering and death almost too much to watch. In the end, Complex stuck
A revival of Kander and Ebb musical Cabaret was the big winner at Sunday’s Olivier Awards in London. Cabaret At The Kit Kat Club scooped seven of the prestigious trophies, including Best Musical Revival and Best Actor and Actress in a Musical for Eddie Redmayne and Jessie Buckley, respectively. Redmayne plays the Emcee while Buckley
Apple sources are saying that CODA following its historic Best Picture win for both a streamer, and a predominantly Deaf cast feature saw viewership go up by 300% over the prior week week to become the No. 1 most watched program on AppleTV+, and also drawing 25% new viewers to the OTT service. The movie
Three-time Oscar winner CODA is returning to theaters this Friday for a limited run in over 600 locations. The film will be available with open captions to be accessible to the Deaf and hard of hearing. Apple Original Films made history on Sunday night becoming the first streamer to take home Best Picture. CODA also won trophies for Troy
To be fair, the 2022 Oscars had a very low bar to clear. This year’s ceremony had nowhere to go but up, honestly: Last year’s Oscars were a trainwreck (one that took place at a train station, ironically) plagued by sluggish pacing and a humorless tone. Viewership cratered, too, with an all-time low of 10.4
AMC Entertainment CEO Adam Aron said there’s room for both cinemas and streamers in the current marketplace and the latter would benefit from wider theatrical release of films. He made the comments to CNBC after Apple made history last night with Coda’s Best Picture Oscar win. “I’ve been saying for years that the market is
There was a time during the pre-pandemic when zeitgeist documentaries like RBG and Won’t You Be My Neighbor were bright spots at the box office. However, because of arthouse audiences’ caution to return to moviegoing last summer, Searchlight, which scooped up Summer of Soul from Sundance 2021 for $12M, opted to release the movie with an exclusive two-week theatrical
Editor’s note: Mooky Greidinger is CEO of the world’s second-largest exhibitor, Cineworld, which also owns Regal in the U.S. A staunch supporter of the theatrical experience, Greidinger grew up in the industry and is avowedly passionate about the movie business. But as Oscars weekend arrives, he is confounded by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts
Buffalo 8 Distribution has acquired the North American rights to Jan P. Matuszyński’s Leave No Traces starring Tomasz Ziętek (Corpus Christi), Sandra Korzeniak (Influence) and Jacek Braciak (Edi). The film, which debuted at the Venice Film Festival, is Poland’s official selection for Best International Feature at the upcoming Academy Awards. Buffalo 8 will release the
My good colleague Pete Hammond tells us the film awards season is in full swing, live and in-person. Screenings. Panels. Parties. Lunch with the stars. Just like 2019. Now, if the audience would only catch up. This weekend, an extremely important connection got missed, as Steven Spielberg’s West Side Story, meant to be a crowd-pleaser,
Neon and Participant opened animated documentary Flee to a $25,033 debut in four locations. That makes for a strong per-theater average of $6,258 ahead of a rollout early next year for the much-decorated Danish film ahead of Academy Award nominations Feb. 8. It’s one of a few rather particular offerings, including Drive My Car, that
Where did everybody go? They certainly weren’t watching the Friday night Tokyo Olympics opening ceremony. The audience dropped to about 17 million, down 37 percent from 26.5 million viewers for the Rio de Janeiro opening in 2016. (Though Saturday was better.) We know they weren’t at the movies. The box-office dropped 25 percent from last
When Regina King confidently strutted her way through Union Station at the top of this year’s Oscars broadcast with candy-colored movie-style credits popping up behind her, I got excited that this year’s show might actually be different. And indeed, it was… but that’s not necessarily a compliment. Yes, Sunday’s Oscar broadcast on ABC comes with
Disney, which has been experimenting with the theatrical window lately with simultaneous movie releases on streaming service Disney+ Premier much to the upset of theater owners, dropped a PSA during the Oscarcast waving a flag for exhibition. Filled with first person testimonials of exhibition workers and clips from upcoming big pics like F9, No Time
No matter which film takes home Best Picture Sunday night, that title will be the lowest grossing ever in Oscar history. According to Comscore, Kathryn Bigelow’s 2009 title The Hurt Locker stands as the lowest-grossing Best Picture Oscar winner at the domestic B.O. with $17M. That title will likely be upset this Sunday by Chloé Zhao’s
While it’s not really a time to take a victory lap at the box office with only 3,1k movie theaters opened out of U.S. and Canada’s 5,8K, five out of the eight Oscar nominated best pictures this past weekend in theatrical release reaped the halo effect of Monday’s noms. Keep in mind many arthouses, especially
EXCLUSIVE: “Don’t be in a panic!” These are the sage words from Sony Pictures Classics’ Co-President Michael Barker about the future of independent films at the theatrical box office. While the pandemic and the proliferation of streamers has sent a number of awards season contenders into the home, he believes that arthouse fare will be
Chloe Zhao recently became the first Asian woman to win a Golden Globe for Best Director and now has a shot to repeat that at the Oscars with her awards-season darling Nomadland garnering six nominations today for Best Picture, Director, Editing, Adapted Screenplay, Cinematography and Actress. Still, despite the accolades, questions remain: Will Nomadland ever see
Yeah, yeah, yeah, Universal/DreamWorks Animation’s Croods: A New Age led the box office for its fifth weekend out of 13 running, and crossed $50M, inching closer to becoming the top-grossing movie of the pandemic, and potentially upsetting Warner Bros.’ Tenet ($57.9M total domestic). However, in a business where the transparency of numbers has always been public,
Danish filmmaker Thomas Vinterberg is back in the Oscar race with Another Round (Druk), a film whose star, Mads Mikkelsen, calls “an embracement of life.” The drama has an intriguing premise: four weary high school teachers test the theory that a constant level of modest inebriation opens our minds to the world. The friends experience
What a great time not to be a movie marketer. Theaters half-closed, with COVID-19 again rising. Pipeline dried up. Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences asking, in a survey that was due last week, how the pandemic is affecting your craft. Or what’s left of it. But movie promoters on the whole are an
Will the movies ever let religion back into the mainstream? It doesn’t seem likely, given the secular bent of most critics, festivals, and film awards. But the question could certainly occur to any thoughtful viewer of Marco Pontecorvo’s Fátima, which is set for release by Picturehouse in theaters and via PVOD on Aug. 28. The
In or around 1976, I caught a forlorn moment near New York’s Bleecker St. It was early morning. The sun was just up. Two ragged guys were shuffling toward me on the sidewalk, when one offered the other a bottle in a bag. But the drink was declined. “I guess I lost my taste for
Talk about box-office drama. As the July 4 weekend unwinds, IFC’sThe Truth might be slugging it out with Homewrecker from Dark Star and The Outpost from Fathom for the honor of ranking somewhere in the 300s, near IFC’s own Wiener-Dog, among all-time Independence Day performers. (Who can say for sure, as release dates have become
If the film industry is ever going to be what it was—just a few short months ago, when pictures as varied as Parasite, 1917, Joker and Little Women were among those vying for honors—it’s going to need more than union safety protocols, disposable seat covers in theaters, and new Oscar inclusion standards, all of which
Who says theatrical is dead? Despite Bong Joon Ho’s historic Best Picture Oscar winner Parasite already being available on DVD and SVOD, there’s a huge appetite among moviegoers following Sunday’s awards ceremony to watch it on the big screen this weekend. As of EOD Monday, advance ticket sales for Parasite had jumped 443% week over week
So, what happens now? With the three-and-a-half-weeks early, lowest-rated Oscar show in the bag, the movies and those who love them are caught in an unaccustomed February vacuum. Normally, there would be cocktails, canapés, and the whispers of publicists looking for last-minute advantage over competitors. But Sunday’s Academy Awards implosion—what else to call a show
After roaring into the 2020 Oscar show with a company record of 24 nominations, Netflix wound up walking away tonight with only two wins: Laura Dern with Best Supporting Actress for Marriage Story and Best Feature Documentary American Factory. Call it a bad case of deja vu: Netflix charged into this year’s Golden Globes with a massive