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Hollywood poised for record-breaking year at the box office; 2009 set to best 2007's record intakeBy Amy Eisinger DAILY NEWS STAFF WRITER Thursday, December 10th 2009, 3:26 PM The Hollywood box office is having its best year in history, reports Hollywood.com Box Office. This week the box office grand total for 2009 is expected to hit $9.682 billion -- surpassing previous record holder 2007, when the tally was $9.68 billion. With potential top-grossing holiday films still to come, Hollywood is bracing for their first $10 billion year ever. Movies that are still on the way this year include James Cameron's...

The Twilight Saga: New Moon grossed $72.7 million on Friday, according to estimates from Summit Entertainment, shattering The Dark Knight’s previous opening-day record of $62.2 million. (The figure includes the $26.3 million New Moon banked from midnight screenings, also a box office record.) The astronomic figure puts Bella, Edward, and Jacob on a clear path to the biggest opening weekend ever, all the more impressive considering New Moon is opening in 342 fewer theaters than The Dark Knight did last year.

Michael Moore is destined to really hate capitalism, for his new movie "Capitalism: A Love Story" appears to have totally flopped at the box office. This comes despite all the gushing and fawning by Moore-loving media members prior to the film's October 2nd release. Take heart, fellow capitalists, for according to Deadline Hollywood this could be a flop of epic proportions:

RELATED BOX OFFICE LINKS Weekend Grosses | 2009 Grosses All Time Grosses | Adjusted for Inflation

If the year's first four months defied all expectations for what Hollywood could do in a recession, this summer delivered some sobering reality. Through the end of April, domestic box-office receipts leaped 17% while admissions surged nearly 16% from the previous year, according to Hollywood.com. But as the weather turned hot, business cooled: From May 1 through Aug. 31, attendance was down 2.4% from 2008 and 6% from 2007. Summer box-office revenues rose 1.3%, not even enough to account for ticket price inflation, let alone the premiums charged in a growing number of 3-D theaters. In the midst of the...

If 2009 is remembered for anything in American cinema, it might be as the year grown-ups and Hollywood finally agreed to call it quits. This is the year when such slick, star-driven, adult-oriented movies as "State of Play," "Duplicity," "The International" and "The Taking of Pelham 1 2 3" underperformed at the box office. And when talking-toy movies like "Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen" and "G.I. Joe" raked in millions. Suddenly, movies for grown-ups are in the cross hairs. "I'm caught up all in it," Spike Lee said recently with a rueful laugh, noting that the sequel to his 2006...

The spring and summer box office has murdered megawatt stars like Denzel Washington, Julia Roberts, Eddie Murphy, John Travolta, Russell Crowe, Tom Hanks, Adam Sandler and Will Ferrell. Can Brad Pitt escape? A-list movie stars have long been measured by their ability to fill theaters on opening weekend. But never have so many failed to deliver, resulting in some rare soul-searching by motion picture studios about why the old formula isn’t working — and a great deal of anxiety among stars (and agents) about the potential vaporization of their $20 million paychecks. “The cratering of films with big stars is...

LOS ANGELES - After just five days, "Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen" is halfway to $400 million domestically, a box-office milestone only eight other movies have reached. If it climbs that high, the "Transformers" sequel will be by far the worst-reviewed movie ever to make the $400 million club. Critics and mainstream crowds often disagree, but "Revenge of the Fallen" sets a new standard for the gulf between what reviewers and mass audiences like. The movie pulled in $201.2 million since opening Wednesday, the second-best result for a movie in its first five days, just behind "The Dark Knight" with...

LOS ANGELES (AP) - After just five days, "Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen" is halfway to $400 million domestically, a box-office milestone only eight other movies have reached. If it climbs that high, the "Transformers" sequel will be by far the worst-reviewed movie ever to make the $400 million club. Critics and mainstream crowds often disagree, but "Revenge of the Fallen" sets a new standard for the gulf between what reviewers and mass audiences like.

BLAST-OFF! 'Star Trek' Opens To $25M Friday; With $7M Thursday That's $32M So Far; Weekend Prediction Now $72M; Its Audience Wider Than Just FanbaseFRIDAY 9:45 PM: Sources tell me that the North American opening number for Paramount's No. 1 Star Trek grosses today is looking like $25 million from 3,849 theaters. So, adding in Thursday 7 PM-Midnight screenings, the reimagined space odyssey has made $32 million so far. My insiders say the total weekend number now could easily reach $72M. "But it still has a shot at $75M if it gets any bump on Saturday," an exec explains. (Rival studios...

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - "Star Trek" debuts in movie theaters on Thursday backed by huge hype, but whether the film based on a 43-year-old franchise can win young fans and big box office returns has industry watchers scratching their heads.

At midnight tonight Hollywood declares the start of the Summer moviegoing season with the bow of X-Men Origins: Wolverine opening on an enormous 4,000+ theaters. How big it will bow is the question of the day with many wondering if the pirated leak of the film last month will have any negative impact on its overall box office. Here's the top five as I see it: 1. X-Men Origins: Wolverine -- $85 million Early reviews haven't been kind -- but who cares! This is summertime. This is good, clean, popcorn entertainment with a hunky Hugh Jackman and some cool special...

The two part movie "Che" has turned out to be one of the worst box office bombs in film history. How bad was it? Well, since opening last December, this movie has earned a grand total of just $1,432,057 as of the weekend of April 10-12. Since the budget for this film was $40 million and at least half of those revenues went to the theaters screening this bomb, that means the total loss for 'Che' was approximately the entire budget cost. Compare this to the gold standard of movie bombs, "Heaven's Gate." When it was released it 1980 it...

Liam Neeson's CIA thriller "Taken" bumped off "Mall Cop" at the weekend box office, raking in $24.6 million and helping fuel the first $1 billion January in Hollywood history. "Taken" follows Neeson as a former CIA operative trying to track down a group of kidnappers who want to sell his daughter into the sex slave trade. "We are thrilled. It's an all-audience movie," said 20th Century Fox distribution executive Bert Livingston. "When people come out they are going to talk about it. I think it's going to play for a long time."

Produced by Wild Eyes Prods. Executive producers, Carl H. Lindahl, David Keane; producers, Ryan Spyker, Aaron Cowden; director, Keane; writers, Bowden, Terrence Henry. Narrator: Bill Lloyd. Editor, Justin Inda; music, Michael Plowman. Running time: 120 Min. “Charlie Wilson’s War” (Wide Release Theater Movie) Genres: Comedy, Drama, Adaptation, Biopic and War Running Time: 1 hr. 37 min. Release Date: December 21st, 2007 MPAA Rating: R for strong language, nudity/sexual content and some drug use. Distributors: Universal Pictures Distribution Production Co.: Icarus Productions, Participant Productions, Relativity Media, Playtone Studios: Universal Pictures Filming Locations: Morocco Los Angeles, California USA Produced in: United...

The Kirk Cameron starred, Christian-centered, liberally mocked film 'Fireproof' has far exceeded expectations at the Box Office. With a budget of about $500,000, and little advertisement to speak of, the little-movie-with-a-message-that-could has rounded up an impressive $28.4 Million after 7 weeks in theatres, and moved up to 13th place overall. Between weekends 6 and 7 it had the smallest drop (8.7%) of all top-20 movies, meaning the feel good movie could end up with $32-35 Million by the time it completes it's run. Comparatively, after 4 weeks Anti-Bush film 'W' continues to drop like a rock and has found just...

This is the story of hope and reality. First the hope from Bloomberg News 10 days ago with the very hopeful title of Oliver Stones' W May End Political Films' Drought: ``W.'' distributor Lions Gate Entertainment Corp. is betting the movie can break a box-office drought for political films. None of the five released in the weeks ahead of the Nov. 4 election has brought in more than half of the $55.3 million in sales generated by Walt Disney Co.'s ``Beverly Hills Chihuahua,'' the current box-office champ, since Oct. 3. ``A lot of eyes are on `W.,''' said Gitesh Pandya,...

This is the story of hope and reality. First the hope from Bloomberg News 10 days ago with the very hopeful title of Oliver Stones' W May End Political Films' Drought: ``W.'' distributor Lions Gate Entertainment Corp. is betting the movie can break a box-office drought for political films. None of the five released in the weeks ahead of the Nov. 4 election has brought in more than half of the $55.3 million in sales generated by Walt Disney Co.'s ``Beverly Hills Chihuahua,'' the current box-office champ, since Oct. 3. ``A lot of eyes are on `W.,''' said Gitesh Pandya,...

There's been tremdous interest by the public in the box office fate of Oliver Stone's W. for its second weekend in release. Well, it ran out of steam. QED International/Lionsgate's Bush biopic sank 58% to No. 8 with $1.5 million Friday from 2,050 dates for what will probably be a $5.2M weekend. The $30M negative cost film should end up with $23M domestic box office gross by the end of its North American run. That means, with a $25M P&A investment and Lionsgate's distribution fees, the film won't recoup.

There's been tremdous interest by the public in the box office fate of Oliver Stone's W. for its second weekend in release. Well, it ran out of steam. QED International/Lionsgate's Bush biopic sank 58% to No. 8 with $1.5 million Friday from 2,050 dates for what will probably be a $5.2M weekend. The $30M negative cost film should end up with $23M domestic box office gross by the end of its North American run. That means, with a $25M P&A investment and Lionsgate's distribution fees, the film won't recoup.

There's been tremdous interest by the public in the box office fate of Oliver Stone's W. for its second weekend in release. Well, it ran out of steam. QED International/Lionsgate's Bush biopic sank 58% to No. 8 with $1.5 million Friday from 2,050 dates for what will probably be a $5.2M weekend. The $30M negative cost film should end up with $23M domestic box office gross by the end of its North American run. That means, with a $25M P&A investment and Lionsgate's distribution fees, the film won't recoup.

Movie-goers elected a "W," but it was Mark Wahlberg, not George W. Bush. Wahlberg's action flick "Max Payne" debuted with $18 million to outdo Oliver Stone's film biography of George W. Bush, according to studio estimates Sunday. Stone's "W." actually ran fourth, opening with $10.6 million to finish behind the family comedy "Beverly Hills Chihuahua" (No. 2 with $11.2 million) and the chick flick "The Secret Life of Bees" (No. 3 with $11.1 million). "For me, an Oliver Stone film about George Bush doesn't necessarily scream big box office," said Paul Dergarabedian, president of box-office tracker Media By Numbers. "A...

LOS ANGELES, California (AP) -- Movie-goers elected a "W," but it was Mark Wahlberg, not George W. Bush. Wahlberg's action flick "Max Payne" debuted with $18 million to outdo Oliver Stone's film biography of George W. Bush, according to studio estimates Sunday. Stone's "W." actually ran fourth, opening with $10.6 million to finish behind the family comedy "Beverly Hills Chihuahua" (No. 2 with $11.2 million) and the chick flick "The Secret Life of Bees" (No. 3 with $11.1 million).

Max Payne, the videogame adaptation starring Mark Wahlberg, shot up an easy win at the box office, even as two of the weekend's other new releases — The Secret Life of Bees and W. — performed nicely, finishing in line with their respective estimates. The No. 1 action flick grossed $18 million from Friday through Sunday. Although not quite on par with the debut totals of some other game-based movies, like the most recent Resident Evil films, which blew away more than $23 mil in their premieres, Max Payne's premiere number is a marked improvement on the first-weekend sums of...

Weekend Box Office: ‘Carol’ Disappoints But Christians Beat The Hater Posted by Dirty Harry on Monday, October 6th, 2008 An American Carol pulled in a disappointing $3.8 million over the weekend on just over 1600 screens to come in at #7. However, on far fewer screens (500), Religulous pulled in nearly the same amount ($3.5 million). I blame the election. No, really. The conservative base is pretty frustrated right now, teetering on demoralized, as McCain seemingly sinks lower and lower. Had An American Carol come out those few days right after the convention when we were flying high these box...

David Zucker’s An American Carol finished at number nine at the box-office in its first weekend of release – somewhat disappointing, I must admit (considering I saw it twice) – but fortunately ahead of Bill Maher’s anti-religion film “Religulous.” The movie took in $3.81 million in sales, just ahead of Maher’s masterwork, which snagged $3.5 million. The film “Beverly Hills Chihuahua” finished in the top spot, pulling in $29 million. Read the story here. As many weekend filmgoers have already expressed – far more eloquently than I could hope to - “An American Carol” wasn’t the funniest film ever made....

9 AN AMERICAN CAROL Vivendi Entertainment 1,639 $1,200,000 -- / $732 $1,200,000 / 1

TOTAL LIFETIME GROSSES Domestic: $1,200,000 DOMESTIC SUMMARY Opening Weekend: n/a (1,639 theaters) Widest Release: 1,639 theaters In Release: 1 days / 0.1 weeks

Screen counts were 1,500 for An American Carol, 500 screens for the Maher flick.

KAPOW! The new Batman movie "The Dark Knight" smashed the weekend record set by "Spider-Man 3" last year, selling an estimated $155.3 million worth of tickets during its first three days of release across the United States and Canada, distributor Warner Bros. Pictures said on Sunday. The hotly anticipated film, co-starring late actor Heath Ledger as the anarchic Joker, surpassed the $151.1 million haul for "Spider-Man 3" during its first weekend in May 2007.

Holy blockbuster, Batman! The Dark Knight grossed a behemoth $155.3 million from Friday through Sunday, according to early estimates, to score the biggest three-day opening in box-office history, while leading the way on a weekend for the record books. The second Batman movie from star Christian Bale and director Christopher Nolan finished at No. 1 (as anticipated, duh!), and, assuming the early estimates hold, it set new standards in just about every category imaginable. It scored the biggest three-day opening weekend of all time (beating Spider-Man 3's $151.1 mil bow). It achieved the best opening day and single day in...

Hollywood, Calif. – Dr. Ted Baehr, publisher of MOVIEGUIDE®, a family guide to movies and entertainment, is delighted to see that this weekend at the boxoffice family films win again. “We see it time and again,” Baehr noted. “Movies aimed for the family, without excessive negative elements of sex, violence or foul language, consistently perform higher at the box office.” This weekend KUNG FU PANDA, a family oriented animated film from DreamWorks Pictures, took the top box office spot in a head to head opening with the Adam Sander sexual innuendo drenched YOU DON’T MESS WITH THE ZOHAN from Sony...

HBO might want to ask for a ratings recount. The Sunday night premiere of its much-discussed original movie covering the 2000 presidential election fiasco was seen by a modest number of viewers when compared to the network's other high-profile projects. "Recount" was seen by 1 million HBO subscribers, which is on par with the network's last film, February's lesser-known Susan Sarandon telepic "Bernard and Doris." Compared to recent HBO movie titles that received considerable media attention,"Recount" fares worse -- 1.9 million watched the first airing of last year's historical epic "Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee" and 1.5 million watched...

"No. 1 Sex And The City truly shocked Hollywood pros by opening with a hanging-from-the-chandeliers $26.9 million from 3,285 theaters. The big question now is whether this staggering wanna-see among women for the HBO Films/New Line/Warner Bros female froth sustains through Saturday and Sunday showings so the weekend total can soar past $70M and maybe even $75M."

The most recent Indiana Jones film more than recouped its big budget with an estimated $311 million in global box office sales through the long weekend, according to studio estimates Monday. Families went in droves to catch "Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull," a PG-13 adventure starring Harrison Ford as the whip-cracking archaeologist who took 19 years to return to the big screen. Paramount Pictures estimated the action sequel made $151.1 million in the U.S. and Canada from Thursday to the holiday Monday and $160 million overseas. It marked the second biggest Memorial Day weekend opening ever,...

The second coming of Narnia had a less passionate opening reception than its predecessor and, being the sole new nationwide release of the weekend, led to one of the softest mid-May periods of the decade in terms of overall foot traffic at the movies. The Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian captured a sizable estimated $56.6 million on approximately 8,400 screens at 3,929 theaters to top the weekend, but the reportedly $200 million sequel heralded a theatrical lull for the franchise based on C.S. Lewis' series of religious fantasy novels. The previous adaptation, The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch...

"The Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian" dethroned "Iron Man" as ruler at the box office, pulling down $56.6 million, according to studio estimates Sunday. The Walt Disney Co.'s action sequel took in less domestically in its opening weekend than "The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe," which sold $65.6 million in North America in its debut weekend in December 2005. "Caspian" also raked in $20.7 million overseas. But Disney expects the PG-rated movie, based on the C.S. Lewis fantasy series, to ride high through the coming Memorial Day weekend. The first "Narnia" tale grossed $745 million...

Walt Disney sequel "The Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian" had no problem reigning over Friday's box office, grossing $19.3 million as it opened in 3,929 theaters. "Caspian's" opening day haul came in slightly lower than industry expectations and behind first Narnia installment, "The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe," which pulled in $23 million on its first day and $65.6 million for its final three-day in December 2005. Both pics are co-productions with Walden Media.

"Iron Man" was pure gold at the box office. The Marvel Comics adaptation, starring Robert Downey Jr. as the guy in the metal suit, hauled in $100.7 million over opening weekend and $104.2 million since debuting Thursday night, the second-best premiere ever for a non-sequel, according to studio estimates Sunday. The film also scored overseas with $96.7 million in 57 countries where it began opening Wednesday, putting its worldwide total at $201 million. Distributed by Paramount, "Iron Man" was the first release by Marvel Studios, which has begun financing its own productions after such studio-backed hits as the "Spider-Man,""X-Men" and...

“Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed,� the pro-intelligent design documentary featuring actor Ben Stein, made history this weekend as it propelled full speed into the top 10 box office. It opened as the widest and one of the most commercially successful releases for any documentary film. In an impressive opening weekend, the film debuted at No. 9 at the box office, earning a respectable $3.2 million while only appearing on 1,052 screens. “Leatherheads,� the story of a struggling football team based in Duluth, Minnesota, and written and directed by George Clooney, trailed the new documentary film, placing at only No. 10 its...

Stein turns the tables on Darwinists By Chris Weinkopf, Editorial Page Editor THERE'S a great piece of viral satire working its way around the Internet, an ad for Ben Stein's new movie, "Expelled." It's a music video featuring animated representations of prominent atheists rapping about their intellectual superiority over the majority of mankind that still has doubts about Darwinism as an all-purpose, infallible explanation for everything. The video is funny, but nowhere near as funny as some of the crusading atheists' responses to it. At the Web site of celebrity God-hater Richard Dawkins, both host and acolytes spent more than...

Jackie Chan and Jet Li may be getting old, but they packed a lot of punch into the box office this weekend. The Forbidden Kingdom, the first movie to pair the martial arts legends, fought its way to a victory, while the R-rated romantic comedy Forgetting Sarah Marshall finished a strong second in a hotly contested race that helped boost the cumulative box office to its best result in several weeks. The Asian action fantasy grossed a better-than-expected $20.9 mil, according to Sunday's estimates.snipBen Stein's political/science documentary Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed (No. 9) earned $3.2 mil. That's a very respectable...

SATURDAY AM: I'm told early box office numbers show that Leatherheads, the screwball comedy about the early days of football directed by George Clooney who also stars, opened Friday as the No. 2 pic to less than $4.3 million from 2,769 North American theaters. According to sources, the movie "will struggle" to get to $15 million by the end of the weekend. This is a mediocre start for the Universal pic. But worse news for Clooney's career. Because right now he is a big movie star but not a big box office star, and his superstar payday definitely depends on...

...I'm told #7 Stop-Loss opened to only $1.6 million Friday from just 1,291 plays and should eke out $4+M. Although the drama from MTV Films was the best-reviewed movie opening this weekend, Paramount wasn't expecting much because no Iraq war-themed movie has yet to perform at the box office. "It's not looking good," a studio source told me before the weekend. "No one wants to see Iraq war movies. No matter what we put out there in terms of great cast or trailers, people were completely turned off. It's a function of the marketplace not being ready to address this...

Hollywood, Calif. – A new five-year study of the Top 250 movies at the box office shows that movies with very strong Christian worldviews earn the most money. They even outperform movies with lots of foul language, sex and nudity. The new study was released today by the Annual Movieguide® Awards Gala and Report to the Entertainment Industry, which just held its 16th Annual Awards Gala Tuesday evening, Feb. 12, at the glamorous Beverly Hilton Hotel in Beverly Hills. “The Good News is that the bad news is wrong,� declared a joyous Dr. Ted Baehr, Christian theologian and founder of...

More than 20 years of data is in – and the conventional wisdom is wrong. The chances a Hollywood movie will win big at the box office are greatly enhanced by a family-friendly rating and strong moral content, defying the notion the entertainment industry is merely serving up what consumers want when they produce so many R-rated movies full of foul language, sex, drugs and immorality, shows a new study by the Christian Film and Television Commission, publishers of Movieguide. According to the study, G-rated movies averaged nearly $92.2 million, more than 438 percent better than R-rated movies, making only...

The creature-feature "Cloverfield" became the first monster hit released in 2008, debuting with $41 million, according to Sunday's studio estimates. That's a record opening for January. Paramount's tale of a giant reptile causing chaos in New York City surpassed the $35.9 million premiere weekend of the "Star Wars" special edition in 1997, the previous best for January. Opening in second-place was 20th Century Fox's romantic comedy "27 Dresses," starring Katherine Heigl as a perpetual bridesmaid. It pulled in $22.4 million. The weekend's other new wide release, Overture Films' crime comedy "Mad Money," with Diane Keaton, Queen Latifah and Katie Holmes...

TW LW Title (click to view) Studio Weekend Gross % Change Theater Count / Change Average Total Gross Budget* Week # 1 23 The Bucket List WB $19,540,000 +5,879.4% 2,911 +2,895 $6,712 $20,964,000 $45 3 2 N First Sunday SGem $19,000,000 - 2,213 - $8,585 $19,000,000 - 1 3 2 Juno FoxS $14,000,000 -11.7% 2,448 +523 $5,718 $71,250,000 - 6 4 1 National Treasure: Book of Secrets BV $11,482,000 -42.8% 3,377 -385 $3,400 $187,295,000 - 4 5 4 Alvin and the Chipmunks Fox $9,100,000 -41.5% 3,384 -78 $2,689 $187,740,000 $60 5 6 3 I Am Legend WB $8,130,000 -48.3% 3,353...

DB here: More informative about American history than Fahrenheit 9/11. More brain-teasing, and far more enjoyable, than I’m Not There. Less graphically violent than almost any other movie you’re likely to see. What else could I be talking about but National Treasure: Book of Secrets? Jerry Bruckheimer is, in my view, the most astute producer now working in Hollywood. I could cite many proofs, but let’s stick just to the first National Treasure. Here’s a movie with no pop music, no cusswords, no naked ladies, no drugs, no screwing, and scarcely any violence. (One bad guy accidentally falls to his...

You can look at the box office results from last weekend and easily see that National Treasure: Book of Secrets took the #1 spot, but that's nothing. There's another movie that isn't that high up on the chart yet is still performing extraordinarily - Juno. On Friday alone, December 28th, Juno made $3.285 million on 998 screens, a per-theater-average of $3,292. This total box office earnings for Juno have now reached $25.7 million. This incredibly impressive, nearly record breaking, for a lil' indie film from Jason Reitman. Unfortunately $3.3 million on Friday isn't the absolute biggest take in history. As...