Today's Fresh Blogs...

• Down To The Wire: Summer 2007 Record?

  Published: August 12, 2007, 9:35 pm

  Tags: Hollywood, Movies, Box Office, Summer Movies

  Can Hollywood's "Summer Of Blockbusters" set a U.S. record at the box office? Media By Numbers prepared figures for me showing that summer-to-date revenues for 2007 are $3.624 billion, well ahead of summer-to-date revenues for 2006 of $3.312 billion. Revenue is up 9.42% and attendance is also up 4.63%. But the period from May 1 through Labor

  Comments (0)   Blog link Rating: 0

• 'Rush Hour 3' Stalls & Can't Top Sequel; 'Bourne 3' Still Big; 'Stardust' Big Bomb

  Published: August 11, 2007, 11:27 am

  Tags: Hollywood, Studios, Movies, Box Office, Actors, Directors, Comedy, Marketing, Summer Movies

  it could do modest late summer biz. "To come out of weekend with almost as much as we put into it is solid, and the film will do just fine for the studio," an insider told me. (Uh, if you say so.) Meanwhile, Miramax's holdover Becoming Jane finished just out of the Top 10 Friday with $2.8 mil this weekend from only 601 theaters for a new

  Comments (0)   Blog link Rating: 0

• Projected $55+M Traffic For 'Rush Hour 3'

  Published: August 10, 2007, 3:52 pm

  Tags: Hollywood, Books, Studios, Movies, Box Office, Actors, Directors, Producers, Foreign, Comedy, Finance, Summer Movies, Distribution

  Judd Apatow, the late-summer sleeper; I'm told it lives up to the hype. This is a slam dunk with the 18-to-25 demo: It's like a raunchier, funnier American Pie. And, after months of bloated blockbusters, it'll be what people are in the mood for." But awareness on the pic is still not what the studio hoped for. Still, my box office

  Comments (0)   Blog link Rating: 0

• Bob Shaye's Mea Culpa Too Little Too Late

  Published: August 9, 2007, 11:07 pm

  Tags: La Times, Hollywood, Media, Studios, Movies, Box Office, Directors, Moguls, Finance, Summer Movies

  I'm told that tomorrow, on the day that Rush Hour 3 opens, Bob Shaye publicly pledges to make changes in the way New Line Cinema runs its business. It's done via Los Angeles Times' Patrick Goldstein who just six months ago embarrassingly planted a big wet sloppy kiss in print on the mogul last March right before the release of Shaye's

  Comments (0)   Blog link Rating: 0

• What Do Peter Morton & Paramount Have In Common? A Movie That's Gonna Bomb

  Published: August 8, 2007, 9:12 pm

  Tags: Hollywood, Studios, Movies, Box Office, Actors, Directors, Producers, Moguls, Tracking, Foreign, Marketing, Finance, Blogs, Trailers, Summer Movies, Vegas

  There are two things you may not know about Stardust, opening this weekend. 1) Good thing Brad Grey is vacationing in Europe with his family. Because he'll miss the pic's disastrous domestic opening this weekend. Even budgeted without marketing costs at $70 million (which sounds way low to me because of all the special effects excess), director

  Comments (0)   Blog link Rating: 0

• Which Draft Exposed Bart's Private Parts?

  Published: August 8, 2007, 8:07 pm

  Tags: Hollywood, Movies, Producers, Moguls, Writers, Toons, Summer Movies

  Jim Brooks is saying that The Simpsons Movie screenplay went through 166 drafts. Is that a new record for Hollywood? Or is that a new apocalypse?

  Comments (0)   Blog link Rating: 0

• Apatow's 'Superbad' Doing Swell Today

  Published: August 17, 2007, 4:55 pm

  Tags: Hollywood, Studios, Movies, Box Office, Producers, Tracking, Comedy, Summer Movies

  It's early still, but I'm told that today's release of mogul-in-the-making producer Judd Apatow's Superbad is already doing better than expected at the domestic box office. After weeks when the pic's awareness level was tracking lower than had been hoped, overwhelmingly great reviews from The New York Times and other media outlets are making the

  Comments (0)   Blog link Rating: 0

• 'Superbad' Trounces Competition & Helps Summer 2007 Stay On Track For Record

  Published: August 19, 2007, 11:49 am

  Tags: Hollywood, Studios, Movies, Box Office, Producers, Moguls, Comedy, Summer Movies

  weekend in a row in overall summer box office which looks increasingly likely to set a new record for 2007. Summer to date this year already has passed 2006. But the overall record for May 1st through Labor Day is going down to the wire since 2004 is the precedent setter with $3.95 billion. But Sony's Superbad helped by doing supergood at

  Comments (0)   Blog link Rating: 0

• 'High School Musical 2' Breaks TV Records

  Published: August 19, 2007, 4:08 pm

  Tags: Hollywood, Studios, Movies, Music, Cable, Summer Movies

  News reports say early Nielsens show that Friday's premiere of The Disney Channel's made for TV High School Musical 2 was the most-watched basic cable television program of all time. With 17.2 million viewers, it was also the most-watched basic cable movie of all time, the highest-rated television program ever for children age 6 to 11 and the

  Comments (0)   Blog link Rating: 0

• Apatow's 'Superbad' Does Superbetter: $33M

  Published: August 20, 2007, 2:20 pm

  Tags: Hollywood, Studios, Movies, Box Office, Producers, Moguls, Comedy, Summer Movies

  Sony's Superbad had a better than expected Sunday so the official weekend total is now $33 mil, not just $31 mil. "We had an exceptional hold Sunday, one of the best I have ever seen, and it looks like we will be only down about 2% off of Saturday's number." See my previous: 'Superbad' Trounces Competition & Helps Summer 2007 For Record

  Comments (0)   Blog link Rating: 0

• Labor Day Wkd Prediction: 'Halloween' #1

  Published: August 31, 2007, 3:12 am

  Tags: Hollywood, Studios, Box Office, Producers, Marketing, Summer Movies, Distribution

  Halloween is arriving awfully early this year, but moviegoers have flocked to this franchise ever since 1978 when Michael Myers first began causing havoc. (I doubt they'll care that this weekend is the wrong holiday.) My box office gurus expect the R-rated Halloween 9, directed by the aptly named Rob Zombie, to treat more than trick the box

  Comments (0)   Blog link Rating: 0

• Don't Mess With NY Times Movie Reviews

  Published: September 7, 2007, 6:31 pm

  Tags: Hollywood, Media, Studios, Movies, P R, Box Office, Directors, Critics, Marketing, Journalism, Summer Movies

  Hopefully, this isn't the start of a trend. "As soon as we found out about it, we raised a flag," NY Times' Culture Editor Sam Sifton told me today. He's talking about what The Denver Post did to a rave New York Times review of Julie Delpy's 2 Days In Paris. On August 24th, The Denver Post published Stephen Holden's August 10th review of the

  Comments (0)   Blog link Rating: 0

• More Eli Roth Whining About Anti-Torture Porn Media; Disses EW Female Film Critic

  Published: September 24, 2007, 5:24 pm

  Tags: Hollywood, Media, Movies, Directors, Writers, Critics, Horror, Magazines, Summer Movies

  quite simple: I hate these movies. I won't see these movies. Never saw Saw or its sequels, never will. I'm not impressed with the ''quality'' of the gore or the ''wit'' of the filmmaking. I'm not enjoyably scared; I'm horrified, and not in the way horror fans get off on, groaning and screaming with pack-mentality excitement. Instead, my horror

  Comments (0)   Blog link Rating: 0

• Would 'Halo' Have Been A Film Flop Or Fab Franchise? One Expert Analyzes...

  Published: October 4, 2007, 3:53 am

  Tags: Big Media, Hollywood, Movies, Tech, Video Games, Finance, Summer Movies, Distribution

  High time to look at the nexus of Hollywood and Halo 3. So I defer to video game biz expert Keith Boesky, who today wonders whether last week's Biggest Entertainment Day In History -- i.e. the launch of Halo 3 -- could jumpstart the stalled Halo film franchise. (See my previous, Universal & Fox Fighting Over 'Halo' $$$) Why listen to

  Comments (0)   Blog link Rating: 0

• EXCLUSIVE: Eli Roth Moving From Horror To "More Ambitious & Artistic" Projects

  Published: October 20, 2007, 6:21 pm

  Tags: Hollywood, Politics, Movies, Directors, Foreign, Horror, Dvds, Summer Movies

  torture porn in horror movies. Of course, I totally get that he's looking for publicity timed to the October 23rd release of the unrated widescreen edition of his loathesome Hostel Part II DVD, especially after the film flopped at the box office during the summer. (In fact, just on October 8th, the pic was dissed during debate in the

  Comments (0)   Blog link Rating: 0