Latest in Exhibition

5th Update, Early Sunday AM:  It Chapter Two is having a similar Friday-to-Saturday percent hold as the first film, at -10% with $33.6M yesterday, taking the weekend to an estimated $91M, per the studio, still the second-best start for September and a horror pic. It’s the fifth-best for an R-rated pic, opening behind M…

Pennywise will be handing out balloons in 75 overseas markets as well as the U.S. and Canada this weekend, with It Chapter Two planning a nearly full day-and-date release versus 2017's staggered rollout for the original. All in, industry sources are seeing a global debut that could potentially score a worldwide…

Caleb Ward has been hired as director of acquisitions at Freestyle Digital Media, the digital distribution unit of Byron Allen’s Entertainment Studios Motion Pictures. The move comes on the eve of the Toronto Film Festival. Effective immediately, Ward will oversee acquisitions for Freestyle Digital Media, targeting…

Updated tracking has New Line’s It: Chapter Two opening between $90 million-$100 million, just behind the previous chapter’s all-time horror and September debut record of $123.4M. However, Fandango reports that advance ticket sales for the Stephen King sequel are the online ticketer’s best ever for a horror pic…

EXCLUSIVE: Before Hurricane Dorian reaches landfall sometime tonight, some theaters on the central east coasts of Florida have already boarded up including a slew of AMC, Regal and Cinemark multiplexes. Most of these sites aren’t expected to re-open until Tuesday and Wednesday, in time for New Line’s It: Chapter Two…

New York’s Paris Theatre, a fixture just off Fifth Avenue for 71 years, has joined the alarming list of movie theaters overwhelmed by changing tides in the industry and urban development. The 581-seat, single-screen venue next to the Plaza Hotel and Berdorf Goodman across from Central Park, posted a sign in its window…

EXCLUSIVE: Highly respected industry veteran Andrew Cripps has been named President, International Theatrical Distribution, at Warner Bros Pictures. He previously was Fox's International Theatrical Distribution president and among the senior brass who left in the wake of the Disney merger. His Warner Bros appointment…

After announcing their U.S. and UK limited theatrical-streaming release plans for Martin Scorsese’s $160M mob opus The Irishman this morning, Netflix has unveiled the release dates for its entire awards-season slate including Steven Soderbergh’s The Laundromat, the Eddie Murphy pic Dolemite Is My Name, David Michod’s T…

In its most ambitious ever theatrical rollout plan for one of its original productions, Netflix will give The Irishman a 27-day theatrical window before the film makes its streaming service bow November 27. Netflix will launch on November 1 in Los Angeles and New York the epic crime drama that reunites director Martin…

While everyone is expecting New Line’s It: Chapter 2 to tee us off into what is expected to be a lucrative fall-holiday season with at least a $90 million-$110 million start, one shocker that hit tracking last Thursday: STX Entertainment’s Jennifer Lopez-Constance Wu stripper crime drama came on with a hot $24M-$26M…

EXCLUSIVE: We are hearing that that AMC’s U.S. President of Programming is leaving the company after a decade’s run at the end of the year. We’re still waiting for AMC to weigh in, but it’s believed by distribution sources that Lenihan, a very respected vet in exhibition, was part of the recent Aug. 22 cuts. When…

5th Update, Sunday AM writethru final w/chart: Once all the summer Disney franchise pics are out of the way, it gives low-and-mid-budget films some space to breathe. And that’s what we’re seeing in recent weeks, with the debuts of such pics as Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark, Good Boys, and now…