UPDATED, 11:12 AM: Universal has moved its Damon Lindelof-penned The Hunt from September 27 to October 18, swapping dates with an untitled Blumhouse horror pic. In its new slot, the political thriller will open against Disney’s Maleficent: Mistress of Evil, which just claimed that slot today. MGM’s The Addams Family…

UPDATE: DreamWorks’ Animation threequel How to Train Your Dragon: The Hidden World from series director Dean DeBlois will now open on Feb. 22 instead of March 1 next year. DeBlois has been touring clips of the movie at TIFF and will be at New York Comic-Con to show off elements to fans next weekend.

Dragon moves away…

A consortium led by Li Ruigang’s CMC Capital Partners has taken full ownership of Shanghai-based animation studio Oriental DreamWorks, relaunching it as Pearl Studio. Universal, which inherited 45% of the joint venture when parent Comcast acquired DreamWorks Animation in 2016, had been looking to offload its…

While Universal's Everest might be commanding more headlines, Jennfier Peedom's documentary Sherpa, which made its North American debut at the Toronto International Film Festival in September, always sought to tell a story about the famed mountain that rarely sees the light of day. For the sherpa, who receive modest…

Monday update, 5:57PM: 20th Century’s The Martian came in slightly lower for the weekend from where the studio and the industry saw it yesterday, $54.3M in actuals versus its Sunday AM projection of $55M. Still, the Ridley Scott-directed movie drove total weekend ticket sales toward a damn good weekend of $151.4M per…

UPDATED Tuesday, 10:22 AM: Sony reported grosses on Pixels last night and due to their computer problems (their Internet was down on Sunday), the guesstimates were way off — like $3M off. It’s updated with final numbers now. In addition, three more films have been added in — Southpaw, No Escape, The Little Prince, and…

Warner Bros.’ Whitey Bulger gangster film Black Mass, despite being the No. 2 movie last weekend with $22.6M, has ruled No. 1 at the weekday B.O. from Monday through Wednesday, beating last weekend’s champ Maze Runner: The Scorch Trials from 20th Century Fox. A lot of this has to do with the time of year: The under-25…

UPDATED, Monday, 1:35, 4:00 and 4:17 PM PT: Final tallies are in for stateside openers Everest and Maze Runner: Scorch Trials which grabbed $28.8M and $43.2M, respectively. Scorch Trials total cume so far is $78M. Interesting that in India, Everest opened so strong with $1.4M in only 450 runs that it beat out all…

8th UPDATE, Monday, 2:04 PM: Fox’s Maze Runner ended the weekend with a total of $30.3M, down about 7% from the first installment which debuted last year at this time with $32.5M. Black Mass had a smaller final take this morning of $22.6M (the studio estimated $23.3M yesterday) which is still a solid number for Warner…

Maze Runner: Scorch Trials is only slightly ahead right now of its predecessor and with the $1.7M in previews, it looks on track to gross anywhere around $10.5M to $11.5M today, compared to last year’s Friday gross for Maze Runner of $11.2M. The first installment of the Fox franchise based on the YA book by James…

This weekend’s box office should rev up, thanks to Fox’s Maze Runner: The Scorch Trials which should push past the first installment’s $32.5M opening last year at this time. The film has already opened in overseas markets and has surpassed the first by 40%. Although that kind of percentage increase is not expected to…