6TH UPDATE, Monday: Weekend Actuals Even though Super Bowl annually line drives Sunday’s business, it doesn’t completely knock out the box office permanently with most moviegoing occurring on Friday and Saturday. Even the most male-oriented titles in the past, i.e. last year’s American Sniper  ($30.7M FSS) and 2009’s T…

Many distributors bemoan Super Bowl weekend as a deathly time at the box office, specifically when Sunday business can see a downturn of 65%-70% compared with Saturday. Last year alone, a historic 114.5M watched Super Bowl XLIX. However, the truth is that most audiences head to the cinema on Friday or Saturday during…

Tom Welling has landed a lead in The Choice, the Ross Katz-directed adaptation of the Nicholas Sparks novel from a script by Bryan Sipe for Lionsgate. Benjamin Walker plays Travis Parker and Teresa Palmer plays Gabby Holland. Neighbors in a small coastal town, they end up pursuing a relationship neither expected…

UPDATED 4:45 PM: Just hours after the male lead was announced, Teresa Palmer has been tapped as female lead Gabby Holland in Lionsgate’s The Choice. Her recent credits include The Ever After, Parts Per Billion and Love And Honor, and Palmer next appears in Cut Bank and Kill Me Three Times. Palmer is repped by WME…

EXCLUSIVE: Lionsgate has acquired North American and UK distribution rights to The Choice, an adaptation of the 2007 Nicholas Sparks novel that has a script by Bryan Sipe, with Sparks, Theresa Park and Peter Safran producing. Production begins in the fall. The deal, which began percolating during the Cannes Film…

CBS’ Big Brother (2.6/8) returned for another summer last night with four vets of the show as this season's coaches. Hosted by Julie Chen, the 14th season of the reality show was down 7% from last year’s season bow but marked the highest adults 18-49 number for its season premiere since February 2008. It drew 7.09…

Thursday was a night of double premieres on Fox. The George Lopez-hosted dating show Take Me Out (1.3/5) started the evening at 8 PM. Rising significantly from its lead-in, the celebrity bachelor dating show The Choice (1.8/5) followed at 9 PM. In the same timeslot over on ABC, the two-hour Duets (1.2/4) was once…

The dating reality shows’ hot streak this summer continues with Fox’s The Choice, a six-episode celebrity dating series that feels like a dating version of The Voice or a cross between the NBC singing competition and The Dating Game. Hosted by So You Think You Can Dance‘s Cat Deeley, the hourlong The Choice features…