UPDATE Monday, 5:51 PM: Actuals are in and Lionsgate’s second in the franchise Insurgent took a higher than expected $1.3M overall, bringing it tally to $48.3M (up from the estimated $47M). So worldwide, it just tips the $100M mark, according to Lionsgate. The final numbers also revealed that Disney’s Cinderella…

MONDAY UPDATE 3PM: Lionsgate’s Insurgent came in with a weekend actual of $52.26M which is 3% off of the studio-reported weekend estimate yesterday and 4% off Divergent‘s $54.6M bow last March. Industry estimates were projecting $53.3M.  Insurgent‘s updated opening figure is fine, however, we’re use to seeing ticket…

UPDATE, 2:17 PM: Slightly more kids are off for spring break this weekend than last, with a third of all colleges off per Rentrak (vs. 27% last Friday) and 19% K-12 schools out (vs. 17%). As such, that young demo flocks to movies at night and hourlies for Lionsgate’s Insurgent are bound to improve. But currently, Insur…

Similar to last weekend with the $131.6M global bow of Disney’s Cinderella, women are the prime target again this frame with the opening of Lionsgate’s Divergent sequel Insurgent, based on the second title in the popular Veronica Roth young adult book trilogy. Industry estimates peg the global bow between $105M-$120M…

Liam Neeson proved it could be done when, in his mid-50s, he suddenly turned into Hollywood’s hottest action star by launching a new tough-guy persona with Taken. Now that film’s director, Pierre Morel, is at it again, as I say in my video review above. Only this time Morel is working with 54-year-old Sean Penn, who…

Sean Penn is on the run in action thriller The Gunman helmed by Taken director Pierre Morel. Based on the Jean-Patrick Manchette novel The Prone Gunman, the pic stars Penn as a former Special Forces soldier and military contractor suffering from PTSD. He tries to reconnect with his longtime love, but first must go on…

Directed by Pierre Morel, The Gunman stars Sean Penn as a former Special Forces soldier and military contractor suffering from PTSD. He tries to reconnect with his longtime love but first must go on the run from London to Barcelona and across Europe to clear his name. The movie was a huge sales title for StudioCanal…

EXCLUSIVE: In its latest aggressive pre-buy to line its slate with star-driven pictures, Open Road Films has on the eve of the Cannes Film Festival closed a deal to acquire U.S. rights to The Gunman, the action thriller that stars Sean Penn, Javier Bardem, Idris Elba, Ray Winstone, Mark Rylance and Jasmine Trinca. It…

EXCLUSIVE: Looks like the sides have been chosen for the shoot-out film The Gunman, which Taken helmer Pierre Morel will direct for Silver Pictures and Studio Canal. Ray Winstone has just joined the film. He’ll play the mentor of the hitman played by Sean Penn, who is betrayed and then hunted by the organization he…

EXCLUSIVE: Javier Bardem has found a couple of killer roles. He will star as the good guy (for a change) in J.C. Chandor's next film, A Most Violent Year, which will shoot in Manhattan this fall. Chandor, who made a splash in Cannes unveiling the Robert Redford-starrer survival tale All Is Lost, wrote A Most Violent Ye…

EXCLUSIVE: Ahead of its shooting start next month, Sean Penn-starrer The Gunman has virtually sold out for Studiocanal here in Cannes. This is the project from producers Joel Silver and Andrew Rona that Studiocanal is fully financing. Taken helmer Pierre Morel is directing the action film, which previously went by the…