Latest in The Hobbit: The Desolation Of Smaug

The final eight films in Deadline’s Most Valuable Blockbuster movie tournament face off today. This is the second of our quarterfinal matchups and for the first time we reveal the numbers behind the numbers that show just how profitable a movie really is. The Matchup: There are similarities here that go beyond each…

3rd UPDATE, 3:20 PM PT Monday:  The Lego Movie has upped its overseas weekend cume to $24M in its 48 markets due to stronger UK and France numbers. It now has an international total estimated at $93.5M. Key building block territories yet to bow include Russia, Japan, Australia and Germany. In the UK, Lego took the…

Interviews by AwardsLine Editor Christy Grosz and Deputy Editor Anna Lisa Raya. Their faces aren't all recognizable, but these Oscar nominees were crucial elements in bringing some of the season's best films to the big screen. From putting the financial elements in place for a visionary director, to leading a team of…

AwardsLine editor Christy Grosz contributed to this story. Joe Letteri said the biggest difference between the first Hobbit and The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug (WB/MGM) was the kind of simulations that the Academy Award-nominated visual effects team had to create. Letteri, Eric Saindon, David Clayton and Eric…

Los Angeles (January 14, 2014) – Today, the Visual Effects Society (VES), the industry's professional honorary society, announced the nominees for the 12th Annual VES Awards, the prestigious yearly celebration that recognizes outstanding visual effects artistry and innovation in film, animation, television…

UPDATE, MONDAY 12:39 PM PT: Actuals from the overseas weekend box office are starting to roll in with Universal among the first to report. Despicable Me 2‘s China opening weekend ended higher than the studio had predicted with $14.4M as opposed to the estimated $13.8M. The original estimate was based on a screen count…

Thomas J. McLean is an AwardsLine contributor. Expect Gravity to be as powerful and inevitable a force in the visual-effects category at this year's Oscars as, well, gravity. Offering more than just snazzy visuals — about 95% of what's on screen is digital — Gravity's visual-effects supervisor Tim Webber fulfilled…

THIS WEEKEND OPENERS: Paranormal Activity: The Marked Ones (PAR, wide) THURSDAY, 8:09 AM: Since Christmas fell on a Wednesday this year and New Year’s Eve on a Tuesday, the studios are enjoying a long holiday run at the box office that will continue through Sunday. Through the New Year’s holiday, The Hobbit: Desolation…

Warner Bros UK was Britain’s top distributor in 2013, the third time in four years it has held the title, and the sixth time since rankings began in 1991. The studio says it grossed £194M ($320.3M) last year for a 16.5% share. The figures are not records as the last time Warner UK was No. 1 in 2011, it grosed £205.8M…

Catch up on your holiday news with Deadline’s best film stories of the week: Christmas Box Office: Weekend Up 10% On More Movies In Marketplace, 'Hobbit,' 'Frozen,' Together Take 34% Out Of Weekend, 'Anchorman 2,' 'Hustle,' 'Wolf' Follow By Anita Busch – What a weekend. Box office was up overall about 10% from a year…

The Hobbit: The Desolation Of Smaug is off to a smash hit start in Australia having opened on Boxing Day (December 26th) — a national holiday observed by most of the country. The sequel, which dominated the box office with a 60% market share of the top 5 films, grossed an estimated $4.9M in U.S. dollars from 629…

Deadline International Editor Nancy Tartaglione and host David Bloom talk in their latest podcast about which films survived the…