The secrets behind Robert Zemeckis’ extraordinary film version of Phillipe Petit’s daring 1974 walk on a wire between the brand new Twin Towers of the World Trade Center came to life for a packed audience of AMPAS and key guild members last month at The Contenders Presented By Deadline. Star Joseph Gordon-Levitt told…

Director Robert Zemeckis’ The Walk is an absolute nail-biter, gripping not only because of the event it portrays – Philippe Petit’s harrowing 1974 high wire walk between the twin towers of the World Trade Center – but because it recreates the buildings involved with astonishing realism. It’s impossible to see them and…

It's been a transformative year for the art of visual effects, demonstrated not only by the increasingly ordinary and realistic depiction of advanced technology or destructive superpowers, but also the elaborate recreation of mundane details like office curtains, or space station floor tiles. Two-time Oscar nominee…

EXCLUSIVE: Even though Sony Pictures has not been able to find a wide audience for the Robert Zemeckis-directed The Walk, the studio is taking another shot at making sure that Academy voters have every opportunity to see the movie in 3D. The studio is going to show the movie, day in and day out, with invites going out…

A new weekly column talking up the season with bits and pieces from the awards circuit. Spotlight grabbed its own at the Los Angeles premiere of the movie Tuesday night at the DGA. Although to this point Oscar talk has been huge out of the fall festival circuit it played, those audiences were also heavily made up of…

If ever a weekend left distributors perplexed about how to deliver audiences for movies that deserve them, this was the one. Rarely do you see this many films on a weekend that came with backstories that amounted to cautionary tales about how hard the distribution business is for challenging movies. This most glaring…

Netflix's infiltration into original theatrical-quality motion pictures officially began with the festival and limited theatrical release of Beasts Of No Nation, a film its director Cary Fukunaga and star Idris Elba thought would be a traditional prestige picture theatrical release when they signed on. Ted Sarandos…

Peter Bart and Mike Fleming Jr. worked together for two decades at Daily Variety. In this occasional column, two old friends get together and grind their axes, mostly on the movie business. FLEMING: Jennifer Lawrence is arguably the highest paid female Hollywood star, but she came out swinging this week on the unfair…

6TH UPDATE, Final Monday report, 5:23 PM: There weren’t any earth-shattering changes between reported actual B.O. figures in the top 10 and Sunday morning estimates. While that might not sound so exciting, it always comes as good news to the studios: Nobody is getting dinged. 20th Century Fox’s The Martian arrived on…

3rd UPDATE, Monday, 3:02 PM: Finals are in for weekend The Martian from Fox and Sony’s The Walk and a big expansion on Warner Bros.’ Hugh Jackman-led Pan and the Michael Fassbender-starring Macbeth, which bowed in the UK and landed a big $6,915 per screen. The Shakespearean film was directed by Justin Kurzel, who is…

Warner Bros’ Pan, which carries an estimated reported budget of $150M, put up its sails Thursday night making $650K in previews from showtimes starting at 6 PM. The film, mired by reshoots, is hoping to bank $20M this weekend, though insiders think it’s more like the high teens. Per tracking, first choice for Pan is…

20th Century Fox’s Ridley Scott film The Martian will have plenty of B.O. rocket fuel in it to land at No. 1 this weekend with an estimated $33M-$34M. That’s a -38% hold which would best the second frame declines of Scott’s biggest grossers, Prometheus (-59%, during a competitive June play period) and American Gangster…