Ever since Deadline began its big awards season event , The Contenders Presented By Deadline five years ago, the opening act in the daylong Oscar season showcase for studios and distributors has been the presentation from The Weinstein Company – and this year was no different as TWC produced a special reel  and last…

With a $32 million domestic gross – and still counting – before its upcoming July 7 DVD release, The Weinstein Company’s sleeper specialty hit, Woman In Gold is currently the top ranking independent release of 2015.  And now, as everyone else seems to be knee deep in Emmy campaigning, the Weinsteins (who else but…

Universal’s seven-quel Furious 7 was off 2% in its weekend actual from its Sunday estimate with a second frame of $59.6M. Furious 7 still outstripped its predecessor’s domestic B.O. of $238.7M in 10 days to becoming the highest grossing title in the franchise with $251.5M, and its weekend haul is still the third…

This doesn’t happen often: Four of the weekend box office’s top 10 are Specialty releases, while a debuting fifth had the year’s best per-theater average. Among the top 10, TWC’s Woman In Gold, RADiUS’ It Follows, Bleecker Street’s Danny Collins and A24’s While We’re Young took the 7th, 8th, 9th and 10th spots…

Sunday Final update 9:36AM after 6:50AM post: It took Fast & Furious 6 some 15 weeks to accumulate $238.6M in domestic box office during the summer of 2013. By contrast, it will take Furious 7 just 10 days to pass its immediate predecessor as the highest-grossing title in the Fast & Furious franchise. Universal sees Fu…

Early Friday afternoon estimates are in and from what sources are seeing from advance tickets sales and matinees is that Universal’s Furious 7 is on course for a 60% drop this weekend, which again is typical for the second frames of these big blockbuster bows.  That puts Furious 7‘s FSS at $58M-$60M with a Friday that…

We will see last weekend’s motorhead mash-up Furious 7 playing in another wide-open weekend. However, with fewer kids in the marketplace and no holiday jump, we could see a significant drop in its second-weekend numbers — as much as 60% as most tentpoles do, though there are factors that could make this one a bit…

Noah Baumbach’s While We’re Young kept the specialty box-office crown for a second weekend as it expanded into more than two dozen additional theaters. Most of the big crop of specialty films debuting this weekend opened flat, with the exception of Woman in Gold, which netted a decent $2 million from 258 theaters. Whil…

After a long delay, the Emma Thompson-scripted feature Effie Gray will have its U.S. theatrical release via Adopt Films in just over 200 theaters this weekend. The film starring Dakota Fanning, Thompson, Tom Sturridge and Julie Walters had been held up because of legal action but survived the hurdle. The Weinstein…

It may have had a bumpy start with certain cranky critics at Berlin, but as I say in my video review above, Woman In Gold is very fine indeed, a triumph of storytelling and a compelling real-life tale likely to have smart, grownup audiences cheering. And though the film debuts April 1, that’s NO April Fool’s joke. The…

Director Simon Curtis’ terrific new film, Woman In Gold opens April 1st and I will have a full video review of it on Monday. But the movie actually had its World Premiere February 9th at the Berlin Film Festival and critics came gunning for it. “A stodgy crusade for justice directed with minimal flair,” said one…

EXCLUSIVE– Mandy Patinkin (Homeland) is in advanced negotiations to join the cast of BAFTA-winning director Asif Kapadia’s Ali & Nino opposite Adam Bakri (Omar) and Maria Valverde (Exodus: Gods And Kings). Deadline previously broke the news that Valverde had joined the cast. The $20 million film is based on the…