Blog Archives

Monkey Biz: The Wisdom of the December Rollout

In the past few years, the Oscars have been dominated by these Crock-Pot indies—films that do better and better the longer they cook in the marketplace. Eight out of the last ten Best Picture winners were independent—or at least non-Big-6-studio—films that grew their box office and audience slow and steady.

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Monkey Biz: Thankfulness

It is no coincidence that every major release this Thanksgiving weekend adheres to the “you don’t know what you got ‘til it’s gone” template, featuring protagonists that long for and learn to fight for the things they’ve lost. They cast aside posttraumatic stress in favor of posttraumatic growth, surpassing us in their abilities to flourish in the aftermath of the storm (this is literally the plot of Life of Pi).

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Monkey Biz: Sandy Topples The Charts

Weather is not as kind to or as fond of the trial-and-error method of the movie business. We have only a “pretty good” idea of what’s about to hit. And prediction, after all, aides in preparation, not in prevention. When John Carter flops, Disney takes a loss, but also knows not to take a further loss by making a sequel. Greenlighting Sandy’s successor, on the other hand, isn’t up to us.

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Monkey Biz: From Viewers to Voters, Hollywood to D.C.

Moviegoers cast their votes every single weekend, if not two or three times a week. With every click of the remote to purchase a flick On-Demand, every dollar handed over at the Cineplex ticket booth, even every time the channel isn’t changed when a trailer pops up onscreen, viewers become voters.

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THE MONKEY BIZ BAROMETER: 9/19/12

Giving the Monkey Biz the business, from George Clooney to James Cameron, and from Entourage to Manimal.

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Monkey Business: 9/12/12

Didn’t I tell you that the fall movie season is the worst? The autumn opener this past weekend had the lowest total gross since September 2008. Not a single flick even reached the $10M mark. You can blame the start of the school year or the NFL season, but best to blame Hollywood, which has made a habit of settling for sub par seasons.

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Monkey Biz: The September Slouch

What’s going on in the Monkey Biz this September?

Here’s your Top 10 roundup in this month’s movie business news to date:

1. As per usual, September kicked off sans bang with a lackluster Labor Day weekend, with The Possession hauling in $21.1M and Lawless making $12.9M.  Even though The Possession‘s haul was a bit off from recent Lionsgate horror flicks (like The Last Exorcism), it still had one of the best debuts … Read More

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Monkey Biz: The Mediocre Summer

This summer there were a few clear winners and a few clear losers, but most flicks struggled just to break even. The goal is to make money, not scratch and claw to make it back. Honestly, the season was filled with movies no one wanted to see (and those are the numbers talking).

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Monkey Biz: 10 Things That Shouldn’t Have Happened…

A crowd-stopping (literally crowd-stopping, not good crowd-stopping, like there will actually be no crowds) slate of films comes to theaters Friday. Lackluster? Yes. But also not atypical for the end of August to feature a bunch of dump movies that never could have competed with the real summer fare. Not that that’s an excuse. After all, who wouldn’t want fun, quality movies all year round?

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