Last September 3rd, “National Cinema Day” was celebrated in more than 3,000 theaters in North America, with $3 tickets to every showing of every movie all day long. It was a gigantic success — 8.1 million attendees (a record high for 2022 at the time), totaling $24.3 million. Hopefully there’s another installment on the way. […]
By mid-March, I had already been to the movies 20 times in 2020. The first four films were in Los Angeles, the fifth in Chicago, and the next 15 near where I live in Upstate NY. Then COVID hit. Theaters shut down, and I ended-up watching more than 200 new releases in my house during […]
The first major new release to open in theaters in the early months of this pandemic was “Unhinged”. The Russell Crowe action/thriller was in 1,823 theaters in its first weekend of wide release in August 2020. The next theater count high came the next weekend, with “The New Mutants” playing in 2,412 locations. “TENET” became […]
When the COVID-19 shutdown happened in March, Universal was one of the first major studios to make headlines for a shift in the release plan for a major movie. They, along with DreamWorks Animation, decided to put “Trolls World Tour” on Video on Demand in April instead of waiting until most movie theaters *might* be […]
I join 99.5 The River morning show host Randy McCarten to talk about movie theater re-openings in Upstate NY and Bill Murray’s new film “On The Rocks”. WRVE-FM is an iHeart Media radio station. ————————————— Lights Camera Jackson (a.k.a. Jackson Murphy) began his career as a film critic/entertainment reporter in 2006 at the age of […]
Seven months to the day after movie theaters in New York State closed their doors, Governor Andrew Cuomo has announced that cinemas in Upstate regions with low COVID positive rates will finally be allowed to re-open. Beginning this Friday October 23rd, theaters will be able to accommodate 50 people per auditorium or 25% of each […]
For as long as I’ve been in this biz (we’re coming-up on the end of my 15th year), I’ve seen studios “secure” release dates six, seven, eight years out. In 2017 (for example), animation studios and giants like Disney would make sure to date an “Untitled Movie” for 2023 or 2024 – just so they […]
Indoor movie theaters are making a comeback in the United States, with “TENET” the first official post-shutdown release to gross a significant amount of money at the box office. I had a safe, socially distant experience when I saw it last week. If you plan on going to an indoor cinema over these next few […]
Between January 1st and March 12th, 2020, I saw 30 “new” movies. In this case, “new” means either a new movie released in 2020 or a film released in 2019 that I saw before the end of the qualifying awards season (Feb. 9). 20 of these movies were at indoor theaters, including four in the […]
I review ‘I Used to Go Here’, ‘SamSam’, ‘The Secret Garden’ & ‘Howard’ and talk about the state of movie theaters on News10ABC’s morning newscast (Albany, NY affiliate WTEN-TV). ————————————— Lights Camera Jackson (a.k.a. Jackson Murphy) began his career as a film critic/entertainment reporter in 2006 at the age of 7. Jackson has written over […]