Category: media

” The Dark Knight” on Sunday became the second movie in Hollywood history to top $500 million at the domestic box office, raising its total to $502.4 million, according to estimates from distributor Warner Bros. The film hit that mark in just over six weeks, half the time it took “Titanic,” which reached $500 million in a little more than three months.

“The overall picture for summer was not particularly shiny, with a 4 percent rise in the average U.S. ticket price to $7.16 saving the day for the movie industry. Estimated sales inched up 0.43 percent from last year’s record to $4.2 billion, while the number of tickets sold slid 3.5 percent to 586.9 million, according to tracking firm Media By Numbers. The previous low for attendance was in 2005, when 563 million tickets were sold.”

“The school’s-out movie season concludes this weekend, and domestic ticket sales so far total $3.9 billion, up a little more than 1% from last year’s record summer, according to Media by Numbers. Year-to-date revenues stand at $6.7 billion, down slightly from 2007, but up from the three earlier years, the tracking firm says.”

“According to Nielsen’s 2008-09 national universe estimates, the 55-plus age bracket is by far the fastest-growing TV audience demo — accelerating at twice the rate of the overall TV audience.”

“A U.S. judge has thrown out a copyright infringement case against Veoh Networks Inc, an Internet video start-up with high-profile Hollywood backers, ruling that video-sharing companies are not solely responsible for policing piracy that may take place on their sites.”

“What is it about hitmen? (And apologies to all you feminist hitwomen out there, but “hitperson” lacks that je ne sais quoi, so I’m sticking to the masculine form.) They’re all over the bloody place – and, pace Tom Cruise in Collateral, they’re hardly ever villains.”

The big splash for drama marks a departure from years past when the Canadian Broadcasting Corp. dominated the competition with its news and factual shows. This year the public broadcaster earned nine nods for its flagship newscast, “CBC News: The National,” and 11 for perennial Gemini contender “The Fifth Estate,” an investigative news show.

“Alas, it’s hard to make an argument that viewers are breathlessly awaiting ABC’s fall season – or any other network’s. Audience buzz remains at a hush. With the networks still reeling from the disruption of last winter’s strike by screenwriters, only 17 new series have been slotted for fall – about half the usual number. And most of them have been unavailable for preview.”

“Filming of big-budget movies has ground to a virtual halt across the city and much of the county, a slowdown partly driven by scheduling decisions studios made a year ago to prepare for a possible actors strike. Only one major studio film, DreamWorks SKG’s sci-fi flick Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen, is shooting on location in Los Angeles, compared with seven studio films that were in production this time last year”

“Scientists have developed systems to make digital doubles of actors which are so realistic that audiences will never notice the difference. Computer-generated visual effects have long since been used by film-makers to create space ships and monsters. But the latest technology allows them to create models of real people that can be seamlessly morphed into action scenes featuring human actors.”