Talks about cinema a lot / DigiMarComm for @CinemaNext / Co-Founder @Cultpix1 / Klubb Super8 / šŸæ [email protected]

London, England
Joined January 2008
This is my 4,000+ word take on the incredible story of Chinese authorities three-year crusade to take down the greatest film piracy ring ever, and 'Ghost No. 1', the rogue server at the heart of it. lnkd.in/eqRgFgf
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Check out our exclusive #Rentrak Top 10 Domestic Estimates chart! The domestic box office continues to show impressive consistency as we head into October, with the marketplace generating an estimated $99 million this weekend, up 14.8% from the comparable weekend last year and down 21% from last weekend. Just shy of another $100 million weekend, 2026 remains at 27 $100 million-plus weekends out of the first 40, meaning 67.5% of all weekends this year have reached that mark. @AmazonMGMStudio #Verity opened at number one with an estimated $32.6 million from 3,510 theaters in North America. That marks the second-best opening for a Colleen Hoover adaptation, behind only It Ends With Us ($50 million). The 2026 domestic box office now stands at an estimated $7.949 billion through Sunday, up 19.5% from the comparable point in 2025, when the marketplace stood at $6.654 billion. That leaves the industry only $50.757 million shy of the $8 billion mark. At the current pace, the domestic box office is still estimated to cross $8 billion around October 9, although the exact timing could move by a day or two depending on weekday grosses. September certainly did its part, generating $601.9 million, up 1.3% from September 2025 and ranking as the seventh highest-grossing September on record. For a month that has often been viewed as something of a transitional period on the theatrical calendar, that is another strong indication of the depth and durability of the 2026 marketplace. And Anne Hathaway continues to cement her status as one of 2026’s true box office superstars. Verity marks her fifth theatrical release of the year, and her four films released before this weekend have generated nearly $900 million domestically and more than $2.55 billion worldwide. With The Odyssey at $620.464 million domestic and The Devil Wears Prada 2 at $220.6 million, this has become an extraordinary, career-defining box office year for Hathaway. @RentrakMoviesUS @RentrakGlobal #BoxOffice #Rentrak #Movies #Verity #AnneHathaway
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🚨 BREAKING BOX OFFICE NEWS 🚨 Drawing on Rentrak’s 50-year box-office legacy, I was just looking at the numbers—and I honestly didn’t see this coming until I added them up just an hour ago. According to our exclusive #Rentrak data, the domestic box office generated $981,431,365 from August 1 through Thursday, August 20. Add the final studio-estimated $129,925,424 for the August 21–23 weekend, and August 2026 has already reached: šŸŽ¬ š—”š—” š—˜š—¦š—§š—œš— š—”š—§š—˜š—— $šŸ­.šŸ­šŸ­šŸ­ š—•š—œš—Ÿš—Ÿš—œš—¢š—” šŸŽ¬ That makes August 2026 only the third billion-dollar August in 43 years of month-by-month Rentrak data, covering 1984 through 2026—and it is already the highest-grossing August in the history of that dataset. The only other two: šŸæ 2014: $1.017 billion for the full month, powered by Guardians of the Galaxy šŸ”„ 2016: $1.020 billion for the full month, powered by Suicide Squad šŸš€ 2026: $1.111 BILLION through Sunday, August 23—with eight days still remaining! And two movies have contributed an incredible share of this year’s record: šŸ•·ļø #SpiderMan: Brand New Day generated approximately $685.1 million during August through Sunday—61.6% of the entire month. āš”ļø #TheOdyssey added approximately $180.4 million during August—another 16.2%. Together, #SpiderMan: Brand New Day and The Odyssey have contributed approximately $865.4 million—or 77.9% of the biggest August in 43 years of month-by-month Rentrak data. Yes, you read that correctly: 2014 and 2016 are full-month totals. August 2026 has already surpassed both of them with more than a week left to go. And there’s something beautifully appropriate about all those ones. With a nod to Three Dog Night, ONE ā˜ļø is definitely NOT the loneliest number at the August box office. Of course, let’s credit the man who wrote ā€œOneā€: Harry Nilsson, one of my all-time favorite artists. John Lennon famously said, ā€œNilsson’s my favorite group.ā€ Aimee Mann later did a really cool version of ā€œOne,ā€ which opens Paul Thomas Anderson’s Magnolia. Music, movies and $1.111 BILLION at the domestic box office. It all comes together. šŸŽµšŸŽ¬šŸ”„ I’ve always said: ā€œThe month doesn’t define the movies. The movies define the month.ā€ August 2026 just proved it. What an incredible summer. The movies have thrown out the traditional playbook, broken the calendar rules and delivered a milestone I didn’t see coming until I looked at the numbers tonight. @RentrakMoviesUS @RentrakGlobal @SpiderManMovie @odysseymovie #BoxOffice #AugustBoxOffice #SummerMovies #Movies
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The domestic box office has crossed $7 billion for 2026, running 20.4% ahead of last year, while summer has reached $4.446 billion—enough to rank No. 4 when measured against completed summer totals. For me, this may be the most important summer movie season since 1975, when Jaws took a huge bite out of the box office and set the modern summer season in motion. The numbers—and a certain photo of a 14-year-old movie fan—tell the story. šŸŽ¬ Full analysis and charts in the reply. šŸ‘‡ #BoxOffice #SummerMovies #Jaws #MovieTheaters
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Replying to @patrickvons
As someone who grew up in "The Onion Set Capital of the World" and worked at NATO during the HSX nonsense, I loved every word, except the imbalance in film negotiations. That is almost entirely about a lack of market power, rather than lack of information.
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Post coming, but #TheOdyssey is on track to A) notch the third-smallest percentage drop for any $100 million-plus opener, B) achieve the biggest ten-day domestic total for any under-$125 million opener and C) pass $500 million worldwide by the end of this sentence.
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šŸ§… $1.4m was traded on the opening weekend of The Odyssey." Not tickets. Positions! While exhibitors argued about windows and premium formats, a market formed that prices our BO weekends before we do, updates faster than tracking, and answers to nobody. open.substack.com/pub/patric…
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Cinema Guru retweeted
šŸŽžļø Everyone was talking about 70mm @IMAX, but the rarest ticket for Christopher Nolan's "The Odyssey" was actually something far older: a humble 35mm print. We unpack what it means for exhibitors in our latest blog post šŸ‘‡ cinemanext.com/blog/blog-7/t…
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Every bit of evidence argues that yes, audiences still value the theatrical experience, even with the entire investor ecosystem trying to take it away from us to justify their shortsighted "disruptor" strategies...
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Cinema Guru retweeted
Patrick von Sychowski (@patrickvons) rejoint Cine Group comme International Editor-in-Chief šŸ‘‰ boxofficepro.fr/patrick-von-…
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Cinema Guru retweeted
Netflix film chief Dan Lin tells @nytimes that if any director asks Netflix to give their film a theatrical release, they will be shown the door. ā€œThere is a group of filmmakers who still want theatrical. Those are filmmakers that we’ve accepted we just won’t work with.ā€ tinyurl.com/y6nuftck
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If @ArcLightCinemas Hollywood were open for The Odyssey they’d make millions of dollars. They have multiple 70MM and 35MM projectors just sitting there abandoned!
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Breaking! Comscore (with name change to Rentrak set for June 12) reports @A24's #Backrooms delivered one of the biggest horror openings of all time and made history! At just 20 years old, #KaneParsons became the youngest director to helm a #1 film globally, grossing $81.4 million in North America and $118 million worldwide this weekend, shattering the record for the largest opening weekend ever for a first-time director with an original film. #AtomicMonster @blumhouse @jason_blum
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#MemorialDay weekend is off to a great start as @starwars: The Mandalorian and Groguā€ @themandalorian earnsĀ $12MĀ in Thursday previews. The film officially opens in the US and Canada todayĀ inĀ 4,300 theatres, including 425 IMAX auditoriums, 1,100 Premium Large Format screens, 2,400+ 3D locations, 400 D-Box/4D motion screens, and 135 ScreenX locations. Last year's Memorial weekend was the biggest ever with the combination of ā€œLilo & Stitchā€ and ā€œMission: Impossible – The Final Reckoningā€ powering the best ever tally at a whopping $330M domestically.Ā  Check out our Exclusive @Comscore @csMoviesUS @CSGlobalMovies chart of the Top Memorial Day weekends. @Disney @Lucasfilm
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BREAKING: Blue Fox Entertainment has acquired IPIC Theaters Westwood, Pasadena, Boca Raton, Delray Beach, Pike and Rose, and New York City!
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Cinema Guru retweeted
šŸŽ¬ CinemaNext is a proud Gold Sponsor of next week's @Cinema_UK Conference 2026 at @vuecinemas, Shepherd's Bush! Join our VP Solutions Araceli Vaello on 13 May for practical insights on energy savings for cinemas šŸ’” Our UK & Solutions teams will be on the ground. Come say hello!
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