The Gospel Music Association Dove Awards show was held and recorded last night. It was a night that paid tribute to gospel music’s veterans and recognized the industry’s emerging talents as the show entertained a sold-out crowd at Atlanta’s Fox Theatre. Hosted by Sherri Shepherd, the show will be broadcast Sunday night on gmc at 7 PM.
Francesca Battistelli was the evening’s top winner. The show touched other areas including country music (Kenny Rogers performed), TV (TBS' Tamela Mann won Traditional Gospel Album) and Denver Broncos quarterback Tim Tebow introduced Third Day.
Thursday, April 21, 2011
Monday, April 18, 2011
‘Dawn Treader’ Nearing Caspian’s Box Office
Even though "The Voyage of the Dawn Treader" is now out on Blu-ray and DVD, it has still not quite completed its box office run. This past week puts the film’s total at $415.6m worldwide. This is still slightly short of "Prince Caspian" ($420m) and well short of "The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe" ($745m).
The film’s domestic total ($104m) is still well below the other two films ($291 for LWW, and $141 for PC). However, internationally, "Dawn Treader" has grossed $311m, which tops "Caspian’s" $278m, but falls short of "Wardrobe’s" $453m.
The most recent issue of Variety includes an ad touting the film's box office total.
The film’s domestic total ($104m) is still well below the other two films ($291 for LWW, and $141 for PC). However, internationally, "Dawn Treader" has grossed $311m, which tops "Caspian’s" $278m, but falls short of "Wardrobe’s" $453m.
The most recent issue of Variety includes an ad touting the film's box office total.
Soul Surfer Riding High in Its Second Week
Soul Surfer rode the wave into fourth at the box office this weekend, falling a slim 30% from last weekend to finish with $7.4M, according to estimates, bringing its total to $20M. A final gross in the area of $40M is possible.
Monday, April 11, 2011
Soul Surfer Makes a Splash at the Box Office
The inspirational drama "Soul Surfer" exceeded expectations and debuted in fourth with an estimated $11.1M. Posting the best screen average among the new films, the PG-rated true story of a teen surfer who gets her life back on track after a shark bites off her arm averaged a good $5,014 from 2,214 screens. Overall, “Soul Surfer” came in fourth, but lost the #2 spot only by a nose to “Hanna,” which banked $12.3m on 300+ more screens, and the “Arthur” remake, which played on 1,000+ more screens but took in only $12.6m. Per screen, “Soul Surfer” beat “Arther” by $1,200. No small thing, especially since surfing movies tend to wipe out.
Nikki Finke reports that Sony was hoping for $10 million and is obviously very happy with the results: “If we do 10 million this weekend (or close to it), it would be a home run for Sony and Film District.”
The movie earned mixed reviews from critics, but "Soul Surfer" earned an A+ grade from CinemaScore which is rare these days so word-of-mouth should help the pic to play well for the rest of the spring season especially with the Easter holiday still to come. So the $15 million production should prove to be quite profitable.
Exit polls showed that a whopping 80% of the crowd was female and 56% was under 25. Moms and daughters made up a big portion of the audience.
“Soul Surfer,” which is based on the true story of Bethany Hamilton, a young surfer whose Christian faith and family help her to overcome a shark attack that cost her an arm, stars AnnaSophia Robb, Dennis Quaid and Helen Hunt. Thanks to some very good marketing to the teenage crowd in general and to the Christian market specifically, what Hollywood has here is one less excuse to keep ‘em coming.
Nikki Finke reports that Sony was hoping for $10 million and is obviously very happy with the results: “If we do 10 million this weekend (or close to it), it would be a home run for Sony and Film District.”
The movie earned mixed reviews from critics, but "Soul Surfer" earned an A+ grade from CinemaScore which is rare these days so word-of-mouth should help the pic to play well for the rest of the spring season especially with the Easter holiday still to come. So the $15 million production should prove to be quite profitable.
Exit polls showed that a whopping 80% of the crowd was female and 56% was under 25. Moms and daughters made up a big portion of the audience.
“Soul Surfer,” which is based on the true story of Bethany Hamilton, a young surfer whose Christian faith and family help her to overcome a shark attack that cost her an arm, stars AnnaSophia Robb, Dennis Quaid and Helen Hunt. Thanks to some very good marketing to the teenage crowd in general and to the Christian market specifically, what Hollywood has here is one less excuse to keep ‘em coming.
Friday, April 8, 2011
The Lion, the Dawn Treader, and the Box Office
Just in time for the Blu-ray/DVD release of The Voyage of the Dawn Treader, Christianity Today has an interview with Micheal Flaherty, Walden Media co-founder and president.
The Lion, The Witch, and The Wardrobe opened in December 2005 to a massive audience, earning more than $1 billion in box office ($745 million) and DVD sales ($332 million) combined and critical reviews were good.
2008's "Prince Caspian" brought in less than half of the domestic box office that LWW had drawn, and 2010's "Voyage of the Dawn Treader" only about a third as much. Critical ratings have also dropped for each successive film.
"The Silver Chair" comes next in the sequence of books, but Flaherty said Walden and 20th Century Fox, which distributes the movies, have mostly decided on "The Magician's Nephew" — Narnia's "origins story"— for their next project. (Narnia scholar Devin Brown says Lewis himself would agree with that choice; see his reasons here.)
The producers think "The Magician's Nephew" has the best opportunity to draw the largest audience. The box office has pretty closely followed the sales pattern of the books. "Prince Caspian" sells about half of the books of "Lion, Witch and the Wardrobe," and it did about half of the box office. Caspian sells about a third more books than "Dawn Treader," and it did about a third more box office domestically. That pattern continues to decline with "Silver Chair" being the weakest book in the series in terms of consumer demand.
Flaherty states: "We just think the origin tale of 'The Magician's Nephew' is a great one, and it brings back the characters that have proven to be the most popular—a lot of Aslan and the White Witch. It explains the origin of the lamppost and the wardrobe."
While the domestic box office dipped significantly with each of the three films, the foreign has remained fairly strong. Domestic accounted for 39 percent of the earnings for Wardrobe, 33 percent for Caspian, and just 25 percent for Dawn Treader. In fact, because of overseas sales, "Voyage of the Dawn Treader" is approaching the same box office of Prince Caspian.
The films are obviously tied closely to the books and Flaherty makes an interesting point about the Narnia series in comparison to current book franchises. He notes most popular book franchises (e.g, Harry Potter and Twilight) are consistent in sales from book to book, but that's not the case for Narnia. Part of the problem may be that there is no character beyond Aslan that runs through the entire series.
"Lucy has the greatest run out of all the characters, but she only appears in three books. So there's something different in terms of the anticipation of not being able to follow one character from the first book to the last."
Secular critics aren't sticklers for whether the films stick to the books; they're mainly judging the movies as movies. But some reviews and opinions are from "Narnia police" types who nitpick every detail.
Flaherty has interesting insights to why they value comments from Narnia purists. You can read the full article here.
The Lion, The Witch, and The Wardrobe opened in December 2005 to a massive audience, earning more than $1 billion in box office ($745 million) and DVD sales ($332 million) combined and critical reviews were good.
2008's "Prince Caspian" brought in less than half of the domestic box office that LWW had drawn, and 2010's "Voyage of the Dawn Treader" only about a third as much. Critical ratings have also dropped for each successive film.
"The Silver Chair" comes next in the sequence of books, but Flaherty said Walden and 20th Century Fox, which distributes the movies, have mostly decided on "The Magician's Nephew" — Narnia's "origins story"— for their next project. (Narnia scholar Devin Brown says Lewis himself would agree with that choice; see his reasons here.)
The producers think "The Magician's Nephew" has the best opportunity to draw the largest audience. The box office has pretty closely followed the sales pattern of the books. "Prince Caspian" sells about half of the books of "Lion, Witch and the Wardrobe," and it did about half of the box office. Caspian sells about a third more books than "Dawn Treader," and it did about a third more box office domestically. That pattern continues to decline with "Silver Chair" being the weakest book in the series in terms of consumer demand.
Flaherty states: "We just think the origin tale of 'The Magician's Nephew' is a great one, and it brings back the characters that have proven to be the most popular—a lot of Aslan and the White Witch. It explains the origin of the lamppost and the wardrobe."
While the domestic box office dipped significantly with each of the three films, the foreign has remained fairly strong. Domestic accounted for 39 percent of the earnings for Wardrobe, 33 percent for Caspian, and just 25 percent for Dawn Treader. In fact, because of overseas sales, "Voyage of the Dawn Treader" is approaching the same box office of Prince Caspian.
The films are obviously tied closely to the books and Flaherty makes an interesting point about the Narnia series in comparison to current book franchises. He notes most popular book franchises (e.g, Harry Potter and Twilight) are consistent in sales from book to book, but that's not the case for Narnia. Part of the problem may be that there is no character beyond Aslan that runs through the entire series.
"Lucy has the greatest run out of all the characters, but she only appears in three books. So there's something different in terms of the anticipation of not being able to follow one character from the first book to the last."
Secular critics aren't sticklers for whether the films stick to the books; they're mainly judging the movies as movies. But some reviews and opinions are from "Narnia police" types who nitpick every detail.
Flaherty has interesting insights to why they value comments from Narnia purists. You can read the full article here.
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