The Playlist

National Board Of Review Gives Best Picture & Director To 'Hugo'; Tilda Swinton & George Clooney Take Acting Awards

By Kevin Jagernauth
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December 1, 2011 4:14 PM
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8 Comments

Awards

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Warner Bros. Pulls A Disney, Waves Wand To Make All 'Harry Potter' DVDs Disappear On Dec. 29th

By Kevin Jagernauth
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October 24, 2011 11:01 AM
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0 Comments

For a while now, Disney has employed a home video strategy that has paid off in spades. The studio's "vault" system makes titles available for a short window of time on home video, before they are pulled from stores and kept locked up for years until Disney decides to re-release it to great fanfare and even greater sales. This fall the studio tried a new tactic, a 3D converted theatrical re-release before the home video bow. The result? A nearly $100 million domestic haul for "The Lion King (in 3D)" before it's latest BluRay bow and a huge wake-up call to the rest of the industry who suddenly realized there is all kinds of money to be made from rehashing beloved tentpole and franchise films.

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Who Were The Winners And Losers Of The Summer Of 2011?

By Oliver Lyttelton
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August 30, 2011 4:08 AM
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24 Comments

As the summer winds die down with a flat and uninspired whimper, the realization sets in: the summer of 2011 was for the birds. "Rise of the Planet of the Apes" was the last major tent-pole to open, followed by sleeper hits like "The Help" and the not-so-successful R-rated action comedy, "30 Minutes or Less." Many had forecast that the overstuffed summer would prove disastrous, with Jon Favreau predicting that, "There’s not a weekend where there won’t be teeth on the floor," but ironically it's Favreau's film that proved to be one of the biggest box-office disappointments. Financially, films did very well with three billion-dollar blockbusters – “Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 2,” “Transformers: Dark of the Moon” and “Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides”-- helping the industry set a summer box-office record and nearly rebound from a horrible start to 2011 (Currently, 2011 revenue is running only 4 percent behind 2010, but in March, things were looking grim – 19% lower than the year previous).

Weekend Box Office: 'Captain America' Is Number One, Because That's Just How America Does It

By Gabe Toro
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July 24, 2011 3:44 AM
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3 Comments

Marvel is doing the right thing with their superhero productions. They wisely didn’t break the bank after “Iron Man” did a little under $100 million in its opening weekend, instead opting for future adventures within their universe for around the same cost every time. Even with “The Avengers,” said to be the big kahuna in Marvel’s strategy, they kept costs down thanks to cheap multi-film contracts and economic micromanaging.

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Weekend Box Office: Boy Wizard Trumps Batman As 'Deathly Hallows Pt. 2' Has All-Time Biggest Opening

By Gabe Toro
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July 17, 2011 5:19 AM
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8 Comments

And so we have box office history.

In Theaters: Bid Adieu To Harry & Pals In 'Deathly Hallows Part 2' Or Take A 'Pooh'

By Katie Walsh
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July 15, 2011 6:27 AM
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5 Comments

Break out your wands and Gryffindor scarves, people! It's time to bid adieu to Harry Potter and pals in the conclusion of this eight film series this weekend. I don't care that it's the dead heat of July, put your damn wizarding cloaks on and get thee to a theatre right quick. Beat back those feisty little tweens and crack a butter beer for your fallen homies. Also opening this weekend: a few docs, some indie fare and a childhood revisited with "Winnie the Pooh."

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Review: 'Harry Potter & The Death Hallows Pt. 2' Is An Utterly Magical Conclusion to the Franchise

By Drew Taylor
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July 13, 2011 2:25 AM
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5 Comments

It's been more than 10 years since we first watched Harry Potter (Daniel Radcliffe, through thick and thin), with his jagged lightning bolt scar and hard knocks childhood (he was orphaned after his parents were brutally murdered by a dark wizard), arrive at Hogwarts School to fulfill his destiny as "the boy who lived." In the years since Chris Columbus' sleepy debut films, the series has had its ups (Alfonso Cuarón's immaculate 'Prisoner of Azkaban') and its downs (Mike Newell's gonzo Bollywood 'Goblet of Fire') before settling in with its designated auteur, David Yates, who has helmed the last four films including this, the final entry, "Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 2." Things have gotten decidedly darker since those early adventures, and decidedly more epic, too. And if you're concerned about the series going out with an appropriate bang, you shouldn't be. This swan (or maybe it's Hippogriff?) song delivers emotionally, dramatically, and cinematically: the results are positively magical.

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R.I.P. Final 'Deathly Hallows' Trailer Marks The End Of Harry Potter Promos (2001-2011)

By Oliver Lyttelton
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June 17, 2011 1:22 AM
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3 Comments

Many of us will remember the first time we saw a trailer for the "Harry Potter" franchise. Settling down to the Warner Bros. family comedy, "See Spot Run," which the trailer was attached to, the first glimpse of what would become the biggest franchise of all time was sneaked out, and people left the theater with one overwhelming impression: '"See Spot Run" was a piece of shit. Since then, clips have emerged every six months or so for the eight movies in the series, and we've watched those children grow up in front of our eyes in a series of two-to-three-minute snippets, in the form of Quicktime files, YouTube videos and sometimes even on the big-screen.

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Watch: New Clips From 'Harry Potter 7.5,' 'Rise Of The Planet Of The Apes' & 'The Help'

By Kevin Jagernauth
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June 6, 2011 3:05 AM
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1 Comment

Like the Super Bowl, The MTV Movie Awards is less about who wins what than the spectacle of the event which brings music and movie stars together in one place and lets them party. It's also a marketing machine with many studios using the opportunity to pimp their summer movies and with "Super 8" and "Breaking Dawn" walking away with the most-talked-about trailers last night, these other clips from forthcoming releases were a bit overshadowed, so in case you missed them, here they are.

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