Fast & Furious 6 put the pedal to the metal this weekend past and achieved the second biggest opening weekend of the year, with an impressive £8.7m, this is over £3m more than the opening weekend of the 2009 Fast Five release from Universal Pictures.
The F. Scott Fitzgerald adaption from Baz Luhrmann, The Great Gatsby, took a strong second place in the top 10 on its opening weekend, with a potent £4.1m, which is almost quadruple the opening weekend of Luhrmann’s last cinema release, Australia. Read more
Last week, the DCM Superheroes descended upon Mindshare with one mission in mind, educate everyone in the building on everything they need to know about cinema in 2013.
The week kicked off with a photo opportunity starring Iron Man and Superman, with cinema tickets up for grabs via Twitter. Check out the entries by searching the hash tag #MindshareCinemaWeek Read more
Congratulations to Ely Cinema for being set to go digital seven months ahead of schedule, having secured funding to support the conversion.
The Cambridgeshire cinema, which has been fundraising since January to supplement its own resources has just received a grant from the Fens Adventurers fund, with a local businessman loaning the remainder of cash required. Read more
My penultimate film watching day in Cannes was notable for two things: I caught a brief glimpse of Marion Cotillard and Zoe Saldana as they arrived for the press conference for their new film, Blood Ties, which is screening out of competition. From what I could tell, both were wearing great dresses, which is the least you'd expect, I guess. The other notable thing was I saw a man walking around with two small pigs on leads. He was accompanied by another man who was singing a song on guitar that seemed to be called 'I Love My Pig'. I'd like to say this was unusual but after five days in Cannes, it isn't.
On the film watching front, bad news. I was beaten by the queues for the new Coen brothers film and left outside Llewyn Davis. The swathe of five star reviews published on Sunday amped up the anticipation levels across the festival and despite arriving seventy five minutes ahead of time for the main screening, I was unable to get in. Read more
The first weekend of Cannes is over and my celebrity spots have been off the scale, including Harvey Weinstein, a Thai princess, Olga Kurylenko and Sanjay from Eastenders, all within a few hours on Saturday evening. I've also seen some striking films, the best of which is Sofia Coppola's The Bling Ring.
Out on 5 July, it tells the true story of a group of fame obsessed teens in LA who take to robbing celebrities houses. Their subsequent notoriety almost provides them with the kind of fame they crave. Starring Emma Watson and a host of newcomers, it's funny, inventive and bitingly relevant. It also features a number of amusing celebrity cameos. With a host of upmarket fashion brands pilfered by the group, perhaps it's a great opportunity to get some on screen? It would also make a great double bill with April's Spring Breakers. Read more
The talk today has been not so much about films but global warming. Last year, Cannes was unusually wet. Queuing outside for screenings wasn't pleasant and screening rooms eventually smelled vaguely of wet dog. Maybe it wasn't so unusual though as two days in to Cannes 2013 and it has rained almost constantly and the forecast suggests it's not letting up any time soon.
Queuing for over an hour in the rain isn't bad though when you finally take your seat at the start of the film but two bouts of queuing today were sadly fruitless as the hottest ticket so far, Sofia Coppola's The Bling Ring proved just too popular. There's still time to catch it later in the festival but I'm feeling slightly left out of conversations about the new buzz film. Read more
You only need to look at the jury for the 66th Cannes Film Festival too see it remains the world's premiere film festival. It's like a particularly starry episode of Stella Street, with the most famous of all film directors, Steven Spielberg chairing a jury that also features Nicole Kidman and recent Oscar winners, Ang Lee (Life of Pi) and Christoph Waltz (Django Unchained).
The film selection is equally star-studded, with Baz Luhrmann's lavish The Great Gatsby (opening today in the UK) kicking off proceedings yesterday and new offerings featuring numerous stars including Ryan Gosling, Justin Timberlake and Emma Watson in various strands of competition. Read more
Cinemas across the UK are to broadcast live private viewings of the British Museum’s major exhibition Life and Death in Pompeii and Herculaneum on 18 and 19 June.
The exhibition, which runs until 29 September, is the first ever held on these important cities at the British Museum. Focussing on the Roman home and lives of the people who lived nearly 2000 years ago in Pompeii and Herculaneum, the unique live broadcast event will take cinema audiences back in time in the company of renowned experts and practitioners who, alongside live performances of music, poetry and eye-witness accounts, will bring to life extraordinary objects, some never seen outside Italy before. Interviews throughout the exhibition will be intercut with stunning specially recorded films in Italy, showing Pompeii and Herculaneum and the sleeping Vesuvius. Read more
Star Trek Into Darkness has boldly gone where the previous Star Trek movie also went, to the top of the UK box office. An £8.4m opening, including £1.6m from previews, isn’t quite a warp speed start but it’s still significantly higher than the last Star Trek’s £6m three day start. The £6.8m Friday to Sunday weekend is the highest for any Star Trek film and the third highest of the year so far, behind Iron Man 3 and Les Misérables. The majority (59.5%) of Star Trek Into Darkness’ gross was from 3D presentations, which is higher than Iron Man 3 (53.3%).
After two weeks of dominance, Iron Man 3 dropped to second spot, easing 50% to £3.2m and an imposing cume of £31.1m. It has smashed through the target set by the previous two Iron Man films (Iron Man 2 finished on £21.2m) and is setting a benchmark that other live action films this summer will struggle to beat. 21 & Over had an excellent hold, falling just 25% to £581k and a cume of £1.9m. By this time next week, it will have comfortably overtaken Project X’s final total of £2.2m. Read more
Digital Cinema Media and UM London has facilitated a deal for Prime Focus World to convert the Jack Daniel's Tennessee Honey creative to immersive 3D for Brown – Forman. It will play in cinemas before Star Trek Into Darkness 3D, which is predicted to take over £25m at the UK Box Office and generate over 4m admissions.
The creative, developed by Arnold, uses the surround sound capabilities of cinema to make the audience feel enveloped by a swarm of bees and then opens on a highly detailed visual of a Jack Daniels stylised bee, in fully rendered 3D. Read more
May and June have some huge releases appealing to a male dominated audience, including Star Trek Into Darkness 3D, Fast & Furious 6, The Hangover Part III and Man of Steel 3D.
The trend carries on for Q3 with high octane movies perfect for a male audience coming thick and fast. Read more
Last week, DCM and Pearl & Dean partnered to present a week of events for Carat on Redefining Cinema.
The programme of events included an introduction to the week from DCM's Simon Rees, CEO and Joe Evea, Commercial Director and Kathryn Jacob, Chief Executive of Pearl & Dean. They jointly delivered a “state of the nation” session, showing the progress of cinema since switching to digital and the possibilities now available to advertisers using the big screen, such as flexibility in campaign start dates, the ability to book by the day and make copy changes. Read more
