Movies

Following today’s release of a message sent from the mysterious group responsible for the massive Sony hack, the company has now informed theater owners that they can opt out of screening ‘The Interview’ if they are concerned about the terrorist threat. Although the Department of Homeland Security responded by saying they could find “no credible info” on planned attacks, Sony has decided to place the decision to screen the film in the hands of theater executives.

The new movies start early this week with two releases on a Wednesday. The releases this week include sequels for "The Hobbit" and "Night at the Museum" and the return of a precocious little girl named Annie.

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Sometimes, a film can effortlessly open at number one at the box office while still being a pretty huge disaster. This is the case with ‘Exodus: Gods and Kings,’ which rode a wave of terrible reviews and an even more terrible marketing campaign to a hugely disappointing start. With a lot of big movies opening the next two weeks, the new Biblical epic won’t even find time to grow some legs. Chances are strong that it is dead on arrival.

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Your daily dose of Whatever!

Well, this is interesting. Maybe not the reality of it, but its depth, breadth and reach. According to a new Deloitte survey on mobile consumer trends, we -- as in us U.S. consumers -- are becoming more and more obsessed with our electronic devices. Just call it device addiction. Some of the facts: Nearly 90 percent check their phones in the first hour of being awake and 23 percent look at their d

Honestly, we could have just copied and pasted last weekend’s box office report and gotten away with it. Outside of the shifting numbers, the order of the top 10 is almost identical to what it was a week ago. This is Hollywood in a holding pattern. The weekend after Thanksgiving is a wasteland. That’s probably why ‘The Pyramid’ was dumped this weekend. However, the lone newcomer in the top 10 didn’t just bomb, it bombed spectacularly.

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Appropriately, the Thanksgiving holiday box office was all about the leftovers. While two high profile new releases struggled to open, films from the past few weeks continued to do solid business. In fact, this was one of the most varied weekends at the box office in quite some time, with YA adaptations, animated family movies, epic blockbusters, and small independent films all performing better than expected.

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This Thanksgiving weekend, we get a somewhat unexpected sequel to a somewhat unexpected 2011 comedy hit, along with a spin-off from a major animated blockbuster.