Fans sink into Cruise's 'Oblivion' in $38.2M debut

This film publicity image released by Universal Pictures shows Tom Cruise in a scene from "Oblivion." (AP Photo/Universal Pictures)

This film publicity image released by Universal Pictures shows Tom Cruise in a scene from "Oblivion." (AP Photo/Universal Pictures)

This film publicity image released by Universal Pictures shows Tom Cruise in a scene from "Oblivion." (AP Photo/Universal Pictures)

LOS ANGELES (AP) ? Movie fans slipped into "Oblivion" as the Tom Cruise sci-fi thriller led Hollywood with a $38.2 million debut, according to studio estimates Sunday.

That domestic haul comes on top of $33.7 million "Oblivion" added in overseas markets, where the film began rolling out a week earlier. "Oblivion" raised its overseas total to $112 million and its worldwide receipts to $150.2 million.

Though many people Friday were caught up in coverage of the manhunt for the suspect in the Boston Marathon explosions, it seems to have had little effect on how the film fared.

"Oblivion" took in $13.3 million on opening day Friday and $14.9 million on Saturday. That 12 percent increase is not unusual for big new releases, which typically do better business on Saturday than Friday.

While Boston was on lockdown much of Friday, that market only accounts for about 1 percent of the nationwide box office, said Nikki Rocco, head of distribution for Universal, which released "Oblivion." The manhunt mainly affected matinee business, with theaters reopening Friday night, when Dzhokhar Tsarnaev was taken into custody.

"Once the guy was arrested, I think people got back into their regular routine," Rocco said.

The previous weekend's top film, the Warner Bros. baseball drama "42," held up well, slipping to second-place with $18 million in its second weekend. The Jackie Robinson biography starring Chadwick Boseman and Harrison Ford raised its domestic total to $54.1 million and is on its way to the $100 million mark, said Dan Fellman, Warner's head of distribution.

Overseas, Paramount's "G.I. Joe: Retaliation" got a lift with $40 million, most of it coming from a $33 million debut in China. The action sequel has topped $200 million internationally and $300 million worldwide.

"Oblivion" came in a bit higher than industry expectations. But despite its strong opening, Hollywood's 2013 revenue funk continued, with overall domestic receipts at $109 million, down 19.4 percent from the same weekend last year, according to box-office tracker Hollywood.com.

A year ago, two new romances ? the comedy "Think Like a Man" and the drama "The Lucky One" ? combined for $56 million that weekend, while the blockbuster "The Hunger Games" remained strong with nearly $15 million.

"Even Tom Cruise was unable to beat the strength of two really strong newcomers that were devoid of stars anywhere near in his league," said Hollywood.com analyst Paul Dergarabedian. "That tells you the difference between last year and this year. Even when we have a good weekend like this in 2013, generally these weekends, they pale by comparison to what happened last year."

Domestic revenues in 2013 total $2.76 billion, down 11.2 percent from where business was at last year, when Hollywood took in record cash.

Business slumped a bit in summer 2012 with some high-profile duds, so studios have a shot at gaining ground over last year with this season's upcoming blockbusters, which include "Iron Man 3," ''Star Trek Into Darkness," ''The Hangover Part III" and "Man of Steel."

Still, the gap almost certainly will continue to rise in the early part of the summer season.

Disney's Marvel Studios sequel "Iron Man 3" is expected to open with a whopping $125 million-plus domestically over the first weekend in May, Dergarabedian said. But that would fall far short of the record-breaking $207.4 million debut for the Marvel ensemble smash "The Avengers" over the same weekend last year.

Even so, Cruise's "Oblivion" provides a solid action lead-in to summer. The film stars Cruise as a repairman fixing machines in the wastelands of Earth after an alien attack.

Despite upheavals and odd behavior in Cruise's personal life in the last six or seven years, he remains one of Hollywood's surest box-office draws. Universal reported that in exit polls, fans cited Cruise as the No. 1 reason they saw the film.

"He's a global star," Rocco said. "People love Tom Cruise. If you put him in the right vehicle, they love him even better."

In narrower release, Rob Zombie's latest horror tale "The Lords of Salem" flopped with $622,000 in 355 theaters, for a dismal average of $1,752 a cinema. That compared to an average of $10,085 in 3,783 theaters for "Oblivion."

The low-budget hip-hop drama "Filly Brown" opened solidly with $1.4 million in 188 theaters, for an average of $7,250. The film stars Gina Rodriguez and the late Jenni Rivera in the story of a young talent with a shot at stardom on Los Angeles' hip-hop scene.

Estimated ticket sales for Friday through Sunday at U.S. and Canadian theaters, according to Hollywood.com. Where available, latest international numbers are also included. Final domestic figures will be released Monday.

1. "Oblivion," $38.2 million ($33.7 million international).

2. "42," $18 million.

3. "The Croods," $9.5 million ($23.4 million international).

4. "Scary Movie 5," $6.3 million ($3.5 million international).

5. "G.I. Joe: Retaliation," $5.8 million ($40 million international).

6. "The Place Beyond the Pines," $4.7 million.

7. "Olympus Has Fallen," $4.5 million ($7.8 million international).

8. "Evil Dead," $4.1 million ($2.3 million international).

9. "Jurassic Park" in 3-D, $4 million ($420,000 international).

10. "Oz the Great and Powerful," $3 million ($1.5 million international).

___

Estimated weekend ticket sales at international theaters (excluding the U.S. and Canada) for films distributed overseas by Hollywood studios, according to Rentrak:

1. "G.I. Joe: Retaliation," $40 million.

2. "Oblivion," $33.7 million.

3. "The Croods," $23.4 million.

4. "Olympus Has Fallen," $7.8 million.

5. "Les Profs," $5.8 million.

6. "Scary Movie 5," $3.5 million.

7. "Mama," $2.9 million.

8. "Les Gamins," $2.7 million.

9 (tie). "Detective Conan Private Eye," $2.3 million.

9 (tie). "Evil Dead," $2.3 million.

___

Online:

http://www.hollywood.com

http://www.rentrak.com

___

Universal and Focus are owned by NBC Universal, a unit of Comcast Corp.; Sony, Columbia, Sony Screen Gems and Sony Pictures Classics are units of Sony Corp.; Paramount is owned by Viacom Inc.; Disney, Pixar and Marvel are owned by The Walt Disney Co.; Miramax is owned by Filmyard Holdings LLC; 20th Century Fox and Fox Searchlight are owned by News Corp.; Warner Bros. and New Line are units of Time Warner Inc.; MGM is owned by a group of former creditors including Highland Capital, Anchorage Advisors and Carl Icahn; Lionsgate is owned by Lions Gate Entertainment Corp.; IFC is owned by AMC Networks Inc.; Rogue is owned by Relativity Media LLC.

Associated Press

Source: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/f70471f764144b2fab526d39972d37b3/Article_2013-04-21-Box%20Office/id-2024f7bd83784426bbf3b0634d949b3c

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Netflix's 1Q subscriber gains catapult stock

In this Thursday, Aug. 23, 2012, photo, a Netflix envelop containing a DVD to be returned by mail is clipped onto a mailbox, in Springfield, Ill. Netflix reports quarterly financial results after the market closes, Monday, April 22, 2013. (AP Photo/Seth Perlman)

In this Thursday, Aug. 23, 2012, photo, a Netflix envelop containing a DVD to be returned by mail is clipped onto a mailbox, in Springfield, Ill. Netflix reports quarterly financial results after the market closes, Monday, April 22, 2013. (AP Photo/Seth Perlman)

SAN FRANCISCO (AP) ? Netflix's move to compete against traditional cable-TV channels with original programming is pulling in more subscribers to its Internet video service and winning back investors who doubted the company's ability to cultivate distinctive entertainment.

The skepticism dissipated Monday with the release of Netflix's financial results for the opening three months of the year.

The first-quarter numbers revealed that Netflix Inc. added 2 million U.S. subscribers from January through March ? hitting the top end of the target set by the company's management. The growth left Netflix with 29.2 million U.S. subscribers to an $8-per-month service that streams movie and TV shows to Internet-connected devices.

The company picked up another 1 million customers in the dozens of international markets where it streams video, leaving Netflix with 7.1 million streaming subscribers outside the U.S. Even though the international operations are still losing money, Netflix said it will expand into an unidentified European market during the second half of the year.

Netflix's subscriber surge, coupled with signs that the company's profit margins are widening, delighted investors. The company's stock soared $42.48, or 24 percent, to $216.85 after the results came out. If the stock rallies similarly on Tuesday, it will mark the first time Netflix's stock has topped $200 in 19 months.

The stock had plummeted to as low as $52.81 last August as part of a devastating descent that began in July 2011 when Netflix outraged its U.S. subscribers with pricing adjustments. The change resulted in a price increase of as much as 60 percent for customers who wanted dual access to Internet video and a DVD-by-mail option that includes the latest theatrical releases. Investors also fretted as Netflix's losses on an international expansion piled up and the company's bills to license video mounted.

Now, it looks like Netflix CEO Reed Hastings ? an object of scorn when the company's stock was plunging ? might have known what he was doing all along. In the process, he appears to have regained the luster that made him a Wall Street darling while Netflix's stock was soaring toward its all-time high of nearly $305.

"I don't have a sense of 'I told you so,' or something," Hastings said in an interview Monday. "I have a sense of satisfaction that we are doing what we do best, which is steadily improving our service."

The latest strides came in the first quarter when as Netflix eked out a profit of $2.7 million, or 5 cents per share. That contrasted with a loss of $4.6 million, or 8 cents per share, last year.

If not for the costs for refinancing some of Netflix's debt, the company said it would have earned 31 cents per share. That figure topped the average analyst estimate of 18 cents per share.

Revenue rose 18 percent from last year to $1.02 billion ? about $7 million above analyst forecasts

Hastings envisions Netflix becoming as popular as any channel on cable or broadcast TV, with as many as 90 million subscribers. To realize that goal, he decided in 2010 that Netflix should become more like Time Warner Inc.'s HBO channel and develop more series that can't be seen anywhere else.

That was a big change for Netflix, which had primarily licensed content that have previously been shown in movie theaters and on traditional television networks.

Netflix took its first major leap in its new direction in early February with the debut of "House of Cards," a critically acclaimed series made exclusively for Netflix. The series, starring Academy Award-winning actor Kevin Spacey, reportedly cost Netflix $100 million, amplifying fears the company was spending more than it could afford.

In another breakthrough, Netflix released all 13 episodes of "House of Cards" at once, raising the risk that many people would just accept the company's standard offer of a free month of service and then quit. But Netflix said fewer than 8,000 people resorted to what it calls "free-trial gaming" during the first quarter.

"I think we're focused on moving toward more and more exclusive content, which reinforces a reason to join Netflix and a reason to subscribe," Hastings said in a Monday conference call with analysts. Without providing specific numbers, Hastings said "House of Cards" had a "nice impact but a gentle impact" on subscriber growth during the first quarter.

Netflix is becoming so popular that too many people using the same account are trying to watch video at the same time. The company currently allows no more than two devices to watch at the same time. Netflix said Monday that is introducing a $12-per-month plan that will allow up to four devices using the same account to watch video. Hastings expects less than 1 percent, or fewer than 292,000, U.S. subscribers to upgrade to the more expensive plan. He also reiterated Netflix's intention to keep its standard steaming option at $8 per month.

Another original series, "Hemlock Grove," came out on Netflix last Friday. Although the horror series didn't get great reviews from TV critics, Netflix said Monday that the viewership of "Hemlock Grove" during its first weekend surpassed the numbers posted by "House of Cards."

Another Netflix exclusive, the resurrection of "Arrested Development," is scheduled for next month.

Neither "Hemlock Grove" nor "Arrested Development" is expected to be compelling enough to overcome a traditional lull that occurs in Netflix's subscriber growth during the spring, when warmer weather and longer daylight hours decrease people's interest in staying indoors to watch TV. The company expects to add 230,000 to 880,000 U.S. subscribers during the current three months ending in June.

As Netflix's Internet video service attracts more customers, the DVD-by-mail that once was the company's foundation continues to crumble. Netflix lost another 240,000 DVD subscribers during the first quarter, pushing the number of customers on that service below 8 million for the first time since 2007. Despite the downturn, the DVD service remains highly profitable.

The company, which is based in Los Gatos, Calif., expects its second-quarter earnings to at least double from the 11 cents per share posted at the same time last year. Management envisions earnings for the current quarter ranging from 23 cents to 48 cents per share. Wall Street is expecting 39 cents a share, according to FactSet.

Associated Press

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Tale of Richard III's skeleton is filled with drama ? and it's not over yet

Watch an excerpt from "The King's Skeleton: Richard III Revealed."

By Alan Boyle, Science Editor, NBC News

The tale surrounding the discovery of King Richard III's skeleton beneath an English parking lot is about much more than a pile of 528-year-old bones ? all you have to do is look at the face of Philippa Langley as she breaks down during an archaeological autopsy.

"I don't see bones on that table," she says, during an emotional scene in a new documentary about the king's remains. "I see the man."

Langley, a 50-year-old Scottish screenwriter, plays almost as big a role as the much-maligned monarch in "The King's Skeleton: Richard III Revealed." The show airs Sunday night on the Smithsonian Channel in the U.S., after racking up royal ratings on British TV. It was Langley who enlisted the Richard III Society to help jump-start the excavation, and she serves as the on-screen witness for many of the key twists in the excavation.

---

Medieval CSI
Based on an analysis of the historical records, archaeologists from the University of Leicester obtained a license from the British government to dig into that parking lot next to Leicester Cathedral last year. "The King's Skeleton" traces each step in the CSI-style investigation, leading to February's conclusion that the bones were indeed the mortal remains of the last Plantagenet king.

Richard III reigned for only two years, but his death in the Battle of Bosworth Field in 1485 was a key moment. In fact, many historians consider his fall to mark the end of the Middle Ages in England. A century later, William Shakespeare's play immortalized him as one of literature's greatest villains.

One of the themes of "The King's Skeleton" centers on how Richard III may have gained a blacker reputation than he deserved. The way Richard III's fans see it, the successors to the throne from the House of Tudor had an interest in making their Plantagenet forebears look bad?? to the point of portraying Richard III as a misshapen hunchback. "This is propaganda," historian Pamela Tudor-Craig says during the documentary.

So the truth comes as a shock to Langley.

"What we're actually seeing here is that this skeleton in fact has a hunchback," Jo Appleby, a bone expert at the University of Leicester, tells her in one scene.

"No!" Langley answers.

The bones of Richard III, who reigned for two years, have been discovered in Leicester, England, and they indicate that his spine was twisted by scoliosis. NBC's Stephanie Gosk reports.

The identification of Richard III's remains drew upon carbon dating and detailed studies of the skeleton, including evidence of wounds that matched up with historical accounts of the king's demise. But the weightiest evidence comes from analysis of DNA extracted from the skeleton: The chemical signature of the mitochondrial DNA matched up with two maternal-line descendants of Richard III's eldest sister, Anne of York.

Stay tuned
Does this mean the case of Richard III is closed? Not yet. Mitochondrial DNA is not as precise an indicator as, say, a paternity test. "The DNA evidence is simply a single strand within the entire analysis procedure," Turi King, the University of Leicester geneticist who conducted the analysis, told NBC News on Friday. "You certainly wouldn't convict somebody on [the basis of this] DNA evidence."

However, King noted that the mitochondrial DNA signature for this particular skeleton is shared by only a few percent of Europeans. "It's quite a rare type, so that adds to the weight of the evidence," she said.

The next step will be to analyze the skeleton's Y-chromosome DNA, which is passed down from father to son. The Y-chromosome signature is far more precise than mitochondrial DNA, which all children get from their mother. Four paternal-line descendants of Richard III's family have already been identified and tested, and King is now waiting to do the much more complicated reconstruction of the skeleton's Y-chromosome DNA signature.

Working on the royal remains has been a "dream project," King said, but not without its drawbacks: "It's been very stressful. You're trying to work quite quietly and calmly. The pressure to make sure everything has been done properly has been intense. ... I feel like I'm still in the middle of it."

The license to work with the skeleton runs out next year, and King will have to finish up her DNA studies by then.

Meanwhile, a potential legal battle is looming over whether the remains will be reburied in Leicester Cathedral, as planned, or in York instead. Thankfully, that's one drama King and the other scientists involved in the Richard III mystery won't have to deal with.

"I just try to tune it out," she said.

More about the Richard III saga:

---

To tune in?"The King's Skeleton: Richard III Revealed,"?check your cable provider's TV listings or consult the?Smithsonian Channel's website. Britain's Channel 4 aired the show as?"Richard III: The King in the Car Park."

Alan Boyle is NBCNews.com's science editor. Connect with the Cosmic Log community by "liking" the log's?Facebook page, following?@b0yle on Twitter?and adding the?Cosmic Log page?to your Google+ presence. To keep up with Cosmic Log as well as NBCNews.com's other stories about science and space, sign up for the Tech & Science newsletter, delivered to your email in-box every weekday. You can also check out?"The Case for Pluto,"?my book about the controversial dwarf planet and the search for new worlds.

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Weak economic reports send stock market lower

NEW YORK (AP) ? Weak reports on hiring and service industries sent the stock market sharply lower Wednesday, giving the Dow Jones industrial average its worst day in more than a month.

The Dow fell 111.66 points, or 0.8 percent, to 14,550.35, its worst decline since Feb. 25. The Standard & Poor's 500 index dropped 16.56 points, or 1.1 percent, to 1,553.69. Both indexes closed at record highs the day before.

The stock market started 2013 with a rally as investors became more optimistic about the U.S. economy, especially housing and jobs. The reports Wednesday disappointed the market and came two days after news that U.S. manufacturing growth slowed unexpectedly last month.

The losses were widespread. All 10 industry groups in the S&P 500 index fell. Banks and energy stocks had the worst losses, 1.7 percent and 1.6 percent. Utilities, which investors hold when they want to play it safe, fell the least, 0.3 percent.

"The market is overdue for a correction," said Joe Saluzzi at Themis Trading. "I don't think that the economy supports this type of a rally."

Signs of investor skittishness appeared across a number of different markets.

Commodities slumped. Crude oil dropped $2.74, or 2.8 percent, to close at $94.45 a barrel and industrial metals like copper fell.

The yield on the 10-year Treasury note fell to 1.81 percent from 1.86 percent, the lowest level for the benchmark rate since January. The decline means investors are moving money into low-risk U.S. government debt.

The Russell 2000 index, which tracks small company stocks, fell for a third straight day, dropping 1.7 percent. It's now down 3.5 percent so far this week, far worse than the declines in the Dow, 0.2 percent, and the S&P, 1 percent. That's another signal that investors may be becoming more bearish about the U.S. economy.

Small company stocks, which did better than the Dow and the S&P 500 in the first three months of the year, are more sensitive to the outlook for the U.S. economy than the larger companies in the Dow and S&P. That's because they rely far more on domestic sales than global giants like IBM and Caterpillar, which sells heavy machinery and construction equipment around the globe.

The Dow Jones Transportation Average, an index of 20 stocks including airlines like Delta and freight companies FedEx and UPS, fell more than 1 percent for a third straight day. The index, which is regarded as a leading indicator for broader market indexes as well as the economy, has fallen 3.9 percent this week, after surging 17.9 percent in the first quarter.

U.S. service companies kept growing at a solid pace in March, but the expansion was less than economists were expecting. The Institute for Supply Management's index of service companies fell to 54.4 from 56 a month earlier. The report was the weakest in seven months.

Separately, payrolls processor ADP reported that U.S. employers added 158,000 jobs last month, down from February's gain of 237,000. The ADP report is often seen as a preview for the government's broader survey on employment, which is due out Friday.

The slowdown in hiring was due in part to construction firms holding back on adding new employees. That sent the stocks of homebuilders lower. PulteGroup fell 85 cent, or 4.3 percent, to $19.01 and D.R. Horton dropped 57 cents to $22.84.

In other trading, the Nasdaq composite fell 36.26 points, or 1.1 percent, to 3,218.60.

Even though stocks started the second quarter lower, markets typically add to their gains after ending the first quarter up, said Sam Stovall, an equity strategist at S&P Capital IQ. Using data going back over more than 60 years, Stovall says that the S&P 500 has gained an average of 9 percent from April to December after rising in the first quarter.

"Investors believe that the economic trajectory is improving," said Stovall. Stocks "do not reflect the true valuations based on where the economy will be at the end of the year."

Among stocks making big moves:

? Zynga rose 46 cents, or 15 percent, to $3.53 after the online game maker said two casino games would debut in the United Kingdom Wednesday.

? Abercrombie & Fitch rose $1.74, or 3.8 percent, to $47.20, making it the biggest percentage gainer in the S&P 500. The company said late Tuesday that it planned to expand internationally and place greater emphasis on cost control.

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/weak-economic-reports-send-stock-market-lower-182731602--finance.html

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