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What’s wrong with box-office projections? ‘Gravity’ boosts 3-D.

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After the coffee. Before trying to fix parking at Dodger Stadium.

The Skinny: I’m a little groggy today, but it’s for a good reason: I was at the Dodgers game last night. It was a great experience except for leaving the stadium. I’m not the first to complain about the parking, but there must be a way to improve it. While I work on that, here’s your Morning Fix, which includes a story on how box-office projections are so often off base. Also, Woody Allen pulls “Blue Jasmine” from India rather than comply with an anti-smoking regulation.

Daily Dose: If Los Angeles can’t have a professional football team, can the National Football League at least stop designating the city as a secondary market to San Diego? Because of that classification, the CBS station here is often required to carry Charger games rather than more compelling battles. It was only through a fluke that Los Angeles got to see the epic Cowboys-Broncos game Sunday instead of the Raiders-Chargers snoozer, which had to be moved to late night because of a conflict with the Oakland Athletics. Give Los Angeles a gift, NFL, and set us free!

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PHOTOS: Hollywood Backlot moments

Nobody knows nothing. Every Friday, the media writes stories attempting to predict the weekend box office. And every Monday it usually turns out that those projections were off base. So what’s the issue? Hollywood doesn’t want to talk about it (at least on the record) but there is a consensus that the people who do movie tracking, typically through surveys, need to rethink how they do their research and make predictions. The Los Angeles Times takes a look at box-office tracking.

‘Gravity’ boosts 3-D. Usually 3-D is getting beaten up as an over-hyped form that is not all that appealing to movie fans. This year, many 3-D movies have flopped. But “Gravity” showed that the right movie can be a hit in 3-D. About 80% of the people who went to see it last weekend shelled out a few extra bucks to put on the glasses and take in the experience. “ ‘Gravity’ is a milestone for 3-D,” Jim Chabin, president of the International 3-D Society, tells USA Today.

Going straight? Logo, the channel Viacom launched to cater to gay and lesbian viewers, is going through an executive shift. Leaving is Lisa Sherman, who has overseen the network practically since it launched almost ten years ago. Deadline Hollywood says the departure of Sherman “will likely accelerate the transformation” of Logo to a more mainstream -- well, for a network owned by the same folks who own MTV, anyway -- channel.

ON LOCATION: Where the cameras roll

He’d rather fight than switch. Woody Allen yanked his hit movie “Blue Jasmine” from movie theaters in India because he didn’t want to play ball with a law there that requires an on-screen disclaimer about the evils of smoking every time a character lights up, according to Variety. Having seen the movie, I can tell you smoking is the least of the main character’s problems. She’s a pill-popping drunk. Why doesn’t India just run a scroll during the whole movie that says this character is a delusional, raging alcoholic -- or would that be a spoiler?

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“Iron Man” takes on Hong Kong. Walt Disney Co. is hoping a theme park experience based on the “Iron Man” movie franchise will boost its Hong Kong theme park. The New York Times says Hong Kong Disneyland has been “criticized for its small size” and has “lost hundreds of millions of dollars since opening in 2005” because of lower-than-expected attendance.

Oops. The folks at Major League Baseball’s MLB Network weren’t too quick on the delay button after Detroit Tigers hitter Victor Martinez and Oakland A’s pitcher Grant Balfour started throwing F-bombs at each other in the ninth inning. Well, if the national pastime isn’t safe from swearing, what is? Here’s the Hollywood Reporter on the flap, which made for some compelling television. By the way, the FCC doesn’t regulate content on non-broadcast channels, so save your faux outrage.

Inside the Los Angeles Times: Robert Lloyd on the Frontline documentary “League of Denial.” Eddie “Piolin” Sotelo is hoping to jump-start his career with SiriusXM after being dropped by Univision amid claims of sexual harassment by a male co-worker.

Follow me on Twitter. I won’t mock you if you still have a flip phone. @JBFlint.


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