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April 29, 2006

Friday Numbers by Klady - April 29

Not a memorable weekend at the box office... except...

RV making a $13 - $15 million dent at the box office is hardly overwhelming. It may be enough for #1, but with Sony knocking $20 million openings out of the park with cheap goods lately, Robin Williams in a Barry Sonnenfeld comedy with a significant budget doing less than The Benchwarmers is not a win. It’s a little sad.

And don’t be shocked if Stick It steps it up and wins the weekend. It may not happen, but if teen girls storm the theaters on Saturday and Sunday, it could. In either case, the cheaper, Jeff-Bridges-only-starred teen girl comedy is a much happier low teens launch than is RV.

United 93 will do about $10 million, which is not bad, considering audience resistance... which I think has a lot more to do with people not being interested in reliving the experience than it being “too soon.” If the film gets to $25 million total, I will be surprised.

And one of Lionsgate’s flops is Akeelah & The Bee, which is essentially a black Afterschool Special that was a bad fit with Starbucks and not terribly well sold beyond that. With due respect to all, this film is significantly less compelling than Fox Searchlight’s legendary miss, The Antwone Fisher Story, which had the same marketing challenge. As liberal and broadminded as many like to think America is, moviegoing is often more than a little segregated. (It’s worse overseas, where movies with black stars tend to stiff, with the exception of Will Smith and sometimes, Eddie Murphy.) Akeelah needed a lot of handholding to settle in. And there was just no room for it in this last-weekend-before-summer weekend.

RV 4.6 - 3639 4.6
Stick It 4.0 - 2038 4.0
United 93 3.7 - 1795 3.7
Silent Hill 3.1 -62% 2932 28.0
Scary Movie 4 2.4 -58% 3418 72.8
The Sentinel 2.3 -52% 2851 20.2
Akeelah & the Bee 1.7 - 2195 1.7
Ice Age 2 1.6 -51% 3122 172.3
The Benchwarmers 1.3 -40% 2695 49.7

Posted by poland at 03:13 PM | Comments (66)

Missing In Urbana

Hello all -

I've been missing for a couple of days now. Urbana-Champaign has been lovely, not cold and rainy as expected.

The movies have been good and I have only missed a few of them so far. In one case, I had seen the film and realized after a few minutes that the experience was so unpleasant that I had blanked the screening out of my head. Oy. I escaped before I lost conciousness.

Roger Ebert has been at his charming best, interviewing all and telling dirty jokes when there is time to kill.

But I have been exhausted and aside from writitng one column while here, uninspired in terms of big issues. Feel free to use this space for your own topics. I'll sign in tomorrow to look at the box office. And I will try to be of use to you all before the weekend ends.

Posted by poland at 12:15 AM | Comments (31)

April 25, 2006

TomKat 2010

Posted by poland at 12:19 PM | Comments (24)

What Is Michael Douglas Looking At?

Posted by poland at 12:14 PM | Comments (10)

Poseid-O-Vision, Live At The Grove

Posted by poland at 12:13 PM | Comments (2)

A Little Overenthusiastic About The Wild Posting?

Posted by poland at 12:09 PM | Comments (10)

Opus Duh

Variety is supposed to understand the film business, right? The “industry’s bible” is supposed to know the difference between an indie film with low expectations and low profitability targets and a major studio release, right? They can do math, right?

Let’s start by looking at the headline for Gabe Snyder's story in Weekly Variety this week -

Cookie cutter campaigns
Studios' marketing mojo builds a sameness into every film

Cool headline. What does it mean, exactly? Since there is no real analysis of any of the advertising campaigns in any depth, I’m not sure what Snyder is trying to say based on the headline.

In the body of the story, he kinda explains: "The public may be demonstrating a bigger appetite for topical fare, but the major studios still seem to have trouble selling it to them."

But then, he fails utterly to address, much less prove his hypothesis.

Brokeback Mountain grossed $175 million worldwide after a successful Oscar push. If The Da Vinci Code does “just” double that, jobs will be threatened at the studio. Oscar winner Crash grossed $94 million worldwide. The Day After Tomorrow grossed more than five and a half times that.

Get it?

Moreover, thoughtless stories like this build the sameness into every discussion by people who are disgruntled about the film business. There is no comparison between the campaign for The Day After Tomorrow and The Da Vinci Code, much less the other films.

Sony says it clearly in the piece… selling Opus Dei is a fool’s errand. If there is a mistake being made, it’s that Sony is relying too much on the book… and for that matter, the hum of newsmagazines that don’t tend to sell many tickets and none to audiences under 30.

They have to sell Opie’s Day to have any hope of finding the kind of audience they believe they can with this movie. Sell controversy when you have nothing else to sell.

And if you are a journalist and you want to write about the sameness of movie ads, let’s talk about the giant head outdoor campaigns. Ironically, Da Vinci has been throwing up some giant head billboards in the last week. But that wasn’t really the point of this article. Snyder was out to sell the idea that not selling controversy is somehow a cowardly, bad, boring idea. Unfortunately, that suggests that neither he, nor Variety, understands marketing very well.

It’s really simple… if you want to make the case, show some real evidence. And four indie movies that hit it big are no case for the actions of wide release big studio pictures.

Only two films in the modern era have grossed more than $100 million by pushing controversy – The Passion of The Christ and Fahrenheit 9/11. Both were released independently. Both had less than $25 million at stake. And i would argue that facing the opportunity to buy either film today, studois would still pass. Peter Bart should have passed on this story.

(The Variety story after the jump…)

Cookie cutter campaigns
Studios' marketing mojo builds a sameness into every film

By GABRIEL SNYDER
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Controversy sells. Films including "The Passion of the Christ," "Fahrenheit 9/11," "Crash" and "Brokeback Mountain" have proven that public debate can work wonders at the box office.

But those films were released by indies or studio specialty arms. The public may be demonstrating a bigger appetite for topical fare, but the major studios still seem to have trouble selling it to them.

When studios have films that could provoke strong reactions, their instinct has been to head off controversy before it starts.

Teams of consultants are marshaled and potential critics are solicited for input, all while the studio proclaims that it isn't taking a particular stand with the film. If all goes well, the storm (real or imagined) passes.

The variation in approach is, in part, one of differing institutional cultures. Studios are playing with much bigger stakes and often on a much bigger stage. Star names bring built-in attention. And the first order of business is to avoid alienating auds or corporate shareholders.

Major-studio marketers often resent comparisons to their specialty brethren, who, without big TV budgets and high-priced talent, are tempted to pick fights for attention. "We don't have to do those things. We live in a different world," says one major exec. "They're taking a small thing and making it big -- we're taking a big thing and trying to make it bigger."

Allan Mayer of Sitrick & Co., which has been hired by studios to help manage their potentially politically prickly pics, says, "It's not that big studios don't like controversy. What they fear is a controversy that gets out of control. And controversy gets out of control when people start using a movie as a tennis ball in their own match."

By contrast, the name of the game in the specialty arena is building an audience, a niche marketing approach that may involve turning off some people.

"A primary model of ours is to find pictures we can market and distribute to a niche audience," says Lionsgate prexyprexy Tom Ortenberg. "Once we're satisfied that we've reached that niche, we try to broaden it. At the same time, we try to be sure not to overreach. We don't want to risk turning the picture into nothing for everyone."

Consider two of last year's success stories: Lionsgate was aggressive in promoting best picture Oscar winner "Crash" as a meditation on the current state of racial relations, showing the pic to auds in places such as the NAACPNAACP annual meeting.

And while some suspected Focus might soft-pedal the gay-romance angle in its materials for "Brokeback Mountain," its upfront approach led to the film being adopted by those who advocate greater social acceptance of gay relationships.

Then consider the campaign for the 2004 "The Day After Tomorrow." When the Roland Emmerich tentpole was embraced by environmentalists as a global-warming warning, 20th Century Fox execs kept the supporters at arm's length. The studio declined to either support or repudiate the groups, lest liberal advocacy for the film turn into a political football for various political factions.

Josh Baran, a consultant who worked with MoveOn.org and Al Gore to capitalize on "Tomorrow" and is consulting for Paramount Classics release of Gore's doc "An Inconvenient Truth," argues that corporate culture is also at work. "The bigger side of the studio feels more accountable to leadership and boards of directors, and the specialty units feel more independent," he contends.

In its release plans for "The Da Vinci Code," Sony is favoring question marks instead of bold statements. The contents of the book are well known, since "Code" has become a runaway bestseller, with author Dan Brown saying he believes in the secret history of Christianity that his novel portrays.

But Sony and Imagine have been pushing "Code" as a simple thriller, trying to mollify Catholics who hold a hostile view of the book.

As one exec close to the film deadpans, "It's an entertaining thriller. The reason Sony and Imagine are making this movie is not to advance the notion that Jesus and Mary Magdalene had a kid."

Sony spokesman Jim Kennedy says, " 'The Da Vinci Code' is a work of fiction, and at its heart, it's a thriller, not a religious tract or historical documentary. We know the novel and its story have inspired debate and discussion about history and religion, and we agree with many religious leaders that the release of the film can provide a unique opportunity to educate people about their work and beliefs."

The studio has set up a Web site, TheDaVinciDialogue.com, where Christian groups can have their say on the film.

Despite there being 40 million copies of the book in print, Sony and Imagine are keeping every minor detail of the film a secret. Media interest in the historical theories behind the book, however, has only been stoked by the pic's May 19 day-and-date global release, two days after its world preempreem at Cannes.

The thriller-not-heresy PR strategy is having some curious results. Time recently did a "Code"-themed cover package, looking inside the secretive Opus Dei society that plays a central role in Brown's book. The mag got the secret society to open up; members insist they are normal people, not maniacal conspirators.

But helmer Ron Howard wouldn't even tell the magazine whether the sect is mentioned in the film. He first says, "Yeah, Opus Dei is in the movie," then immediately adds, "I don't say it in the movie one way or the other."

Baran says, "At the end of the day, you'll find that if the movie makes $300 million, everyone will say they're brilliant. But if it doesn't work, you could say that by running away from the controversy, they also ran away from the ticket sales."

Posted by poland at 12:45 AM | Comments (16)

April 24, 2006

Larry King Takes Over The Blog

If you want to spend $4.95 on something great, buy The New Yorker's April 24 edition and read about Werner Herzog's effort to make the feature version of Little Dieter Needs to Fly starring Christian Bale. It's a hoot!... Leather shoes - love em!... Man Oh Man, wine and cheese and more wine and more food gets no better than at Lou's on Vine just above Melrose, next to the laundromat. There's no hotter place in town right now for the over-25 indie hipster and it doesn't hurt that Mrs. Lou is Manohla Dargis. Dee-lish! Just remember to designate a driver to get you home when the wine is done... Wait a sec... phone call... it's Jared Stern asking if I'll write something nice for him for $1100. What kind of cheap whore does he think I am?... I like but don't love Hans Zimmer scores as a rule, but the new one for The Da Vinci Code rules! You might think it was John Williams with a sped up pacemaker, but its Hans-y alright!... Time for another heart procedure... ciao you crazy kids!!!

Posted by poland at 07:13 PM | Comments (1)

April 23, 2006

A Compelling Question

From a John Cassidy piece in The New Yorker entitled, "RELATIVELY DEPRIVED - How poor is poor?," this notion:

In 2001, ninety-one per cent of poor families owned color televisions; seventy-four per cent owned microwave ovens; fifty-five per cent owned VCRs; and forty-seven per cent owned dishwashers. Are these families poverty-stricken?

and

Consider a hypothetical single mother with two teen-age sons living in New Orleans’ Ninth Ward, a neighborhood with poor schools, high rates of crime and unemployment, and few opportunities for social advancement. The mother works four days a week in a local supermarket, where she makes eight dollars an hour. Her sons do odd jobs, earning a few hundred dollars a month, which they have used to buy stereo equipment, a DVD player, and a Nintendo. The family lives in public housing, and it qualifies for food stamps and Medicaid. Under the Earned Income Tax Credit program, the mother would receive roughly four thousand dollars from the federal government each year. Compared with the destitute in Africa and Asia, this family is unimaginably rich. Compared with a poor American family of thirty years ago, it may be slightly better off. Compared with a typical two-income family in the suburbs, it is poor.

and

Poor health may be the most dramatic consequence of relative deprivation, but there are more subtle effects as well. Although many poor families own appliances once associated with rich households, such as color televisions and dishwashers, they live in a society in which many families also possess DVD players, cell phones, desktop computers, broadband Internet connections, powerful game consoles, S.U.V.s, health-club memberships, and vacation homes. Without access to these goods, children from poor families may lack skills—such as how to surf the Web for help-wanted ads—that could enhance their prospects in the job market. In other words, relative deprivation may limit a person’s capacity for social achievement.

Of course, I also project this into the self-image of the movie business. Relative poverty in this industry is at an insanely high level. And how does this skew our perception of the rest of the world, aka The Relatively Poor Suckers Who Pay For The Houses In Malibu?

Posted by poland at 06:05 PM | Comments (12)

April 22, 2006

Friday Estimates by Klady

The Benchwarmers, in the official “finals,” came up just short of $20 million, with $19.5million. And so, it looks like Silent Hill will be – if it doesn’t similarly stall on Sunday – the studio-record-tying fourth $20 million-plus opening for Sony these first 16 weekends of the year 2006.

It will also, in these 16 weekends, it will be the sixth opening over $19.5 million (Scary Movie 4, Medea’s Family Reunion, Underworld: Evolution, When A Stranger Calls, The Benchwarmers and now, Silent Hill) without screening for critics. That would be six of the top 13 or 14 openings for the year. And of course, you might note that four of the six are from Sony.

Will the trend expand? Well, it works… for a niche. When A Stranger Calls will be the low bar for these films this year, with a $48 million gross. The high will be Scary Movie 4 and Madea’s Family Reunion… the two sequels in the group. It doesn’t look like any of these films are getting to $100 million. But they aren’t dying of inattention either. Three of this weekend’s Top Five will be movies that didn’t screen.

Anyway…

The Sentinel reminds us that Michael Douglas is still a star in this specific genre. The opening for the film will look a lot like the last three thriller openings for Douglas – Don’t Say A Word ($17.1m), A Perfect Murder ($16.6m), and The Game ($14.3m). In that same time, he’s had four relative flops with comedies and Traffic, which platformed and was an ensemble.

American Nightmarez, uh, American Dreamz opened painfully… though you could kind of see Universal girding their loins for it as it went out on only 1500 screens, cutting the P&A losses. The opening will be similar to the number for Slither, which was well reviewed. Maybe they should have skipped the critics so teen audiences would know that it was “their kind of movie,” though for whatever reason, satirical horror just isn’t playing these days… even if many of these films are jokes.

The good news for Universal is that this weekend, Inside Man will be the fifth movie to cross the $80 million barrier this year.

For Fox, Ice Age 2 is chugging towards a slot on the all-time Top Ten of CG animated films (at least for the next month or two).

And Disney should be thrilled that no one is really writing about The Wild, which did seem to be a direct-to-video sequel to DW’s Madagascar.

Title / Distributor / Gross* / Theaters / % Change / Cume
Silent Hill / Sony / 8.4 / 2926 / / 8.4
Scary Movie 4 / Weinstein Co. / 5.6 / 3674 / -70% / 56.3
The Sentinel / Fox / 4.9 / 2819 / / 4.9
Ice Age: The Meltdown / Fox / 3.2 / 3540 / -59% / 158.3
The Benchwarmers / Sony / 2.3 / 3094 / -43% / 42.2
The Wild / BV / 2 / 2854 / -53% / 15.9
Take the Lead / New Line / 1.3 / 2413 / -48% / 26.7
American Dreamz / Uni / 1.2 / 1500 / / 1.2
Inside Man / Uni / 1.1 / 2021 / -51% / 78.6
Friends with Money / Sony Classics / 0.9 / 1055 / 280% / 2.7

Posted by poland at 11:38 AM | Comments (26)

April 21, 2006

Hand In The Internet Culture Cookie Jar

By way of LA Observed, I ran into this story about Traditional Media defender turned LA Times blogger Matthew Hiltzik getting caught positng anonymous comments to other blogs, breaking LA Times ethics rules. The paper has shut down his Hiltzik's blog - where the issue was debated here - for now.

Of course, anonymity and hidden motives have been an issue here at The Hot Blog, though it seems to have subsided after one participant was outed as many participants thanks to the dogged efforts of some other participants.

Hiltzik is, generally, no better and no worse than most people who wander around the web under fake monikers. But as a journalist - and certainly as a journalist who endlessly claimed the moral hghgound versus the low ground that the internet and blogs allegedly held - his standards should have been higher. Ironically, I would imagine that the arrrogance of Traditional Media and the pressure of believing that his opinion meant more than that of others, as well as the cowardice of wanting to mouth off publicly in ways he could only do over cocktails in the real work, was his downfall.

This is not like Jayson Blair. But it is a landmark in the evolution of the media species.

Posted by poland at 02:21 PM | Comments (8)

Moral Issue Or Nothing?

A lot of writers have made high drama out of a card at the end of United 93 that said something to the effect of, "And The War On Terror Had Begun." The card has been removed in the hulabaloo, but even when I saw it, my take was that it was ironic that a comment so iconic was being juxtaposed against a movie that brought it all down to the personal.

Yesterday, I had a chat with a couple of the people who were upset about the card and they were actually in agreement with how I felt about it, but at least one of them expressed the idea that the great unwashed can’t be trusted not to see it as a positive comment about The War On Terror.

I hate that position on the public in a deep, unrestrained way. The patriarchal or matriarchal attitude of “I get it, but they might not get it, so we have to protect them from it,” pisses me off to no end. There is truth in it. “They” may not get it. But “We” are not “their” parents. Moreover, the attitude almost inevitably reflects, in subtext, the idea that “they” are wrong in their beliefs and “we” are right and anything we “let” them see that might support what they already believe should not be shown.

Anyway…

Today, in Defamer and an LA website called Franklin Avenue, an NBC Channel 4 LA website slideshow of Scientologists AND former Scientologiststurned up. I see no story that it’s connected to. And if you search Scientology on the KNBC website, it doesn’t come up as a link. Nor does it come up under the site’s slideshow page.

I don’t think that we should be chasing Scientologists. I do have real concerns about the organization. (I also have more than a few concerns about other organized religious groups.) But it all leads to “Are you now or have you ever been…?” Even if “we” think “they” are being tricked into their faith.

And this slideshow struck me as a Most Unwanted list, not unlike a child molester slide show. There is no Catholic Slideshow or Jew Slideshow, much less a Former Muslim slideshow. And coming from a news organization, I have to wonder… where is the news here?

Or am I making this into something greater than the sum of its parts?

Posted by poland at 12:38 PM | Comments (19)

April 20, 2006

Beating Myself Up For Your Amusement

This week's 20 Weeks of Summer is about what I got wrong from my April predictions last year... hmm...

"Last year's first chart, published on April 21, had eight films on it that ended up not being released during the May-August summer season. (This allows me to avoid the disastrously wrong call on xXx2.)

Of the remaining 42 movies, I was within $10 million of the final actual gross on the films. That leaves 30 movies on which I ended up being less accurate.

My biggest misses, by percentage, were the films that performed significantly better than I expected. Two of the films were late season films that offered no clear signals of being nearly as successful as they were… until I actually saw them. Those would also be the two films I was furthest off on, Four Brothers (off 185%) and The 40 Year Old Virgin (off 142%)."

Posted by poland at 10:33 AM | Comments (41)

April 19, 2006

Paramount Update DuWeak

Here is Ron Grover's full report on Paramount, entitled Mission: Precarious. I have some issues with it that are also my issues with much of the reporting around this subject these days. Sorry that Mr. Grover gets to be the butt of it.

Grover’s Reporting: “A tense negotiation between Grey and superstar Tom Cruise over the budget of Mission: Impossible III threatened to shut down the franchise flick before Cruise and director J.J. Abrams agreed to cut $50 million out of the $200 million original.”

Reality: The budget wasn’t cut significantly… but Cruise apparently lowered his backend deal somewhat – which his how he gets paid these days… no none-figure upfront payment. Also, the deal was negotiated in the press, which was a big part of what got tongues wagging. Grey’s negotiation was leaked to the papers as both a tactic against Cruise and as a way of making Grey look tough… before the deal was done. The truth is, we only “know” that any accommodation was made because Paramount tells us so… on background and with no names attached. The chance that Grey was going to shut down M:I3, the only thing close to a franchise on the lot, was approximately 0%… which is similar to the position that WB found itself in when McG freaked out of the Superman job while sets were being build, adding no less than $30 million to the cost of that film.

Grover’s Reporting: “Tongues wagged even more in December when it initially appeared that Paramount had overpaid for DreamWorks SKG's live-action studio, which produced such hits as Saving Private Ryan and Gladiator, by shelling out $1.5 billion.”

Reality: Uh… of course Paramount dramatically overpaid for DreamWorks. That’s why it was sold to Viacom and not to NBC/Universal. And as far as the face-saving library deal with Soros… wait for the other show to drop there the way it has on Sony’s “purchase” of MGM.

Grover Reported: “The latest woe is that Grey is linked to the widening investigation of a private eye to the stars, Anthony Pellicano, who has been indicted for wiretapping such personalities as Sylvester Stallone, Garry Shandling, and the wife of billionaire Kirk Kerkorian.”

Business Week corrected: “In "Mission: Precarious" (Entertainment, Apr. 17), we described private eye Anthony Pellicano as having been indicted for wiretapping personalities including Garry Shandling. This is incorrect. Pellicano was indicted for using a Los Angeles Police officer to illegally search the National Crime Information Center for information on Shandling in January, 1999.”

In other words… they still have him on a side issue. And that’s why the media is being so endlessly used to try to move the years-old case along… on Pellicano and Fields, who have been implicated publicly, much less Brad Grey, who has only suffered a US Attorney’s Office whispering campaign.

Grover Reported: “But it was Spielberg who, unintentionally, helped fuel more speculation. The famed director pressed Grey and Viacom CEO Tom Freston to lure Universal studio chief Stacey Snider to run DreamWorks for Paramount. That move was seen by some as a backstop should Berman, or Grey, be forced to leave. Spielberg and Freston deny that's the case.”

Reality: Now, Spielberg’s fingerprints (and more importantly, Geffen’s fingerprints) are being removed from the Stacey Snider hire. I agree that the hire was not meant as a backstop to Berman or Grey. It was a hire with the full long-term intent of moving Snider into position to take the lead film role at the studio by the time that the DreamWorks 3-year contracts run out, leaving Ms. Snider with another 2 years more on her contract after that date.

Is there also an additional benefit of having a big name around in case a Grey indictment actually happens? Sure. But as Grover’s misreport on Pellicano’s indictment suggests… we’re not as close to the possibility of that happening as the media – and many around town who simply don’t like Grey – would like to think. Either way, expect Snider's power position to increase inside of Paramount before 2007 ends.

Grover Reported: “Grey has taken bold action, pushing out some top Paramount executives and hiring more aggressive DreamWorks executives.”

Reality: That was a major part of why the deal happened. It wasn’t a bold move. Executive talent is the only think that Paramount actually got for its $700 million buy of DreamWorks (except maybe $50 million worth of assorted development deals, etc). And the agreement that most of the DW team would stay employed was a big win for Geffen, Spielberg, Katzenberg, et al.

Grover Reported: “Entertainment veteran Grey no doubt knows how quickly the knives come out when an executive is perceived as in trouble. "If you have money to buy projects and market films, folks will come running," says former Columbia marketing chief Peter Sealey, a Stanford University business professor. "But if things get worse at Paramount, that will change in a hurry." Clearly, scandal and palace intrigue are best left for the big screen.”

Reality: Grey still hasn’t made a deal that any other studio really wanted to make. Paramount has spent a lot of money on projects that will never get greenlit and it looks like John Lesher will actually have as many movies in release next year that he greenlit at Classics than big Paramount will have that have been greenlit under Grey.

The biggest problem at Paramount still is that they continue to tread water in pushing out big money movies… even with last year’s strong summer and another one due this year. With due respect to the eminently respectable Mr. Spielberg, “When Mission Impossible [opens] and is a huge hit,” this will not all evaporate… not any more than it did after War of the Worlds was a huge hit last year.

Brad Grey is walking around with a cloud over his head and even if it never rains, the behavior of the government in this case suggests the cloud will be with him for at least another year or two.

Paramount’s big summer movie in 2007 being DreamWorks’ Transformers and not a homegrown film is not going to help. Either is the Oscar run of Geffen’s Dreamgirls and Eastwood's DreamWorks driven Flags of Our Fathers/Red Sun, Black Sand.

The bottom line is, even without any Brad Grey indictment, even with hits in M:I3 and Nacho Libre, even if Dreamgirls won Best Picture… the scrutiny will be intense from all corners through 2007… until the studio has 4 or 5 internally produced hits and shows that it is stronger than DreamWorks, much less other studios with whom they compete.

To give Grey & Co. some credit, the internal tone on the lot is getting better. ParanoiaMount is not an accurate tag these days. Perhaps people are fooling themselves that more change isn't coming and perhaps the heat on The Boss is allowing the non-bosses to focus on something other than their own day-to-day issues and worries that there are still a few too many chefs. But regardless, the fever has subsided for the moment. MI3 is here and there is a lot of work to do.

At some point, Paramount may become the scruffy underdog and the media will start boosting them. Assuming Grey isn’t indicted – which is the expectation I lean towards these days, no matter what is said in Vanity Fair next month – the media will eventually get sick of Pellicano and the lack of action and start feeling used.

Of course, if Grey is indicted, all bets are off. And the too-rich-for-dirty-hands DreamWorks team takes over. And like any team that changes leadership, yet another honeymoon for SKG.

Posted by poland at 10:54 AM | Comments (5)

Ads Gone Wrong

First, the Super Irony Missing ad for Superman Returns. No... this is not a photo from the casting process. but it a REAL ad.

This is NOT a real ad. FAKE ad. And Breyers is not happy about this fake "found kiddie porn," having sent its creator this cease & desist on 1 | 2 | 3 pages.

What I have blocked out is not anything illicit in and of itself. But the spirirt of the ad is gross and bordering on kiddie porn, so for the sake of decency, I covered it up. But you get the point.

The question is, is this satire or is it simply a purient joke trading on the long-earned values of an ice cream company. Has the line in the sand been washed away or do people and companies just have to deal with it?

(This message brought to you by the TomKitten.)

Posted by poland at 10:39 AM | Comments (22)

April 18, 2006

What Can Brown Do For Warner Bros

Okay... I'll give it up... Warner Bros has not done a job to try to cover the cost of their big summer film (aka MEFE, aka The Most Expensive Film Ever). This is an entry in a Worth1000 Photoshopping content called "Superhero Dayjobs."

Posted by poland at 04:36 PM | Comments (26)

April 17, 2006

How Hip?

When is the last time you saw a movie poster with the name upside down?

It may seem minor to you, but I think it's an interesting concession to the new media world and the idea that audiences want to be challenged... or to at least feel challenged.

Posted by poland at 11:28 PM | Comments (21)

The Future Of Newspapers By A True (And Truthful) Newspaper Man

The Royal Society for the encouragement of Arts, Manufactures and Commerce - commonly known as the RSA – had a lecture the other night by Alan Rusbridger, who is the editor of the British paper, The Guardian, which I consider one of the finest papers in the world in its coverage of film, amongst other things.

Jeff Jarvis’ BuzzMachine blog turned Ray Pride onto it, who turned me onto it.

The lecture was titled, Newspapers in the Age of Blogs

You can read it here or listen to it here.

He talks in great detail about the evolution of the blog, the various players. From Craigslist to Huffington to the ways that his paper is changing. He also talks about The New York Times:

“If you ever go to the New York Times editorial meeting, it’s a bit like a religious ceremony; they meet for 45 minutes in the evening and great thought goes into what’s the lead story; what’s the second story; what’s the third story; what’s the relative typography of these stories and it is very serious men and women saying this is our expert opinion and that of the hundreds of journalists that we employ who have thought about this deeply, they know what they’re talking about, believe us is the message. If it’s on the front page of the New York Times, it’s there because it’s important. It may be about things that you don’t think you’re interested in, you may not want to read it but this is our opinion and this is the model that’s existed again for hundreds of years and in each country that you go to.”

But more importantly, he speaks to the general idea of Traditional Media…

“(It’s) journalism as revelation; we are the figures of authority; all these important people at the top speak to us, you can’t speak to them because you’re too little, you’re right down there and we are the conduit and we tell you what’s important. It’s like this, believe us, and occasionally the little people would write a letter and a little letter would come back and say that’s not quite right or I disagree and we’d print a few of these letters very graciously but most of them.”

Things change. And if you are interested in this change, this is the most direct, self-aware (as opposed to self-deceptive) look at where things are and whether things are going that I’ve heard from a person of power in the firmament of Traditional Media.

Posted by poland at 06:02 PM | Comments (7)

Oscar… Check Mate?

The Academy announced its dates for 2007 this morning and as disappointed as I am that they haven’t moved the awards themselves a week or two earlier on the February calendar, that’s not where the action is.

The jaw-dropper, for Oscar drumbeaters, is the January 13 poll closing for nominations and the corresponding January 23 nominations announcement.

Not only does the move to a week earlier than nominations have closed in the past create an intensified effort for Oscar consultants getting their films seen in time, but it effectively cordons off all but one Sunday/Monday weekend in which competing awards shows can position themselves to appear to be influencers. The first weekend after the New Year’s weekend - which would this year be the very fast-in-coming January 7 or 8 - has become the BFCA’s Critics’ Choice Awards stomping ground in recent years, which would once again put them before Oscar noms close.

But after that is when it gets interesting. The Golden Globes pretty has to choose between January 14 and 21for its show. One is the day after Oscar polling closes. The other is just two days before Oscar nominations. For all intents and purposes, this boxes the Globes into increased obscurity. The more remote possibility of a move to January 28 (the Super Bowl is on Feb 4) doesn’t help much either.

Last season, as the HFPA completely missed Crash and dissed Best Picture nominees Munich and Capote (ending up matching only 2 Oscar Best Picture nominees with 10 shots to get them), the buzz around the power of The Globes went radio silent once the Oscar nominations put them in their place.

And The Academy couldn’t be happier than to see another year of the same.

Posted by poland at 01:20 PM | Comments (22)

April 16, 2006

Small Stories Light The Way To The Future

More and more, the future of the film business can be seen in the news about other forms of media. There were two key stories in the Wall Street Journal on Saturday.

First, there was a large story about profit declines at some of the major newspaper groups in which this one line really stood out…

“The Chicago-based publisher of the Los Angeles Times, the Chicago Tribune and Newsday said newspaper ad revenue was flat for the quarter and circulation was down 3%. National advertising revenue declined 8.5%, primarily because of a decline in movie ads in Los Angeles…”

Wow. Not just a major drop in newspaper advertising for films, obviously large sized display ads, but specifically calling out Los Angeles, the industry’s hometown paper. Of course, the reason why the hometown paper had so many massive, expensive ads was because it was bought, before its value selling to movie ticket buyers, to impress and cajole people involved with the movies… a large frame ego booster.

I don’t have details, but I would guess that being off 8.5% overall , with L.A. pointed out, that L.A. must be off by significantly more than that. And the willingness of studios to do this indicates the studios’ desperation to lighten their financial load is, for the moment, greater than the need to stroke. Moreover, it is a good indicator that the studios have come to believe, whether a fashion or a reasonable choice, that newspapers are a dying advertising base for this industry.

The second big story is Fox making a deal with their affiliates for six years to share revenue from post-premiere delivery of TV shows on the network. Unlike others who have jumped as quickly as possible into the fray, Fox took its time and dealt with the people who would be suing them as it adds new delivery systems. With this program in place, not only can Fox take action without looking over their shoulders, they also set the six year target for the experimentation period before we can expect a paradigm shift.

What does this have to do with movies? Well, delivery system changes are coming for the film business too. As you probably know about me if you are reading this, I don’t think that closing the theatrical/DVD window is where this going in the long run. But given their strategic thinking, I would be a little shocked of Fox isn’t the first one to dip their toe in the water with a teen-targeted day-n-date experiment on a film with a production budget under $15 million and a marketing budget of about the same.

Posted by poland at 12:28 PM | Comments (2)

April 15, 2006

Friday Estimates by Klady

Those teenagers are really staying away from the theaters in droves!

I didn’t particularly need to have Scary Movie 4 open to over $50 million in order to ease my frustration that repetition of a bad fact over the last year has turned it into perceived reality for a lot of smart people. But it doesn’t hurt.

With The Benchwarmers on its way to $60 million domestic (no, not by the end of this weekend) and Scary Movie’s opening, do people still want to make the argument? Will h L.A. Times write an idiotic story about whether sequels started by black brothers taken over by comedy directors perceived as “over” will save Hollywood? (Watch for the incredulousness by the media when The Wayanses’ Little Man opens strong and grosses good numbers this summer.)

The Pink Panther and Failure To Launch both pass $80 million

The details look a little different… as, for instance, Scary Movie 4 shows up in April, not March, so first quarter doesn’t have as much muscle, while the highest grosser last April was Sin City’s $75 million… so the first 4 months are looking very much the same about now. And as I wrote last year, without The Passion of the Christ, an anomaly of the size of Titanic or My Big Fat Greek Wedding, the first quarter of 2005 was very, very strong. And so is this year’s first four months.

This hasn’t changed the fact that we well may see another 2% of box office atrophy this year, but we’re not in a freefall. And the reason why even that atrophy is taking place is the perceived reality that the DVD window is still shrinking and most films can wait. So keep shrinking that window… it’s a brilliant idea!

Title / Friday # / % Change / Screens / Cume
Scary Movie 4 / 19.7 / - / 3602 / 19.7
Ice Age: Meltdown / 8.1 / -6% / 3873 / 135.2
The Benchwarmers / 4.3 / -37% / 3282 / 30.3
The Wild / 4.2 / - / 2854 / 4.2
Take The Lead / 2.6 / -38% / 3009 / 18.4
Inside Man / 2.2 / -15% / 2472 / 71.2
Lucky Number Slevin / 1.6 / -29% / 1989 / 11.2
Thank You For Smoking / 1.5 / 134% / 1015 / 8.5
Failure to Launch / 1 / -22% / 1950 / 81.6
V For Vendetta / 0.8 / -23% / 1380 / 64.6

Posted by poland at 12:25 PM | Comments (56)

April 14, 2006

Friday THB

Apparently, I gave up sight for lent and missed a few very obvious entries in the top adult book adaptations category on thb today.

The corrected list:
1. Jurassic Park - $357m/$558m
2. Jaws - $260m domestic/$211m international
3. The Exorcist - $193m/$208m
4. Gone With The Wind - $190m/$202m
5. The Perfect Storm - $182m/$146m
6. Schindler's List - $96m/$225m
7. A Beautiful Mind - $171m/$143m

That said, Forrest Gump doesn’t count… it was not a smash book that was relying on its book success to launch the movie. In point of fact, there are many movies based on books that were not driven by books, including The Passion of The Christ, War of the Worlds and Troy. And then there is Who Killed Roger Rabbit?, a book distinctly written for adults that barely sold and was made into a movie aimed at families.

No one saw Forrest Gump because of the book, though they sold a lot of copies of the book based on the movie.

The column...

Posted by poland at 12:15 PM | Comments (42)

April 13, 2006

Summer Preview

So what kind of summer do you tihnk it will be?

Here's what I think...

Posted by poland at 01:00 PM | Comments (69)

Good, Bad Or Indifferent?

Does the LA Film Festival's choice to honor George Lucas as Guest Director of this year's festival an invigorating crossover from what is traditionally thought of as independent film to a guy who plays the independent game to the tune of billions?

Or, is it a desperate stab at attention, using a guy who overshadows and contributes nothing to the hard-core indie movement that still struggles year after year to do powerful, provocative work with little or no money to get it done?

Or, is it just a non-issue?

Posted by poland at 12:29 PM | Comments (22)

United 93

I am going to keep this extremely simple until I see the movie again.

Still fairly early in his career, Paul Greengrass is a master at this form of filmmaking. He and his team of camerapeople and editors really know how to make it vibrantly alive and yet not lose you. And the performances always spark of a gritty reality.

The question on people's lips is, "Is it too early for this film."

And my answer is an answer to the words in that question, but not to the intent of that question. There were moments that I felt spikes of emotionality during the film, but not in a see-and-react way. Hearing the CNN description of the morning hit me hard... perhaps a filed away memory powerful in recall.

My reaction is that it was too early for the filmmakers, and perhaps the studio, to make the movie they meant to make. I don’t imagine the filmmakers believe this, but I felt like the dramatic choices you would make with this story could not be made out of respect for the dead. It is not too early to tell this story, but it is too early, I guess, to mythologize it.

The big difference between this film and Greengrass’s Bloody Sunday is that Bloody Sunday is not a natural clock movie. This one is. In fact, it feels pretty close to real time. But even something as basic of defining the clock might seem too cutesy in this context.

My doubts about United 93 center around two simple questions. What is it really about? Who is it really about?

Certainly, the film will be hard for some people to take and reliving the memories of that day will be difficult for them. But the film is very respectful. Perhaps too much so.

I now think that the first truly important film about 9/11 will be made around the decade anniversary. And it will probably be a little off the literal mark.

I am not writing off United 93 by any means and I look forward to going back for another look… to see how I feel… and it’s all about feeling… a second time around. It may grow on me. It may grow paler. I’m really not sure.

But as I was watching one moment of the film, as people choose to put themselves in harms way, and I am appreciating the craftsmanship of the filmmaking, but I am also saying to myself, “ I want to see X or Y Or Z. I don’t need to be reminded of the chaos right now. I need to see whether the pressure has made people bloodthirsty. I need to feel the fear in a more direct way. I need to feel the deep, rage-filled horror of being more than 50% sure that you are going to die in less than an hour.” And all the while, I understand that the film is inherently fictionalized on some level, and I feel that pushing a victim of this event into the role of being morally ambiguous in any way is an impossible thing to ask of these filmmakers.

So yes, it is too early, it seems, for gentle, generous souls to make a film about these events. For me, it may be that an act so brutal demands a film that can be equally raw.

Posted by poland at 12:19 AM | Comments (82)

April 12, 2006

Who Are The Biggest Stars In The World?

Part I - Laying The Groundwork of The Retired, The Still Suspect, The Bodies, The Combackers, and The Anticipated

Part II - 55 With $5 Million
How much more valuable is The Rock than Harrison Ford?
Who is the highest ranked woman (at #15)?
Why are Leo and Clooney so low?

3:57p - An e-mail correcty pointed out one I really did miss...
42a. Jack Black (Added Late) - It's actually a fairly wide open issue about how much Black really is worth at the box office. Nacho Libre will give us a better idea. But Shallow Hal was big concept and still traded on the Farrelly cache. Envy is unfair to judge him on. And School of Rock was a perfect role in a great concept film. Developing...

Posted by poland at 11:24 AM | Comments (66)

Superman EXCLUSIVE!

The genius known as Bryan Singer has apparently recruited Mr. Hat, who was fired from South Park after his partner had a sex change, to appear in Superman Begins III (aka The Most Expensive Movie In The History Of Movies). Here is an image of him, without his signature hand (or hat). Revenge is sweet.

Posted by poland at 11:12 AM | Comments (40)

April 11, 2006

More On...

Some mornings, reading the Wall Street Journal is just a thrill. Today, the paper went past others and really did a great job of thinking deeper about some of yesterday's news.

First, a smart piece on Disney's web strategy and the question, which I completely missed, which was just how much reruns on the web will interfere with the value of syndication.

The funny thing, for me, is that I have already gotten past believing that there is any future for local station syndication, outside of branding like TNT/TBS have done, where a local station runs nothing but comedies and local news and anotehr run nothing but hour-longs and news... basically offering a free answer to the pay cable networks to come.

Second, a nice update on the technologcal move allowing you to watch your computer on your TV. The one thing the piece doesn't adress is the difference in quality in the files sized for watching on your computer vs the materials you watch on your TV.

Finally, there is a stat in this story that hits home - "The New York Times in yesterday's editions noted, a bit smugly, that the Daily News had 'pulled out all the stops.'"

In fact, the Times, a unit of New York Times Co., has actually spilled more ink on the Page Six scandal. As of last night, it had written 10 articles totaling 10,865 words since the news broke, compared with 6,588 words for the News, in seven articles. The story was on the Times's front page Saturday and Sunday, and the fronts of two sections yesterday."

Ha.

Posted by poland at 12:58 PM | Comments (0)

April 10, 2006

Freedom’s Just Another Word for Lots Of Cash to Lose

Disney is taking the next step in what will, somewhat inevitably, be the slow steady move towards individual studio on-demand networks for television. Or as the old joke goes, “we know you’re a whore, now we’re just negotiating price.”

The iPod experiment has gotten a lot of press, but not a lot of money. The next, less convenient and unowned version of TV series delivery, is here. Disney will get a handle on how many people are willing or interested in running to the web to see what they might have missed the day before.

Of course, in the era of the DVR, this is regressive technology and I suspect that Disney will be disappointed. Watching a TV show on a computer screen still sucks. But the convergence of you computer and the TV is not so far away anymore. And this experiment is about controlling the delivery, which is why so many advertisers are on board. Disney is offering them a “you have to watch my commercials” option and they are thrilled by the possibilities. Now, if they can figure out delivery convergence so they can put this control on your TV (via cable or satellite), it will be the future of free TV.

But as I’ve been saying for years, free TV is an endangered species. It will continue, but the future is in converting the networks into variations of paid TV.

The real future is that networks will end up using the free TV system to develop audiences for their real income producers, Premium Network TV and Network On Demand. Take a big bite of your irony sandwich before thinking about this because what they will be doing is creating delivery windows. Yes, those same windows that so many are so keen on closing in the film exhibition world.

With the nature of ownership changing forever, the only power left to the content provider is delivery variation, not simply the most efficient delivery. Commodities grow in value based on how rare they are, not on being cheap and accessible. Ya know, if DeBeers decided to lower the price on diamonds, they could sell more to more people. But they don’t. Because they aren’t stupid. Markets are not built on the reality that there are a lot of diamonds (or oil… or cell air time) out here. Customer apathy is created most powerfully by two things… product they don’t want and unfettered access.

In television, unlike the film world, there is no answer to product they don’t want. (Quality is another issue altogether.) But in a world in which maximizing eyeball count is not the only issue anymore, maximizing the returns on product that audiences have decided they do want is the future. And windows of access, both in the timing of access and the degree of commercial intrusion, are the key to that goal.

The next play might be ABC’s answer to YouTube, hiring someone to editorialize and to highlight “the stuff you had to see last night.” Of course, it won’t have the natural, rebellious fun of YouTube. To that end, it might be part of YouTube or some other secretly owned and operated site. But the marketing tool of a fun “best of” site is too powerful to let pass.

After that, first on iTunes and then somehow delivered to your TV, if you are really into Lost or Battlestar Galactica or The Apprentice or Survivor or whatever, you will be able to get them early and get unique fan-appeal programming, all for a small annual subscription fee.

And I think, eventually, levels of premium service. Network multiplexing. Shows available in multiple ratings, from broadcast to hard R.

The future is coming. But to forget the central ideas of how marketing works is suicide. Confusing television with film or either with records is suicide. People take the things in life that come easy to them for granted. The trick is to find new things, within the realm of thenew technology, that still feel hard to get. That, people will pay for.

After the jump, a Wall Street Journal commentary that I think very, very insghtful and more than a little scary about how the networks already are being forced to see their varied parts as commodities... even the vaunted newsroom of CBS.

COMMENTARY

Fatten Before Sale

By JOHN ELLIS
April 8, 2006; Page A8

Fifty years ago, there were two publications that were required reading for all employees at the CIA. One was the New York Times. The other was the morning transcript of the CBS News World News Round-Up. The latter was required reading because if you didn't know what CBS News was saying that day, you didn't know what was going on.

Today, CBS News is a nonessential and under-performing division of a media conglomerate that couldn't care less about journalism and thinks of news as something best practiced at MTV Networks. CBS management would sell the division in a heartbeat if they could, but they can't, at least for the time being. Fiduciary duty thus requires that they do something to enhance the value of the asset, so that it might fetch a higher price when it is finally divested.

The basic math is straightforward. If every broadcast news organization employs roughly 1,000 people and the average salary cost per person is $125,000, then the payroll cost is $125 million. Multiply times three (for overhead, operating costs, special events, etc.) and you have a starting budget of nearly $400 million.

The only real source of revenue to offset these costs is advertising. Unless a broadcast network also owns a cable news channel, there simply isn't enough advertising time to sell to cover costs and deliver an acceptable profit to Wall Street. NBC Chairman Bob Wright understood this when he took the helm at 30 Rock in the late 1980s. He created CNBC as a business news channel and later created MSNBC (in partnership with Microsoft) as a news channel. Those two organizations have time to sell seven days a week, 24 hours a day. And all those ads, cheesy though they may be, make healthier the finances of NBC News.

CBS has no cable news network to spread cost across. It has the CBS Evening News for 30 minutes every night, the successful but aging "60 Minutes" franchise, and its woeful morning news shows. The basic math is therefore untenable. CBS News is not, long term, a viable financial enterprise.

What to do? Ideally, CBS management would like to sell CBS News to Time Warner or -- imagine the culture clash -- to Fox (which has a cable news network, but no broadcast news division). A deal with Time Warner might look like this: TWX buys CBS News for some multiple of revenues. TWX then leases back the "60 Minutes" franchise, the Evening News and a hybrid morning chat-and-news show for inclusion in the regular CBS programming schedule. The costs of maintaining CBS News is transferred to TWX, which can defray those costs across two cable news channels (CNN and Headline News)and repurpose the video and audio libraries of CBS News across those and other TWX channels. CBS gets news programming, ad revenue that easily covers the leasing fees, and the fulfillment of its "public service" obligation that is a requirement of its broadcast license.

When to do it? Never sell at the bottom. CBS News is just now emerging from the debacle that caused Dan Rather to "retire," the dismissal of four senior employees, and the decent-interval defenestration of the news division's then-president. Having lived through the debacle, CBS Chairman Les Moonves knew better than anyone that he had to rebuild the reputation and image of CBS News if he was ever to realize the full value of the asset. Rearranging the deck chairs wasn't going to cut it. He needed something that changed the perception of CBS News and, if possible, wrought some havoc upon the competition.

Hiring Katie Couric certainly rattles NBC News. The "Today Show" franchise has been a money machine for the network since Ms. Couric took the helm there. Will her departure cause morning viewers to graze elsewhere? It's a question Mr. Moonves is happy to have on the table.

Whether or not Ms. Couric can change the context in which CBS News is understood is less certain. But whatever else she may be, Ms. Couric is accustomed to success. She has dominated morning news for nearly 15 years. She is, among baby-boomer women especially, hugely popular. And she's credible enough to keep the CBS knights of journalism quiet. The organization has no choice but to embrace her.

Launching her as the new face of CBS News gives the CBS publicity machine five months to reposition and redefine the news division. Given the resurgence of its prime time schedule and long-established hold on older, less-urban viewers, it seems unlikely that the ratings for the CBS Evening News will be hurt over the time leading up to Ms. Couric's arrival. Given Ms. Couric's proven appeal to baby-boomer women, it seems likely (amid a huge publicity blitz) that the ratings for the evening newscast will tick upward shortly after she assumes the anchor post. And given Ms. Couric's proven ability to hold the viewers she acquires, it seems likely that her $15 million annual salary will be more than covered.

Assuming the prime time schedule continues to perform, it is not hard to imagine that Ms. Couric will lead CBS News into a more competitive stance. At which point, the value of the asset can be realized in a deal. Katie Couric is, metaphorically, the transitional figure between a once-great broadcast news organization and what will almost certainly be the first news division ever sold off by a broadcast network. Given the options available to Mr. Moonves and the playing field he inherited, he could have done a lot worse.

Mr. Ellis, a partner at Sand Hills Partners, is a former columnist for the Boston Globe.

Posted by poland at 02:30 PM | Comments (3)

Animated Gifing With Lucasfilm

Posted by poland at 01:55 AM | Comments (11)

April 09, 2006

A Kinder, Gentler Silent Hill

Posted by poland at 06:08 PM | Comments (6)

Like A Bad Nightmare

I know that some readers think I am all too willing to criticize The NY Times, but can anyone defend six stories in the last two days about Page Six in The Paper of Record???

Forget about whether there is any real news here, aside from a billionaire being able to get the FBI to run a sting operation on a hack full-time freelancer. There has been no indictment. There is zero indication that News Corp was in any way aware of these events, much less allowed them to pass under their noses.

Is there any excuse for all this coverage other than the thrill of some scandalous stench coming from another major media player?

Me? I'm just disgusted that all this energy is being thrown at a gossip page... not to mention that the NYT, in its story on gossip pages, fails to point out that their paper has chased the same audience Page Six commands with its Boldfaced Names. (Comedically, the first writer of Boldfaced Names is given credit for "additional reporting" on the story.)

How does one remain a believer in all the New York Times has represented when they are aiming so low?

P.S. Why is it that Ron Burkle is IDed as “a supermarket magnate and Democratic fund-raiser” in the lead story in the New York Times and that the only mention that he is very likely to be competing with News Corp as a new owner of some of the Knight Ridder papers is buried in paragraph six of a secondary profile story and only in parentheses; “…(though he is a front-runner in the scramble to purchase a dozen Knight Ridder newspapers).”

It may be, in the end, irrelevant. And there is no question that if the accusations against Jared Paul Stern are true, that his actions deserve no excuse making. However, someone leaked news of this investigation to the New York Daily News. And over the weekend, someone leaked a personal note from Burkle to Rupert Murdoch, again to the NY Daily News, on the heels of Burkle’s $400 an hour spin doctor, Michael Sitrick, noting the existence of this letter, in a press release.

A billionaire can have whatever press handler he likes and hiring Sitrick, who has cleaned up messes for the Catholic Church, amongst others, does not signal any kind of problem. It’s not a red flag. But it is a yellow one. This is the man who led Roy Disney through his years long attack on Michael Eisner, which got a lot of traction at major NY papers, particularly The New York Times.

The gossip business is a disgusting one and I would love to see every skeleton in every closet swept out. But as the hysteria over this story continues to build, one of the key questions must remain, “Who wanted this story in The New York Daily News and why?’ Just because Rupert Murdoch is not a pristine player does not mean that journalists shouldn’t be affording him the same investigative thoroughness that we do for subjects that are held in higher esteem.

Posted by poland at 12:35 AM | Comments (8)

April 08, 2006

The WGA 100

I guess you guys want to discuss it... so here is the list, after the jump...

P.S. If Casablanca is the best screenplay of all time, I am a monkey's uncle. Do you know that "beautiful friendship" was dubbed in after the film was shown to the execs?

Pulp Fiction and The Shawshank Redemption are ridiculously high... someone wanted to look cool. And Shakespeare In Love, if on this list at all, should be down at the bottom.

I would have lots of arguments with, but the ability to live with, most of the rest. But you get the feeling that they wanted current scripts represented... and current guild leaders represented.

1. CASABLANCA
Screenplay by Julius J. & Philip G. Epstein and Howard Koch. Based on the play "Everybody Comes to Rick's" by Murray Burnett and Joan Alison
2. THE GODFATHER
Screenplay by Mario Puzo and Francis Ford Coppola. Based on the novel by Mario Puzo
3. CHINATOWN
Written by Robert Towne
4. CITIZEN KANE
Written by Herman Mankiewicz and Orson Welles
5. ALL ABOUT EVE
Screenplay by Joseph L. Mankiewicz. Based on "The Wisdom of Eve," a short story and radio play by Mary Orr
6. ANNIE HALL
Written by Woody Allen and Marshall Brickman
7. SUNSET BLVD.
Written by Charles Brackett & Billy Wilder and D.M. Marshman, Jr.
8. NETWORK
Written by Paddy Chayefsky
9. SOME LIKE IT HOT
Screenplay by Billy Wilder & I.A.L. Diamond. Based on "Fanfare of Love," a German film written by Robert Thoeren and M. Logan
10. THE GODFATHER II
Screenplay by Francis Ford Coppola and Mario Puzo. Based on Mario Puzo's novel "The Godfather"
11. BUTCH CASSIDY AND THE SUNDANCE KID
Written by William Goldman
12. DR. STRANGELOVE
Screenplay by Stanley Kubrick and Peter George and Terry Southern. Based on novel "Red Alert" by Peter George
13. THE GRADUATE
Screenplay by Calder Willingham and Buck Henry. Based on the novel by Charles Webb
14. LAWRENCE OF ARABIA
Screenplay by Robert Bolt and Michael Wilson. Based on the life and writings of Col. T.E. Lawrence
15. THE APARTMENT
Written by Billy Wilder & I.A.L. Diamond
16. PULP FICTION
Written by Quentin Tarantino. Stories by Quentin Tarantino & Roger Avary
17. TOOTSIE
Screenplay by Larry Gelbart and Murray Schisgal. Story by Don McGuire and Larry Gelbart
18. ON THE WATERFRONT
Screen Story and Screenplay by Budd Schulberg. Based on "Crime on the Waterfront" articles by Malcolm Johnson
19. TO KILL A MOCKINGBIRD
Screenplay by Horton Foote. Based on the novel by Harper Lee
20. IT'S A WONDERFUL LIFE
Screenplay by Frances Goodrich & Albert Hackett & Frank Capra. Based on short story "The Greatest Gift" by Philip Van Doren Stern. Contributions to screenplay Michael Wilson and Jo Swerling
21. NORTH BY NORTHWEST
Written by Ernest Lehman
22. THE SHAWSHANK REDEMPTION
Screenplay by Frank Darabont. Based on the short story "Rita Hayworth and the Shawshank Redemption" by Stephen King
23. GONE WITH THE WIND
Screenplay by Sidney Howard. Based on the novel by Margaret Mitchell
24. ETERNAL SUNSHINE OF THE SPOTLESS MIND
Screenplay by Charlie Kaufman. Story by Charlie Kaufman & Michel Gondry & Pierre Bismuth
25. THE WIZARD OF OZ
Screenplay by Noel Langley and Florence Ryerson and Edgar Allan Woolf Adaptation by Noel Langley. Based on the novel by L. Frank Baum
26. DOUBLE INDEMNITY
Screenplay by Billy Wilder and Raymond Chandler. Based on the novel by James M. Cain
27. GROUNDHOG DAY
Screenplay by Danny Rubin and Harold Ramis. Story by Danny Rubin
28. SHAKESPEARE IN LOVE
Written by Marc Norman and Tom Stoppard
29. SULLIVAN'S TRAVELS
Written by Preston Sturges
30. UNFORGIVEN
Written by David Webb Peoples
31. HIS GIRL FRIDAY
Screenplay by Charles Lederer. Based on the play "The Front Page" by Ben Hecht & Charles MacArthur
32. FARGO
Written by Joel Coen & Ethan Coen
33. THE THIRD MAN
Screenplay by Graham Greene. Story by Graham Greene. Based on the short story by Graham Greene
34. THE SWEET SMELL OF SUCCESS
Screenplay by Clifford Odets and Ernest Lehman. From a novelette by Ernest Lehman
35. THE USUAL SUSPECTS
Written by Christopher McQuarrie
36. MIDNIGHT COWBOY
Screenplay by Waldo Salt. Based on the novel by James Leo Herlihy
37. THE PHILADELPHIA STORY
Screenplay by Donald Ogden Stewart. Based on the play by Philip Barry
38. AMERICAN BEAUTY
Written by Alan Ball
39. THE STING
Written by David S. Ward
40. WHEN HARRY MET SALLY
Written by Nora Ephron
41. GOODFELLAS
Screenplay by Nicholas Pileggi & Martin Scorsese. Based on book "Wise Guy" by Nicholas Pileggi
42. RAIDERS OF THE LOST ARK
Screenplay by Lawrence Kasdan. Story by George Lucas and Philip Kaufman
43. TAXI DRIVER
Written by Paul Schrader
44. THE BEST YEARS OF OUR LIVES
Screenplay by Robert E. Sherwood. Based on novel "Glory For Me" by MacKinley Kantor
45. ONE FLEW OVER THE CUCKOO'S NEST
Screenplay by Lawrence Hauben and Bo Goldman. Based on the novel by Ken Kesey
46. THE TREASURE OF THE SIERRA MADRE
Screenplay by John Huston. Based on the novel by B. Traven
47. THE MALTESE FALCON
Screenplay by John Huston. Based on the novel by Dashiell Hammett
48. THE BRIDGE ON THE RIVER KWAI
Screenplay by Carl Foreman and Michael Wilson. Based on the novel by Pierre Boulle
49. SCHINDLER'S LIST
Screenplay by Steven Zaillian. Based on the novel by Thomas Keneally
50. THE SIXTH SENSE
Written by M. Night Shyamalan
51. BROADCAST NEWS
Written by James L. Brooks
52. THE LADY EVE
Screenplay by Preston Sturges. Story by Monckton Hoffe
53. ALL THE PRESIDENT'S MEN
Screenplay by William Goldman. Based on the book by Carl Bernstein & Bob Woodward
54. MANHATTAN
Written by Woody Allen & Marshall Brickman
55. APOCALYPSE NOW
Written by John Milius and Francis Coppola. Narration by Michael Herr
56. BACK TO THE FUTURE
Written by Robert Zemeckis & Bob Gale
57. CRIMES AND MISDEMEANORS
Written by Woody Allen
58. ORDINARY PEOPLE
Screenplay by Alvin Sargent. Based on the novel by Judith Guest
59. IT HAPPENED ONE NIGHT
Screenplay by Robert Riskin. Based on the story "Night Bus" by Samuel Hopkins Adams
60. L.A. CONFIDENTIAL
Screenplay by Brian Helgeland & Curtis Hanson. Based on the novel by James Ellroy
61. THE SILENCE OF THE LAMBS
Screenplay by Ted Tally. Based on the novel by Thomas Harris
62. MOONSTRUCK
Written by John Patrick Shanley
63. JAWS
Screenplay by Peter Benchley and Carl Gottlieb. Based on the novel by Peter Benchley
64. TERMS OF ENDEARMENT
Screenplay by James L. Brooks. Based on the novel by Larry McMurtry
65. SINGIN' IN THE RAIN
Screen Story and Screenplay by Betty Comden & Adolph Green. Based on the song by Arthur Freed and Nacio Herb Brown
66. JERRY MAGUIRE
Written by Cameron Crowe
67. E.T. THE EXTRA-TERRESTRIAL
Written by Melissa Mathison
68. STAR WARS
Written by George Lucasn
69. DOG DAY AFTERNOON
Screenplay by Frank Pierson. Based on a magazine article by P.F. Kluge and Thomas Moore
70. THE AFRICAN QUEEN
Screenplay by James Agee and John Huston. Based on the novel by C.S. Forester
71. THE LION IN WINTER
Screenplay by James Goldman. Based on the play by James Goldman
72. THELMA & LOUISE
Written by Callie Khouri
73. AMADEUS
Screenplay by Peter Shaffer. Based on his play
74. BEING JOHN MALKOVICH
Written by Charlie Kaufman
75. HIGH NOON
Screenplay by Carl Foreman. Based on short story "The Tin Star" by John W. Cunningham
76. RAGING BULL
Screenplay by Paul Schrader and Mardik Martin. Based on the book by Jake La Motta with Joseph Carter and Peter Savage
77. ADAPTATION
Screenplay by Charlie Kaufman and Donald Kaufman. Based on the book "The Orchid Thief" by Susan Orlean
78. ROCKY
Written by Sylvester Stallone
79. THE PRODUCERS
Written by Mel Brooks
80. WITNESS
Screenplay by Earl W. Wallace & William Kelley. Story by William Kelley and Pamela Wallace & Earl W. Wallace
81. BEING THERE
Screenplay by Jerzy Kosinski. Inspired by the novel by Jerzy Kosinski
82. COOL HAND LUKE
Screenplay by Donn Pearce and Frank Pierson. Based on the novel by Donn Pearce
83. REAR WINDOW
Screenplay by John Michael Hayes. Based on the short story by Cornell Woolrich
84. THE PRINCESS BRIDE
Screenplay by William Goldman. Based on his novel
85. LA GRANDE ILLUSION
Written by Jean Renoir and Charles Spaak
86. HAROLD & MAUDE
Written by Colin Higgins
87. 8 1/2
Screenplay by Federico Fellini, Tullio Pinelli, Ennio Flaiano, Brunello Rond. Story by Fellini, Flaiano
88. FIELD OF DREAMS
Screenplay by Phil Alden Robinson. Based on the book by W.P. Kinsella
89. FORREST GUMP
Screenplay by Eric Roth. Based on the novel by Winston Groom
90. SIDEWAYS
Screenplay by Alexander Payne & Jim Taylor. Based on the novel by Rex Pickett
91. THE VERDICT
Screenplay by David Mamet. Based on the novel by Barry Reed
92. PSYCHO
Screenplay by Joseph Stefano. Based on the novel by Robert Bloch
93. DO THE RIGHT THING
Written by Spike Lee
94. PATTON
Screen Story and Screenplay by Francis Ford Coppola and Edmund H. North. Based on "A Soldier's Story" by Omar H. Bradley and "Patton: Ordeal and Triumph" by Ladislas Farago
95. HANNAH AND HER SISTERS
Written by Woody Allen
96. THE HUSTLER
Screenplay by Sidney Carroll & Robert Rossen. Based on the novel by Walter Tevis
97. THE SEARCHERS
Screenplay by Frank S. Nugent. Based on the novel by Alan Le May
98. THE GRAPES OF WRATH
Screenplay by Nunnally Johnson. Based on the novel by John Steinbeck
99. THE WILD BUNCH
Screenplay by Walon Green and Sam Peckinpah. Story by Walon Green and Roy Sickner
100. MEMENTO
Screenplay by Christopher Nolan. Based on the short story "Memento Mori" by Jonathan Nolan
101. NOTORIOUS
Written by Ben Hecht

Posted by poland at 01:18 PM | Comments (54)

Klady's Friday Estimates - 4/8/06

Ice Age: Meltdown is pretty much in the expected trajectory. And so is The Benchwarmers.

This is where it gets frustrating for film critics. This film could open to $20 million, despite features smacking it around, followed by no reviews, followed by scathing reviews. The irony is that even a tough critic like Manohla Dargis gave the film a fairly negative review… that can also give the film exactly the recommendation it was looking for and more than one great pull quote, were Sony to go that way. To wit, “3 Amigos of Baseball in a Yuk-fest,”Filled with sprays of vomit, fountains of spit and enough hot body air to launch a flotilla of passenger balloons," and “It is a master's thesis on the form of a quintessential Adam Sandler comedy."

This is an A+ superstar review for this film, despite the snipes at the director, the writers, the actors, and the “humor (relying) heavily on the oral and anal stages.” One gets the feeling that Ms. D is actually offering a certain kind of respect to the film, “the sort of trash that Hollywood does really well.” And for me, the filmmaker achieving their goal, however high or low, is the first mark of success. That doesn’t mean I would recommend every piece of trash that successfully aims low. But Sony didn’t make The Benchwarmers for me or for Manohla. They made to have their fourth $20 million-plus opening of the year… double what any other studio has had so far. And by the way… they had only four $20 million-plus openings in ALL of 2005. You tell me.

Take The Lead will have a nice weekend for New Line, potentially jumping on Saturday as the only teen date movie in the field. Generally, I think it takes a couple of weeks at least for a new campaign to work its magic. But the snapping ad that started running on Tuesday on American Idol strikes me as the straw that strengthened the camel’s back here. For the first time, I really “got” the movie. A great spot. And that turn may equal the heel turn that Paramount pulled off on Failure To Launch late in the game earlier this year.

Phat Girlz is the latest flop from Fox Searchlight and after giving them last year off from criticism due to a lot of transition, now, one has to start wondering exactly what is going on over there. This is the studio’s fifth release this year. Only The Hills Have Eyes opened well. And even that is only the fourth best opening film of the five big dumb gore-or movies this year (after When A Stranger Calls, Hostel, and Final Destination 3). Three of the five releases are festival films that have played like festival films… weak festival films. And even though I quite liked the Phat Girlz campaign, it didn’t open strong as either a movie for black women or for older women identifying it as an overweight version of When Stella Got Her Groove Back.

Searchlight has 10 more films on the schedule for 2006 and the only film that suggests a real box office success in the making is Danny Boyle’s Sunshine, a spaceship thriller. They also have the Sundance buy Little Miss Sunshine, but they will have to work miracles to get this R-rated comedy (which will lean heavily on a fourth-lead performance by Steve Carrell to sell the thing) to be anything more than a $20 million grossing cult success. After that, there are four Oscar-bait films coming from Lonergam, Marber/Eyre, and Hytner, along with Forest Whitaker as Idi Amin in the horribly titled The Last King of Scotland.

Peter Rice is one of the most respected players in the game, along with his team leaders Steve Gilula and Nancy Utley. I continue to root for them. But right now, the fight is uphill… way uphill. Heavy hangs the crown.

============================

/ Friday / % Chg / Theas / Cume
Ice Age: Meltdown / 8.5 / -51% / 3969 / 90.4
The Benchwarmers / 6.9 / - / 3274 / 6.9
Take the Lead / 4.3 / - / 3009 / 4.3
Inside Man / 2.7 / -43% / 2867 / 59.8
Lucky Number Slevin / 2.3 / - / 1984 / 2.3
Failure to Launch / 1.3 / -41% / 1602 / 76.3
ATL / 1.2 / -73% / 1602 / 14.7
V for Vendetta / 1.0 / -49% / 2003 / 59.9
Phat Girlz / .095 / - / 1056 / .095

Also Debuting ...
Friends with Money / .16 / - / 28 / .16
When Do We Eat / .019 / - / 48 / .019
Kalamazoo / .007 / - / 5 / .006
On A Clear Day / .004 / - / 5 / .004

Posted by poland at 12:12 PM | Comments (31)

April 07, 2006

Angelina's Vagina Secured By Armed Guards

Channel 7 News here in L.A. opened their entertainment coverage with this important news... Angelina and her still unbroken water have rented a 13-room boutique hotel in Africa so she can push out the baby in the motherland. Local police have threatened to jail anyone with a camera in the vacinity.

And with that, my mind spins off its axis..

Posted by poland at 04:38 PM | Comments (18)

Is George Clooney Full Of Shit?

So asketh ABC News' Miquel Marquez in a web entry titled, "Is Clooney Right About Hollywood's Social Agenda?"

Clooney's Oscar speech - "We're the ones who talked about AIDS when it was just being whispered," the 44-year-old star told the audience. "And we talked about civil rights when it wasn't really popular. This academy — this group of people — gave Hattie McDaniel an Oscar in 1939 when blacks were still sitting in the backs of theaters. I'm proud to be a part of this academy, proud to be part of this community, and proud to be out of touch."

Rick Jewell, a film professor at the University of Southern California, retorts that the Oscar for Hattie McDaniel "did nothing for segregation or for the plight of African-Americans," he said. "She was rewarded for playing a stereotypical role." Regarding AIDS, Jewel was also skeptical of Clooney's claim. The most serious film on AIDS was 1993's "Philadelphia," he said, "which was well into the crisis."

Of course, it's always some college professor getting quoted in these stories. I personally think that Clooney is completely sincere and that the spirit of his words and not the details are the issue. Nonetheless, The Professor has a point. No?

Posted by poland at 04:23 PM | Comments (63)

The Juju Of Junketing Junk

A note from an anonymous junketeer who is not anonymous to me...

"A lot of the junket people I know are getting annoyed at the studios because there's a lot of similar crap going on that makes their lives difficult, too... junkets/press days cancelled at the last minute (Silent Hill, for instance), ridiculously overcrowded press conferences with all the talent at once (this was the case with American Dreamz), print and online journalists being left out of major junkets/interview opportunities (don't look for much on MI3 online), offers for phone interviews with talent/directors of genre films without being allowed to see the movie (Stay Alive and now Silent Hill), last minute junkets (Underworld was the day before it opened).

Really, the studios have been turning this year into a collective itinerary of "let's try to control the media or at least let's really show them who is in control" and a lot of journalists are getting sick of it, on top of the critics. (I tend to do both interviews and reviews, which puts me in a weird situation.) I'm already hearing murmurs of a congregated attempt to just outright boycott ridiculous junkets if this keeps up (though I guess that won't keep anyone from doing the RV junket this weekend).

I guess the studios think that this is the way to keep their movies from flopping as badly as some of them did last year, but like everything else, it's going to start backfiring.

Posted by poland at 04:09 PM | Comments (3)

Did You Know...

Mary Poppins doesn't show up in Mary Poppins until 24 minutes into the film?

Could that happen today without complaints... from critics? (See: Kong)

And where would these kitchen sink dramtists - literally making 90% of their short at the kitchen sink - be without the internet? And do we have Parker & Stone to blame for thinking that they might be the next Parker & Stone?

Posted by poland at 11:56 AM | Comments (27)

April 06, 2006

Circle (Jerk) Of Rage

The beat keeps beating. Some days, there is a legitimate target. Some days, there is The Benchwarmers.

This very dumb movie, targeting kids, may be a blight on society. I don’t know. I’m very unlikely to ever see it. But it is now a landmark in the odd recent history of both film criticism, Traditional Media, and blogging.

The circle goes a little like this…

Sony has a movie that is meant for young boys and, as started back with The Day After Tomorrow, has realized that screening films that will inevitably get smacked by critics offers no upside and only downside. It also costs money… though I think that argument is a load of excrement, given the tons of money spent on junkets and ads. However, in the case of The Benchwarmers, Sony doesn’t make the call not to have screenings until after many critics have been invited.

Lesson One: If you want to skip the critics screenings - which some studios are starting to call “courtesy screenings” as a norm and not just when confronted – it’s not going to cause as much trouble if part of the process is not withdrawing invitations.

Roger Moore, of the Orlando Sentinel, does not have his invitation rescinded and turns up at a “radio screening,” which is how many critics in smaller markets see films… at a radio station promotion screening of the film that generally fills the room with an eager audience that makes critics feel utterly superior. (Note: This reality also denudes the “it costs money to screen” spin and reminds those of us in the big markets just how soft our cushion is.)

Lesson Two: Regional publicists do develop relationships with local critics and are important… but they are generally not as focused as their studio employers and mistakes like this happen all the time. One hand does not always know what the other hand is doing.

Moore, straddling the line between as-normal and giddy, puts his kill review of The Benchwarmers on the wire, accessible to all Knight-Ridder/Tribune Wire Service subscribers. Sony freaks a bit and calls Roger’s editor to complain and to say that he didn’t belong at the screening. Roger responds with a blog entry, not only telling his version of the tale, but bringing up “David Manning,” even though “he” is utterly irrelevant to this issue, and arguing that the studio is “not real good at this manufacturing good "buzz" thing. And silencing bad buzz.” Not really the case. Like every other studio, they are great at good buzz when they have good buzz goods and not so great when they have films that draw kicks in the teeth. In any case, the paper supports their man (and there is no indication he has done anything wrong) and the studio is now standing down.

Lesson Three: Like the decision to withdraw invites, a studio has to think before it calls. When an editor is called, the reporter is going to feel very threatened. Unless you are going to war, better to let it pass without the phone call. And with the blogs out there, you risk stirring up a hornet’s nest.

Interestingly, Roger Moore is not averse to going against the grain… especially for Fox Searchlight, for whom he has yet to give a bad review this year. And he likes a lot of junk. Here are some films he gave positive reviews to and the percentage of other critics who liked them, via RT:

The Hills Have Eyes – 49%
Night Watch – 57%
Imagine Me & You – 30%

Freedomland – 24%
When A Stranger Calls – 10%

She’s The Man – 47%
Failure to Launch – 29%

Aquamarine – 56%
Running Scared – 38%
Shaggy Dog – 29%

If only Amanda Bynes had been in The Benchwarmers!

Lesson Four: The blogs giveth… the blogs taketh away.

I got the link to Roger’s blog entry from Shawn Levy, who does a very good job with his blog up in The Oregonian. There was also a story from Robert W. Butler, who writes for Knight-Ridder’s Kansas City Star, who kind of mixed Dave Germain’s boo hoo piece form earlier this week with the Moore story and added to it when he reported that his editors got a call from Universal McCann, repping Sony, asking them (and other KR/Tribune wire service subscribers) not to run Roger Moore’s wire review, saying it was “unauthorized.”

Lesson Five: Shut up and eat your porridge. If you want to control the situation, you then take the responsibility of controlling the situation. Even if, say, Roger Moore knew that that the Benchwarmer invites had been rescinded all over the country and went to the screening knowing that, the screening was under the control of the studio and if they let the critic in without a word and particularly if he was seated in a saved seat… the ship has sailed. That screw-up was Sony’s. And once they allowed that door to open, there was no excuse for asking it to be shut.

And here is the flipside:

Lesson Six: This is a business of cooperation, sure as it is an industry of collusion. Critics and studios with bad movies are natural adversaries, but more in the mode of the wolf and sheepdog in the old WB cartoons. Fight, fight, fight… lunch break… fight, fight, fight.

The harder we in the media challenge the studios – and not in reviews released on Friday – the more paranoid and withholding they become. That doesn’t make any of our jobs easier.

This doesn’t mean that we should be doormats. But does battling over when we see the worst movies – or at least, the least critic friendly movies – leave us any energy to fight the more important fights? Where was all this heat around Duma and other films that should have been more widely seen? Why is it that the media gets most riled up when the media thinks its feeding bowl is being shorted?

Posted by poland at 01:22 PM | Comments (20)

April 05, 2006

Ay Homer Lacka Lacka, Ching Cheeah Cheese Doodle...

"This Sunday Homer goes to India, and the finale is a
Bollywood-style musical number. You've been warned.
Matt"

An e-mail from Matt Groening to David Chute

Posted by poland at 12:26 PM | Comments (8)

April 04, 2006

New Study Indicates Film Critics Bad For Business

Interesting piece by Dave Germain of the AP about the rising number of films that studios are not screening for critics. But he missed the real issue by investigating whether studios are actually helping themselves by skipping these screenings. The bigger – and infinitely more dangerous - question for those of us who make a living off of our opinions on movies is whether studios are helping themselves when they do schedule advance screenings.

I think it is agreed upon by most that small releases are helped by positive critical response. But of this year’s 13 box office weekends, only four weekends have been led by films that score as “fresh” on Rotten Tomatoes. Inside Man, V For Vendetta and Eight Below all scored over 70% positive reviews. This last weekend’s Ice Age: The Meltdown is right at 60% and “rotten” with 59% positive response amongst for “Cream of the Crop” critics.

And if you are about to grouse that the movies just suck this year, 30 of the top 50 films at the box office this last weekend are “fresh” according to RT. Many of those titles are holdovers from last year. Using the Top 20 only, which is mostly 2006 releases, there are 8 fresh tomatoes and 12 rotten. In that Top 20, four of the “fresh” titles have grossed more than $50 million…. and five such grossers are “rotten.”

And now you can start writing those “critics are out of touch” stories…

Posted by poland at 07:05 PM | Comments (21)

Is There Anyone Left In The Waiting Room?

The Weinsteins picked up this movie and sent out a press release...

"Bobby, the ensemble political-culture drama written and directed by Emilio Estevez, starring Anthony Hopkins, Demi Moore, Sharon Stone, Lindsay Lohan, Elijah Wood, William H. Macy, Helen Hunt, Christian Slater, Heather Graham, Laurence Fishburne, Freddy Rodriguez, Nick Cannon, Emilio Estevez, Martin Sheen, Shia LaBeouf, Jacob Vargas, Brian Geraghty, Joshua Jackson, Joy Bryant, Svetlana Metkina, Kip Pardue, David Krumholtz, Harry Belafonte and Mary Elizabeth Winstead."

That's a lotsa meatball...

Posted by poland at 04:17 PM | Comments (22)

Reporting That Businesses Do Business Continues

Well, the New York Times decided to cool down the hype in the print edition, adjusting the web headline "Universal Will Not Pull 'United 93' Trailer, Despite Criticism" to "Despite Criticism, Trailer for 9/11 Film Will Run."

But the dumbage, uh, damage, is already done. The AP web headline is "Theater Pulls Trailer for 'United 93'" and contains a grand total of NO original reporting, instead relying on a quote from Newsweek (here in press release form... because publishing news is not enough) and overall tone from the New York Times.

For those of you who wonder why I get upset about NYT screw-ups, this is why. The paper is like the match being struck at the opening of Mission:Impossible and every paper in the country will feel that following the leader requires that they investigate this shockingshocking United 93 trailer story, no matter how thin the story.

And then there is this groundshaking story from the West Coast cypher, the LA Times - "Wal-Mart Sells 'Brokeback' Amid Conservative Protest."

I'm not saying there isn't a story here, but shouldn't the story have run as soon as the American Family Association started its campaign against Wal-Mart stocking the Brokeback Mountain DVD? Given that the only example of Wal-Mart folding to conservative pressure groups that LAT can come up with is dumping a pregnant doll in the Barbie line, is there any news in the fact that America's #1 DVD retailer, Wal-Mart, is selling a hit movie? And if a story is going to be done, shouldn't it be something more complex, like a look at whether less successful or independently distributed films with gay content have been or can be stocked at Wal-Marts?

Somehow, this story both manages to overstate the issue of whether Wal-Mart might censor Brokeback Mountain and lets Wal-Mart off the hook way to easily.

Take a whiff!

LATE ADD: 11:59a - Just saw a report in CNN that was actually more thoughtful. They were, as so many are, obliged to do the story because of the NYT, but after noting the one theater that pulled the trailer and Universal's response, the reporter pointed out that the film was made with the complete approval of the families of the passengers, and then A.J. Hammer added a personal note that, "We've shown it twice on Showbiz Tonight and I've had to look away each time." I'm not sure that Mr. Hammer's stomach as a reporter can be vouched for, but at least the piece framed all the issues and non-issues of it. The CNN anchor followed up with the fact that he felt it was "too soon." And that is a discussion worth having... a discussion, not a headline.

Posted by poland at 11:25 AM | Comments (9)

April 03, 2006

Snakes On United 93

This week's "Snakes On A Plane" may turn out to be the United 93 trailer.

I think the discussion of whether it is too early for a 9/11 movie (or two of them) is reasonable. I think it is perfectly reasonable to question whether New Yorkers will be extra sensitive to the movie and/or the trailer. I even think it's news that a theater in NY pulled the trailer after a complaint and that Universal had to address it.

But there is some sort of freaky line crossing when the headline is that Universal is not pulling the trailer... as though there were some real outrage in the country over the ad. (Don't be surprised if the now 20/20ed Nightline follows the NYT story today like a puppy with its nose up against the window.)

Can you smell the love tonight?

Posted by poland at 07:29 PM | Comments (28)

Why The Digital Download Thing Means Nothing Yet…

The new day-n-DVD-date offering being made through Movielink is almost laughably unattractive. The part left out in most stories is that not only is the technology designed not to allow transfer to a DVD for viewing in regular DVD players, but the quality of the download, at about 1gb, is sub quality, so even if pirate types did break the code, the image would still be below standard.

So what’s the point?

Well, basically it’s R&D. I guess someone out there is thinking that if some people are willing to pay $2 an hour to put free programming on their iPods then those same people might be willing to try a movie download. However, TV to iPod is a lot less successful than the hype. And at prices higher than most DVDs, the only place being serviced better by Movielink than DVD is the Video iPod, since you can play a DVD on most computers and anywhere else. The only thing you can’t do with DVDs is to copy them to your iPod from the disc.

Of course, that is where the real future is. Buy the DVD, get your free iPod download as an added value simply by registering on line. Maybe when that happens, Movielink will be the venue. Maybe by then, Movielink will be dissolved as each company creates its own infrastructure.

It’s highly significant that Disney and Sony are not in this deal because they are the ones most aggressively individuating in the digital delivery space. Disney has a direct relationship with iTunes now and Sony made its deal with the MGM library in order to build the base for the Blu-Ray fight. Meanwhile, Warners is building its own infrastructure to give away old TV shows… which is also just R&D so it can perfect its own home delivery system.

The obsession with same date release of DVDs or downloads along with theatrical continues… but it simply makes no economic sense. Soon, theatrical will be the new DVD. But I’ll explain that some other day.

In the meanwhile, the big media buzzwords are in the Movielink story, so it must be really important!

Posted by poland at 12:06 PM | Comments (7)

Too Much Publicity?

The next round of Pellicano-related indictments are expected next Wednesday and while many are positively giddy about the idea that Brad Grey's name could be on the list, not eveyrone is so sure. (I'm in that camp.)

But the excited crowd is prepared to stay happy even if there is no indictment because the New York Times, amongst many, finally started to mention Grey in their coverage after months of avoiding it, leading to the new catch phrase, "But how long can he survive this kind of attention?"

My take is that he can absorb almost anything but an indictment. Of course in that case, some think that he takes down Tom Freston with him. But I doubt it.

Posted by poland at 12:59 AM | Comments (3)

Whither On Screen Sex?

My question about Tatiana Siegel's theory in The Hollywood Reporter that the erotic thriller is dead and that Basic Instinct 2's sagging opening is proof of that is the idea that it was, " a genre that had once sizzled at the boxoffice."

Uh, when?

There was a very brief and really kinda flukey run of successful films of this style, all of which starred Michael Douglas andor Glenn Close. It was Jagged Edge, Fatal Attraction, Basic Instinct, and Dangerous Liasons.

I guess you could include Discolure or 9 1/2 Weeks or The Hand That Rocks The Cradle if you really want to... but they are reaches.

There is one truth swimming around in there. Movies are less sexy than they used to be. Really, thank God for Brokeback Mountain or the only sex in last year's Oscar season would have been Rachel Weisz's faux pregnant bath and Claire Danes bare ass on Steve Martin's bed. Even the fucking geishas were chaste!!!

Even when the indies do sex on screen these days, it is overripe and not very interesting, as we learned at Sundance this year. Even Angelina Jolie, aka Sex Walking, has had most of her success as a mastabatory object and not as a sensuous on-screen personality.

Do we need to grow up?

Posted by poland at 12:01 AM | Comments (28)

April 01, 2006

Friday Estimates by Klady

Looks like Ice Age 2 will be the second biggest opener outside of summer or holiday slots after The Passion of The Christ’s $84 million and beating out Hannibal’s $58 million. (At this point, I will be kind enough not to direct you to a WSJ weekend piece about “the problem with sequels.”) Please hold breath for a short moment before window shortening advocates suggest movie theaters should be for big action movies and kids movies only.

Making the case for sequel trouble is the sequel to Basic Instinct that won’t cover Sharon Stone’s publicity travel costs this weekend.

ATL reminds again that there is a strong niche of black moviegoers. Stay Alive reminds that Disney should stay out of the horror niche. And Adam & Steve shows that while a lot of Traditional Media hype can get you an 18 screen distribution, it can’t deliver even $5000 per screen.

Title / Gross / Theaters / Change / Cume
Ice Age: Meltdown / 22.5 / 3964 / - / 22.5
Inside Man / 5.0 / 2830 / -47% / 42.1
ATL / 4.6 / 1602 / - / 42.0
Failure to Launch / 2.3 / 3074 / -31% / 69.0
V for Vendetta / 2.1 / 2910 / -45% / 52.5
Stay Alive / 1.6 / 2009 / -61% / 14.4
She's the Man / 1.5 / 2552 / -33% / 23.7
Slither / 1.4 / 1945 / - / 1.4
Basic Instinct 2 / 1.2 / 1453 / - / 1.2
Larry The Cable Guy / 1 / 1747 / - / 9.4
The Shaggy Dog / .9 / 2929 / - / 51

Also Debuting
Brick / .030 / 2 / - / .030
Ballroom Dancing / .027 / 38 / - / .027
Adam & Steve / .018 / 18 / - / .018
Devil & Daniel Johnson / .007 / 4 / - / .007
Awesome: I .. Shot That / .006 / 18 / - / .006
Drawing Restraint / .006 / 1 / - / .006

Posted by poland at 11:13 AM | Comments (35)