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December 19, 2008
Confusion Abuse-ion
Crazy-Like-A-Buzzard Nikki Finke and her “sources” are at it again.
Who has a vested interest in trying to embarrass Focus, Universal, Disney, and Paramount with yesterday’s absurd attack on awards spending? Roll out the usual suspects… especially one who has changed tracks lately.
It is always fascinating how ignorant semi-journos roll out these weird, soft-brained attacks when the mood suits them… or when the source who wants an attack story printed calls them.
The “7 full page ads” stunt in the New York Times started with Universal’s efforts on United 93, two years ago. What I learned by – ahem – reporting the story after being alarmed by page after page of half-pages in that case was that the papers are all so anxious to sell ad space and to promote the idea of full page ads being sold that they are all doing deep, deep discounts in combination with buys in other areas and versions of the papers.
The stunt ultimately failed for United 93, but for weeks after it happened, the media and Academy members alike talked about the movie as a much more serious contender than it ever was. And for a movie like Revolutionary Road, opening next week – so unlike United 93, not drawing dead, 8 months after release – that is the target. It is clearly a movie that needs Oscar support. And it is slipping away. It is a Hail Mary, but it is one that we see every season in some form… and cost a lot less that rate card at the NYT.
And is anyone paying rate card for spreads in Variety these days?
She goes back to this well... or rather, the person trying to attack the competition goes back to the well to smack at Universal and Focus… as though the source for this non-story didn’t know full well how very cheap newspaper ads are, even the most expensive ones, compared to the network television buys being made for all of these movies.
Then there is this idiotic obsession with books being made around award seeking movies. Again… the fact that Nikki is out of the loop allows her to be ignorant to the fact that we all get big picture books from almost every major contender every single season. And when were those books commissioned? Last summer sometime… at the latest. These things do not come together at the last minute.
Am I supposed to send back the oversized books on The Dark Knight ($35, also Rizzoli) and Kung Fu Panda ($45)? Heck, I just got a hardcover copy of Watchmen… which I didn’t even know existed until it landed on my doorstep.
Likewise, the “book on Wall-E -- that's right, a book,” which is not really a book, but is really a beautifully bound, heavy pamphlet that is exactly like what has been sent out year after year after year by other studios… and again, those “books” have often gone out for movies that were dead as a doornail by the time the books went into the LA Times or Variety… but the deals were done, “the “books” were printed, and the distribution went forward.
Of course, as Nikki proved with the misinformation about Disney that she printed in the NY Post and which got her fired (along with her employers happy to find any excuse to fire her for being Nikki), numbers are not her thing. She zings about 1 of 10 papers going to homes in foreclosure, but the LA Times daily subscriber circulation is about 850,000… so her “told” figure of $675,000 for the subscriber drop of the “book” would price the book out at less than 80 cents per “book.” Of course, reality is that the “book” probably cost about 3 times that for about one-eight of the actual subscription base. Or about $250,000 spent.
And in other ignorant news, Nikki seems to be of the delusion that studios send these things out to everyone who gets the LA Times. Bzzt! Even the LA Times often sends its “specials” out to a limited number of zip codes. And that surely was the case with Disney, sending the book out to the “appropriate” Westside and Valley zip codes they were targeting.
And back to that Ben Button black tie premiere… having attended it, I can attest that the only thing remotely different about the event was that people were in black tie. And whether someone who wants to piss on the film likes it or not, Paramount got what they were after. Three days of photos of Brad and Angelina and Cate and everyone else in formal wear, looking great, surrounded by other people looking great.
Does she – or her string-puller – really think America cares about them having a black-tie premiere? Do they really think that the difference between a premiere and a black-tie premiere is the difference between sensitivity and dancing on the deck of the Titanic?
But the real context for all of this is that every one of the studios – and whoever is planting this story – is spending tens of millions on TV time, often $250,000 or more at a 30 second time.
Nikki is not the only one who gets worked up about studio expenditures on publicity when marketing and production are so much more expensive… expensive in a way that forces the studios to spend on publicity to try to make their sale in a cheaper way that just spending more and more on TV time.
It is two problems in one. First, you have the smear, which Nikki gleefully spreads, utterly ignorant of reality. Second, you have the difficult dance of studios that need to do what they do – sell movies – as best they can… which means spending a ton of money, whether staff is being laid off or not. (And anyone who thinks that assistants are the primary target for staff cutting is a silly person who cannot do math. Until you get to the very top – or if you have a top level protector - the more you are paid, the bigger the target on your back. Duh.)
There are things that make less and less sense as the budget nooses get tighter and tighter. I have been getting a lot of e-cards for the holidays from studios, for instance, and one troubled Dependent sent something in an envelope with their return address on a sticker instead of in a printed envelope. Small examples. But when a studio is opening a $130 million drama that is hinging on a Best Picture nomination, does anyone suddenly expect the studio to act like monks and not go all out to support the film?
Does a studio that is in legitimate danger of going out of business because it has no funding apologize for spending wildly on TV spots for its Dependent’s massively budget-overinflated thriller, praying for a $25 million-plus opening that could mean the film doesn’t lose tens of millions and sink the whole company as a viable business?
Paul Wolfowitz licking his comb before pulling it through his hair as he preps for a TV spot is funny… but it’s not what is wrong with the Bush Administration. Capturing and having Saddam Hussein killed didn’t make Iraq into a “good” war. And picking out these little, sometimes inaccurate excuses to attack studio marketing efforts is as irrelevant and minor as what Nikki looks like… a topic that often comes up when people are angry with her… but is NEVER the point. (And for the record, in our one meeting, Nikki looked perfectly fine. Not exceptionally anything, good or bad. A reasonably nice looking woman.)
Sadly, many of my colleagues have been drawn into the fun of Nikki's bush league pot-shotting. People love gossip. And the idea that Nikki has sold that what she is doing has anything to do with journalism makes it good clear dirty fun. Wake up, people. This way lies insanity. And you already know it. Stop allowing yourself the luxury of pretending otherwise. It just makes things worse and worse.
Posted by dpoland at December 19, 2008 02:30 PM
Comments
Though I rarely ever post a comment, I do read this blog almost once or twice a week, sometimes more, and I did not even know the name Nikki Finke until I saw it here. I've visited her site maybe once.
How many others find these Finke rants revelatory? She's a loathsome person, a gossip columnist who does far more harm than good. I get it. I mean, I got it.
Posted by: Cain ![[TypeKey Profile Page]](http://www.mcnblogs.com/thehotblog/nav-commenters.gif)
at December 19, 2008 05:29 PM
I completely agree. Awards drive the boxoffice, so in the awards season, it's just another way of advertising. I guess the only difference with the premiere for "Benjamin Button" and "Milk" was---you had to put on a tux? What an outrage of expenditures! No wonder she was fired...
Posted by: Tom at December 19, 2008 05:57 PM
...didn't know it existed?
Posted by: Rothchild at December 19, 2008 06:00 PM
As far as I know, it was always a quality paperback only. From what I can tell on Amazon, this new printing, in hardback, is a first.
No?
Posted by: David Poland at December 19, 2008 07:01 PM
Years and years ago Los Angeles Magazine (I think) did an article called something like "For Sale, Oscars! Not so cheap" and it covered the money studios shell out every year to try to take the prize. That story went back as far as Mildred Pierce, from what I remember. So, yeah, Nikki? It's not "news". And she is far from a journalist.
Posted by: TVJunkie at December 19, 2008 07:24 PM
If you don't want the Dark Knight book or the Watchmen hardcover, I'll take them.
And yes, the Watchmen hardcover is a brand new printing. I glanced at it just a week ago in a bookstore.
Posted by: Scott Mendelson at December 19, 2008 08:12 PM
Saw a paperback version of Watchmen at Costco a couple of months back. I bought one, of course.
Posted by: doug r at December 19, 2008 09:17 PM
I've run every endgame scenario between Nikki and Heat on my TRS-80, and it all ends up with them fucking or killing each other.
She's a pox. We know. Your anger only fuels her rhetoric.
Posted by: anghus at December 20, 2008 04:23 AM
The funny thing about Nikki is that she gets embarrassed easily. If she gets something hopelessly incorrect - usually in her box office memo as she doesn't seem to always know what movies are what - if you post something to that effect in her talkbacks or somewhere else (when she said that "House Bunny" had pissed off the "Girls Next Door," when actually they were in the movie and supported it, when she announced that "Hot Fuzz" would tank as it would be perceived as the British version of "Reno 911" as she'd never heard of "Shaun of the Dead," etc.), she will go in and change the article. No, she won't post the talkback quote because that would acknowledge that she had made a mistake, but she does quietly alter her stories from time to time when caught patently wrong.
Posted by: SJRubinstein at December 20, 2008 07:52 AM
And isn't that Finki's or for that matter, anyone's main problem: make a mistake, own up. How difficult is that? I think for the most part, people maintain their respect for you if you admit it. "Thanks for pointing that out... I"m sorry." Little words which suggest humility... but then again, Hollywood doesn't allow for the "H" word.
Posted by: The Pope at December 20, 2008 08:44 AM
And as soon as I post that, I see my spelling mistake. Finke, not Finki. Sorry!
Posted by: The Pope at December 20, 2008 08:50 AM
Pope, I'm not a big fan of her site, but on a few occasions I have made a note to her about a box office mistake and she replied just like that "sorry, you're right, I'll fix it" and she does. I think that the problem is that sometimes she reports on stuff she doesn't know a whole lot about, her attitude is less of an issue.
Posted by: martin at December 20, 2008 09:19 AM
I thought "Finki" was deliberate--it's quite appropriate!
Posted by: Cadavra at December 20, 2008 09:40 AM
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