MCN Blogs
David Poland

By David Poland poland@moviecitynews.com

Dates Already Shifting

The note from MGM… good news for Into The Blue… terrible signal on The Pink Panther.

"The following release date changes have been made for MGM film in 2005.

INTO THE BLUE
was 8/19/05
now 7/15/05

BEAUTY SHOP
was 4/1/05
now 3/30/05 (Wednesday)

THE PINK PANTHER
was 7/22/05
now 9/23/05"

Be Sociable, Share!

48 Responses to “Dates Already Shifting”

  1. teambanzai says:

    Watching the trailer for the Pink Panther didn’t make me want to see it. The cast is what interests me. Plus Steve Martin usually writes really good material, so I’m hoping that maybe the good stuff didn’t make the trailer.

  2. Martin says:

    PP coulda been good but I think they kind of screwed up the casting. I’m not one to automatically hate popstars moving into movies, but Beyonce just doesn’t look interesting at all to me. Very flat in the trailer. Martin might be good in the role but I dunno.. I think this whole thing should have been done lower budget without the big star cast. Big budget, $$ cast, remake, + bad script = box office bomb.

  3. Neal says:

    A special circle of hell should be reserved for the once-brilliant Steve Martin for even having the nerve to make this film. It doesn’t matter whether he’s funny or not. It doesn’t matter if the film is good or not. This is just taking a piss all over Peter Sellers’ grave for no reason. And the sad thing is, it’s not like Martin hasn’t been watchable for a long time (like Dan Aykroyd). He’s been entertaining fairly recently. Had a great run in the 90’s. Even Novocaine was original, if not good. But since then, Bringing Down the House, Cheaper By the Dozen, Looney Tunes: Back in Action, and now this? There are Central American countries that will put you in front of a firing squad for lesser crimes.
    I can’t believe more people aren’t screaming about this! What would it take, a remake of Dr. Strangelove? I know the Pink Panther films aren’t all-time masterpieces, but Sellers was the thing which the whole series revolved around. It’s like remaking Planet of the Apes and using donkeys instead. God, I hope Shopgirl is good because it’s gonna take a lot to get Martin of my shit list…

  4. Mark says:

    What comic actor does anything great after they turn 40? And Martin must be near 60.

  5. Clay says:

    “What comic actor does anything great after they turn 40?”
    Bill Murray.

  6. Mark says:

    One out of how many actors? Whats Bill done? Lost in Translation? Garfield?? Charlies Angels??? The Man Who Knew Too Little???

  7. Martin says:

    Hey, Bill did Rushmore, and was great in it. True tho, most comedy actors lose it by that age. Aquatic looks like its gonna tank, but Murray is still at the top of his game. The fact that he doesnt play the awards game is cool too. I’m not even sure of Bill has liked the last few movies he’s done, including Translation and Tenenbaums. It’s almost like he was astonished at the fact that anyone thought they were any good.

  8. Breaker of Bad News says:

    Come on, Mark, you asked for one example, and you got a good one. Take it like a man.

  9. PeppersDad says:

    “What comic actor does anything great after they turn 40?” ARE YOU SERIOUS? Aside from Bill Murray, what jumps to mind are all the performers in the Christopher Guest mockumentaries. And the Monty Python troupe. And Woody Allen. And Larry David. How about Jack Nicholson, for crying out loud!
    I could go on and on, but I know you’ve got a Rob Schneider movie to get back to…

  10. Joe Leydon says:

    “What comic actor does anything great after they turn 40?”
    Three names picked at random:
    Charlie Chaplin was 47 when he did “Modern Times,” 51 when he finished “The Great Dictator.”
    Peter Sellers was 54 when he did “Being There.”
    Groucho Marx was 43 when he did “Duck Soup,” 45 when he did “A Night at the Opera.”
    Next question, please.

  11. PeppersDad says:

    As for Steve Martin in The Pink Panther, I agree with those who’ve said, “for shame!” The only justification Martin can give for taking on this hallowed role is that, after shooting to stardom and some brilliant early work (exactly like Sellers), Martin has come to the same point in his career that Sellers did…where 90% of his work is forgettable crap. I just hope Martin still has a “Being There” left in him.

  12. oldman says:

    I just gotta tell ya; that Rodney Dangerfield gets no respect!

  13. Joe Leydon says:

    Actually, the idea that someone wants to remake the original “Pink Panther” movie doesn’t strike me as, in and of itself, a lousy idea. (Remember: The ’63 version wasn’t originally conceived merely as a vehicle for Petter Sellers as a bumbling French cop — David Niven also figured into the mix.) But it does strike me as fairly loony that, apparently, no one involved with the remake has bothered to consider the track record of Inspector Clouseau/Pink Panther movies that DIDN’T feature Peter Sellers: “Inspector Clouseau” (1968, with Alan Arkin in the title role and Frank Finaly more or less playing the Herbert Lom part); “Curse of the Pink Panther” (1983, directed by Blake Edwards himself, with Ted Wass filling in for Clouseau after Peter Sellers’ death as a bumbling NEW YORK cop, Clifton Sleigh); and, of course, “Son of the Pink Panther” (1993, also directed by Edwards, with Roberto Benigni in title role). Not terribly encouraging, eh?

  14. EntryNmbrV says:

    “Lost in Translation” was an amazing film enhanced by knowledge of life as a gaijin in Japan. Not that you have to have lived there to enjoy it, but it does make the movie much funnier.

  15. PeppersDad says:

    Joe – My feelings exactly. It’s not that any of the originals were classics; it’s just that Sellers’s performances in them were. Which is why it can be argued that this character belonged to Sellers and Sellers alone. And, as you’ve said, along with some unnecessarily cheap disrespect to the man and his legacy, this project definitely gives off an “Oh no, they’re trying to milk that dead cow AGAIN” vibe.
    Interestingly, if the biopic currently airing on HBO can be trusted, Sellers grew to hate the part and his constant association with it. Talk about The Curse of The Pink Panther!

  16. PeppersDad says:

    Joe – My feelings exactly. It’s not that any of the originals were classics; it’s just that Sellers’s performances in them were. Which is why it can be argued that this character belonged to Sellers and Sellers alone. And, as you’ve said, along with some unnecessarily cheap disrespect to the man and his legacy, this project definitely gives off an “Oh no, they’re trying to milk that dead cow AGAIN” vibe.
    Interestingly, if the biopic currently airing on HBO can be trusted, Sellers grew to hate the part and his constant association with it. Talk about The Curse of The Pink Panther!

  17. bicycle bob says:

    it could have been worse. they could have casted chevy chase or rob schneider

  18. Josh Massey says:

    Throw political correctness aside for a second – why do studios consistently release “black” films on Wednesdays (like “BeautyShop”)? Do they think that is a deterrent to having gunfights in the theaters? I’m serious about this – this trend has been going on for years, and I’ve never seen a journalist with the balls to write about it.

  19. Joe Leydon says:

    Josh: Actually, several stories have been written about this practice over the years. My guess is, it’s been standard operational procedure for so long, no one has written about it RECENTLY. It’s more or less a byproduct of the violence that broke out in a few inner-city theaters during the opening weekends for “New Jack City” and “Menace II Society.” The logic (not my logic, mind you, but the logic of studio brass and their lawyers): If a black-skewing movie opens on a Wednesday, the audience won’t be quite as huge on the weekend. And if the audience isn’t quite as huge on the weekend, there’s less potential for violence. I know, I know: Sounds racist on the face of it. But, for better or worse, it appears to have worked.

  20. teambanzai says:

    Could PP be a vanity project? There are instances of actors reaching that point in their career where they can get anything made based on their name and rep alone. Since Steve Martin wrote it I thought maybe this is another example of an actor wanting to repeat the work of a idol? Of course I could just be way off base.

  21. Joe Leydon says:

    Teambanzai: The remake was planned for a long time before Steve Martin entered the picture. At one point in 2000, MGM reportedly offered Mike Myers a cool $20 million to play Inspector Clouseau. Before that, there were rumors that Blake Edwards wanted to redo “Pink Panther” as a stage musical, much as he did with “Victor/Victoria.” I’ve also heard rumors that Kevin Spacey once evidenced interest in playing Inspector Clouseau. No kidding.

  22. Joe Leydon says:

    Of course, the weirdest aspect of this whole “Pink Panther” brouhaha is: Peter Sellers wasn’t even Blake Edwards’ first choice to play Inspector Clouseau. Peter Ustinov was originally offered the part.
    BTW: Anyone out there ever hear the rumor that, at one point in the 1980s, Edwards wanted to continue the “Pink Panther” series with Dudley Moore playing a bumbling hero nicknamed The Ferret? Could this possibly be true?

  23. teambanzai says:

    Well so much for looking for the bright side of the story. Since Jean Reno is in it the girlfriend will want to see it so it won’t cost me anything to check it out.

  24. Josh Massey says:

    Yeah Joe, I’m 28 so I definitely remember the violence all the way back to 1988 (“Colors”). And for that kind of film, and also “New Jack City,” “Boyz N the Hood” and “Juice,” I can understand it. But it seems ludicrous to extend the practice to films like “Beauty Shop,” and I’m surprised nobody has called the studios on it since there hasn’t been a movie-related shooting in years (at least that I’ve heard of). And this is coming from a white conservative… 🙂

  25. Joe Leydon says:

    This is strictly a guess — NOT info I somehow obtained from a studio mogul — but I strongly suspect this whole Wednesday thing is a tactic suggested by lawyers. This way, if there is any violence at a theater showing a black-skewing movie (or, to use the coded language of the trades, a movie aimed at “urban audiences”), and somebody files a lawsuit as a result, the studio and the theater owner can point to the Wednesday opening as a prudent step that was taken in advance to avoid violence. Once again: I agree, it smacks of racism. But, as you point out yourself, there haven’t been many (if any) recorded cases of shootings at movie theaters in recent years. So maybe, just maybe, the Wednesday openings do indeed defuse any problems before they start by cutting down the opening weekend crowds. (Of course, using this logic, I guess they should cut off beer sales at basketball games after the first half.)

  26. Mark says:

    They have been trying to do PP for twenty years.

  27. TheBrotherhoodOfTheLostSkeletonOfCadavra says:

    Edwards announced “The Ferret” right after “10” opened in 1979, when Sellers was still very much alive. It may well be that Edwards was fed up with him and was looking for an alternative franchise (especially since he enjoyed working with the far more easy-going Moore), but Sellers’ death had nothing to do with it one way or the other. As I understand it, the character was more of a 007 caricature than a Clouseau clone.

  28. PeppersDad says:

    Can’t we distinguish between choices that have some uncomfortable racial underpinnings and choices that are racist? If studio research determines that a particular film’s audience unmistakably consists of a distinct gang element, by what standard is it wrong to try and defuse the potential for violence?
    When you say that Beautyshop is a whole different type of vehicle than, say, New Jack City, you sidestep the fact that Beautyshop stars Queen Latifah and is produced by Ice Cube – both former hard-core rappers, at least back in the day, who continue to put a lot of effort into maintaining their street cred. Which means reaching out and promoting themselves in a way that brings in the gangsta B.O.
    The issue raised here, in my opinion, is a sad, divisive ruse. The underlying rationale for the decision to open on Wednesdays has nothing to do with content involving African-Americans or any other urban minorities. Instead, it has to do with films that have particular appeal to gang members. I don’t recall the studios opening Waiting to Exhale, The Wood, Soul Food, any Spike Lee films, etc., on a Wednesday.

  29. PeppersDad says:

    Before I get hounded about my level of hands-on familiarity and expertise, please allow me to edit a few words in my last paragraph (above), as indicated by the uppercase letters below:
    “The issue raised here, in my opinion, is a sad, divisive ruse. I SEE NO BASIS TO BELIEVE THAT THE underlying rationale for the decision to open on Wednesdays has ANYTHING to do with content involving African-Americans or any other urban minorities. Instead, it APPEARS MORE LIKELY THAT IT has to do with films that have particular appeal to gang members. I don’t recall the studios opening Waiting to Exhale, The Wood, Soul Food, any Spike Lee films, etc., on a Wednesday.”

  30. Mark says:

    So what you’re saying is African Americans (blacks) only go on Wednesdays because they do not work and have nothing else to do and are too cheap to do anything but matinee’s?

  31. Josh Massey says:

    Actually “Malcolm X” did come out on a Wednesday, as well as other “gang” films like “Boomerang,” “The Original Kings of Comedy,” “Get on the Bus” and “What’s Love Got to Do With It.” (I would list more recent titles, but the date calculator I found online only goes up to 1999).

  32. PeppersDad says:

    Josh –
    Please include Meet the Fockers and Phantom of the Opera, both of which got released today, on your list of suspect Wednesday releases. And Polar Express, which opened on a Wednesday last month to the puzzlement of many contributors on this website. Thanks to you, we can all breathe easier because we now understand the primary criterion that determined those unusual scheduling choices: Racism.
    Listen, there are a lot of reasons why movies sometimes get released on Wednesdays. Sometimes, like today, the studios want a jump on a holiday weekend. Sometimes they just want to artificially inflate the opening gross that gets reported on Monday morning. Sometimes they want to get a little bit of word of mouth going before the weekend crowds start rolling in. And maybe, just maybe, sometimes they do it for certain specific films to cool things down with the gangs.
    I’m going to come clean and admit that I don’t have a lot of firsthand knowledge in this area. But if you believe studios, consciously or not, do their scheduling with a racist formula, I think it’s fair to say that you, not I, have the burden to come up with more credible proof.

  33. SamoanJoe says:

    Queen Latifah a former hardcore rapper? Riiiiiiight. I wanna be there when you put forward that theory in Compton, With my camcorder. Please.

  34. Josh Massey says:

    Pepper, I never used the word “racist,” but it certainly is race-conscious. And hell, as Joe said, the studios may be on to something – we haven’t heard of any shootings in years. That may say more about the young urban culture than it says about Hollywood scheduling. (And come on, holiday weekends are a different matter entirely).

  35. bicycle bob says:

    i don’t think five people worldwide have bought a queen latifah rap album.

  36. Stella's Boy says:

    Yes, the only reason Blade III came out on a Wednesday was to prevent the inevitable riots at urban theaters. Is there any evidence to support this theory that racism is a reason for releasing movies on a Wednesday? Studios care about dollars and not much else.

  37. Joe Leydon says:

    Pepper: Proof? OK, here’s a link to an article that may enlighten you. I admit, it’s a few years old, but most of it is, unfortunately, still relevant.
    http://www.salon.com/aug97/media/media970813.html

  38. PeppersDad says:

    Josh –
    You’re right, you never used the words “racism” or “racist.” But your key supporting responder here, Joe Leydon (for whom I have an enormous amount of respect), did. Who can blame him? The question of racism can be inferred quite clearly from your whole opening premise: that nobody has called out the studios for the “race-conscious” practice of Wednesday releases for urban-culture films. If you didn’t consider that practice to be suspect or racist (i.e., “bad race-consciousness”), then why on earth should they be called out for it?
    I don’t mean to harangue you. My point is just that this is way too symptomatic of the divisive racial McCartheyism that’s been going on in this country for far too long.
    By the way, especially since you had the guts to identify yourself as a conservative, please know that I consider myself a liberal. Funny how all of that worked out here.

  39. PeppersDad says:

    Joe –
    Thanks so much for the great, on-point article. I wouldn’t be so quick to call it “proof” of racism, though. I just now gave it a very quick read, and what I find most fascinating about it is how closely it mirrors the debate we are having here.

  40. Joe Leydon says:

    Pepper: Sorry, my bad. I didn’t mean to state that the linked article proved “racism,” per se. Rather, I offered it as proof in response to a remark you offered in an earlier posting: “I SEE NO BASIS TO BELIEVE THAT THE underlying rationale for the decision to open on Wednesdays has ANYTHING to do with content involving African-Americans or any other urban minorities.” I think you’d now agree that the Wednesday openings have at the very least SOMETHING to with content involving African-Americans. I repeat: Some people may view or INTERPRET this policy as racism. Others may chalk it up as smart business practice. Or — dare I say it? — social responsibility. True, the studio and theater execs are not being entirely selfless here. (Nobody wants to face a whopping big lawsuit.) But unless I’m missing something relevant to the issue here, black folks are (or least were)the ones being killed. I think even the most ethocentric (sorry, can’t avoid that word — it’s the academic in me)observer would agree that anything that keeps black folks (or folks of any color)from being killed is a good thing.
    Hey Dave: Is this the kind of polite, uplifting and edifying exchange of ideas you were hoping to see in the forum? If not, I could always get surly and say I’m sick to death of reading about how great Jean-Luc Godard is, because Francois Truffaut is, was and always will be (even though he’s 20 years dead) the best filmmaker to have emerged during the French New Wave.

  41. bicycle bob says:

    joe leydon, folks. the voice of reason. hes pro wednesday releases cause he thinks blacks are dummies.

  42. PeppersDad says:

    Joe –
    Truly excellent! I humbly concede without any qualification that my “I see no basis…” sentence was a poorly worded, lazy misstatement on my part. And I could not agree more with the rest of your overview of this issue. Phenomenal job!

  43. Joe Leydon says:

    Bi-Bob: Er, no. As Alfie Prufrock might say, that is not what I meant, not what I meant at all.
    On the other hand: Bi-Bob has inadvertently raised an intriguing point: Whenever you discuss matters of race in this country, you always run the risk of being misundertood, misinterpreted or — what the hell, I’ll just come out and say it — libeled. This reminds me of what happened two years ago when I reviewed “Kangaroo Jack” for Variety. In the course of the review, I said of Anthony Anderson’s minstrel-show-type performance: “Anderson’s character, a stereotypical fat black man, might have played well with Mississippi audiences in 1948, but many viewers today will be less amused.” I received two amusing e-mails. One, from a white fellow in Mississippi, raging that “You black people are too damn sensitive.” The other, from angry young African-American woman who bristled: “You white haters are always saying bad things about black people.” Go figure.

  44. PeppersDad says:

    I’m with you, Joe. It’s part and parcel of the type of neo-witchhunt mentality that I referred to earlier as racial McCarthyism. The same insidious thing has been happening in this country with liberalism and – hot off the presses! – resistance to religious orthodoxy. It’s the growing, accepted Orwellian suppression of anyone who dares to engage in objective thought.

  45. Josh Massey says:

    For the record, I never meant to convey that the Wednesday release patterns were an inherently negative thing – I was just wondering why nobody had asked the question as to why they exist (at least for awhile). It seems like a perfectly obvious answer to me – the gang-related shootings of the early ’90s – but is it now still related to that, or more of a strictly dollars and cents decision now?

  46. Joe Leydon says:

    My guess: It’s both.
    Merry Christmas to all!

  47. Mark says:

    Everything in Hollywood is based on money. Especially release dates.

  48. Jake says:

    The Wednesday releases are made to garner more profit from the extra days out. Not meant as a race thing. It is usually on holiday weekends. Not weekends marred with gang violence. Pretty stupid to even suggest that.

The Hot Blog

Quote Unquotesee all »

It shows how out of it I was in trying to be in it, acknowledging that I was out of it to myself, and then thinking, “Okay, how do I stop being out of it? Well, I get some legitimate illogical narrative ideas” — some novel, you know?

So I decided on three writers that I might be able to option their material and get some producer, or myself as producer, and then get some writer to do a screenplay on it, and maybe make a movie.

And so the three projects were “Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep,” “Naked Lunch” and a collection of Bukowski. Which, in 1975, forget it — I mean, that was nuts. Hollywood would not touch any of that, but I was looking for something commercial, and I thought that all of these things were coming.

There would be no Blade Runner if there was no Ray Bradbury. I couldn’t find Philip K. Dick. His agent didn’t even know where he was. And so I gave up.

I was walking down the street and I ran into Bradbury — he directed a play that I was going to do as an actor, so we know each other, but he yelled “hi” — and I’d forgot who he was.

So at my girlfriend Barbara Hershey’s urging — I was with her at that moment — she said, “Talk to him! That guy really wants to talk to you,” and I said “No, fuck him,” and keep walking.

But then I did, and then I realized who it was, and I thought, “Wait, he’s in that realm, maybe he knows Philip K. Dick.” I said, “You know a guy named—” “Yeah, sure — you want his phone number?”

My friend paid my rent for a year while I wrote, because it turned out we couldn’t get a writer. My friends kept on me about, well, if you can’t get a writer, then you write.”
~ Hampton Fancher

“That was the most disappointing thing to me in how this thing was played. Is that I’m on the phone with you now, after all that’s been said, and the fundamental distinction between what James is dealing with in these other cases is not actually brought to the fore. The fundamental difference is that James Franco didn’t seek to use his position to have sex with anyone. There’s not a case of that. He wasn’t using his position or status to try to solicit a sexual favor from anyone. If he had — if that were what the accusation involved — the show would not have gone on. We would have folded up shop and we would have not completed the show. Because then it would have been the same as Harvey Weinstein, or Les Moonves, or any of these cases that are fundamental to this new paradigm. Did you not notice that? Why did you not notice that? Is that not something notable to say, journalistically? Because nobody could find the voice to say it. I’m not just being rhetorical. Why is it that you and the other critics, none of you could find the voice to say, “You know, it’s not this, it’s that”? Because — let me go on and speak further to this. If you go back to the L.A. Times piece, that’s what it lacked. That’s what they were not able to deliver. The one example in the five that involved an issue of a sexual act was between James and a woman he was dating, who he was not working with. There was no professional dynamic in any capacity.

~ David Simon