BYOB Redux

Somehow, in trying to post from the Disney event, I erased the BYOB… my apologies.

Gossip Around The Reader

One detail missng completely from the sudden interest in old news regarding whether Harvey Weinstein will release The Reader against producer Scott Rudin’s will in December…
Kate Winslet decalred months ago that she will not do press for The Reader if Harvey releases it against her husband’s film, Revolutionary Road.
Game over.
Or so it should have been.
But Harvey is stubborn. And he must think that Rev Road is going to tank, awards-wise, or he would know that he was killing two birds with one stone by even considering pushing the two movies into battle without his best Golden Globe bait in Winslet.
Moreover, he is light on cash and sitting on The Reader until 2009 means, 1) giving up millions from the over-Dec-31-Showtime-pay-tv money that he still can grab under his MGM alliance, 2) sitting on the $40 million cost until the film is released, which pretty much precludes waiting until next Oscar season, not wanting to eat millions in interest on the budget.
The point is… it has nothing to do with Harvey’s will vs Rudin’s… it has little to do with the quality of the movie… like so many decisions made by cash-tight companies in this town these days, it is about the bottom line and everything else is a distraction. And the bottom line here is that Harvey is 80% on the way to NEEDING to release this film this year, even though he is completely concious of all the pitfalls (which include dealing with an already not-so-thrilled-to-be-working-with-Harvey 42 West, which works on all Rudin’s films and which will be 100% on Rudin’s side of any publicity fight)..

Once Again…

Man, is it hard to stay focused on movies right now.
Don’t get me wrong. I love movies. I am still taking in information and movies and doing all my normal work that leads to blog entries, etc.
But Ahmadinejad is speaking at the U.N… the bail out package, which involves almost as much money as the Iraq War (though some of this money – possibly all of it – will be recovered), is being debated in Congress… Palin and McCain are still playing hide the candidate and even the wimpy press corps is beginning to be disgusted enough not to accept it for fear of being “Je Accuse!-ed” by the lying class…
I don’t care how many cars John McCain has or where they are from. I don’t want to listen to spokespeople dancing through the raindrops of truth about who supported what and when they did it. As amused as I am by the right wing of the Republican Party that was bought off by Palin coming back at McCain strong – personally, I think they now sense that they need to start rebuilding before McCain loses – I don’t even care that much that George Will can’t stop slamming McCain.
Important moments are rare in life. It is, as we saw last week, all too easy to overreact. But this is, unlike any moment since Reagan was elected, a moment in which something truly important and nation changing is in the air. Both parties are ready to leave Iraq and the exit will be even more tenuous than the taking over of the country. We are in a crisis at the end of an economic bubble – not unlike DVD sell-thru in the movie business – with no “next bubble” on the horizon… meaning we actually might have to do heavy lifting as a nation to keep the balls in the air.
And after 8 years of an unpopular presidency, America is within percentage points of choosing to keep playing the same hand instead of moving towards a future the majority claims repeatedly in polling that they want. Forget about which side of that argument you fall on for a second… forget about whether you like the characterization… just think about the choice.
And then get your head around a passionate discussion of Eagle Eye.
Sorry

Gurus o' Gold Returns

Early season charts for Best Picture, Actor, Actress & Supporting are here.
But for a slightly different perspective, I Frankensteined a chart of the Toronto movies and how they are perceived coming out of the festival.
Some may say that it’s TIFF, but I would argue that it’s the many awards hopefuls that didn’t go up this year that led not only to a specific mellow tone up there, but which actually depressed press excitement about everything – except Slumdog – launching out of there.

BYOB

Sorry… one of those days that got away… please self-amuse…

Skip It… Waaaay Skip It!

I have been carefully avoiding

Pale In Comparison

Last night’s SNL seemed to suffer from the same kind of power anxiety that happened last season when so many news reports circled around the “fairness” on their political bits. Remember

Weekened Estimates by Klady

Friday Estimates by Klady

Lakeview Terrace‘s start has to be a little dissapointing for the once can’t-miss Screen Gems team. The thing that strikes me is that the movie is genre, but it’s not Screen Gems genre, which is to say horror, girls, teen splat, and black/hispanic/urban. What teen wants to see a thriller about suburban angst? What black audience is running to see Sam Jackson terrorize the nice white guy next door? And how can a quick turn studio division think that the adult audience, who this movie really is after, will show up before weekend two?
Dame Clunk may finally be going away, with this weak’s release looking at half of what last year’s Jessica-Ablba’s-skirt-twirls-up weak shite did.
Igor did not convince the kiddies that this was a must see… not a shock… one actually has to spend TV dollars to do that.
And the not-so-shocking shocker is Ghost Town, which reminds us that America has no idea who the f Ricky Gervais is, no matter how wonderful a performer. WB has him next and I expect to see them lay down a much thicker base coat than Paramount – in one of their weakest efforts on outdoor and print images that I have seen in a long time – did. How ugly is it when Tea’ Leoni can’t get a second of TV-spot time and Greg Kinnear just slightly less? Maybe someone had a bet that they couldn’t open a Gervais movie and was trying to win… probably not.
Of course, it’s good to keep in mind that we are still in the studio Dump Zone for movies… which ends next weekend with Eagle Eye and Nights in Rodanthe… we hope.

Doing The ParaWorks Math

There are still some movies coming down the pike, but it seems like today is a good day to do that math on DreamAmount/ParaWorks.
DREAMWORKS MOVIES UNDER PARAMOUNT
15 movies in the last 3 years : Dreamgirls, Perfume, Flags of Our Fathers, She’s the Man, The Last Kiss, Transformers, Norbit, Sweeney Todd, Blades of Glory, The Heartbreak Kid, Disturbia, Things We Lost in the Fire, Tropic Thunder, The Ruins
Worldwide Theatrical Gross; $1.996 billion
Worldwide Rentals: $1.098 billion
Estimated Post-Theatrical Gross Returns To Par: $950 million
Estimated SS Cut On Transformers: $75 million
Estimated Gross Points Out (Murphy, Depp, Ferrell, Stiller): $25 million
Total Estimated Income To Par: $1.948 billion
DREAMWORKS ANIMATION AT PARAMOUNT
5 movies: Shrek the Third, Over the Hedge, Flushed Away, Bee Movie, Kung Fu Panda
Worldwide Theatrical Gross; $2.219 billion
Worldwide Rentals: $1.220 billion
Total Theatrical Return to Paramount (10% distribution deal):$ 122 million
Estimate Fees To Par For Home Video Distribution: $100 million
Initial Cost of Deal: $75 million
Par Net On DWA over 3 years: $147 million
TOTALING
Estimated Revenue Created For Paramount via DW & DWA: $2.1 billion
Unrecoverable Cost of DreamWorks Deal: $900 million
This leaves $1.2 billion against the marketing and production costs of the 15 movies listed above.
My estimate on production costs? Just under $800 million. (This takes into account nothing but release costs on Perfume, a split on Flags, and a split on Sweeney.)
A conservative estimate on marketing on these films is $450 million.
POST-SCRIPT
Yes, Paramount owns the non-DWA films and they go into the Par library. That more than makes up for what seems to be an overall loss on the deal.
On the DreamWorks side? Nothing but a mountain slot machine. Win. Win. Win.
If AIG/USA ends up this way, with America coming out about even and AIG recovering from its troubles to be stronger than ever, I would consider that a win.
But Paramount didn

A Better Idea

Are you getting the feeling that Sarah Palin is feeling a bit dragged down by “the old guy?’
I mean, mistake after mistake…. she’s dancing away from her investigation, she

And So It Ends…

DreamAmount No More.
“We congratulate Steven, David and Stacey, and wish them well as they start their newest venture. Steven is one of the world’s great story-tellers and a legend in the motion picture business. It has been an honor working closely with him and the DreamWorks team over the last three years and we expect to continue our successful collaboration with Steven in the future.
To facilitate a timely and smooth transition, Paramount has waived certain provisions from the original deal to clear the way for the DreamWorks principals and their employees to join their new company without delay.
The acquisition of DreamWorks has been beneficial both creatively and financially for Paramount and accelerated our strategy of focusing on our world-class franchises and brands. It gave us a solid slate of films to fill out our lineup, a valuable catalog we were able to monetize, and a development pipeline that will bear fruit for us for years to come. The acquisition jump-started our rebuilding plans, which are now well underway and include promising upcoming releases such as Star Trek by JJ Abrams, G.I. Joe by Stephen Sommers, Transformers 2 by Michael Bay, David Fincher