Does Cannes Matter – Mid-Fest Discussion

Eugene Hernandez wrote a passionate piece about Cannes mattering, based on the level of passion around Von Trier’s Anti-Christ.
But I propose that Eugene both makes the main case for the fest… and exposes the growing irrelevance and self-obsession of the fest and those who cover it like it was the last Coca Cola in the desert.
Yes, the ground shook as the great modern shit stirrer took his best shot and ended up with people on both ends of the spectrum in response. But the notion that, “In the case of the Von Trier film, it seems more marketable 24 hours after its first screening than many would have assumed in wake of the first screening on Sunday night,” it might seem it from there. And cineastes are all aflutter. Personally, I can’t wait to see it. Well… I can wait. And will.
Last time we heard this outrage? Dogville. A seriously controversial film that, for many of us, was much, much, much better than the Cannes squealing suggested.. that did $1.5 million in the US… with Nicole Kidman a year off her Oscar win, a big push for Cold Mountain and as much box office clout as she ever had. 150,000 people.
So does it matter?
I’m not saying it should die an immediate death or that the event has no value. That’s too big a swing. My question is, “What if Cannes didn’t exist?”
And that answer is… Tribeca would become Cannes or LAFF could become Cannes or some such thing. And what “Cannes” is in that scenario is “the middle festival.” Sundance kicks off American indies in January. Berlin, more muscular every year, gets a lot of business done right after.
Then, it’s the Venice/Telluride/Toronto run.
Cannes is the muscle in the middle.
But on what planet do we really believe that Cannes carries a mystical weight greater than filmmakers’ willingness to target the festival as their release date of preference? Same as Sundance… same as Toronto… same as Berlin and Venice.
If you build it, they will come.
Of course, you don’t have to rebuild. Cannes doesn’t need to be knocked down… just kept in perspective.
Eugene is not just sucking back Kool-Aid. He writes, “Twelve days of moviegoing and movie business in the South of France is a particularly priviledged assignment, particularly in a period when so many people have lost jobs, seen companies downsize or disappear altogether. Those of us who are lucky enough to be here for Cannes #62 are getting a preview of what

Sherlock Holmes Trailer

QuickTime HD
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QT Regular
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I remain hopeful… Rocknrolla deserved a better fate and Downey & McA are faves… but I fear that the scent of Wild Wild West (of which I forgave more of than most) is not far away…

The Hangover Shows Us Its Package

Ye Olde Media

Real size.
On the USA Today blog, reported, interviewed, and edited (?) by Anthony Breznican.
Scor-f—-ing-sese.
As you all know, streaming video the size of classic You Tube makes me nuts… and if I were going to sit through 30 minutes of my interviews, I would want to see it in a bigger size, with higher quality, which is why I post so big.
BUT… the most read newspaper in America can’t afford the bandwidth for a 2 minute 30 second video to be viewable?
Yeah, you can blow it up to full screen, but the video is too low-bandwidth to look good at that size… even if you don’t, as I do, get just a partial image in one corner of the screen.
This is an issue on the entire blog. All the images are 200×150. Why? At least the photos enlarge when you click on them… but in a ton of different sizes. Pretty much every image is a different size. Where is the stylebook for this in a company the size of USA Today? Every once in a while, in the course of my daily work here, I get that some image will only be available in a reduced size for whatever reason. But I will bet you that the still frame of Rachel Weisz from Agora did not arrive on anyone’s desktop at 395px

Italian Spiderman Fights On The Beach

NOT coming from The Weinstein Co this summer…

Klingons Review Star Trek

True or False?

Mike Tyson is to The Hangover as McDonald’s was to Super Size Me.
Sam Worthington and Kris Tapley… separated at birth?
Fox TV is promoting Glee SO MUCH that “charmed” is turning into “concerned.”
Saturday Night Live celebrity placement promotions for Land of The Lost, Angels & Demons, Year One, and Night At The Museum were kinda obvious and didn’t feel like fun, friendly “just turned up” on SNL moments.
One of the great things about this moment in the summer is how one utterly forgets that there is a second half of the summer after July 4 that is often better than what came before.
Blu-ray is finally becoming mainstreamed as a delivery format by studios… but it’s hard to build excitement for films that have been released on DVD, often in multiple “special” releases… as in, I LOVE that Kramer vs Kramer and Gandhi and Burton’s Batman, etc, etc, etc, are finally on Blu-ray, but how many times a month can one get excited about seeing great older movies on Blu-ray, as well as new titles, as well as 1080p on the satellite?
It’s beginning to look like The Taking of Pelham 1 2 3 could be what’s missing from this summer… big, fun, adult… a higher energy Angels & Demons with stars playing into their strengths.
The Hangover & Drag Me To Hell look like they will be better remembered as niche classics by this time next year than they will be attended this summer.

Why The Day-n-Date 24 DVD Release Makes Sense

The NYT wrote about it tonight…24’s current season will be released on DVD the day after the season ends.
Doesn’t make a lot of sense for movies.
Makes a lot of sense for TV, especially shows where the network’s interest in re-runs is limited or not going to happen at all.
The investment in the weekly ritual of free TV, leading to a climax, is not threatened by a quick DVD release. No one is going to stop watching the season in week 22 so they can watch it on DVD instead.
Interest in the DVD experience will, indeed, be at its height as the show comes to its much discussed season end. If Fox is going to convert non-viewers – and no one is going to start watching 24 in week 22 any more than a regular is going to stop watching – that is the moment to do it. Even if they aren’t going to watch it right then, this is the only way to create a really strong impulse buy vibe for a show.
Movies, on the other hand, are not free… they aren’t serialized… and the entire theatrical sell is an impulse sell… whereas the DVD sell for movies is a habit sale combined with raised interests.
I still feel that day-n-date can work for art house product. The need to maximize every dime of marketing combined with the lack of access for most of the country to these films makes it a very different play again. I don’t expect them to do it, but I think that Sony Classics would be very well served by trying this out on an Almodovar movie, where there is such a great history and so many people who have a relationship with the filmmaker would be thrilled to have the access to the product before they forget the excitement that gets built up around the festival circuit for his films.
Anyway… interesting landmark… very dangerous not to understand why TV is so very different than the film industry (or the music business) in this way…

Another Nail In The Coffin

“Subject: Roger Friedman joins THR
Date: Mon, 18 May 2009 3:03:17
From: Hollywood Reporter”
4/27/09 – “Next, as much as it sickens me, the Trade Paper Of Record should hire Nikki Finke, Roger Friedman, or someone at Page Six

Weekend Estimates by Klady – Trek Treds Where Angels Can't Quite

The studios spins/makes reasonable arguments…
“Angels & Demons delivered at the high end of the studio’s expectations…
$104.3 m overseas from 96 countries where the adult thriller debuted. Worldwide A&D took in $152.3 million.
We couldn’t be more pleased with the film’s performance.
Neither the filmmakers nor the studio expected we would replicate the kinds of numbers we saw on The DaVinci Code. That film was based on a true cultural sensation that fueled sales of more than 80 million books.
Angels & Demons is based on a novel that sold less than half as many copies as DaVinci and its debut is a true success in its own right. It is the biggest international opening of a film since Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull
Opening weekend demographics for Angels & Demons shows the audience was slightly more female than male (52% F/48% M) and the age break down was evenly split 50% under 30 and 50% over 30.”
I do think they could be more pleased with the film’s domestic performance… but I also think they don’t find this drop off of DaVinci shocking and are surely thrilled by the international success so far. As I wrote yesterday, $450 million worldwide, which $152m ww this weekend suggests is completely doable, would put the film in the high end of this summer movie group… likely more than Trek or Wolfie or anything other than what looks to be the Top 3 (T4/Trans2/Potter6).
But $50m or $60m at home would have still felt and looked a lot better.
Our Trek estimate is a little below some of the others, but either way, a nice hold, as any opener over $50 million dropping less than 50% is a good word-of-mouth achievement these days. $225m domestic is looking possible.
Next weekend, the bloodbath… two franchises that have not had mega-openings in their histories ($44, for T3 and Night 1 was $30m)… but each of which has very strong marketing, both to their niches and to leak-over for both. Both films are set up for brickbats if they don’t open to at least $50 million each, given expectations these days. But both also has the potential to shock with a much bigger number.
The closest piece of history for a weekend like this that I can find right now is Sandler’s version of The Longest Yard vs Madagascar over Memorial Day Weekend 2005. Both films ended up doing $47 million for 3 and Madagascar did 2.4 million more than Yard over 4 days with $61 million. The big difference was that the films had to face Darth Wars sucking more out of the box office in its second weekend than either of the newcomers with just over $70 million for the 4 day. Neither of the holdovers topping this weekend’s chart looks to be anywhere over $30m for next weekend.
So… it would be no real shock if next weekend’s duo delivered a near-tie with each film opening to more than $70 million… or if Terminator Salvation, which has a wider, if less committed base of interest, opened closer to or even over $100 million while Museum still did over $50m. Both studios will surely spend the next few days lowering expectations.
The top historical 1-2 for Memorial Day was 2007 with Pirates 3 and Shrek 3 pulling in $168 million between them over 3… and $206m over 4.

It Takes A Billionaire

What does David Geffen really want with the NY Times?
First… what he is getting right now… from the Times and all the “I said it first” bloggers trying to grab attention with a big name and a big game. A lot of fawning attention, cheap.
But if you stop for a second and think… the story so far is very similar to what happened with the LA Times… except there would be no Geffen recreating The Gray Lady in his image… stakes are just too high. LAT is looking more like the Pennysaver every day… not so the NYT.
On the other hand, the discussion about the LA Times, just 3 years ago, was about billions – 2 or 3 – for just the one paper and now, the discussion about the entire NY Times Company is about $2.2 billion, with the entire value of non-family Class A stock as of Friday at $877 million and About $1.38 billion in debt.
This includes not just The Paper of Record, but 15 other papers, the International Herald Tribune, a piece of the Red Sox, a local NY radio station, About.com, and the part of their new HQ in Manhattan that they own.
With a committed Geffen being worth more than the company, the threat of bankruptcy would go away. They could sell off the 15 secondary papers, including The Boston Globe, for $300 million, the Sox stake for $150 million, and About.com for about $650 million and you’ve eaten away at the debt in a big way. But you’ve also given up revenues from About, which means that you’re just in the NYT and IHT business with a radio station and a part of your building.
From there, you deal with what still stands. And the papers, on their own, would still be losing about $30 million a year. But the pensions would have been made safe, debt would be manageable at under $250 million, and the market cap of the tighter company might well stabilize (after some rollercoastering) about where it is now, given ongoing value, even though the company would be less than half the size. And as Kane once said, if the paper lost $30 million a year, every year, Geffen would run out of money after about 100 years.
But more likely, the braintrust at The Times could turn around this mighty franchise and turn it profitable again in the next decade. And the, Geffen could be remembered as The Man Who Saved The New York Times AND make some money in the long run.
Without a Geffen, none of this can happen, since the sell-off, which is unavoidable, becomes a fire sale with prices to match if there is no financial stability behind the effort. In other words, with Geffen or someone like him, behind you, you can say, “no.” With a bankruptcy court pushing you, you really cannot.
Imagine how much strong The Tribune Company would be today had they sold the LA Times to Geffen three years ago for a big chunk of money with a “b.” But instead, they are going through the same sell-off ugliness under Zell: The Magician With A Broken Hat, but it’s much, much worse because the pressure is that much greater.
Bottom line, to my eye, is that the price point has come down to the level where Geffen can start to see a way out for the company. And yeah, the hero appeal is there. Unlike the LAT – a good paper that never had a definitive personality – I do believe that saving what the NYT represents means a lot and would mean a lot for Geffen As Savior.
Last April, the stock was selling for 3x what it is today… still needing a savior… but economically unfeasible. It’s great to love journalism, but right now, it’s low hanging fruit for very tall men.
All of these spiraling big media companies need two things… a willingness to put ego aside and to get slim (not as an investor) and their very own billionaire who is willing to be the stabilizing force and is honestly interested in a long-term play, so when the selling off happens, it is not just to turn the overall investment as soon as possible.