The Hot Blog Archive for September, 2009

Will Disney Even Replace Dick Cook?

In a chat with a newspaper man (rare species) yesterday, it suddenly hit me… has Bob Iger eliminated the need for a traditional head of his movie division?
Let’s think outside the box for a moment.
DreamWorks is self-sustaining and will fill 8 – 10 slots in the distribution pipeline each year if Disney supports that kind of output.
Pixar/Disney Animation is self-sustaining and will fill 2 – 3 slots in the distribution pipeline each year.
Marvel is, in theory, self-sustaining and will fill 1 -2 slots in the distribution pipeline each year if Disney supports that kind of output.
The Disney Channel(s) are developing movie properties by way of TV and will fill 1 – 3 slots (inexpensively) in the distribution pipeline each year.
That’s between 12 and 18 movies a year, pre-Bruckheimer and sequels.
In the last 5 years, Disney’s distribution pipeline of films released on over 1000 screens is: 11 in 2008, 12 in 2007, 17 in 2006, 14 in 2005, and 17 in 2004.
It seems to me that Disney has a pretty full boat without an active production division that does more than oversee everyone else’s production… at least the way Iger is laying out the company.
It seems to me that Iger needs a strong manager of big personalities and a muscular head of marketing to keep that part of the machine focused… not a major domo with strong ideas about the movies that Disney will be making in future.
With all respect to Jim Gallagher, he is not seen as the kind of marketing leader that can muscle up with DreamWorks and Marvel and Pixar and take control of the output when each entity has its own marketers with strong ideas of how they want to be marketed.
Oren Aviv may well be the smart politician and manager who can take to Iger’s idea of Disney’s movie future much as he took to Dick Cook’s idea of Disney’s movie future. Really, the person, it seems, who may be “the right fit” is the Michael Lynton-type of exec more than the Amy Pascal-type of exec. Someone who manages in macro rather than micro. (This may have been the best shot for Universal’s current film leadership as well… until DreamWorks got away.)
All the yammering about Pirates 4 being canceled over this or Bruckheimer being unhappy – well, he is surely unhappy if he wasn’t told before the official announcement… just not unhappy enough to leave – is really besides the point. Dick Cook is loved. His loyal staff must be scared to death and understandably. But feathers get ruffled and there is no big mystery here. The cards were played with every deal Iger made to buy into outside content companies. And he may be right and he may be wrong.
In the meanwhile, the only real mystery I see is whether the job Dick had will now be filled by a manager and not an imagineer.

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BYOB Recovery

Sorry to be slack this last 24 hours… TIFF just kinda snuck up and hit me… here is some space for y’all in the meantime…

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PGA Goes To 10 Too!

The Press Release…
PRODUCERS GUILD OF AMERICA AWARDS EXPAND NOMINATIONS IN BEST PRODUCED MOTION PICTURE CATEGORY TO INCLUDE TEN FILMS
LOS ANGELES (September 21, 2009)

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Notes…

1. Get Ready For More Ass, Boys – We saw a lot of it in Toronto… and in less than 48 hours in LA, I have seen it a couple times already. Women are wearing their tights, often sheer ones, with no shirt or shorts or whatever covering.
I don’t know what genius gay man talking them into this as a fashion statement, but if you enjoy looking at the female derriere, it seems that this next month or two will be full of ID by ass tattoo and, inevitably, a lot of young ladies who really aren’t meant to be wearing less than a string bikini bottom in public.
2. Oprah Didn’t Recognize Daniel Craig – It was a great show biz moment. They decided to surprise Oprah in Central Park with Hugh Jackman and Daniel Craig, who are now in a show together on Broadway. Oprah did not have the slightest idea who Daniel Craig, who is now bearded for the role, was. She clearly knew she should know. And had no idea. The relief that came over her like a wave – including lots of stuttering about his credits – when she finally got an eyeful of prompter is one of my favorite moments of the media year. Craig, of course, took it like a man.
3. Why So Seriously Overhyped? – There have been 15 comic book adaptations that have grossed over $300 million worldwide in the last 8 years since 2002’s Spider-Man launch.
The Dark Knight
Spider-Man 3
Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen
Spider-Man
Spider-Man 2
Transformers
Iron Man
X-Men: The Last Stand
300
Men in Black II
X2: X-Men United
Superman Returns
Batman Begins
X-Men Origins: Wolverine
Fantastic Four

One is from Marvel Studios. It’s right there in the middle of the grosses.
They just sold the entire company for less than 6x the gross of that one film.
Now… explain to me how we know they are geniuses over there? Other than selling the company for more than its worth?

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DP/30 Sneak Peek – TIFF Audience Award Winner The Topp Twins: Untouchable Girls

This documentary about the New Zealand legends is just plain great. Here, in this brief look at the full 30 minute interview, the twins – Linda and Jools – and the film’s director Leanne Pooley talk about… whatever they want!

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DP/30 Sneak Peek – Juliette Lewis & Shuana Cross WHIP IT

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Working The Distribution Model

Paramount is taking out the “$11.000 movie,” Paranormal Activitytrailer in QT here – next weekend to 13 college towns before determining the long-range plan for the film’s wider release.
Interesting.
And sane.
Paramount can put the movie into college towns with little more than web buzz and media hype that the media really wants to give them when they hear the story of “the next Blair Witch.” Everyone wants to be ahead of that story.
Good for Paramount. You don’t see many big studios doing the heavy lifting of a publicity-first campaign. And apparently, the movie is interesting enough to get the smarties of Telluride to give it a slot. But don’t tell the geeks… they’ll think that spinach is coming as a side dish if they hear “Telluride” associated with the film.

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Toronto Drama

Oh… they finally figured it out… two car wreck Sundances and two car wreck Cannes and NOW “they” realize that the indie market is dead? NOW?!?!?
Seriously.
The enormous irony of this is that Toronto has always been a major press festival and NOT a great sales fest. Yes, there have always been a few high profile movies sold there each year – nothing of that size this year – and a bunch of foreign language and doc pick-ups – which will still happen – but TIFF was not where people went looking for their sales.
What changed dramatically this year is that the American Indie business is a walking corpse, financially, and has been for a couple of years already. The ONLY American indie for sale at TIFF this year that has the potential to crack the $10m box office mark was Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call New Orleans… and in theory, it wasn’t in need of distribution (First Look would surely be happy to find a bigger company to market and distribute this epic guilty pleasure).
Get Low? Life During Wartime? Are you KIDDING?!?! IFC, here you come. This doesn’t make them “bad movies.” But Bill Murray’s last two indies did less than $3m domestic between them and City of Ember shut down a studio division. And even the best reviews of a mixed lot are not comparing Aaron Schneider to Wes Anderson or even Jim Jarmusch. The Solondz? Happiness is a serious indie classic… and didn’t gross $3 million, even with an indie all-star cast. Here, its Ciaran Hinds, Allison Janney, and Ally Sheedy with a lot less flame, though the film has its beautiful and funny moments. Bzzt!
So what did that leave? A lot of accents. There was a heavy UK presence at the fest this year, much of it with big UK names. Sir Michael Caine and Emily Mortimer in Harry Brown, Colin Farrell in Neil Jordan’s Ondine, Danis Tanovic’s Triage (and SPC’s pre-fest purchase, The Imaginarium of Dr Parnassus), Cillian Murphy and Brendan Gleeson in Perrier’s Bounty, Paul Bettany in Creation, Brenda Blethyn in London River, and Bill Nighy and Julie Christie in Glorious 39 (note the correct spelling of “glorious”).
Those are seven titles that would have been locks for distribution just a year or two ago… and now… not so much. Neil Jordan has not had a single one of his films go without US distribution in his 27 year career. Ondine, a lovely, mystic romantic quirk that would have been a lock for a Weinstein @ Miramax or SPC or Searchlight buy in the past may be the first… or settle for a VOD berth with a few screens on the coasts.
A movie like Chloe would have sold by now a year ago. But coarsely looking past the artistry of all involved, let’s get down to the marketing… if you can only open Megan Fox threatening nudity and Diablo Cody’s cleve-ah dialogue to $6.7m, who is paying to see the lovely and talented Amanda Seyfried flash a little or to see the brilliant and lovely Julianne Moore naked again? No one. So the film’s audience is adults who go for the artistry I previously disregarded and are happy to get a Viagra-kick from the film as a benefit. Now you are waiting on critics to drive the film… no matter how ridiculous that notion has long proven to be. Mixed reviews. Oh well.
This is the kind of movie that you would be comfortable expecting to do a bit over $5 million domestic – double that if it heated up – and to sell 1 or 2 million units in DVD a couple of years ago. No longer.
If $5 million ends up being spent for the American distribution of ALL the titles bought out of Toronto (including the $1 million buy of A Single Man, which was inflated by gossips c/o those who lost in the bidding to try to make shit out of Shinola), I will be surprised.
But it’s not a new situation.
The winner in this will be the US distributor or the foreign sales rep who comes up with a new formula that increases the upside on a US sale while, essentially, giving the US distribution on these films away for nothing.
The ongoing problem in the US is the massive cost of marketing, which precludes a real hard push with the true indies (see: Bright Star this weekend) and at the same time scares the studios, their dependents, and even the big indies like Lionsgate, Overture, and Summit from investing in a film that could lose them money, but which likely, even if they win the battle. will not create a huge amount of revenue.
You know, the two biggest indie grossers of this year so far are Sunshine Cleaning and The Hurt Locker. Sunshine sat around for months after Sundance before Overture picked it up for a song. They rode Amy Adams to $12 million. Summit was the only serious bidder for The Hurt Locker at TIFF last year, in spite of strong reviews and the argument that it was more an action movie than an Iraq War piece. $12.4 million domestic… a much bigger price tag…. a lot more money thrown at the effort… an Oscar push to consider funding…
Bottom Line: Overture made more on the crap film that had the more marketable element. (I will withhold a dissection of the Summit strategy on THL.)
One Last Note: Something else happened to Indie on the way to TIFF this year… TIFF killed Indie, not only with the previously discussed frontload of the fest, but by allowing the fest to be dominated by films WITH distribution.
On the other hand, as this entry started, TIFF has never been a big sales fest. Until no fest was a big sales fest. Now every fest where people gather is a potential breakout sales fest. And TIFF took the bait, even sending out press releases about what a great sales fest it might be this year, leading to anticipatory stories, leading to disappointment.
Indie is the canary in the coal mine, folks. The ENTIRE film business is shrinking be at least a third… yes, even at the big, dumb studios. The media is steps behind the realities at studios, occasionally getting a signal clear enough to write a story. But it’s a seismic change… no joke. And it is worse for indie and will be worse for the unions that gave up too many goodies over the last 18 months. (They were too distracted by the internet to realize what they were really giving up.)
Of course, the media that covers film festivals is mostly either criticism oriented or trade chummy. The cries of pain at TIFF were loud. In this period, the media needs to learn to think like people who have to risk real money in the game, not the people who have already risked or the artists who we all want to support.
The reality of the game hasn’t changed. But the risk/reward has been eviscerated by the rise in marketing costs, the DVD drop-off, and the frontloading of box office. God bless IFC and Magnolia and SPC for still being in that business. But we haven’t met the Next Great Model yet. And I am pretty sure that it won’t be about new technology so much as it is about the next way to mine the audience that exists for all of these films, however soft.

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Weekend Estimates by Klady – September 20

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Cloudy With A Side Of Meatballs is a next step for Sony’s animation division. Their fourth animated film of the current era (since 2003), this is the best opening by more than 20% and looks to be the first $100 million domestic grosser as Sony keeps pushing to join the big leagues of the animation producer/distributors. It is – with little competition – the biggest September opening for an animated film.
About 2/3 of the opening was in Real D or IMAX, which represents around $7 million in extra dollars because of 3D premium pricing…. which is almost exactly the difference between what Sony opened Open Season to vs Cloudy. Hmmm…
So the the good news for Sony is that the number is up substantially. The bad news is that they aren’t expanding their audience for animation much, if at all. Their movies are well liked, but somehow, they are not finding the broader appeal that Disney/Pixar and DreamWorks have mastered and which Fox has found in the Ice Age series and even oddballs like Simpsons. It has to be a little frustrating on a corporate level.
The Informant!‘s opening number is also a bit of a mixed bag. The number is pretty good – especially given the low cost of the film – but not breathtaking. The movie is an oddball, easily one of the year’s best comedies, but not in a conventional way. It reminds me a bit of Syriana, which also had a well-known star in an unusual role. Warners did a couple of word-of-mouth exclusive weeks (5 and 9 screens) which led to an $11.7m wide break. They probably should have tried that here too. It might have added a few million to opening weekend. But Syriana’s $51m domestic total seems like a total that Informant would be satisfied with. Damon and Scott Burns are still right in the Oscar nomination hammock, but $35m – $40m is probably where this one is headed.
Jennifer’s Body coming in behind the Universal dumper, Love Happens, is a bit of a shock. The big misstep here probably started with handing the Fox Atomic movie to Big Fox and not forcing it on Searchlight, where they would have worked it longer and harder. Bottom line, an Amanda Seyfried movie that no one knows Amanda Seyfried is in because the media is all Paris Hilton on Megan Fox – something she honestly seems to be trying to avoid – is a movie that is going to get you Paris Hilton results (and really, $12 million for the May release of House of Wax is about the same, in spirit, as $6.7m in September.)
I think the movie is a mess, in spite of good performances by almost everyone, including Ms Fox, who shows actual promise as an actual actress. Still, that doesn’t mean that it should have been able to be sold to the unknowing masses. They buy shite all the time.
The answer, I think, might have been a much more sophisticated publicity effort with Fox herself. Yes, she can be a challenge to the studio. But the reinvention of her brand, as opposed to “you might see her b-cups, horny boys!” is what she is clearly after and might have helped the movie. It seems to me that the audience they missed – and was key to this film’s success – was teen girls. They ID with Seyfried more than Fox and if the film was publicized as a horror film made by women, starring women, for women – the old Screen Gems stalking horse – they may well have doubled this number. Watch Fox Searchlight pull that together for Whip It, which also has the advantage of being a much better movie. But look for a lot of Drew Flower Power – including a wide range of female voices and types in the cast – to make the film the biggest hit with grrrrrrls since, well, Juno.
ADD, 11:18a – TWC just sent along the news that based on this weekend’s estimates, Inglorious Basterds just passed Pulp Fiction as Tarantino’s top domestic grosser.
Ironic that Matt Damon is opening a Soderbergh movie on the same weekend that Brad Pitt leads the way for QT’s biggest movie ever. Hmmm… I wonder what studio would like to have a Brad Pitt movie for next March that won’t be making them MONEY because they took their eye off the BALL… hmmm…

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DP/30 – Steven Soderbergh on The Informant! and more

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DP/30 Sneak Peek – TIFF '09 – Chloe


Director Atom Egoyan and screenwriter Erin Cressida Wilson talk about their new film.

DP/30 Sneak Peek – TIFF '09 – Youth In Revolt


Stars Michael Cera & Portia Doubleday as well as the director, Miquel Arteta, and the producer, David Permut, chat about the film after its premiere at TIFF ’09

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Cook Exits Disney…

Just saw the news after a long day’s night returning from TIFF and not even looking at the Blackberry . As usual, the hype machine – mostly people hyping themselves – has been pumped up. Cook, being a smart man, clearly arranged for Johnny Depp to be his spokesman on the issue, with Depp doing an unusual phoner with the LA Times to make the case. This, as much as anything, makes it clear that Cook was, indeed, fired. (The only other realistic option was that he found out he was very sick.) Based on other dealings with Disney lately, I would say this has been in process for at least a couple of months before being announced on a sleepy Friday afternoon.
I really need more time to consider this, but the Marvel buy and even the DreamWorks deal certainly flew in the face of the “Disney-focus” concept that Cook had spearheaded in the last few years. Taking Disney small and rebuilding it as a specific brand was a very good idea. The kids and family market is where all the money is these days. But then it needed to be executed. And they never quite found the handle. The effort to go into chick flicks as a business model, for instance, was not in that path. And the huge success of The Proposal, now being forgotten by some in favor of beating Confessions of a Shopaholic to death, suggests that they could make it work… and more of the same with DreamWorks.
Anyway… Dick Cook is The Mensch of Menches. But he is also a symbol of The Past. DreamWorks and Marvel are symbols of what Iger sees as the future.
We’ll see… more later…

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Friday Estimates by Klady

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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