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Say hello to Redbox, the scariest thing in the film industry, at least for today. If you've never heard of this Netflix-for-supermarkets, it can take a while to put together how a shiny red DVD dispenser can make studio execs quake in their last season loafers, so here's the gist: Redbox rents...
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I am fascinated that Dan Glickman, in giving his annual State of The Union report to reporters and then exhibitors at ShoWest, did NOT give a number for costs of production and marketing. His excuse - which is not unreasonable on its face - was that there are so many co-production deals now that these...
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The spark started in yesterday's box office conversation, based on the notion that the worst five performances against openings of more than $50m were "niche" films... this based on what seems to be the fact that Watchmen will be the worst multiple (under 2.13x) in history vs opening weekend...
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Wow... that's called burying the lead! Dawn C. Chmielewski at the LA Times did a story today that is, perhaps, the most important story to the film industry in the last two years. Stop obsessing on frickin' 3D and the overhyped box office boom and take a look at this. Let me step backwards for...
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Over the weekend, a Brooks Barnes story – “ Who Threw the DVD From the Train? ” – ran in the NY Times… and it keeps me wondering… where are the editors at the Paper of Record? Firstly, that headline is not representative of the story. But that is the least of its problems. My big problem with a lot of...
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Uh... no. Here is the latest WSj story on the 3-D Crazy . (Note also that it puts a modest $175,00 price tag on the BofA promo for Monsters vs Aliens ... a new fact from real reporters that is unlike to get any play on Drudge or the gossip columnists peddling the lie of some massive deal that undermines...
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It’s one of the ego games of Hollywood that movies are held in some higher esteem than broadcast… even though broadcast has been a bigger business for many years now. It is another oddity that we tend to think of movie executives as exclusively movie executives… or television execs as television execs...
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Tomorrow, I will have seen this film and will have an opinion about the work, not just the business. And that will be whatever it is. In the meanwhile, please understand, I want Watchmen to be great. I love the graphic novel like so many others... not as rabidly as some. And I don't mind a bit of...
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The question has been floating around for a while... Once we got past the very real drama of Fox’s claims against Watchmen , the question of what kind of drama the movie would turn out to be. My fear has been that Zack Snyder, who showed a lot of promise in rethinking genre with his Dawn of the Dead...
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Someone asked about profitability in another entry, so I responded in - surprise! - excessive depth. Then someone sent me this link to an IGN video about Sam Jackson not doing Iron Man 2 over, he says, money. To quote the quoting of the video: "I would love to do it. I'm not sure that they would...
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I just got a press release - which I cannot cut & paste on the iPhone - that Overture and the folks who brought you Little Miss Sunshine, Big Beach, committed to make the feature of Jack Goes Boating, a LAByrinth Theater Co production, that I loved a couple of years ago. It's Phillip Seymour...
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There are moments, a few times a year, that clear more up than expected. The EXCLUSIVE letter from Lloyd Levin , producer of Watchmen , one producer for Drew of the new HitFlix, is one of these moments. Let me state from the top… the letter’s argument, on the face of it, is bullshit. Is there anything...
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Yes, it is a cliché, but 2008 truly was the best of times and the worst of times. The box office broke new records, including a brand new #2 domestic film of all-time increasing the standard by more than 15%, yet New Line – as constituted from Day One – was dumped by Warner Bros, three studios including...
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I will be brief, since I think I've been clear... It pains me to see smart people act like fools. If any of you lent a friend $10,000 to start a business they needed $200,000 to really start and you had the understanding that if they ever got their funding, you would be paid back, and if not, you...
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This comes right on the heels of Mamma Mia! passing Titanic as the highest grossing film in UK history. The Dark Knight reported 3 million units on its first day of release, though like opening day box office, the numbers for both of these films are skewed by internet and retail pre-sales, which are...