Category: News

Last Friday, Hollywood Reporter printed a pretty macabre story which said that even though all the major studios are falling over themselves to be the ones to distribute the last movie for which Heath Ledger shot film — that’s The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus, remember? — they’re reluctant to do so because it’s a film by Terry Gilliam, and he hasn’t necessarily been the best box office bet.

This kind of thinking makes me a little sick. Yes, Gilliam can be difficult, but it was the movie industry that made him so by ruining the first important movie he made by not trusting in his vision. His movies are strange and aren’t necessarily for everyone, and there’s absolutely nothing wrong with that. Parnassus is a movie that wanted to be made, because three heavyweight actors (Johnny Depp, Colin Farrell, and Jude Law) agreed to appear in the movie, continue Ledger’s role, and donate their salaries to his estate, just so his performance wouldn’t wind up in some film vault somewhere, and Depp is certainly aware of the problems that can happen with a Gilliam production.

My words to studio executives is this: You probably make $20 million a month picking your nose or scratching your armpits. Putting up the money to distribute this film should be a piece of cake if you don’t treat it like a major studio movie and go ape-wild on marketing stunts that make no sense. Movie-going audiences these days can be smart, and the slavering Heath Ledger fangirls are armed with the Internet. They can read up on Gilliam’s weirdness on blogs like this one, and won’t be disappointed like they may have been with The Brothers Grimm. Their minds may even be expanded just a little bit, and that’s not necessarily a bad thing considering that one of Gilliam’s major themes is a rejection of conformity.

Just release this movie, okay?

Even with the success of Michael Bay’s Transformers movie and the buzz about its sequel, Variety reported on Sunday that New Regency has put their Voltron movie into “turnaround” which according to the IMDB’s glossary (Ctrl-F is your friend) means that it’s not likely to be made unless they can snatch up a director and some hot acting talent. However, the trade publication article reads like this is a done deal and that all producers Mark Gordon (10,000 B.C.) and Jordan Wynn have to do is just to pick from its many suitors for the project. Personally speaking, I don’t think this bodes well.

Listen, I loved “Voltron” as a kid, and wanted to drive the blue lion because it was driven by a girl, and there weren’t many kick-ass female characters back then. At least “G.I. Joe” had three of them, you know? But I think one of the reasons why it’s going to be more difficult for this movie to get anywhere is that despite it selling well on DVD, that’s about the limit of its audience. People went to see Transformers because the franchise had more time and more opportunities to gain a foothold in the American pop culture psyche due to the fact that they just kept making the show, and the creators of “Voltron” did not do the same with its property. I need only to point at Speed Racer‘s total worldwide gross of $88,645,114 versus its production cost of $120 million to hammer the nail into the coffin that is my point, and say no more.

UPDATE: The movie blogosphere is buzzing with the news that a little-known director named Max Makowski has signed on to direct the film, but until a real news outlet reports on it, I’m not buying it.

New York Guild Says to SAG Re: Ongoing Stalemate: “Fuggedaboutit”
Also on Sunday, the regional board for New York City’s screen actors told the national union leaders that it needs to seek out more meaningful steps towards a resolution of the contract terms before August 25 or bring in a federal negotiator, as reported by the Hollywood Reporter but mentioned nowhere on the SAG Watchdog site and United Hollywood 2.0 returns a 404 error as of press time. This, and other news coverage found online only serves to highlight what a empathetic divide in the public’s eye there is between these negotiations and the WGA negotiations earlier this year.

The Stupidest Viral Movie Marketing Ploy in the World…Or is It?
It’s only because I was recently caught in a “Law & Order: Criminal Intent” feedback loop that I happened to see the hard-sell trailers for The Rocker, which stars comedic actor Rainn Wilson (“The Office”) as a washed-up never-been who tries to relive his ’80s rock band dreams by co-opting his nephew’s teenage band. The commercial’s voiceover narration proclaims it to be the “hit sleeper of the summer” and yet it’s never popped up on my radar.

Since the movie opens on Wednesday, though, they’re pulling out all the stops to get butts in the theater seats, because six days ago, Wilson said on “Office” co-star Jenna Fischman’s MySpace blog that he had kidnapped her, bound her, placed her in his trunk, and will not let her go until the movie grosses $18.7 million. Since then, he — or the clever people in Fox’s marketing department — have started up their own blog called Free Jenna Now! where he posts shorts video clips of Fischman’s kidnapping experience and has even interviewed Guns ‘N’ Roses guitarist Slash (who is credited in that video clip as Maya Angelou).

Part of me wants the movie to tank, just so I can see how they’ll backpedal out of the stunt, and because I am a mean, mean person.

Oh sure… of the four buzz-worthy actors who are in talks to star in Quentin Tarantino’s WWII film Inglorious Bastards, the one that gets signed next is none of them, but instead Canadian comedic actor Mike Myers, according to Variety.

Listen, I used to like Mike Myers films. Laughed my butt off during the first Austin Powers movie, and for some strange reason, my sister and I watched and re-watched the first Wayne’s World movie. Now that I think about it, I think the main reason why I watched the it so often was because of Tia Carrere’s performance as a sexy, no-nonsense, punk-rock star. It’s hard to find female role models on the big screen when you’re ethnically Filipino, you know? But after having seen the second Austin Powers movie three times and becoming bored of his schtick, the bloom faded quickly from the rose, I was no longer a fan and therefore, I don’t buy this casting.

My problem with Mike Myers is that I can’t see him playing anything straight. See, Jim Carrey’s a great comedic actor, but he does know when to stop and he does have the chops to do more serious roles (Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, anyone?). I can believe someone like him in a serious role because he’s proven that he can do it. However, I can’t see Myers being able to rein anything in without a Scottish accent (because he is remarkably restrained in the Shrek movies), and even worse, I don’t want to imagine Tarantino doing a WWII movie with a silly British general because it’s going to make me think of either Peter Sellers or Graham Chapman too much and then I’ll get sad.

Steve Carrell, Tina Fey Going Out on a Date
I’ve recently become a fan of “30 Rock” thanks to Hulu.com and my very weird work schedule, so I couldn’t help but grin a little when I read in Variety that Tina Fey and Steve Carrell will be in a comedy called Date Night from 20th Century Fox. The movie’s about a couple who starts out on an average date but it quickly turns into something that will probably be described by critics as “zany” and “wild.” The movie will be directed by Shawn Levy (Night at the Museum) who told reporters that he wanted this movie to be his next assignment from the studio.

Former Subway Worker, College Student Makes Good in Creating Brooklyn’s Finest
Admittedly, I’m going to be a little biased about stories in the New York Times because it’s my local newspaper of choice and it’s the standard to which I hold a lot of journalists (though that’s changing due to the weirdness that is newspaper conglomerations). Reading this story about first-time screenwriter Michael C. Martin, an almost-degreed film student from Brooklyn who got second prize in a screenwriting competition while he was recovering from an accident that totaled his car, and then parlayed that into a movie deal for Brooklyn’s Finest (starring Richard Gere, Don Cheadle, and Ethan Hawke, and directed by Antoine Fuqua [Training Day]) makes me feel a little better about the world and my place in it as a freelance writer.

It’s worth it to note that the difference between this piece and the Hollywood Reporter piece on another first-time screenwriter is how Martin’s path seems to be more accessible by the average person, whereas the HR piece pushes you away by mentioning its subject’s maneuvering within the system. Anyone can enter a contest, and anyone can go to film school to get the training and basics down for writing a screenplay. In contrast, no one’s exactly sure what one needs to do to be assigned as an assistant to a major screenwriter, and that kind of job is something you achieve after lots of networking and being exactly in the right place at the right time.

I already wrote about Variety Editor in Chief Peter Bart, whose attempt at making Comic Con look less like the biggest elephant in the hype room flopped when he referred to its attendees as “freaks and geeks.” Uh, no thank you, only Paul Feig and Judd Apatow are allowed to call us that, and that’s because they understand what it means to be one. As thus, I was ready to give up on reading the Variety blogs because they rarely speak to me.

However, these choice words from one of Thompson’s regular pinch-hit bloggers David S. Cohen about the trailer for The Express caught my eye:

I’m a guy, I get sports movies. I also trace some of my earliest memories to the days of the civil rights movement in Illinois and Kentucky, so I enjoy stories about that time. But I’m getting tired of movies that put the two together.

My complaint isn’t that racism is a settled issue (It’s not.) or that these stories don’t deserve to be told (They do.). But Jim Crow is a settled issue, so these tales of the struggle against American apartheid seem to me to have entered the realm of always-safe messages for a studio film, like “It’s okay to be different” in a kid pic, or ‘Family is more important than money” in a Christmas movie.

As a result, to me it feels like these athletes-against-racism stories are becoming rote and predictable, too, and are blurring into “Remembering the Titans on Glory Road While the Express Rumbles By, Singing Brian’s Song.”

Cohen goes on to write that filmmakers shouldn’t be afraid to make controversial movies, even if they aren’t going to be blockbuster hits, suggesting other stories that the sports/drama genre could get into, such as what it’s like to be a gay male on a sports team, or the pressures experienced by the team that Iraq sent to the 2004 Olympics (who placed a respectable fourth).

I don’t know about you, but I’d spend $12 on that.

The City of Ember Pulls Out All Stops on Promo Train Ride to SDCC
In one of those “blink and you’ll miss it” stories that was initially reported last Wednesday in Variety, Walden Media took advantage of Southern California’s usual traffic problems and the rail lines that connect Los Angeles to San Diego by hooking two train cars together, filling them with 23 entertainment reporters who were going to the convention anyway, and for the two-hour commute, bombarded them with clips, information, and interview opportunities for director Gil Kenan for the fall film based on a fantasy novel. Well, it worked, since I’m telling you guys about it, aren’t I?

Leading Actors for Magdalena Introduced During Top Cow Panel on Comics
During their panel on Saturday afternoon, president Matt Hawkins introduced actors Luke Goss (Hellboy II) and Jenna Dewan (Step Up) who will be playing Christoph and Patience, two characters from the upcoming movie based on the comic book. Mega-producer Gale Ann Hurd (the first three Terminator movies, and why wasn’t she on EW’s 10 influential people list?) was also on-hand to promise more information and more to show at next year’s Comic Con.

EW Staff Members at Front Lines of Most Popular Comic Con Panels
Reading Entertainment Weekly’s PopWatch coverage of Comic Con, you’ll notice the phrase “EW’s own” a lot when they speak of whomever is moderating the panel. As a journalist and a fan, that makes me feel a little uncomfortable knowing that someone who is already supposed to be an objective observer becoming part of “the inside” by directing what’s supposed to be a fan-friendly event. While I am a huge fan of the idea of moderated panels at genre conventions–because fans can sometimes ask the stupidest questions–fans have also provided some of the more memorable moments during panels (see the Samuel L. Jackson/Nick Fury comment that I posed about on Saturday). Besides, the only reason why the actors and directors are even at the convention is because of the 125,000+ people who spent a lot of their hard-earned money to go see them. It’s a dichotomy for the ages, I suppose.

Variety’s EIC Peter Bart Thinks He Gets Comic Con, But He’s Wrong
The editor-in-chief weighed in on what he thinks the myths are about the annual Nerd Prom in San Diego, and in my opinion, he not only fails at debunking the myths, he does so at the expense of the very audience that makes Comic Con so great. Examples include such bon mots as: “The geeks and freaks positively thrive on the frenzied overcrowding” and “The dweebs then feel hip!” If you don’t believe me, read the article for yourself.

Early Saturday evening, the national board for the Screen Actors Guild (SAG) announced they would unanimously back their negotiators in L.A. in rejecting the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers’s (AMPTP) final offer, citing the concerns over allowing non-union work for new media productions.

“For some time, we have been telling the industry how important it is for all new media productions under our contract to be done union and how important residuals for made-for new media programming are when programs are re-run on new media,” said SAG National Executive Director and Chief Negotiator Doug Allen in a prepared statement.

The AMPTP responded with a statement of their own, saying, “The continued refusal of SAG’s negotiators to accept AMPTP’s final offer means that actors will continue to work indefinitely under the expired contract – an old contract that contains none of the $250 million in additional compensation provided by AMPTP’s final offer, and an old contract that provides none of the new media rights and residuals that other Hollywood Guild members have now been enjoying for months.”

And though no one has dared utter word “strike,” the uncertainty over where things stand between SAG and the producers is just one of the three things mentioned as a factor behind pushing back the start production date on Ridley Scott’s Nottingham, which is a re-visioning of the tale that casts the Sheriff (Russell Crowe) in a sympathetic light. (The others are having a green enough forest and the script.)

Still, that didn’t seem to dampen the enthusiasm of movie goers this weekend where The Dark Knight grossed an estimated $75.6 million in the domestic box office, losing just 52.2% of its previous weekend’s audience. The Will Farrell/John C. Reilly comedy Step Brothers debuted at around $30 million and movie musical Mamma Mia! came into third place with $17.87 million, despite adding 14 more theaters.

The only downer note was for The X-Files: I Want to Believe, which grossed only $10.2 million, just barely ahead of two other movies that have already been in theaters for almost a month.

While we’ve been stuck here in Chicago and New York, everyone else in the world seems to be at the San Diego Comic Con, including representatives from several major motion picture companies who were there to talk up their movies, show off footage, and drum up support and advanced buzz amongst the geek-heavy crowd that can control how the rest of the mainstream public sees their films through the Internet.

Scanning several reports, here’s what we think some of the best moments of the convention have been from those movie panels. It’s worth noting that the convention’s stance on filming exclusive preview reels and clips is that if the studio doesn’t want you to see them, they warn you several times and they have spotters whose job it is to note the people who are filming and kick them out of the convention.

Hugh Jackman Appears at 20th Century Fox Panel with X-Men Origins: Wolverine Footage in Tow
After the expected Q&A sessions on Thursday with cast members from The Day the Earth Stood Still and Max Payne, Fox pulled off a big upset by getting the Wolverine star directly from the airport to the convention. Jackman earned huge points with the crowd by thanking them for giving him a career and running down from the stage to thank Wolverine co-creator Len Wein for creating the character.

But of course, the biggest upset was having footage from the movie in hand, and the crowd went crazy upon catching their first glimpses of Deadpool and Gambit who will be making their first Marvel movie appearances.

Female Fans Flood Twilight, Summit Entertainment Panel with Estogen
As a female geek, I am always constantly annoyed when female fans aren’t seen as being a viable demographic with its own, different sense of power. When I was an editor for Sequential Tart, one of the things joked about was the fact that you could gauge how many women were at SDCC by how long the line was for the bathroom.

However, in the years since the first Lord of the Rings movie came out with its highly telegenic and swoon-worthy male cast, Internet-savvy female fans have become a growing demographic that mainstream Hollywood is finally starting to notice. The best indicator of this would have been Summit Entertainment’s Q&A session with the cast of Twilight where women asked all the questions and screamed the loudest. It may not be a step in the right direction towards equality amongst the genders, but at least it’s a step.

Samuel L. Jackson Encourages Young People to Follow their Dreams in an Unusual Way During Panel for The Spirit
When prompted by the audience shouting about a Nick Fury action figure at this timestamp referencing his special appearance in the coda to Iron Man, Jackson said, “When I was growing up, Nick Fury was a white man. He finally evolved into something that makes sense to me.” The entire crowd howled with laughter when he followed that up by saying, “But don’t worry, see? You, too, can grow up to be a black man.”

I’d like to start off this portion of the recommended schedule by saying that I made a mistake when I said that viewing of all three parts of the Dr. Horrible’s Sing-Along Blog series would be “the perfect way” to end your Friday at the San Diego Comic Con because “perfect” is too weak of a word to use. Ending your Friday by watching Dr. Horrible would be so superlatively, stupendously, amazing that they would need to create a new word just to describe what a wonderful thing it is.

In a word, to borrow from one of Neil Patrick Harris’ TV characters, it would be totally awesome.

But let’s get to Saturday and Sunday’s schedule, shall we?

Saturday, July 26
10:00 am to 11:00 am Spotlight on Forrest J. Ackerman (Room 3)
Learn all about the history of horror films from the master himself, as he celebrates the 50th anniversary of his still-published Famous Monsters of Filmland. (Note: The actual anniversary panel takes place from 11 am to 12 pm in Room 10.)

1:15 pm to 2:00 pm Warner Bros.: Terminator Salvation (Hall H)
As of press time, there’s no word as to who’s going to be on the panel to introduce the trailer and talk about the movie. But at least it’ll be interesting to see how they plan on getting around the time paradoxes.

2:30 pm to 3:30 pm Disney Pixar: Bolt and UP (Hall H)
You may have to leave the room in order to get back inside, but it’s worth it to check out what will be coming up next from the House of Mouse and the company that an animated lamp built. Pay attention to the second part of the panel where director Peter Docter (Monsters, Inc.) introduces his newest comedy, UP.

4:30 pm to 5:30 pm Treasures of ASIFA Archive (Room 10)
Featuring animation director Ralph Bakshi (The Lord of the Rings), the ASIFA (that’s the International Animated Film Society) opens up its archive to show off rare animation footage and talk about the challenges of being an animator in today’s Wacom-tablet and Mac computer world.

5:30 pm to 7:00 pm Sony: Underworld: Rise of the Lycans, Quarantine, Pineapple Express (Hall H)
Sony Pictures bundles up three different genre films into one large session. First up is the third installment of the gothic horror Underworld series, starring Michael Sheen, Bill Nighy, and Rhona Mitra. Next up is Quarantine, a zombie horror filmed camera verite style, while the last movie to be featured is the latest Judd Apatow-produced action/comedy Pineapple Express, of which very little has been written in the program guide. Feel free to ask Pineapple‘s co-writers Seth Rogen and Evan Goldberg about the Green Hornet film, too.

7:00 pm to 8:30 pm In Search of Steve Ditko Documentary—Strange & Stranger (Room 5AB)
If you’re a fan of comics, you owe it to yourself to check out this documentary about comics creator and legend Steve Ditko, starring U.K. comedian Jonathan Ross (he who snogged British author Neil Gaiman at least year’s Eisner awards ceremony).

10:00 pm 12:00 am World Premiere! Mutant Chronicles (Room 6CDEF)
The Victorian steampunk genre is the newest “next big thing” and Mutant Chronicles will be one of the first live-action films to take advantage of its emergence. Stars Thomas Jane, Ron Perlman, and Devon Aoki will be presenting the “work-in-progress” film and take questions about it as well.

Sunday, July 27
11:30 am 12:00 pm Focus Features: Hamlet 2 (Ballroom 20)
Straight from the wintry slopes of the Sundance Film Festival comes this surprise hit comedy which can be best described as “sacrelicious.” In addition to featured appearances by Steve Coogan and Elisabeth Shue, there will also be some other surprise appearances.

12:00 pm to 12:45 pm Harold & Kumar Escape from Guantanamo Bay (Ballroom 20)
Stick around for Kal Penn, John Cho, and the man himself, Neil Patrick Harris to talk about the second movie in the Harold & Kumar series. But honestly, it’s Neil Patrick Harris. Who couldn’t resist getting a chance to see him again?

1:00 pm to 1:30 pm Friday the 13th (Ballroom 20)
No word yet on who will be on hand to show off footage and talk about the retelling of the classic horror movie that spawned a horror movie subgenre.

AMPTP Goes On the Record About Today’s ‘Off the Record’ Meeting with SAG
Just in time for the evening news, the AMPTP released a statement yesterday which emphatically notes that SAG negotiators asked for the meeting, not them, and that they’re agreeing to it so they can listen to what SAG has to say–but they will not be renegotiating against their final offer. The meeting will take place this afternoon. Incidentally, I found SAG’s non-corporate website that’s devoted to rallying its members around the cause, and I have only this to say: Hire some people from the WGA or some people from Fans4Writers to conduct your website PR campaign, okay?

Robin Williams to Channel Dark Side Again in World’s Greatest Dad
Screechy comedian Bobcat Goldtwaith wrote and will direct the dark comedy, according to Variety, which is all about how a single father and high school deals with and covers up the fact that his son died in an autoerotic asphyxiation accident. Yes, you heard me: autoerotic asphyxiation. What’s next, a rom-com about the furry community? (First commenter to find me such a film gets mad props.)

Variety’s Peter Bart Uses Hancock to Call Out the Film Ratings Board
Stating that the Will Smith movie’s violent content was arguably far worse than the gross-out sexual innuendo humor in The Love Guru, Bart brings up the notion that once again, indie films are given the shaft when it comes to fair treatment and states, “Given all the inconsistencies of their rulings, they’d probably turn out to be a bunch of former IRS accountants.” Um, burn?

Eddie Murphy Misses Own Movie Premiere
The Meet Dave star was said to be off shooting for his next movie, A Thousand Words. Funny that, though… Dave‘s director Brian Robbins is also the director for Words and he managed to make it to the premiere. Best part? Nikki Finke says she’s got sources that say it was Murphy who wanted a big premiere to happen in the first place. Of course, Murphy’s people are denying this, but c’mon…

OMG! Yahoo Gets Into the Fame-Gossip Game
Click that above link only if you want to sear your retinas.

For those of you who were drawn avidly to the daily reports and good ol’ union solidarity offered up at the old United Hollywood blog, tuning into United Hollywood 2.0 may be a bit of a surprise. As of this writing, in addition to some very robust content on the Union blog and forums, there’s also a Flickr shoot (and wouldn’t it be nice if someone identified the T-shirt models?) on the Main site and one item on the Video side pimping Michael Eisner’s newest project.

That’s not half-bad—however that’s also the only non-union content the blog has had since March or April. Contributor Tom Smuts said in a reply to a comment on the Flickr shoot, “The problem is that all of UH’s founders have been pulled into jobs… jobs that in many cases are moving at a faster pace than normal to make up for time lost during the [WGA] strike.”

In the meantime, the About page says they’ll take tips and entire blog posts at unitedhollywood@gmail.com, so fire up them typin’ keys! Who knows, maybe this will be part of your big break into the biz?