Hollywood Babble On & On #334: The Foundation Crumbles...

This may come as a bit of a shock to those of you who see me as a font of all things hip, trendy, and fashionable, but I have a confession to make. Growing up, I was, and still am, a science fiction fan.

I know, I spent a good part of my childhood literally consuming the works of Arthur C. Clarke, Robert Heinlein, HG Wells, Jules Verne, Harlan Ellison, Ray Bradbury, Phillip K. Dick, and of course, Isaac Asimov.

In Junior High I read just about all of the Isaac Asimov's Foundation series, a sweeping epic about the collapse of a mighty Galactic Empire, and a small community dedicated to building a new civilization from the ashes of the old.

I just read a piece that announced that a Hollywood studio was going to make a movie from Foundation, which piqued my interest, then I realized that they were going to screw it all up as usual.

The word is that Roland Emmerich, Hollywood's master of overwrought bombast will helm the movie version of Foundation.

If you listen carefully, you can hear Asimov spinning in his grave.

Now Foundation is a tricky thing to adapt. First, it's not just one book, it's a series of novels, the first ones are collections of stories illustrating episodes in Asimov's future-history, without a single character to portray as the "star" except for Hari Seldon, who, not counting the prequels, is an old man in a wheelchair and an intellectual, not an Emmerich style action hero.

As a director Emmerich is more interested in overblown special effects than telling a coherent story, which is why he's been doing so many disaster movies lately. His solution to creative problems is to bring in a bigger tidal wave.

Now it is possible to adapt Foundation, I think that it can be done. However, I do believe that its episodic structure and constantly shifting cast of characters means that a satisfying big-screen feature film is most likely an impossibility.

I've always viewed Foundation as a limited run television series like I, Claudius, where a top notch, but relatively unknown cast brings to life a compelling story, that despite what Hollywood may think, does have enough action and suspense, and doesn't need any big tidal waves. With today's technology, it could even be done pretty cheaply if you don't blow it on stars that can't carry the weight of the project. Then you'll have fans buying the DVD box-set, watching the reruns on cable, and generally keeping it a perennial favourite that will keep it a money-earner well into the future. And then there's the merchandising, I know that may sound crass, but geeks will buy merch that they feel honours the original instead of mangling it.

This is Asimov's I, Robot, all over again. What was a fascinating and compelling drama about the nature of machines and humanity, transformed into just another over-loud, gun-blasting action fest that although profitable, was pretty much forgotten within 15 minutes of the film's release.

Now I'm having nightmares of Will Smith, or Tom Cruise as a gun toting Hari Seldon, blasting bad guys left and right while tossing off catch-phrases designed to sound cool to a 12 year old.

Please Hollywood, step back from the book. For your own good, please step back from the book.

What do you readers think of this revolting development, and how would you adapt Foundation, and with whom?

Hollywood Babble On & On #333: MGM, Relativity, & 2 Combating Columnists!

The Wrap's Sharon Waxman poo-pooed Nikki Finke for poo-pooing The Wrap's story about a plot by Relativity Media to take over MGM by buying up their debt, forcing the semi-moribund studio into bankruptcy, then taking it over, sweeping out the old management, putting in some new folks, and remaking the studio in their image.

Sharon Waxman says yes, and has what is alleged to be samples from a Relativity presentation called "Project Smith." The presentation illustrates a plan to take over an unnamed studio code-named "Smith" and by the way, Studio Smith, just happens to have the James Bond franchise.

Nikki Finke says that her sources say that Relativity is planning some other deal with the debt, possibly selling it at a profit at a future date when the general economy, and the studio are on a surer footing.

I'm not sure who to believe.

So let's look at the evidence:

Relativity recently dipped its toe in MGM's pond by co-producing the remake of The Taking of Pelham 1-2-3.

However, The Taking of Pelham 1-2-3 lost a lot of money for Relativity, Columbia, and MGM, ouch.

Relativity has a very close relationship with Universal Pictures.

However, that relationship can't all that hot right now, especially after the bath both companies took with the movie Land of the Lost, and Relativity's rather odd decision to buy Universal's former "B-Movie" division Rogue Pictures and turn it into some sort of "lifestyle brand."

So this could go either way. The Project Smith papers could merely be a trial balloon by some executives at Relativity that got leaked, or it could be a real plan of action. The real trick is if Relativity and its backers have the hard cash to take over MGM, and make it an active company without amassing the sort of crippling debt that's kept the company from being more than just a bare bones distributor and a film library.

In the case of Waxman vs Finke, I only have one solution to prove who is right:

THUNDERDOME!!

Hollywood Babble On & On #332: Miscellaneous Money/Movie Musings

1. WARNER BROS. PLAYS GAMES, BARELY READS COMICS

Word is out that director Sam Raimi will direct a feature film based on the World of Warcraft online computer game for Warner Bros. It'll be the first film where the hero not only has to defeat villains, monsters, and dangerous traps, but also morbid obesity.

But seriously, I find it interesting that Warner Bros. is in such a feast or famine situation when it comes to fantasy and adventure franchises that they have to got to a video game company for ideas. They have Batman, and Harry Potter, two of the biggest movie series going, but outside of those two, they've had very little luck at best, or at worst, make Superman Returns.

The reason I find it so interesting is that Warner Bros. has the same owners as DC Comics.

DC frikkin' Comics!

They should have franchises coming out of their ears. Yet so far in the past 10 years they've had 2 Batmans (1 great, 1 stupendous), 1 Superman (whiny, tedious), 2 films that didn't leave room for traditional sequels (Watchmen, 300) and a lot of promised DC projects that never come to fruition.

Now some are pointing at the recent news about the casting of Ryan Reynolds as Green Lantern as a sure sign of a new franchise, but I still think they will find a way to screw it up.

Warner Bros. has been having a good time lately, but that doesn't mean that they should rest on their laurels. They have to find out what is blocking them from successfully developing these DC properties, and fix it. Right now comic book and fantasy franchises are hot, hot, hot, and they can't just sit back and let Marvel dominate the field.

2. SUPER-SIZE MY RELEVANCE

Morgan Spurlock the self styled gonzo documentarian and Fu Manchu mustache aficionado is going back to his biggest success by producing a comic book series inspired by his movie Super-Size Me. The comic will be a mish-mash of urban legends, and lectures about the evils of fast food.

Call me cynical, but this strikes me as Spurlock trying to reclaim some relevance after his attempt at being the thin Michael Moore, Where In The World Is Osama Bin Ladin, missed the 15 minute window that was open just after the success of Fahrenheit 9/11.

I don't think this series will last. I don't think comic fans will buy up something that is pretty much yelling at them with gross stories about their cheeseburger.

3. SOME GOOD NEWS FOR INDIES?

The indefatigable Nikki Finke reports some possible good news in the film completion insurance business, especially for independent filmmakers. I can see the potential for greatly improving the indie film business, especially since the majors seem mired in a sense of entitlement that lead to bloated CEO salaries while their stocks and investors suffer.

Right now is a good time for independent filmmakers to forge a profitable niche for themselves by making appealing films, with modest budgets, and well constructed marketing, and distribution campaigns. Of course that would require someone in independent cinema breaking their own mindset issues, and forging a bold new course.

Hollywood Babble On & On #331: 2 Bits About Bosses

1. NBC-U: IT'S EVERYONE ELSE'S FAULT

Kim Masters at The Daily Beast is a little amazed that the majority of the rumors about who is to blame for the slow sinking of the good ship NBC-Universal don't put the blame on its Captain and First Mate, CEO Jeff Zucker and network boss Ben Silverman.

The prevalent theory is that Zucker, Silverman, and/or their staff are planting the rumors in hope that it will somehow help them keep their jobs.

I can believe that theory, because they're definitely not running a studio/network, and henceforth have the time to go around planting rumors. The studio's had a string of turkeys this summer, and even managed to turn a #1 opening weekend for Bruno into a disaster.

On the network side NBC can't buy a hit, literally. The entire network's become a black hole, just being their has become a mark against the shows, regardless of quality.

The company needs a fresh start, with fresh blood, and you can't get much fresher than...
You can't blame me for trying.

Anyway, in other news...

2. BOB NEEDS HELP?

Defamer's buzzing about an anonymous help wanted ad calling for an assistant for a New York movie executive. They suspect the ad was posted by Bob Weinstein, who is debuting on this blog, and that he is in need of some help with operating The Weinstein Co. which currently makes NBC-U look well run.

Let's have a look at the ad, and I'll tell you what they're really looking for:

Responsibilities include:

· Managing heavy phones, rolling calls, and maintaining call sheet

Somebody to run interference from filmmakers demanding to know why their film hasn't been released, and won't be released, ever.

· Scheduling meetings and managing calendar for all work and personal related matters

Arrange meeting times that I'll ignore, and be able to take getting blamed for me being late.

· Supply constant mobile communication and attend to personal errands

Be able to answer my phone and wipe my ass at the same time.

· Preparation and submission of expense reports

Lots of imagination needed.

· Liaison between executive and studio presidents, financial institutions, talent agencies, principal investors, fortune 500 CEOs, writers, directors, producers, and A-list talent

You have to do it, because none of them are talking to me.

· Able to juggle multiple tasks, deadlines, and responsibilities

Basically do everything I tell you, all at the same time.

· Booking all travel and travel arrangements

Be able to book my travel on your credit card instead of the company card. The company will reimburse you, I swear.

· Traveling with executive, usually at the last minute and for unknown periods of time

I need someone to carry my luggage, and on occasion, me.

· Superb gate-keeping skills

Must be able to hold back angry torch wielding mobs. Which are legal in New York as long as they don't smoke indoors.

· Ability to travel on a moments notice and stay away from home for uncertain amounts of time

If I need you to meet me in the woods and to bring a shovel, you will do it.

· Ability to stay on top of an ever-changing day and night

Follow my mood swings.

· Attending events and company-related functions with executive

Do my running and fetching, and making sure that everyone knows that I'm still important.

· Take dictation and be responsible for speaking on behalf of executive

Write down what I say, and then leak it to the press, verbatim, to make the company look like it's still viable.

· Coordinate screenings, meetings, private lodging, parties, etc. for executive and senior staff

Must know what places don't ask for cash up front.

Experience and qualifications must include:

· BA/BS degree

We've got lots of BS here, that's for certain.

· Expansive knowledge of film and the film industry

Know the difference between who hates me, who loathes me, and who is plotting to kill me.

· Must know how to do script coverage

Look at films that we either won't make, or bury if they do get made.

· Minimum 2-3 years experience assisting another top-level executive or high-level professional

I need someone to tell me what it is that a top level executive actually does.

· Organized and detail-oriented

Be what I am not.

· Excellent writing and communication skills

Mus rite gud an talc widdout usin da word "fuck" in every sentence.

· Personable and professional demeanor

Keeping your crying jags, and depression fueled booze and drug binges on your own time.

· Minimum of three references

Not that I'll be able to check them, no one's talking to me anyway.

· Must know how to use blackberry and Microsoft Outlook

Because I don't.

· Mac & PC literate

Able to fix the computer that I threw at you.

Wow, that ad says a lot.

(Knock-Knock)

Who could that be?

Bob Weinstein?

Aaargh!

Hollywood Babble On & On #330: Pound Foolish

1. JACKSON RISES FROM THE GRAVE (SORT OF)

Word on the street is that Sony is the front runner to make some sort of feature film from the 80 hours of rehearsal footage, and pre-shot interstitial material the late pop star filmed just before his death.

Now the price is rumored to be north of $50 million. Which I find rather interesting, because the first reports said that the bidding would start at $50 million. Since they're not bragging about how frenzied the bidding was, or how much higher than $50 million the final price will be, I have the feeling that bidding wasn't particularly frenzied, or that AEG will be getting much more than starting price. At least that's my suspicion.

Anyway, this brings me to the price itself. $50,000,000 seems a tad high to me for something that may never be more than a ghoulish curiosity. Because the reports I've seen about those rehearsals say that Jackson just couldn't deliver the energy that made his early performances so popular due to age, poor health, and a reported loss of passion for performing. It strikes me that Sony will have their work cut out for them if they're going to make anything out of the 80 hours of footage that won't come across as a redux of the whole Britney Spears/MTV Awards fiasco.

Now MTV used that to get their logo on every infotainment show in the world, but Sony will be buying into a different situation. I'm talking $50 million + to buy the footage, several million in post production costs to make it into something coherent, then promotion and distribution, which could be anywhere from another $50-$100 million+ added on top. This could end up costing Sony anywhere between $100-$200 million, which means that the film would have to be a blockbuster of Transformers/Harry Potter levels to make a profit in theaters. Despite the recent canonization of Jackson in the aftermath of his demise, that sort of excitement won't be at the same fever pitch by the time the film comes out. I don't really see a concert/rehearsal film making that kind of money, even when you put DVDs into the equation.

2. POUND FOOLISHARAMA

Once upon a time a 2oth Century Fox had a show on the enchanted Fox Network called Futurama, created by Matt Groening. It did okay, I thought it's satire was a tad ham-fisted, but it had its fans. However, the Fox Network didn't think there were enough of them, so they shit-canned the show.

But that wasn't the end of this little fairy tale. Original DVD movies did very well, reviving interest in the show, and Comedy Central offered to buy new episodes for their channel.

20th Century Fox seemed happy at first to get the show moving again, but decided that they didn't need the original cast, and put out a call for cheaper replacements.

And then it was revealed that the 20th Century Fox was in fact not a Wicked Witch, but a Witless Witch.

I can't keep up the faux-fairy tale spiel, so I'll cut it out, and tell you why 20th Century Fox has its head up its ass but thinks its brilliant...

The fans of Futurama are surprisingly dedicated to the show. They watch the reruns, and the DVDs and can recite dialogue from their fave episodes. They are going to notice that the voices they have loved are gone, replaced by illegal immigrant labour, and they are going to resent it, big time. The fans are going to hold it against the new show, and most likely avoid it as a pale imitation, or rip-off, of their beloved original, and they're going to tune out.

That's why the move was stupid, but here is my theory as to why Fox thinks they're being clever.

Comedy Central is owned by a rival company, and Fox doesn't want a rival to have any success with something that they considered a failure. So they're going to sabotage this iteration of Futurama, and gloat about their rival failing.

Of course, they are ruining the success of the show as well as ruining the potential those new Futurama episodes could have in syndication, because Fox will no doubt foist them upon the broadcasters of the original Futurama, and drive those hard core fans away from that as well.

The show will fade from syndication, and an opportunity to revive a franchise and make it work will be missed.

Hollywood Babble On & On #329: Musings on Movies, Money & Madness

1. MODEST MOVIES MAKE MUCHO MONEY

The latest installment in the Harry Potter franchise raked in over $150+ million over the past 5 days, putting its studio Warner Bros. over the $1 billion mark in revenues this summer.

They're the second studio to hit that mark, right after Paramount, but unlike Paramount they don't have to contend with a massive debt with their parent company, and spending the last few years releasing films that made money for other people, but not them. They are also the only company that has consistently beat the billion for 10 of the past 11 years.

This is due to the success of Harry Potter's latest field trip from Hogwarts, but also the films that the media considered surprise moneymakers like The Hangover ($235 million domestic) and Gran Torino ($148 million).

I'm sure both were considered to have potential, or they wouldn't have been given the green light, but not that sort of potential. The Hangover was an R Rated comedy with no stars that didn't involve teenagers and pies, so the expectations of the studio were probably modest. Considering that they gleefully signed a profit participation deal with the director in lieu of an up front fee to save money they were probably very modest indeed. When it hit as big as it did, I'm sure Todd Phillips was dancing with glee.

Another film with modest expectations was Clint Eastwood's Gran Torino. Here is a film with a star that's pushing 80, playing a crusty prejudiced crank and the catchphrase of "Get off my lawn." That's not exactly what blockbusters are made from, yet that was Eastwood's strategy, one he had followed for years. Take a look at Clint's filmography, the great majority of his films had modest budgets, yet big ambitions. He deliberately followed that strategy knowing that if he proved himself a consistently profitable filmmaker and star, who didn't risk the studio's financial future with every picture, he could have the independence that he wanted even though he was a part of the studio system.

Both films succeeded, and helped push their studio over the top because the delivered what they promised, and did it at a reasonable price. If other studios followed that strategy and didn't put all their eggs in the proverbial cinematic basket of a tiny handful of overpriced, overwrought "blockbusters," and balanced them out with smaller films with broad appeal, they could reach a nice equilibrium of consistent profitability.

Sadly, too many companies are wrapped up in the "blockbuster or else" strategy to see that there's a better and cheaper way right under their noses.

2. THE SHOW MUST GO ON

The publicists for the film The Ugly Truth starring Katherine Heigl and Gerard Butler, showed some grace under pressure when the hotel that was hosting their press junket got a bomb threat.

Now I could say that the only bomb in that hotel was a Katherine Heigl romantic comedy, but I won't, because I'm classy, and I already used that joke somewhere else.

What I would like to talk about is how the publicists simply moved the entire operation to a restaurant across the street, and got the job done.

Now those publicists deserve some kudos. They followed the old showbiz maxim that the show must go on to the letter. It showed a level of professionalism that's hard to find among the spoiled masses of Hollywood's elite. This is especially true in the field of movie publicity, when disaster strikes, you use it, and milk it for as much free coverage as you can.

So to publicity department of Sony Studios, you are my magnificent bastards of the week!*

3. STARLET FALLS

I don't normally report of celebrity behavior, it's too damn repetitive, but I thought I must make a mention of reports that are burning up the gossip blogs about actress Mischa Barton. The reports, and I'm not making any claim as to their accuracy, say that she was committed to a period of psychiatric evaluation after an alleged 3 day cocaine and party binge.

I was not surprised by this report, what I am surprised is that it's not happening every day to Hollywood's current generation of starlets and wannabe starlets. We live in an age where a young actress can click with a successful TV show or movie, assume that it guarantees her a big-name A-List movie career, and flounders with a series of unseen films, missed opportunities, and dwindling finances.

Toss in the 24/7 bottomless chum bucket of gossip blogs, tabloid fish-wraps, celebrity magazines, and infotainment shows, with a nightclub culture willing to pay young actresses up to $100,000 a night to dance, drink, and do drugs in front of the paparazzi at their establishments, and an audience more interested in the schadenfreude achieved from seeing the young and attractive destroy themselves in public, and you've got a perfect recipe for self destruction.

I expect more young stars to hit bottom in the months to come. With overvalued mortgages due and no one willing to hire a neurotic addict who parties all night, every night, things are only going to get worse for a lot more of them.

*This I hope to make a regular feature where I will give kudos to deserving Hollywood folks who show professionalism, intelligence, guts, or guile.

Hollywood Babble On & On #328: Miscellaneous Money-Movie-Media Musings

As I mentioned in my last post, today was the day of the annual library sale, where the public and school libraries of three counties put all their over-stock books together and sell them at great prices. I'm talking $5 for 3 hardcovers, and $2 for 3 paperbacks (mass market and trade size).

For a stingy yet voracious reader like myself, I always go ape-shit crazy at this sale, and I bought a huge load of books for about $25 in just about every genre and subject. The trick is that you have to get to the back room of a small town library at before 8:00 AM on a Saturday, and wait amid a cloud of blackflies and mosquitoes for them to unlock the door. Then you have to fight the crowd, which gets bigger every year and these book buyers can get pretty aggressive.

Thankfully I had my mace.
I showed that little old lady who's the boss when she tried to poach that book about movies from me. And the lesson is: Don't bring a brittle hip to a mace fight.

Anyway, enough about me, because I'm really boring. You've come here to read me gripe about the business of show biz, so let's go...

1. UNIVERSAL TAKES A BATH

The flailing NBC-U empire just released their second quarter revenue report, and their profits are down 41%.

Ouch.

And don't expect things to get much better, especially with their summer tent-pole mockumentary Bruno collapsing 89% at the Box Office after a big opening night, showing that despite spending around $100 million to promote the film they bought for $42 million, the film did not have legs to wax.

While it's predecessor Borat made over $100 million domestically, the film cost less thant $20 million total, and had nowhere near the promotion budget Bruno had. Which means that NBC-Universal forgot that the real key to Borat's success was that it was so cheap to produce and release. They thought that if they spent more, they would make more, and forgetting that a hard-R comedy based on an already over-exposed concept.

And don't get me started on the NBC network. The former home of "must see TV" has become a black hole where shows go to die.

And when it comes to the management of the company, all they seem to do is worry about public relations. At this stage, changing your "message" is like giving the Titanic a paint-job as the North Atlantic comes over the poop deck. The problems with the company start and end at the very top of the company.

In my arrogant opinion, management at the top of NBC-U is completely and totally dysfunctional. And what I don't understand is that General Electric doesn't seem to see it. I know that Zucker, the CEO of NBC-U has a reputation as an ass kisser, but if I ran GE, I don't care if an executive's head shows up on my colonoscopy, if they cost me over 40% of a subsidiary's profits, I'm going to drop them the way NBC Universal dropped Life with Sarah Shahi and some guy named Damian Lewis or something like that.

Anyway, if GE actually realizes that today's economy requires all facets of a company to be at least functional, they may make a move for some reform.

Of course any move to fix NBC-U would require more than a few pink slips at the top, I could loan them a mace if they want it, but I don't think they do anything. It's the law of commercial inertia.

2. E-BOOK THE FLYING CAR OF LITERATURE

Amazon, the online bookseller, has convinced a lot of people to not buy the e-book reader The Kindle when they snuck into people's machines and deleted copies of George Orwell's 1984 because they were having a dispute with Orwell's publisher. Now they refunded the cost of the e-book to those customers but it does tells me why the e-book will be the flying car of literature, always right around the corner, but never really coming to fruition beyond a novelty.

Why?

Because when you buy a Kindle edition, you don't really own that e-book. You are merely licensing the right to read it as long as Amazon keeps on good terms with the publisher, or doesn't just take it back in an act of corporate whimsy. What's to keep them from changing the terms of use, and jack up their prices and demand that you pay the difference, or have your Kindle library deleted?

Nothing, except the fear of litigation, which companies tend to lose when they become big enough to crush all who oppose them.

That's why I will remain a Luddite when it comes to books, I prefer hard copies, and if you want to take them, you not only have to pry them from my cold dead hands, but you will have to get past my mace to even try.

3. SOMETIMES THE CLOSET ISN'T A BAD PLACE

Director/producer Todd Holland is apologizing for remarks he made at the Outfest Gay & Lesbian Film Festival, where he said that some gay actors should stay in the closet for the sake of their careers.

Now I think he was partially right. I think all actors, regardless of sexual preferences, should be in the closet.

I don't care if an actor is gay, straight, bi, tri, or has a fetish for goldfish, and I don't want to hear about it either. I would like to go on line on the internet, or in line at the supermarket, and not see yet another cover story about who the royal hell Jennifer Aniston is dating this week.

Also, I would like to get Jada Pinkett-Smith to stop going on about her and Will Smith's sex lives. Yes, you have a lot of sex, so why are you here talking about instead of at home getting your freak on? Have all the sex you want, let Will wear the French Maid outfit this time, just don't make it national freaking news, because I don't want to hear about it.

So here's my proposal, if gay actors have to be in the closet to protect their careers, then everyone else has to be in the closet as well, and place a moratorium on the media from speculating on their sex lives. Maybe this will make people learn to live without giving a shit about which actor is sleeping with which, and demand more of that bottomless chum bucket called the media than just a sexual tally card.

Hollywood Babble On & On #327: Let's Help MGM

I'm buoyed by the response I got over my suggestions with what could have been done with the $60 million pissed away on the movie Che, so I'm going to posit another possibility.

MGM-UA has been declared a going concern, and has been meeting all of its debt requirements, which bodes well for the company, but it's $5.5 billion dollar library isn't enough to keep the company going. It needs new product to increase it's value and revenue potential.

Now normally I don't support remakes, I think MGM's plan to remake Red Dawn is about 20+ years too late, but it looks like MGM might have no choice but to do some remakes until the company is on a surer financial footing.

Which is where you come in. I want you to look up the MGM library, and see what films could be used in a remake that won't offend the sense and sensibility of movie fans.

Here are my suggestions:

TELEFON: The original was a Charles Bronson vehicle where he played a KGB agent hunting Donald Pleasance who is using the phone to set off brainwashed people and turn them into killers.

THE REMAKE CONCEPT: A KGB agent, whose came to America as a sleeper in the 1970s or 80s and stayed after the USSR's collapse, finds out that an old associate has sold the list of brainwashed people, and the instructions to use them, to a terrorist organization, and has to stop the plan before this cold war relic wreaks havoc. It'll be a great part for an older actor, and if anyone says that won't sell, tell them three little words: "Gran Torino, Taken." Hat tip to Thierry Attard whose horrified reaction to the concept made me think of this post.

THE SATAN BUG: A thriller about a mad scientist threatening to "play god" with vials of stolen bio-weapons and the secret agent tasked to stop him.

THE REMAKE CONCEPT: Despite being directed by action movie legend John Sturges, and a script by top action/adventure writers Alistair McLean, James Clavell, and screenwriter Edward Anhalt, was surprisingly light on real thrills. They were trying to be more cerebral than the Bond films but when was found wanting by critics and audiences. My advice, take the thrills and suspense that's inherent in the story, and run with it.

THE BRIDE WORE BLACK: A French film by Francois Truffaut, about a woman out for revenge when her husband's killed at their wedding.

THE REMAKE CONCEPT: Beautiful woman, action, suspense, and beautiful European locales, the film makes itself.

FROM NOON TIL THREE: A rare Charles Bronson romantic comedy about an Old West outlaw who becomes a legend thanks to the overwrought imagination of a lonely widow in a big isolated house, but when he can't live up to the legend things start to get weird.

THE REMAKE CONCEPT: If handled as a satire of media culture, with liberal doses of racy comedy, it could work.

SECRET ADMIRER: An old fashioned romantic farce in the guise of an 80s teen sex comedy about a misdirected anonymous love letter that wreaks havoc wherever it goes.

THE REMAKE CONCEPT: Michael Cera, Amada Seyfried, as the leads, a sharp script, and Jason Reitman directing, you could have a winner.

YOUR PAST IS SHOWING: A mostly forgotten Peter Sellers black comedy about a TV star with a taste for elaborate disguises plotting to kill a blackmailing tabloid editor.

THE REMAKE CONCEPT: Jim Carrey dons a variety of disguises as he plots to snuff out an obnoxious gossip blogger who is blackmailing half of Hollywood. Trust me, the hissy fits it'll cause among real gossip bloggers will be worth millions in advertising.

So get poking around the MGM-UA library, come up with some concepts, and I'll poach them and pitch them to MGM myself for millions! Bwah-hah-hah!

Just kidding, MGM doesn't have millions to spare.

I'll do it for thousands! Bwah-hah-hah!

Hollywood Babble On & On #326: Regrets & Raking It In

1. THE FALL OF COMMUNISM

Director Steven Soderbergh was rather candid in an interview with UK's The Guardian newspaper, admitting that he regrets making his 2 part, 4 1/2 hour biopic of Marxist rebel Che Guevera.

Well, I can understand the regrets. I mean Soderbergh literally pissed away around $60 million dollars making an incredibly long movie about someone that the majority of people either know as a celebrity fashion accessory, or as a hopped up mini-Hitler wannabe who shot anyone and everyone that displeased him in the slightest with wild abandon. Even Fidel Castro, his one time comrade in arms, didn't like Che, sending him militarily naked to Bolivia to get killed, and only started canonizing him after his death.

What I don't understand is exactly how he got $60 million to get it made. That might become a case for Furious D, Private Dick, someday.

But anyway, it's interesting to see a filmmaker admit that he made a big $60 million mistake that despite what the Guardian says, made less than $2 million at the international box office according the most accurate sources. He might learn from it, but since he's part of Hollywood, that's probably unlikely.

And this is where you, my readers come in, I want you to come up with as many ideas as you can as to how you would spend the $60 million spent on Che, and leave them in the comments.

2. THE RISE OF CAPITALISM

American Idol host Ryan Seacrest has inked a 3 year $45 million deal to continue hosting the show.

News of this deal sparked a lot of bitching a moaning about how talentless he is, and how he doesn't deserve this sort of deal, yadda, yadda, yadda...

Well, I guess I have to repeat what I wrote in an earlier post, that while I don't care for the shows that he hosts, he does have a talent, and that is not having talent. He's not the star, and he doesn't even try to be the star of the show, he comes out, has a few words with the singer, lets the judges speak, takes a shot at Simon, reminds people of what numbers to call to vote, and then gets the hell off the stage. He doesn't go make a film about Marxist revolutionaries, do talk show appearances mocking other people's religious or political beliefs, or make pseudo-profound pronouncements on how others should live their lives. He does his job, and then he shuts the hell up.

Knowing when to shut the hell up is a supremely rare gift in Hollywood, and despite the occasional on camera screw up, he seems to be using it well, so I won't knock his fat paycheck.

Hollywood Babble On & On #325: Miscellaneous Monday Money Movie Musings

1. BRUNO GOES DOWN, BUT NOT IN THE WAY HE LIKES...

Sasha Baron Cohen's mockumentary Bruno, made about $30 million in its opening weekend, that's the good news for them. The bad news is that the ticket sales between Friday and Saturday dropped around 39%.

That doesn't bode well.

Universal paid $45.2 million to Media Rights Capital for the right to distribute the film, and then shelled out tens of millions more to promote the bejayzuz out of the flick, so if it fails to crack the $100 million mark, Universal could lose a lot of money on what looked like a sure thing.

Then again, if you looked at the history, they might have seen this coming, but I think I know why they didn't.

Borat cost $18 million dollars to make, didn't spend as much in promotion, and pulled in $128 million domestically. That's great, especially if you owned a piece of the film, but when you look at the big picture, when compared to the $500 million to $1 billion made by the big blockbusters, it's not that groundbreaking.

Then you make another movie, which is pretty much the same thing, except this time the foreigner in question is flaming gay, you run the risk of the audience going in on opening night, expecting the fresh originality of Borat, but seeing nothing new except for more genitalia on display.

This kills the repeat business, plus the word of mouth that gives a film legs past its opening weekend.

The film may pull it's onions out of the fire thanks to international box-office, but I'm not sure if the film is being distributed by UIP (Universal's international distributor that it co-owns with Paramount) or if MRC licensed those rights to other companies. I'll have to look that up.

I fear that Universal got a little caught up in the media hype over Borat, which outweighed its box-office enormously, and thought that if they spent tens of millions to sell the film they could make Bruno, even bigger. The problem is that a one-trick pony tends to have diminishing returns, and you have to protect your investment.

2. THE GERSH AGENCY GERSHES ITSELF UP

The Gersh Agency has dropped the "Agency" from its name, and now it's just called Gersh.

I'm not so sure as to why they thought that was necessary, but whatever floats their boat as they say.

The Gersh Agency also announced that Steve Gersh, the 3rd generation of Gershes, has joined the family business as an agent.

Well, I wish him good luck. Family businesses can get complicated, because of familial and business stresses working together to screw you, and a lot of them don't survive the third generation. I hope his family has taught him the business well, and that he's got the hustle in his bones to make it, because I like seeing people succeed by working hard, and not pissing it away.

My message to Steve Gersh: Don't screw it up, that's your name on the letterhead too, and that comes with a truckload of responsibility.

Hollywood Babble On & On #324: Sunday's Sundry Stumblings...

1. GREEN LANTERN CAST?

It's all over the interwebs that Warners Bros. has actually made a decision about the Green Lantern movie. To play the part of All American test pilot turned space cop Hal Jordan, they've cast a Canadian.

Vancouver spawned Ryan Reynolds, best known for playing crazy mutated anti-hero Deadpool in Wolverine: Butchered Continuity, the assistant turned hubby, turned love interest in The Proposal with Sandra Bullock, and as Macro in the coma fantasy kid show The Odyssey, will don the green jewelery and matching tights to save the various species of space sector 2814.

This brings up two issues:

WHAT ABOUT DEADPOOL? Marvel does seem intent on going through with a Deadpool movie, but Reynold's reported casting as a DC hero, in what could be the flagship of a new franchise could put an onion in their ointment.

While Deadpool has his fans, he also has a lot of detractors, who don't just not-like the character, but actively loathe the character and his 4th wall breaking motor mouth and other post-modernist tendencies. Those that like Deadpool also may not care for a non-disfigured version of their fave psychotic anti-hero in his own movie, especially one following the mangled continuity of the Wolverine movie. Despite many people saying that Reynolds' performance as Deadpool was a highlight of an otherwise forgettable movie, going forward with a Deadpool movie is still a really big risk.

Also Marvel may not like having people look at their character, and thinking about another company's character, and could nix the Deadpool movie and cut their losses before they spend too much on it.

Also...

WHAT ABOUT THE OTHER POTENTIAL LANTERNS? Just before the announcement that Reynolds was going to be the Green Lantern, the studio leaked that the top three candidates were Ryan Reynolds (natch), Bradley Cooper (hot off The Hangover) and Justin Timberlake (the boy band popster).

Now while Reynolds and Cooper both had the potential to be good at the part, I just can't wrap my considerable brainpower around the concept as Justin Timberlake even making the Top 20 possibles for the part of Hal Jordan.

Hal Jordan is essentially an old fashioned heroic lawman character. He's got his flaws, but he's essentially a straight arrow, fearless, and possessing a powerful will. He's first and foremost an adult.

Timberlake, despite his age, and his attempts at growing a pubescent beard, is still a kid. Where the Green Lantern may present righteous anger, Timberlake would look like a teenager having a hissy. The only reason he could have possibly been considered was because of his success as a pop star, and some studio executive thought that it could translate into line ups of teenage girls buying tickets to see him again and again, the way they did with Leonardo DiCaprio in Titanic.

Yet the real performance of his attempts to play in movies shows that while those girls may buy his albums, and swoon over his curls in a Tiger Beat style photo-shoot, they aren't going to pay to see him on the big screen.

Which illustrates a problem in Hollywood. It's obsession with youth has rendered very few modern "leading men" to have the maturity necessary to play real leading man roles. There are just too many vain pretty-boys, and too many slovenly immature boy-men, and not enough men who look like they can handle themselves in a fight without a lot of special effects and trick editing.

2. THE ONE TRICK PONY

Bruno has opened big, and is looking that it might top Borat's $120 million+ box office take, which is pretty impressive for a hard "R" rated movie.

But it also creates a problem for Sasha Baron Cohen, the creator and star of Bruno and Borat. Outside of occassional acting roles, the British comedian has essentially based his career on ambushing people while playing aggressively obnoxious characters.

The problem is that he, and his characters are now a tad too well known for that sort of comedy to work. Even during the filming of Bruno the internet was abuzz of fashion shows, and premieres that he was crashing, and pondering where he would strike next.

That's not good when you've based your career on being a cypher outside the characters you portray.

Also Cohen is facing some harsh criticism for Bruno, mostly because he takes a slightly different tack than he did with Borat. In his first film he used Borat to harrass and annoy reactions out of ordinary Americans, with Bruno he's reportedly gone after the Hollywood fame machine itself, and they don't care when people piss in their own lawn. He could stop being the critic's darling, and that could hurt his next project.

And Cohen's act isn't exactly new. Canadian comedian Rick Mercer did a gentler, but still funny version of the same schtick in the late 1990s and early 2000s with Talking To Americans.



Interestingly, I read an interview with Mercer that gave his theory on why this worked. Mercer said that the working and middle class folks gave him the impression that they were onto him, but played along because they thought it was funny, and didn't want to be rude to the strange out of towner, but it was the politicians, university professors, and other "brain trust" professionals, that seemed to fall for it the worst. (And also the funniest parts of the skit.)

Mercer, like Cohen, knew that by using Americans, they were less likely than folks in other countries to beat the living piss out of him, and it helped make audiences in other countries feel smarter than the folks in the most powerful nation on Earth.

My advice to Cohen, first: I hope you banked your money, second, find another act, this one's done and dusted, and it's time to move onto something else.

Hollywood Babble On & On #323: Independent Daze...

1. TROUBLE IN PARADISE OR A TROJAN HORSE?

Lionsgate's management has made a deal with 19.8% shareholder Mark Rachesky to go on the company's board and apparently side with them against corporate activist/raider Carl Icahn.

The twist in the tail is that Rachesky is an old friend and former apprentice to Icahn. So you can look at this in two ways. Is there a breech in the relationship between Rachesky and his mentor? Or is he going to be a Trojan Horse, and help open the gates to Icahn and finalize his planned takeover of the company?

These two men have a lot of history, so it's a matter of time if we see if they're really rivals, or allies in the takeover of Lionsgate.

I hope that whoever takes over Lionsgate, that it's the company that survives. It has the potential to provide a new business model for Hollywood if the management has the right philosophy.

So let's keep our eyes peeled on this one.

2. WEINSTEIN CAN DO BASTERDS, BUT PROBABLY NOT MUCH ELSE...

Nikki Finke reports some good news and bad news for the battered and beleagured Weinstein Company.

First...

THE GOOD NEWS: It looks like Harvey and Bob were able to shake enough change out of the couch cushions, and clip enough enough coupons to put the $30 million minimum needed to handle the domestic release of Quentin Tarantino's Inglorious Basterds.

Of course this is a mixed blessing for the company. To raise this money they had to hoard all their available cash, and not release a lot of their upcoming production slate, including some rather expensive productions. Which is really not much of a change in their usual business model of burying productions made by anyone whose name doesn't rhyme with Benton Farentino.

However, this is still a terrible risk for the Weinstein Company, because their whole future is pretty much riding on this one film. As I've said before, the roots of the film are in the dark, nihilistic, and anarchistic European war-action-exploitation films of the 1960s and 70s. American audiences may not care for a dark, nihilistic and anarchistic view of the war that made grampa a hero, and could be turned off by the whole thing.

The film may do connect better with European audiences, who remember WW2 differently than Americans, but those distribution rights, and the revenues they come with, are with Universal. That means if Americans don't make Basterds a domestic hit, the Weinstein Co. is going to be screwed royally.

And now...

THE BAD NEWS: A rumour that the Encore/Starz media company was going to invest in TWC was referred to by a company insider as "complete and utter bullshit."

BURN!

But seriously, why would anyone invest in TWC in any way that didn't involve the ouster of the men whose name graces the stationary.

I mean these are the people who:

A. Bought loads of independent films, only to sit on them, sometimes for eons, and refuse to release them for obscure accountancy reasons, ensuring that any momentum, and potential for profits, from the festival attention these films got is lost completely.

B. Started a feud with NBC-Universal over Project Runway, resulting in millions lost to litigation over bad faith contract negotiations, and a major mega-conglomerate contemplating the aesthetics of their heads on pikes.

C. Put all their eggs in the basket of getting another Oscar under their belt, destroying relationships, alienating Academy voters, and putting no thought into releasing something that might, you know, make a lot of money.

D. Produced and released a lot of really shitty films that lost boatloads of money.

E. Pissed off just about everyone that ever did business with them.

I can understand the position of Encore/Starz completely.

Hollywood Babble On & On #322: A Couple of Miscellaneous Money-Movie Musings...

1. MGM GETS A THUMBS UP

At least they get a thumbs up from the auditors, who declared the long moribund company a "going concern" in a recent report. (h/t Nikki Finke)

Well, bully for MGM I say, especially with some interested and potentially very serious buyers sniffing around.

Let's hope that these buyers are able to get around the company's crippling debt, and get the company on a solid and productive footing again. And since I don't like to repeat myself, though I often do, here are a few tips they might want to consider.

Plus, I hope that they don't try to leap right into trying to make the company a mega-major again, it hasn't been that since the late 1960s, and has to start modest, and grow from there.

2. NBC PINS A SPIN MEISTER

Jeff Zucker, the head of NBC Universal, appointed a long-time friend to take over public relations for the battered network/studio conglomerate. I had made some suggestions of who they could hire, but Zucker had his own ideas.

This news has sparked one of my trademark PSYCHIC FLASHES!

I predict that they'll be crowing a lot about Sasha Baron Cohen's Bruno making a lot of money on its opening, while completely ignoring the financial and creative washout of Land of the Lost, or that NBC could be the only network on the air, and still end up in fourth place.

Hollywood Babble On & On #321: Michael Jackson Is Dead, Alas

I managed to avoid the almost non-stop live coverage of Michael Jackson's memorial service, but unless I am willing to move to a cave in Uzbekistan, I just can't escape hearing at least some of the tidbits. The coverage of the memorial scored about 31 million viewers in the USA, a few million less than the last funeral given such coverage, the memorial for Ronald Reagan in 2004.

But I'm not here to talk about ratings, instead I'm going to tell you what I think the memorial told me about Michael Jackson the man and the world he lived in. And I've made a couple of lists...

WHAT I SAW:

1. His coffin was GOLD PLATED. Yep, a solid bronze coffin, plated in 14k gold. I'm sorry, but even an 18th century French market would look at that crate and think it was ostentatious and went beyond the line of tacky, to the realm of just plain nutty.

2. People are criticizing the family for putting his young children out on stage to somehow defend their father to wider world.

3. Many of the speakers went beyond telling the world about his success as an entertainer, but instead declared him the greatest entertainer who ever lived, and giving him credit for things like the election of Barack Obama, which occurred about 20 years after his last major hit album.

4. Many of the same "friends and associates" are now trying to squeeze something for themselves out of his death, from his former personal videographer/manager (and former gay porn producer) selling insider tidbits to the highest bidder, and even Barbara Walters, ignoring the wishes of the grieving family to score some illicit footage with a spy camera.

5. The family is supposedly arguing over where to bury him. Some want him in Neverland, hoping to make it some sort of Graceland type theme park, while others want him buried someplace else where he could rest in peace, and not be part of a package tour, two-bits a gander.

WHAT THOSE THINGS TOLD ME:

1. I associate waste with Michael Jackson. Wasted potential, wasted talent, a thousand wasted opportunities, and millions in wasted dollars. What purpose does this coffin serve other than to promote some sort of image of Jacko as a mad wasteful royal wannabe, and giving the mutant grave-robbers of our post-apocalyptic future something worth stealing after society totally collapses in 2059? Like just about everything in Jackson's life, there were a million better things that could have been done with those resources, but those things weren't done for reasons that really don't make any rational sense.

2. Personally, I think those kids have enough baggage to deal with, and making them part of the on-stage circus just strikes me as exploitative. Of course exploiting and emotionally scarring children is a Jackson family tradition, and that's according to Michael himself.

3. This shows the tendency to glorify the man way beyond his accomplishments. He had a lot of hits, and one ultra-mega-hit album with Thriller, but his career really didn't have the longevity or artistic adaptability necessary for supreme greatness in entertainment. Everything he did after-Thriller was pretty much indistinguishable from Thriller, with the addition of extreme plastic surgery and crotch grabbing to his repertoire. Also the rush to sanctify Jackson was pretty much a slap in the face of people like Martin Luther King, and the other African Americans who did way more than him, with apparently a lot less appreciation.

He was a great entertainer, his past success showed that, but he wasn't the greatest, and while he did a lot, he didn't change the world in the ways these people claim. And let's not forget how many of these same people wouldn't touch him with a ten foot pole when his sales were in the tank and he was being accused of child molestation. Like Jackson's life, and Hollywood itself, there's no restraint, and a bloated sense of importance.

4. Too many of the people who claimed friendship with Jackson are now trying to profit from him, and his death. It tells us a lot about the nature of fame and personal relationships. He used his personal relationships to get attention, and henceforth profit, and they in turn try to use their relationship with him for profit.

5. Everything associated with Jackson always seems to end in an argument, and usually in litigation. It's only a matter of time before the lawyers get involved, and then things will get really ugly, and no one involved will be safe.

Of course the big lesson of all this is that Jackson wasn't just an entertainer, he, and his memorial, was the embodiment of Hollywood itself. The wasting of potential & talent, the exploitation of innocent people, the overweening self-importance and ego at the expense of reality, the sleazy and corrupt nature of personal relationships, and even in death, everything ends in arguments and inevitable litigation.

He could have been a movie studio.

Hollywood Babble On & On #320: No Camp Hollywood This Year

According the indefatigable Nikki Finke the annual Camp Allen Big Money Confab is on again this year in Sun Valley, Idaho and that no studio or big media honchos were invited.

OUCH!

Now some folks are saying that it's inevitable, everything's going on the internet, and that for some reason the internet won't need professional quality entertainment content, but I beg to differ.

I think it's the studios' own damn fault that they weren't invited.

This camp is where the uber-rich gather, plot world domination, realize that they already dominate the world, pat each other on back, have some beer and barbecue, and then talk about where they can put their money to work.

One of those places where their money doesn't work is Hollywood.

Hollywood had it good during the hedge fund/sub-prime boom of the last few years, investors literally had money to burn, and when you're trying to dodge America's convoluted tax system, there's no better place to burn it than in the convoluted money system of Hollywood.

We're talking about a system where a film can make hundreds of millions at the box office, sell hundreds of thousands of DVDs, exponentially beating the costs of making and marketing, and still lose money.

This is the self-fulfilling idiocy that I've been talking about since I started this blog.

For those unwilling to look in my archives for the definition of that little nugget of unwisdom, I'll restate it here.

A self-fulfilling idiocy is a plan devised to solve a perceived (but not necessarily real) problem, yet this plan is so stupid, that only a complete idiot cannot see that it will cause even more (and all too real) problems in the future.

It's like a self-fulfilling prophecy, only with more stupid.

Hollywood thought that they had a problem, namely that they weren't making enough money for themselves. So they created their convoluted accounting system that takes what should be a simple business and making it needlessly complicated.

The management tells the shareholders that it's to protect their interests and guard their profits, so the shareholders went along, at first.

Then the idiocy kicked in.

People who had profit participation in individual films started getting screwed out of their fair share, so they started demanding more money up front.

The studios then started spending more on "stars" causing costs to go up. To recoup the costs they started going after the unions. The unions started fighting back, getting more and more money up front, causing costs to rise even more.

All during this time the studio management started hiking their own salaries and perks to levels more befitting an 18th century French monarch than a mid-level business man.

Real profit margins began to shrink, but the investors stood by and let it happen, partially because of the tax write-offs, and partly because of the real money made by the occasional mega-blockbuster.

Costs keep going up, more in tune with the inflation rates of Zimbabwe than the real costs of making movies, and real margins continue to shrink. But they can continue to count on outside investment to keep them going because Wall Street was swimming in cash.

It basically went from being a business to a Ponzi Scheme, where instead of the first investors making the money, it's the management that scores the cash, through their salary and perks.

No one seemed to mind until the Wall Street money train came to a screeching halt. Suddenly investors started demanding actual returns on their investments, and the studios were gobsmacked, because they literally don't know how to do that.

So you get studios finding it hard to find financing, even though box-office numbers are strong, because who wants to toss their money into a black hole?

Which is why Hollywood was left out of Camp Allen, it's about opportunities, not idiocy. If Hollywood wants back in on the whole deal, they better get off their duffs and reform how everything is done in Hollywood, from the top down.

Hollywood Babble On & On #319: Money Musings From the WTF Files...

1. VIEW THIS?

There's a report going around the interwebs that a major studio is planning to do a big screen movie based on the Viewmaster.

I hope that it's a joke, not unlike my attempt at a Hungry-Hungry Hippos movie rumour, but a lot of people seem to be taking this Viewmaster movie seriously.

For those of you who don't predate Nintendo, the Viewmaster was a toy that looked like red plastic binoculars, but they didn't work like binoculars. You had to get a little cardboard circle, ringed with tiny photo-slides, shove it into the Viewmaster, hold it up to the light, look in, and you would see a 3D picture of the 1965 World's Fair.

Doesn't that just scream a big budget motion picture?

Which is why I hope it's a joke, because it's beyond ridiculous. Viewmasters may have pictures, but they certainly don't have any of the motion you need for a motion picture. They're the sort of toy that you use a little on Xmas day, toss in a box, and never think of again until years later and you're cleaning out your basement and say, "Hey, my old Viewmaster," look in it one more time, and then toss it back into the box until the scene repeats itself again when you're with your grandchildren and packing for you trip to the old folks home.

It's such a lame idea I'm certain that a studio is probably going to drop a few million on it.

2. MICHAEL JACKSON IS STILL EXPENSIVE

This time it's the taxpayers of California who are shelling out a reported $2.5 million for the police, and other sundries overseeing today's media circus.

AEG, the concert promoter and host of this event, has refused to pay for these extras, even though they are trying to use this event to suck some cash out of Jackson's legacy.

Now any other state would have said: "Whoa there pardner, no moolah, no memorial."

But this isn't any other state, this is California, otherwise known as fame's doormat.

A state that's paying vendors and suppliers with IOU's because it HAS NO MONEY, is taking a $2.5 million hit that it can't afford because it involves someone famous.

If AEG refused to put up the money for the police, fire, and ambulance services that have to oversee such an event, I'd have given them a big fat no. They could do it in another city, I wouldn't care. And don't talk about tourists will somehow pay for it by spending money in LA, and boost the economy, but I can't see it having that much of an effect. The state's economy, tax system, and government has become a massive black hole, where if you don't get your money up front, you're probably not going to get it at all once it's been picked apart. It's like studio bookkeeping, but writ large, and as a philosophy of governance.

Also, it's the principle of the thing. The state of California has to stop being a doormat for anyone and anything that can rouse some media attention, and get down to business.

I'd have billed AEG, and then billed the major media outlets like CNN, Fox News, and the networks for the right to cover the event. If they complain, tell them to sue, and remind them who the judges work for, and that by the time they get it to court, the event will be long over.

Sure, it's extortion, but desperate times call for desperate measures.