Trade Roughage 12/06/05

By Karina Longworth on December 6, 2007 at 8:12 am

Desperate strike times call for Frankensteinian measures. Plus: China takes a strike at U.S. cultural imperialism, and FREAKONOMICS: THE MOVIE.

From the Is That Even Legal? file: With the writers strike seemingly neverending, CBS entertainment president Nina Tassler is asking film producers “to dust off any unproduced scripts that could be turned into TV series.” The part of the story I really love? Shoddy pastiche is encouraged: “Because most movies tend to run around two hours in length, Tassler isn’t looking to produce the full scripts. Instead, she’s asking producers to identify key scenes or passages that could be filmed and cobbled together into a pilot or shorter pilot presentation.”
China has banned the import and release of American films for at least three months. This will effectively eliminate the Chinese release of at least five major studio films, including Beowulf and Enchanted. The Chinese government probaby, in part, is looking to lessen competition for locally-produced films; there’s also a wee chance this might have something to do with the fact that it’s kind of a crap time for U.S./China relations.
Morgan Spurlock, Alex Gibney, and Jesus Camp directors Rachel Grady and Heidi Ewing are among a host of documentary stars that have signed on to direct a segment of a doc based on Steven D. Levitt’s Freakonomics. The film is being co-produced by Seth Gordon of King of Kong fame.