One of several sponsored by Entertainment Weekly, this panel brings together four filmmakers who will be flogging their upcoming wares on other panels here this weekend: Judd Apatow (producer of Pineapple Express), Kevin Smith (Zach and Miri Make a Porno), Zach Snyder (The Watchmen) and Frank Miller (The Spirit).

According to the guide, it’ll be an evening devoted to “a free-wheeling conversation on the movie business, their upcoming projects, and what it means—to them—to be a geek.” But mostly, people are probably just anxious to get a seat for Kevin Smith’s annual stand-up comedy session, which begins in the same room immediately after, although if Frank Miller is yet aware of the drubbing The Spirit panel is getting online, things might get interesting…

Highlights:

–Judd Apatow is a) getting laid tonight, and b) has the studios by “a little bit of one ball.” But Kevin Smith, as his inspiration, can call him “bitch.”

–Kevin Smith admits to having gained weight since last year and laments that soon it will be so bad, “they’ll have to remove a wall of Comic-Con to get me out.” But he also insists he will be ready to die once he’s seen Watchmen, so that might not be an issue.

–Frank Miller is a cranky old man who doesn’t understand Google. But he’s pro web video!

–Zach Snyder gives details on the progress (or lack thereof) on a Watchmen video game, and explains why games based on movies are “not marketing, it can’t be an afterthought.”

Full transcript after the jump.

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Entertainment Weekly’s cover story is peek at pre-production on W, Oliver Stone’s much-discussed George W. Bush biopic. That’s Josh Brolin above, in makeup for the lead role. In the story, we learn:

• That script that seemed too parodic to be true was apparently at least two drafts away from the shooting script.
• Bush historian Robert Draper on that early script: “[I]t just misses the guy…You come away with an even more hyperbolized caricature of Bush the Cowboy President than is already out there.”
• Dick Cheney had yet to be cast by the time the EW story went to press, but Stone is reportedly considering Paul Giamatti. Which would be AWESOME.
• In the effort to produce this thing quickly and cheaply (the projected release date for this yet-to-be made film has now inched up to October[!]), Stone is taking advantage of Louisiana’s massive tax breaks, presumably using The Bayou State as a stand in for Texas, D.C. and Yale.
• Speaking of that improbable release date: Stone’s producers are said to be “planning to run TV spots opposite McCain’s ads this fall.”
• Stone on W’s jokiness: “This movie can be funnier because Bush is funny. He’s awkward and goofy and makes faces all the time. He’s not your average president. So let’s have some fun with it. What are they going to do? ‘Discredit’ me again?’

Never mind the fact that my school just let out for spring break. It’s a beautiful 77 degrees in New York City today, the outdoor bars are open and I’m wearing shorts for the first time this year. Plus, the Entertainment Weekly Summer Movie Preview just arrived in my mailbox, giving me the signal that it is officially the blockbuster season. Sure, May 2nd isn’t for two more weeks, when technically Iron Man begins the summer movie stretch (can’t we just pretend The Forbidden Kingdom is the first summer action flick?), but nothing says, “break out the beach ball,” like the bible of blockbuster buzz.

Yet there’s something strange about this year’s issue. There’s a little less marketing-agency-fueled promotion and a little more reality checking. Maybe it’s because these days, thanks to the web, most moviegoers have already heard about the big releases. That would explain why EW devotes most of its two-page spread on The Incredible Hulk to describing its troubles:

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Ted at BigScreenLittleScreen alerts us to this stupid post about There Will Be Blood by Marc Bernadin at EW:

When you hear that title, the moniker given to Paul Thomas Anderson’s latest, what images spring to mind? Gothic vampires, sure. A revenge film? Serial killer thriller, perhaps? Torture porn?…Would you feel swindled if you showed up to see a movie called There Will Be Blood and got a period piece about crude drilling? Is this a case of smart marketing, or a shifty bait-and-switch?

Take a break to roll your eyes, and then move on to Ted’s smackdown, which focuses on Bernadin’s just plain dumb reasoning:

If you’re telling me we’re at the point where people are waddling up to the ticket booth and making ad hoc selections based solely on film titles, then either a) it’s time to pack it up and shut it down, or b) look out for a big push coming down the pike for big-budgeted features under names like Strong Violence, or for the romantics: Brief Sensuality.

Ted’s right, but having seen the film, I’ll take it a step further: it’s not even a misnomer! There IS blood! Actual, red, product-of-violence blood! In several points across the film, although ultimately, the title could be literally read as a spoiler for the final scene. I also think it refers to a whole lot of thematic stuff about non-literal blood–blood as a synonym for family, genetics as a determinant to who we are, our fates, the way we relate to people, etc. Ted’s right that Bernadin’s argument is insanely literal, but worse than that–it’s literally inaccurate.

Is overexposure bad for the Sundance Film Festival?
Is a reputation for schmooz bad for the Sundance Film Festival?
Is Paris Hilton (and the like) bad for the Sundance Film Festival?

We could all go on and on, right? However you choose to phrase it, the heart of the question is the same: Has the “true meaning” of Sundance become lost in the party madness?

The first wording of the question–Is overexposure bad for the Sundance Film Festival?–came from Robert Butler in a piece he wrote for PopWire on PopMatters. He doesn’t actually answer his own question, but he does raise some interesting points:

…with success has come second-guessing. Owen Gleiberman, Entertainment Weekly’s chief movie critic, has said that increasingly Sundance is showcasing films with such big names and solid financial backing that the word “independent” doesn’t apply.

Gleiberman has also written about the Sundance “bubble effect,” in which certain films generated a frenzy among festival goers and were fought over by competing distributors. The problem, Gleiberman writes, is that many of these festival favorites become real-world flops. They are “bubbles, destined to burst.”

Starting the Slamdance festival 13 years ago was obviously a way to counter the growing glitz of Sundance and the scores of people who go each year motivated by attractions other than movies.

But many people still don’t think Sundance has issues that need to be countered. Again, from Butler’s article:

Kevin Willmott, the Lawrence, Kan., filmmaker who took his mini-budgeted film C.S.A.: The Confederate States of America to Sundance in 2004, said the fest is invaluable in getting a low-budget film in front of a large audience.

“For a genuine independent filmmaker Sundance is a huge deal. The day they announced that C.S.A. had been accepted by Sundance I got about 100 phone calls from agents and other folks.”

It all comes back around to that big, hairy distribution monster, doesn’t it?