Universal has declined to renew their production deal with Tom Shadyac, who directed a number of massive comedy hits for the studio, including The Nutty Professor and Liar, Liar. Shadyac clashed with the studio over his latest directorial effort, last summer’s Evan Almighty, which grossed almost $200 million worldwide but cost at least that much to make.
The AMPTP wants to negotiate with SAG. George Clooney wants the AMPTP to negotiate with SAG. So what’s the problem? SAG national exec director Doug Allen is in no hurry to start formal talks. He says the guild needs to complete internal meetings on wages and working conditions, and he won’t have anything to bring to the AMPTP until those meetings conclude in March.
In a column on the growth of online film distribution, Anne Thompson says there’s still not enough money to be made in the market to interest major the brick-and-mortar distribution stalwarts, “Which means that this movement will continue to build from the bottom up with micro-indies, not from the top down with real studio investment.”
***Apparently resigned to the idea that Evan Almighty can never recoup its costs and is basically the biggest tax write-off ever, Universal has scrapped plans to release the picture in Japan. The studio declined to state a specific reason, but Variety speculates that Steve Carell’s lack of international star power might be part of the problem. Oh, and the fact that Americans didn’t want to see it either.
***Consumer home video spending is down almost five percent, and studios are blaming themselves for releasing so much crap during the first half of the year.
***Sony, which bought online video portal Grouper last year, has changed the site’s name to Crackle as part of an effort to re-brand the property as a vehicle for Sony-produced content, as well as a launching pad for new video stars. Contests in place at launch tempt user participation by offering pitch meetings with Sony execs as a grand prize–as if kids who are getting millions of page views on YouTube would give it all up for a conference call.
Despite the fact that there was a fair amount of Evan Almighty doomcasting going into the weekend, most of this morning’s box office reports spin the sequel’s $32.3 million take as low enough to qualify as a shock.
Gregg Kilday’s writeup for the Hollywood Reporter arrives with the headline “Low tide for Universal’s ‘Almighty’ bow”; the story goes on to acknowledge that Universal is in the odd of position of “battling a perception” that the weekend’s number 1 film is a failure. “[W]hile the movie might have represented the best showing ever for newly minted star Carell — surpassing the $21.4 million opening of The 40-Year-Old Virgin in 2005 — Evan now must prove itself in the face of those who already are pointing to it as the first big-budget victim of the summer.”
Box Office Mojo directly contrastedEvan’s debut to Bruce Almighty’s record-setting $68 million bow, ultimately blaming Evan’s “all wet” performance on its lack of fantasy appeal–who wants to live vicariously through a dutiful subject of God?
Besides [Jim] Carrey, Bruce Almighty had a broadly-appealing premise
With Steve Carell hitting theaters today as a modern-day Noah to Morgan Freeman’s God in Universal’s biblical gamble Evan Almighty, I thought it would fun to look back on a time when Mr. Carell made a living by playing devil’s advocate … almost literally. In this clip of Carell and Stephen Colbert’s recurring Daily Show segment Even Stephvens, the two breakout stars debat Islam vs. Christianity. Colbert, who is a practicing Catholic in his personal life, argues for the Christian God. Carell’s response? “Stephen, what part of ‘there is no god but Allah and Muhammed is his prophet’ don’t you understand?”
With all of the effort to sell Evan to faith-based groups, you’ve got to wonder why this little artifact hasn’t sparked a totally overblown backlash.
On her blog, Variety’s Anne Thompson is linking to a subscription-only New York Times item which states that Lionsgate (who are distributing the pic in partnership with The Weinstein Company) have pushed up the opening of Michael Moore’s Sicko in response to the film’s widespread piracy. The health care doc will now open on one screen only in Manhattan this Friday, only to expand on its original opening date a week later.
I guess this is what passes as aggressive action against piracy these days, but I’m not sure what good it will do. It’ll force the Times to run their review a week early, possibly pushing Evan Almighty off the the Arts front page (which, if Nikki Finke is to be believed, could do further damage to the already poorly-tracking most expensive comedy ever made). I don’t know what the stats are regarding the rate at which online piracy decreases once a film is in theaters, but I do know that releasing the movie a week earlier in Manhattan just ensures that camcorder bootlegs will be available a week earlier on Canal Street. And by admitting that piracy is enough of a problem that they need to change their release date (I believe this is the first time a studio has shifted an opening date in response to a leak, but do let me know if I’m wrong), aren’t Lionsgate effectively letting the terrorists win?
We’ve had a bit of trouble getting this episode to go through the iTunes feed, so we hope this re-post will fix the problem. The original post, with episode description and embedded player, is here.
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