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Trade Roughage 2/15/08

Karina Longworth
By Karina Longworth posted 9 months ago
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  • 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.”

Jackass 2.5: The Strike Implications

Karina Longworth
By Karina Longworth posted 11 months ago
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The Underwire spots the strike-assisted irony in that story from last week about the online release of the next installment of the Jackass franchise:

The studios are locked in a death grip with the Writers Guild of America over the future of digital entertainment. When negotiations began, the studios claimed there wasn’t yet enough money being made online for them to keep track of such new-fangled bangs and whistles. So, to prove their point that they’re not making any money online, Viacom is releasing a major feature film through the internet. Doh!

I don’t know if we can really classify a glorified blooper reel that would have gone direct to DVD anyway as “a major feature film,” but the argument’s still pretty solid. And Jackass is a particularly interesting example of the contested territory that the writers are striking over––although, I’m afraid that if I were to think too hard about someone “writing” something like the above, my brain might explode. In any case, can’t wait for the YouTube dramatization of this little twist in the saga to pop up on United Hollywood.