In response to Paramount’s consolidation of the marketing divisions of Paramount Pictures and Paramount Vantage, I went looking for a mash-up trailer that would give us a sense of what we’re in for. Because advertising for specialty films is typically different from advertising for major studio films. But seeing as Vantage has already done a fair enough job lately trying to make a documentary look like a teen comedy, the consolidation may not really be that noticeable after all.

Anyway, I couldn’t find a good mash-up that re-cut a recent independent film to resemble a blockbuster, so here’s something else entirely that I found during my search. It’s a Wonderful Life “made to look like the movie is about George Bailey’s descent into madness.” Consider it a belated celebration of James Stewart’s centennial (he would have been 100 on May 20th). Or consider it merely a fun re-imagining of a classic. And consider this assignment for mash-up enthusiasts: how about a reverse re-imagining of There Will Be Blood as a Capra movie?

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• Paramount doesn’t seem to be completely shutting down indie arm Paramount Vantage––they don’t seem to have given up on producing smaller-ticket prestige films, unlike Warner Brothers––but they are “folding the marketing, distribution and physical production departments of Paramount Vantage into the larger studio,” and eliminating three jobs in the process.
• Legendary 70s exploitation film I Spit On Your Grave is getting a remake. The producer of the remake cites the continuing meaninglessness of the rating system as the remake’s commercial imperative: “After seeing what was done with an R rating on films like ‘Saw’ and ‘Hostel,’ we think we can modernize this story, be competitive with what this marketplace expects and not have to aim for an NC-17 or X rating.”
• Independently produced films are expected to “dominate activity in the late summer and early fall,” as SAG continues to issue waivers to producers not affiliated with studios as strike talks drag on. Also: Werner Herzog’s Bad Lieutenant has a July 8 start date!
• Brian DePalma will make a film about The Boston Strangler. Yawn.

• Blogs are buzzing, but the fact that Michael Moore is making a sequel to Fahrenheit 9/11 is old news –– the film is referenced in this NY Times story from April of last year. The new news in this story from Variety’s Cannes section is that the film will be distributed internationally by Overture and Paramount Vantage––NOT The Weinstein Company, which handled the relatively disappointing release of Sicko. The same companies will rep the doc for international sale at Cannes.
• The Playlist has details on Miranda July’s in-the-works second feature, Things We Don’t Understand and Definitely Are Not Going To Talk About.
• The title of this post at Tisch Film Review is worded a bit confusingly, but it’s basically a list of ten great films that are not available on DVD. The Last Movie, The Mother and the Whore, etc.

Two additions to the deal chart report: after days of negotiating with several companies, Nanette Burstein has finally sold American Teen to Paramount Vantage. Also, Isaac Julien’s Derek has been acquired for US distribution and worldwide sales by Andrew Hurwitz’ Film Sales Company. See the full Sundance 2008 deals chart here.

Last night, a number of music blogs reported that portions of Jonny Greenwood’s score for Paul Thomas Anderson’s There Will Be Blood were streaming on a Paramount Vantage promotional site. So this morning, we clicked the link, followed the “Score” tab…and found nothing. The streams are nowhere to be found, the page in question blank but for the teaser that something unspecified will be “coming soon.”  Did traffic from Pitchfork overwhelm the Paramount Vantage servers? What else could have happened in the intervening 14 hours to make the stream disappear? Oh, wait — it is Halloween. Spooky!

Anyway, all is not lost. The Playlist has been on this soundtrack like John Edwards on Hillary Clinton’s inconsistencies. They’ve got the track listing for the Blood soundtrack, which reveals that two of the “songs” used in the film are excerpts recycled from Greenwood’s 18-minute orchestral composition, Popcorn Superhet Receiver, which was commissioned by the BBC in 2006. They have a link to a Real Audio download of that on the BBC’s website.

Meanwhile, The Bathysphere apparently had a chance to listen to the stream before it vanished from the Vantage site. They point to this episode of Henry Rollins’ IFC show, in which the director says he listened to “a lot of crazy Polish pirate music” like Krzysztof Penderecki while writing the film (Rollins does a wide-eyed double-take at this tidbit that’s pretty priceless). The Bathysphere points to this MP3 of Penderecki’s Threnody To The Victims Of Hiroshima, which was also used in Children of Men, and which sounds *a lot* like the music that backed the twenty-minute reel of Blood shown at Telluride.

• Paramount Vantage has delayed the worldwide release of The Kite Runner until mid-December, so that they can transport the film’s young, Afghani stars, who believe they may be in danger if they stay in their home country while the film is being released, to the US. 12-year-old actor Ahmad Khan says he was not aware that he was to play the victim of a rape in the film until the day the scene was shot, and though the finished scene is not graphic, Khan and his family are concerned about cultural repercussions.
• In more release date shuffling, Leatherheads, George Clooney’s latest directorial effort, has been pushed back from December to April. The official line is that Clooney, can’t juggle finishing the film with his duties shooting the next Coen Brothers film and promoting Michael Clayton, all the while recovering from a broken rib. Elsewhere, there are whispers of re-casting and reshoots.
• Buzz on the Ben Stiller/Farrelly Brothers remake of The Heartbreak Kid is somewhat less toxic than I would have guessed, but The Hollywood Reporter is still pegging it an unremarkable $20 million opening weekend.