Our friends at The Playlist are expressing skepticism over Jason Bateman’s latest claim that the Arrested Development movie is “in the works,” but at the very least, Bateman’s insistence on talking the thing up in spite of a total lack of hard evidence that the movie exists is a fascinating example of how not-quite major stars can use the press to their advantage.
When Bateman first mentioned the thing, on the Juno press tour, the press went nuts––probably primarily because 90% of Arrested Development’s devoted fan bas consists of bloggers and journalists. Juno had an unusually long press cycle for a studio film, beginning at Telluride and continuing straight through Oscar night, and for about a week, its fourth billed star was able to temporarily hijack the attention and steer it towards his dream project. He’s essentially doing the same thing with Hancock: he again has a supporting role, but any little crumbs he has to offer about an AD movie (and the couple of sentences dropped here are less than substantial) are far more interesting than anything he could say about the joys of working with Will Smith.
We made the most recent entry to our Sundance deal chart late Sunday, and since then, there just hasn’t been anything firm to report. In fact, from Sunday to Tuesday, I think there have been more “why aren’t movies selling” think pieces in places like Variety and the New York Times than their have been actual deals throughout the course of the festival. Of course, nobody really knows what the problem is, but everyone’s willing to hazard a guess.
In her writeup for Variety proper, Anne Thompson said buyers are holding out for “that magic combo of an easy-to-market movie that will earn great reviews”; on her blog, she said buyers “are looking for love. And some may not have found it yet.” David M. Halbfinger’s NYT piece suggests that buyers are holding out in the hopes that prices wold drop. He also manages to find a way to blame bloggers for the sluggishness, with a quote from Sony’s Tom Bernard:
I’m getting ready to see a four-hour Tom Petty documentary directed by Peter Bogdanovich (yes, seriously) so I’ll have to be brief, but bits of news are trickling out that indicate Warner Brothers has essentially sabotaged its already half-assed wide-ish rollout of The Assassination of Jesse James By The Coward Robert Ford by making it nearly impossible for critics in mid-size cities to see the thing. The evidence follows after the jump; if you’ve seen/heard similar stories from your part of the country, do post links in the comments.
Almost two weeks ago, I posted the news that Brian DePalma canceled a press conference previously scheduled to coincide with a screening of Redacted at the New York Film Festival. NYFF’s press office has just sent out a press release announcing that, “by popular demand”, DePalma has agreed to the meet the press after all.
The press conference, rescheduled for Monday afternoon, should be particularly interesting in light of the fact that Redacted has been widelyreviled by most of the New Yorkpress (myself included). In fact, the only local defender of the film that I can name off the top of my head is New York Magazine’s David Edelstein, who just this morning blogged about not being able to get a word in edgewise at Tuesday’s Todd Haynes event. I wonder: will the Redacted haters cancel their Columbus Day plans en masse in order to get all up in DePalma’s face, or will Edelstein have a much easier time getting his questions answered?
While I’m busy digesting today’s mind-boggling NYFF double feature of Carlos Reygadas’ Silent Light and Abel Ferrara’s Go Go Tales, here’s a few bits of news and thoughts from the last couple of days of press screenings:
Brian DePalma has backed out of a press conference previously scheduled to follow tomorrow’s press screening of Redacted. It’s the first real disappointment of the fest, and its announcement was met with an audible sigh from the assembled press this morning. I saw the film at Telluride and would not call myself its biggest fan, but I was looking forward to hearing from DePalma’s cast of non-professional actors. No specific reason for DePalma’s last-minute cancellation was given, although as he’s still scheduled to appear at Redacted’s public NYFF premiere on October 10, we can probably chalk this up to a travel conflict. But the fact that an audience of public ticket buyers and Lincoln Center patrons will make for a softer post-screening Q & A? That’s gotta be gravy.
Just before taking off for the weekend on Friday afternoon, I saw a blog post claiming that a film critic had died from a heart attack suffered during a press screening of A Mighty Heart. Returning to the computer this morning, it’s clear that the story wasn’t just a bad joke: Anderson Jones, formerly of E! Online and most recently of FilmStew.com, did indeed pass away sometime last week whilst watching the Angelina Jolie film at the Arclight in Hollywood.
As former editor of RoughCut.com, Jones was responsible for turning David Poland into a blogger. As an editor at E! Online, he frequently shared his expertise on-camera in various installments of the E! True Hollywood Story. Tributes to Jones are flying in from all corners of the web, although as Jeff Wells notes, E! has yet to comment, or even post a news item about the passing of their former employee. This might owe to the fact that Jones’ association with the site didn’t exactly end well. As FilmStew’s Richard Horgan puts it, the “always outspoken, proudly gay and often infuriating” Jones
…cried wolf so many times with E! Online that when he finally really did have a humdinger of a dog-ate-my-homework-scenario
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.
filmcouch-114
We made the most recent entry to our Sundance deal chart late Sunday, and since then, there just hasn’t been anything firm to report. In fact, from Sunday to Tuesday, I think there have been more “why aren’t movies selling” think pieces in places like Variety and the New York Times than their have been actual deals throughout the course of the festival. Of course, nobody really knows what the problem is, but everyone’s willing to hazard a guess.
I’m getting ready to see a four-hour Tom Petty documentary directed by Peter Bogdanovich (yes, 
Almost two weeks ago
