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SAG Strike Threat Eliminated. Trade Roughage 01/27/09

By Christopher Campbell posted 9 months ago

Threat of a SAG strike is now nearly eliminated following the guild’s National Board of Directors’ firing of national executive director and chief negotiator Doug Allen. Also, the board disbanded the TV/Theatrical Negotiating Committee. While we can now rest assured there will be no work stoppage, though, SAG’s lack of unity will unfortunately continue.
Brendan Fraser may have bombed at the box office this past weekend, but his career will always be safe as long as he’s willing to do movies like Furry Vengeance, in which he’ll play a real estate developer battling against “a band of angry critters.”
While film writers are being axed everywhere, at least two are finding other gigs in filmmaking: Latino Review’s Kellvin Chavez and IESB.net’s Robert Sanchez are two of the producers working on the comic adaptation El Zombo Fantasma, which is described as a “Latino Hellboy.”
Anyone who has ever wished to see Hilary Duff gunned down by machine guns rejoice! The former Disney Channel starlet will play Bonnie Parker in a new telling of the story of Bonnie and Clyde, ingeniously titled The Story of Bonnie and Clyde. Transamerica’s Kevin Zegers will play Clyde Barrow.
Fans of Defiance rejoice! Jamie Bell and Daniel Craig will be reunited for Steven Spielberg’s The Adventures of Tintin: Secret of the Unicorn, in which they’ll play Tintin and Red Rackham, respectively.
Fans of Carl Franklin’s Devil With a Blue Dress rejoice! Denzel Washington will be reunited with Jennifer Beals in the Hughes brothers’ The Book of Eli. She’ll play a blind woman who is both daughter to Mila Kunis and sexual prize of Gary Oldman.
Sundance attendees who loved Sin Nombre rejoice! Director Cary Joji Fukunaga has lined up his next two projects at Universal/Focus Features.

Hollywood, Indies

Sundance News 01/16/09: Redford Offers Hope

By Christopher Campbell posted 9 months ago

Robert Redford’s opening address yesterday offered a hopeful horizon. Though this year’s festival (and independent film in general) may face hard times, at least the Obama presidency is here. “This could be a very inspiring time for artists,” he told the crowd. And the concurrence (not coincidence) of the inauguration happening at the same time as Sundance, “draws attention to the fact that we’re going to be seeing changes coming when it comes to art.”
Focus Features’ James Schamus also brings hope that passion for films could beat the empty wallet woes: “I’ve lost money on movies I’ve loved and acquired and made money on movies I’ve loved and acquired. I’ll overpay this year if I feel like it.”
Update on the SAG controversy: Anne Thompson posts the guild’s response to the waiver “issue.” And if you want it more heated than that, check out the snowballing discussions from Nikki Finke and Patrick Goldstein.
Sundance vet and regular Gregg Araki on the Prop 8 controversy: “a Sundance boycott would end up being a profound disservice to the gay civil rights movement as a whole.” Plus, the filmmaker takes a look at this year’s gay-themed films at the fest.
Sundance and iTunes have gotten together again to make 10 of this year’s festival’s shorts available for free download during the event.
Defamer’s Stu VanAirsdale lists this year’s “10 Celebrities With the Most to Lose,” with Spread star and online Sundance game show host Ashton Kutcher in the most “severe” position.
E! ups the initial buzzed about titles to 25. Anyone want to go to 50?

Festivals, Indies, Sundance 2009

Sundance News 01/14/09: Regifting Swag to Charity

By Christopher Campbell posted 9 months ago

Variety continues the coverage of how “subdued” this year’s festival will be. Reportedly, the cool new trend is regifting swag bags to charity. Meanwhile, IFC’s Arianna Bocco points out the should-be-obvious truth: “If people love something, they will still compete to get it, regardless of the larger economic situation.”
And the Los Angeles Times seems certain there’s a lot to love. Rather than concentrate on the negative ramifications of a recession-set Sundance, Kenneth Turan notes the number of films selected this year is still staggering, the “hubbub” over swag and celebrities is still in full force, and the quality of the films should be as high as usual.
But why worry about the economic troubles of Sundance anyway when, according to Michael Cieply at The Carpetbagger, there are more pressing matters at hand involving a complicated issue with festival films produced under waiver agreements from the Screen Actors Guild. Studios may not legally be able to pick up these films as long as there’s no contract and still threat of a SAG strike.
Fortunately, for those films that aren’t picked up, Anthony Kaufman has a focus on the DIY release alternative over at indieWire.
The Hollywood Reporter highlights the 10 films likely to acquire distribution, as well as five additional, lesser-known titles that may be underdog performers.
Apparently those Sundance attendees on their way to Park City today or tomorrow are already too late to the parties. Last night, Real World Brooklyn cast member Baya Voce kicked things off early at The Star Bar.

Festivals, Sundance 2009

SAG Strike Still Approaching. Trade Roughage 10/01/08

By Christopher Campbell posted 1 year ago

Remember how Hollywood feared a Screen Actors Guild strike earlier this year following the devastating WGA strike? Well, after a summer of fruitless negotiating, a strike from SAG may indeed finally happen. The guild is voting today on whether or not to ask its members for a work stoppage, which could have actors walking out around the same time the writer’s started picketing a year ago.
Adding to my single reason for not switching to a Mac, Netflix’s Watch Instantly service will now stream 1,000 additional movies courtesy of a deal with Starz. Time to finally buy a Roku, if you haven’t already.
Universal was reportedly already the lead candidate to acquire the available distribution partnership with DreamWorks, but just to clinch the deal the studio is offering Spielberg & Co. an additional $150 million financing safety net from parent company NBC Universal.
Hilary Swank has found another Oscar-bait role: the two-time Best Actress winner will star as the title role in Betty Anne Waters, about a high school dropout who becomes a lawyer in order to defend her brother, who has been convicted of murder.

Gas Prices Are a Hollywood Conspiracy! Trade Roughage 07/11/08

By Karina Longworth posted 1 year ago

Hollywood loves the energy crisis! Not only is there evidence that “higher gas prices boost boxoffice by prompting consumers to opt for the local multiplex over longer trips,” but foreign oil investors, prompted by a desire to avoid taxes on windfall profits, “look more favorably on the film biz — any film, really — because it means that even if a movie loses, say, 20% or 30% of its money, investors still come out on top because those losses pale compared with what a government might have taken.”
“There’s a superhero summit under way at Warner Bros,” says David S. Cohen at Variety, as the studio and subsidiary DC Comics meet to work out a “master plan” for shilling superheroes going forward.
The Chinese censorship board is demanding that cuts be made to the third Mummy movie––which shot for three months in China, and incorporates a replica of the Great Wall––but they’re not publicly specifying what it’ll take to let the film be shown in the country. Is anyone else starting to suspect that the Chinese censors just have really good taste?
The AMPTP won’t accept any of SAG’s counter-offers, and SAG won’t settle for the AMPTP’s “final” deal. So what now? No one knows for sure, but with SAG members continuing to work with no contract, it’s possible that the studios will “declare an impasse and impose the terms and conditions of the new offer.”

Hancock Not Huge, But Good Enough. Trade Roughage 07/07/08

By Karina Longworth posted 1 year ago

Hancock made $107.3 million over the five night weekend, giving the Will Smith fractured superhero tale the third best July 4th opening of all time. It’s considered a victory for Smith’s star power, but it’s still almost $50 million less than Spider-Man 2 managed in a similar time frame. Meanwhile, The Wackness enjoyed the highest per-screen average of the weekend, earning $24,177 on each of its 6 screens.
SAG is expected to make an announcement today about AMPTP’s “final offer”––although they might just announce that they need more time to think it over. Meanwhile, at a press conference at the Karlovy Vary Film Festival over the weekend, Robert DeNiro argued against a strike, accusing his fellow actors of not having “done their homework” on the economics. “I do not know if it is the right time to be doing this at all with the economy the way it is,” he warned.
The opera directed by David Cronenberg based on his movie version of The Fly is bombing with French critics. Though complaints regarding the score’s “lack of expertise and imagination” have damaged ticket sales somewhat, apparently “Cronenberg diehards, Paris’ trendy 30ish art crowd and a sprinkling of goth girls” are still coming out in full force.

Wall-E Weekend. Trade Roughage 06/30/08

By Karina Longworth posted 1 year ago

Wanted opened to $51.1 million over the weekend, which is, you know, a fantastic boost for Angelina Jolie’s live-action bankability, but it wasn’t enough to beat Wall-E‘s $62.5 mil for first place. Speaking of boosts: The Last Mistress made $17,596 on each of its screens, which is roughly $17 for every time Asia Argento shows her debatably authentic boobs in it.
SAG says they’re not going on strike and any suggestions in that vein coming from the AMPTP are merely “scare tactics.” The AMPTP says SAG is responsible for The End of Hollywood As We Know It. Or, more accurately: “The industry is shutting down because SAG’s Hollywood leadership insisted on 11th-hour negotiations and dragging these talks into July so they can continue attacking AFTRA.”
Prince of Broadway and Loot took the big narrative and documentary prizes, respectively, at the Los Angeles Film Festival over the weekend. The Wackness and Man on Wire won the audience awards. In other fest news, Wim Wenders, director of the most maligned competition film last month at Cannes, will head the jury at the Venice Film Festival.

Festivals, Hollywood, LAFF 2008

Paramount Consolidates Vantage. Trade Roughage 06/04/08

By Karina Longworth posted 1 year ago

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.

Hollywood, Indies, NYFF 2007

SAG Strike Approaching: Trade Roughage 05/01/08

By Christopher Campbell posted 1 year ago

Fitting for May Day, Variety has the latest on the AMPTP and SAG negotiations, and things don’t look good. The majors are quite upset with the demands of the union, delivering the message that “Unless SAG backs off its demands on DVD and new media soon, it can forget about a deal even if thesps go on strike.”
SAG might want to take note of Apple’s latest announcement, then, and rethink its DVD demands, because the news that iTunes will now sell films day-and-date means the tangible home video format could soon be a relatively minor ancillary.
On the subject of actors backing down (and out), Javier Bardem has exited Rob Marshall’s musical adaptation Nine due to exhaustion. He’ll take a year off from acting while Marshall will have the difficulty of finding another actor suitable to fill the shoes of Marcello Mastroianni.
Squashing some of the debate over whether or not the documentary should be allowed Oscar contention based on its sneaky theatrical “release”, Roman Polanski: Wanted and Desired will be getting an official run from THINKfilm beginning July 11. Of course, that’s a month after HBO debuts the film on cable.

What Just Happened? To Cannes Trade Roughage 04/17/08

By Karina Longworth posted 1 year ago

Barry Levinson’s meta Hollywood comedy What Just Happened?, which premiered at Sundance to a chorus of shrugs and remains undistributed, had been selected to close the Cannes Film Festival.
SAG has announced nine interim deals with indie production outfit The Film Department, in an effort to put pressure on the major studios to settle on a new contract in advance of a threatened strike. Variety says the studios are “unlikely” to be scared enough by the prospect of Catherine Zeta-Jones going back to work without them to be moved into immediate action.
Women in Film, “a non-profit organization dedicated to helping women within the entertainment, communication and media industries,” will honor Salma Hayek, Diane English, Ginnifer Goodwin and Sherry Lansing at their 35th annual awards ceremony in June.
The title for the long-awaited (apparently; if you’re acquainted with an awaiter, let us know) X-Files movie sequel has finally been released. The X-Files: I Want to Believe opens on July 25.

Festivals, Hollywood

Murder, Talks and Comics: Trade Roughage 04/02/08

By Karina Longworth posted 1 year ago

April 15 certainties: someone will die, Karina will weep as the IRS cleans out her checking account, and SAG will meet with the AMPTP to begin talks to head off a strike.
Woah! Up until now, the Anthony Pellicano wiretapping trial has been painfully boring, mostly because we already had an inkling that Courtney Love was willing to spend money to justify her paranoia. But yesterday, Adam Sender testified that Pellicano had offered to have Aaron Russo, a producer with whom Sender had a business falling out, “murdered on the way back from Las Vegas.” Say it with me now: !!!
If you are a Stan Lee nerd, or one of those people who is painfully obsessed with the Walt Disney Company’s every move, this Variety story might mean something to you.

More Bushes: Trade Roughage 03/27/08

By Karina Longworth posted 1 year ago

Ellen Burstyn and James Cromwell have been hired to play Barbara Bush Sr and George H.W. Bush in Oliver Stone’s George W. Bush drama, which is currently being called W. All along, the trades have been saying that the goal is to get this sucker distributed around the time of the November elections; today’s Variety story implies that since it’s almost April and they’re still casting the thing, a pre-Inauguration Day release might be more realistic.
Peter Chernin of News Corp/Fox and Robert Iger of Disney/ABC, who helped negotiate deals with the DGA and WGA, are now expected to mediate talks between SAG/AFTRA and the studios, in an effort to head off an actors strike.
My beloved Silent Light won five Mexican Academy Awards on Tuesday night, including Best Picture, Best Director and Best Cinematography.

Dubious Fanboy Victory: Trade Roughage 08/25/08

By Karina Longworth posted 1 year ago

Get out your violins: Hollywood is depressed! Seems that an expected post-WGA strike production boom hasn’t happened, due to some mix of the shitty economy and impending SAG-strike anxiety. An anonymous lawyer quoted in this story describes the situation thusly: “There’s a huge amount of crankiness right now, and everybody — particularly agents — feels like they’re getting screwed.”
The Weinstein Company, acquiescing to protests from Star Wars nerds, has announced they’ll release both the director’s version of Fanboys (which includes a subplot about cancer), and the studio’s cancer-free cut on DVD. The nerds have yet to release a statement, but Fanboys producer Keith Mann is not pleased. “This is more about avoiding picket lines at [Weinstein's Superhero Movie, which opens this weekend] than it was about making a decision about the release of our movie,” he told The Hollywood Reporter.
Killer Films and Moxie Films are joining forces to spin a feature out of Anthony DePalma’s book, The Man Who Invented Fidel: Castro, Cuba, and Herbert Matthews of the New York Times.

Hollywood, Indies

Greenlight Blackout: Trade Roughage, 02/28/08

By Karina Longworth posted 1 year ago

Studios are refusing to greenlight pictures that can’t be completed by June 30, the deadline for the Screen Actors Guild to settle on a new contract. But Michael Bay, for one, is not afraid of a silly little actor’s strike. Says the Transformers 2 director, who claims he currently has three screenwriters “in Michael Bay jail” hammering out a script: “If there is a strike, we shut down, but shutting down isn’t that big a deal.” Expect the AMPTP to use this as a bargaining tool––after all, why would they care about meeting the demands of human actors, when they can make a billion dollars off a self-professed captor of screenwriters and his imaginary robots?
Peter Debruge goes out of his way to defend The Last Emperor on the occasion of its Criterion release, but still longs for the Criterion treatment of “better” Bertolucci: “Witnessing the care and respect they pay The Last Emperor (going so far as to indulge Storaro’s controversial reframing of the film’s aspect ratio from 2.35:1 to 2:1), it’s a shame Criterion didn’t handle restorations of either The Conformist or 1900 two of the director’s earlier epics that Paramount released from their vaults with minimal attention just over a year ago.”
Disney is launching its own version of Rock Band, called Ultimate Band. We’re told it’ll feature “more family friendly gameplay and song selection,” but the examples offered of songs sure to be involved are by The White Stripes and The Who. So by “family friendly”, they mean it’s a game for Jason Bateman-in-Juno style reluctant hipster parents, and embittered ex-hipie grandparents? That actually sounds really great.

Sunshine Swept: Trade Roughage 02/27/08

By Karina Longworth posted 1 year ago

Is it too “gory,” or did the filmmakers want too much money? This Variety story offers both as potential reasons for why the Amy Adams/Emily Blunt Sundance comedy Sunshine Cleaning, which was pegged before and during the festival as an almost sure-thing candidate for a sale, is only now closing a distribution deal with Overture Films.
In other sales news, Film Movement has picked up Argentinean teen hermaphrodite drama XXY. It won two awards at Cannes last year, and it’ll screen next month at New Directors/New Films here in New York.
No Country For Old Men will “almost double” its screen count this weekend, in order to best take advantage of the profile boost offered by its multiple Oscar wins. It’s probably also smart counter-programming against Semi-Pro, which will be the only film to open this weekend on over 2,000 screens.
Fireman’s Fund Insurance Company is looking to cash in on a potential SAG strike by offering policies to film productions scheduled to coincide with the union’s summer contract negotiation deadline.

Festivals, Sundance 2008