The Screengrab : hollywood reporter

FOX Lawyers: The Smartest Men on the Cinder

Leonard Pierce — Tue, 13 Jan 2009 15:45:00 GMT

Movie nerds like myself, who have invested what little remains of their self-identity in the remote possibility of Watchmen not being terrible, were thrown into a major tizzy a few months ago when FOX Studios, which claims to own the rights to any and all future movie adaptations of the Alan Moore/Dave Gibbons superhero classic, moved to legally block Warner Brothers from releasing the Zack Snyder film.

Many felt this would be an epic moral battle where FOX exerted their rights in the labyrinth of complex entertainment laws to protect their rightful property regardless of future plans, while fending off the ire of pissed-off fans; others thought that it would be a titanic legal showdown where Warner allayed incomprehensible facts and figures in a desperate attempt to prove themselves on the correct side of the law and get their movie out on time. Others, like your humble correspondent, figured that it was basically just FOX making a bunch of noise, based on a slender bit of legalese, in order to wring a fat payday out of what's widely predicted to be one of 2009's top-grossing films. As Mania.com is reporting, well...one of us was right.

FOX and Warner Brothers are both reporting "productive talks" in the attempt to settle this thorny legal issue, which means that both company's lawyers kept writing dollar amounts on a piece of paper until they arrived at a figure that was mutually more than you will ever make in your life. In case you're really curious, ugly details of the whole money-grubbing mess -- in which producer Larry Gordon accuses FOX of pushing the entire thing to make a buck -- can be read at the Hollywood Reporter's legal blog. What was it someone once said about everyone having their hands in the next guy's pockets?

We Watch the Watchmen...and Watch, and Watch, and Watch...

Marvel Brings The Multiverse To Movies

Leonard Pierce — Fri, 16 May 2008 16:00:00 GMT

Recently, our own Phil Nugent took a look at the debut of Marvel Studios, the big-screen production arm of the comics company behind Spider-Man, the Hulk, and the Fantastic Four. While Marvel's been taking a critical beating lately with its flagship comics, losing retail ground to longtime rival DC, the opposite has been the case in the multiplex: Marvel's aggressive approach and multifaceted marketing has proven to be a success at the box office, and as a rule, Marvel's properties have outperformed DC's and brought in piles of cash for the company.

One of the reasons that Marvel became such a hit amongst comics fans in the 1960s was its 'multiverse' approach; unlike DC, which at the time told all their stories in a disconnected, separate manner, Marvel ran with the pretense that all their stories were taking place in the same world, at the same time, and pushed the idea that any one of their characters could show up in any of their titles. Fans took to the idea that all the stories were connected, that all the pieces mattered, and that what happened in one book made a difference in other books. The idea that the world of the Marvel Universe was unified and that the storytellers were actually creating pieces of a whole was so appealing that DC was forced to adopt it as an editorial policy for their own characters.

Now, as the Hollywood Reporter notes, Marvel is taking the same multiversal approach to their films. The much-discussed post-credits cameo by S.H.I.E.L.D. boss Nick Fury, to be reprised in the new Hulk film, hints at the cohesion that the studio hopes will make the upcoming Avengers movie a box office draw (and, incidentally, beat DC to the punch once again as Warner Brothers scrambles to figure out how to get a Justice League movie in the can). The driving force behind Marvel's unified approach in the comics was editor/writer/mastermind Stan Lee; with Marvel Studios, president Kevin Feige is stepping into that role and keeping the film franchises tied together. Warner Brothers has the money to make something similar happen, but will they give DC's editors a freer hand in film production -- and insist on an easing of the auteur approach that they've used in the recent past?

Filthy Madonna

Leonard Pierce — Thu, 14 Feb 2008 15:45:00 GMT

After time served as pop star, actress, model, cheesecake auteur, teenage pregnancy debate flashpoint, capitalist, professional celebrity, marketing guru, dancer, trophy wife, bogus accent advocate, Kaballist, children's book author, and for all we know astronaut, Madonna can finally add "feature film director" to her ridiculously rambunctious résumé.

The Material Girl is in Berlin this week for their International Film Festival, screening her first movie behind the camera: the light romantic comedy Filth and Wisdom. It's attracting a decent audience at festival screenings — albeit largely for its star-studded soundtrack, featuring performers like Ludacris, Britney Spears, and Gogol Bordello (whose Eugene Hütz narrates the film and plays one of the lead roles), as well as Madonna herself. Regardless of how well the film itself is received, it'll be an improvement on the last visit to BIFF — according to the Hollywood Reporter, she was virtually in hiding the entire time, avoiding the press attention that came from being half of the world's most reviled couple with then-husband Sean Penn.

Uh. . . so how is the movie, anyway? Going by the Reporter's review, it's "all over the place but oddly appealing", not a bad description of the director's entire life as a whole, now that we think about it. . . but the fact that the reviewer uses the word "dire" twice in one review doesn't bode well for Filth and Wisdom's future as anything but a novelty.

Writers Of The World, Unite!

Leonard Pierce — Thu, 10 Jan 2008 15:45:00 GMT

The WGA strike is entering its seventh dreary week, and as anyone who's been forced to sit through an episode of Make Me a Supermodel would agree, we've all suffered enough. Still, with no end in sight, even upstanding joes like Jon Stewart are scabbing it up, and the, erm, highly prestigious Golden Globe Awards are the first major casualty, with the Oscars possibly next to fall.

But the thing about the Writer's Guild of America is that they're the Writer's Guild...of America. Their beef is is with stateside producers and studios, which means that when the BAFTA Awards are held in London on February 10th, writers, actors, and directors will all be able to hobnob together just as if they aren't going to start screaming at each other once they get back across the pond. While not everyone in the UK is happy about it (the Sky One network had the bad luck to buy the rights to broadcast the Golden Globes starting this year), most industry insiders are predicting a bigger-than-usual Hollywood contingent at the BAFTAs.

On the off chance that the Oscars are cancelled this year, what will the network show in its place, though? The Guardian's Toby Young has some ideas, including the appealing notion of a Death Race 2000 ceremony: "A bald announcement of the winners followed by a 'celebrity manhunt' in which eight film crews (each headed by a former Oscar winner) are given four hours to flush as many victors as they can from the homes, parties and spas of Los Angeles. The hunt is screened live in a split-screen format, while the winner who is unlucky enough to be found first has their Oscar ripped from their hands and auctioned off for charity."