The Screengrab : variety

Hollywood Welcomes Virgin

Leonard Pierce — Thu, 28 Aug 2008 14:30:00 GMT

The comics racket is a tough one -- or, as Variety puts it in a bizarre moment of Coen-channeling when discussing Virgin's entry into the field a few years back, it is "a rocky place where their seeds could find no purchase". (Comics2Film adds the unwelcome phrasing that the company was "inseminated with funds from Richard Branson's media empire". Those guys really need to get out more.) After several largely fruitless years of attempting to steal market share away from the bigwigs at Marvel and DC -- and signing a deal with ex-Marvel boss Stan Lee to develop a line of properties for them that went nowhere -- Virgin Comics has finally realized what everyone else in the business already knows: that the real money in comics doesn't come from the books themselves, but from farming out their characters as properties to be used in Hollywood blockbusters. In aid of this, they're shuttering their New York office and moving the whole operation to L.A.

Branson insists that the comics wing isn't shutting down, it's simply reorganizing as a development company; but that's just typical business boilderplate. What should truly concern us here are the various bits of trivia concealed deep within the article, where the author clearly hoped we would not notice them: the fact that Virgin's "Hollywood development deals" for their characters are almost all slotted for release on the Sci-Fi Channel as opposed to an actual movie theatre, and feature such blockbuster properties as "Guy Ritchie's The Gamekeeper" and "Ed Burns' Dock Walloper"; the fact that, despite deals being inked all over town, not a single Virgin Comics film or TV production has actually been made; and the boffo news that Branson's partner in the venture is Deepak Chopra's son Gotham -- as in Gotham City, home of the Batman -- which likely explains the commonly cited reason for the comics line's failure, that it focuses on stories involving relatively obscure Indian mythology.

Still, the company has some real talent signed, from well-liked comics writer Mike Carey to porn star Jenna Jameson to Stan the Man himself. Time will tell if Virgin Comics can develop any of those signings into decent movies and/or TV shows, but this morning, Branson has to be wishing the entire venture didn't sound so much like a bad nepotistic joke in an inside-Hollywood parody.

Warner Brother Tries To Give The Distinguished Competition A Boost

Leonard Pierce — Tue, 19 Aug 2008 15:00:00 GMT

Despite the fact that The Dark Knight has made roughly eighty-five kerjillion dollars on its way to breaking nearly every box office record since the dawn of motion photography, DC Comics -- and, by extention, their parent company Warner Brothers -- is widely perceived as the big loser in the battle of superhero movies. Much as Marvel Comics did in the early '60s, Marvel Films -- the people responsible for Iron Man, Spider-Man and the X-Men franchise -- has largely trounced what it used to call its "Distinguished Competition". Although both companies have turned their franchise characters into successful movies, Marvel's have generally been seen as more successful, more entertaining, more true to their comic book origins, and most of all, easier to get made. While DC continues to farm its characters out to various studios, Marvel has consolidated its filmmaking power into its studio arm, ensuring a production continuity that provides another curious parallel to the '60s, when the more coherent continuity of Marvel's comics appealed to readers.

This is a situation that Warner Brothers, who's been making movies even longer than DC has been making comics, is eager to change. In an article in the latest Variety, Warner execs and DC bigwigs alike discuss what's being done to avoid the sort of missteps that have led to their being thought of as the second-tier player in superhero films. From greenlighting unprofitable tripe like Catwoman to dragging its feet on potential blockbusters like Wonder Woman and Justice League, DC's film development players have made a number of high-profile mistakes (let's not even speak of the botch-job that was the making and marketing of Superman Returns) that have led them to be seen as failures despite having put out the biggest blockbuster in four decades.

DC development executives Jeff Robinov (production vice-president) and Gregory Noveck (senior VP of creative affairs) describe their recent meetings with Warner Brothers head Alan Horn in terms of a visit to the woodshed with an angry dad. Horn doesn't deny it: "If you do it wrong," he says of developing sucessful films from the billion-dollar DC empire, "you're dead, you're out of there." In a line that will bring power-mad smiles to the faces of geeks everywhere, Robinov talks about no wanting to piss off the Comic-Con contingent, and speaks of the difficulty of making a good film while keeping the fanboys happy. "There's a massive interest and knowledge in the comic book industry, and it takes time to understand the characters and the history, where they've intersected with each other and what their worlds are," says Robinov, who probably spent high school going outdoors and dating girls, in the understatement of the year, "That's part of the education that we're going through." It's an education that Horn no doubt hopes won't prove too costly.

Hey, how about that? A whole post about superhero movies, and no mention of Watchmen! I may get out of this year alive after all...

Don't Mess With The Norton

Leonard Pierce — Tue, 17 Jun 2008 17:45:00 GMT

You'd think that Hollywood would have learned its lesson by now, but no: another major release starring Edward Norton, another script controversy.

As Anne Thompson reports in Variety, during the pre-production stages of the new Incredible Hulk movie, the fledgling Marvel Studios made the mistake of letting time slip away from them until they were put in the position of offering Norton a screenwriting credit (as well as an unbilled producer's role) in order to get him on board. Unfortunately for everyone within a gamma bomb blast radius of the film, the movie already had a screenwriter (Zak Penn) and a producer/director (Louis Leterrier) with ideas of their own, and by the time the movie finally opened, we were treated to the hauntingly familiar sight of Norton appearing on talk shows to complain about how his vision for the movie was bastardized by studio hacks.

Thompson follows the whole complex affair, with its typical behind-the-scenes wheedling, Norton's pretensions of classing up the superhero movie, Penn's determination to see a script he wrote almost 20 years ago finally see the light of day, and the post-production battles over who owned the right to the final cut of the film. No one emerges smelling like a daisy, with Marvel Studios coming across as naive at best and duplicitous at worst, and Norton once again looking like both a man who's passionate about his work and a total prick.

Why does it all seem like something we've seen before? Perhaps you remember a little movie called American History X...

Related Posts:

Edward Norton Hulks Out

Screengrab Review: The Incredible Hulk

Cinema's Greatest Offscreen Feuds, Part 1

Will Video Games Show Actors the Money?

Leonard Pierce — Fri, 23 May 2008 15:00:00 GMT

As you probably know from the last hundred or so articles about the very big business of video games, they're no longer a niche market. The biggest titles routinely outgross Hollywood movies, and major motion picture studios are beginning to tailor their releases so as not to conflict with the street dates of huge video game titles like Halo and Guitar Hero. More and more, video games are being treated like movies: the scripts get more complex, the special effects get more elaborate, the money gets bigger, and release dates become more important. There's one way in which the two industries aren't exactly the same, though, and that's in the way they pay their actors.

The bigger video games get, the more they begin to attract brand-name Hollywood actors to do voice work. Rockstar Games' Grand Theft Auto franchise pioneered this, getting big stars like Samuel L. Jackson, Peter Fonda and Ray Liotta to provide the voices of characters in previous installments. This time around, with the critically acclaimed and best-selling Grand Theft Auto IV, they went the opposite direction, hiring a cast of relative unknowns to play Eastern European immigrant Niko Bellic and his rotating cast of friends and enemies. But one thing has held true, as the New York Timesrecently reported: unlike with television, film, and all other media, actors in digital media receive no royalties or residuals for their work. As a result, Michael Hollick (who plays Niko Bellic, and received $100,000 for a little more than a year's work) finds himself starring in the most popular entertainment product in America -- and isn't getting a single dime more than he was originally paid. It's an unusual situation without an easy solution, and Hollick doesn't blame Rockstar -- he blames the Screen Actor's Guild, which hasn't been especially forward-looking in its negotiations over digital media. Indeed, if predictions of an actor's strike this summer come to fruition, it's likely that, just as with the writer's strike earlier this year, digital media royalties and pay rates will be the central issue. Meanwhile, Hollick and thousands of actors like him will have to suffer through getting no royalties for their video game work, regardless of the product's success.

Or will they? Ben Fritz, who writes the "Cut Scene" video game blog for Variety, points out that there is indeed a little-known provision covering video game in the current SAG contract; it just doesn't involve residuals. Protests have been staged, and contract talks have taken place, with the end result of a hike in the day rate -- just no change to the 0% residual rate. And while internet royalties have been a talking point in recent SAG contract discussions, video games have been largely ignored, and this summer's labor dispute will be with the television and movie studios, with game companies not involved. That means the current state of affairs will last until at least 2009, at which the Screen Actors' Guild contract with video game publishers expires. If, by that time, there have been a few more games that generate as much income and publicity as GTAIV -- and a few more actors like Michael Hollick to point out how much money they could have made if the SAG had structured a better contract -- you can bet that the issue will be at the forefront of new contract negotiations.

Superlawyer

Leonard Pierce — Wed, 02 Apr 2008 16:00:00 GMT

You probably haven't heard of Marc Toberoff. But to the families, heirs and representatives of some of our culture's best-known characters and creations, he's Superman — and to the corporate entities that own those creations, he's Lex Luthor.

Toberoff is an intellectual properties attorney who specializes in representing claims by creators and their heirs against big studios, publishers and other media conglomerates who have made mega-millions off of their creations — often without paying more than a pittance to the people responsible. In his latest case, he's won a federal ruling that gives the family of Superman's co-creator, Jerry Siegel, a financial stake in films made about the Man of Steel. It's a huge victory, and one that's likely to set a precedent that will also benefit the family of Superman's other creator, Joe Shuster. DC Comics, who owns the character, famously paid a pittance for the rights to Superman, and both Siegel and Shuster's families were nearly destitute for decades while DC (and its parent company, Warner Brothers) turned the character into one of the most recognizable — and marketable — icons in the world.

Of course, there's a downside to the pioneering work that Toberoff has done for the Siegels and many other people who found themselves cut out of the financial benefits of characters they helped create: his lawsuits have been so costly that they may delay or even completely scuttle a number of upcoming film and television projects involving Superman. But that's likely a small price to pay if it leads to media companies treating creators fairly from the start to avoid such litigation down the road.

Woody Allen Finds New And Exciting Ways To Embarrass Himself

Leonard Pierce — Tue, 01 Apr 2008 14:30:00 GMT

In what is surely a preview of much, much more to come as the Wood-man becomes older, crankier, and more obviously lacking in genius, Variety reports that Woody Allen is suing American Apparel for $10 million as a result of their having used an image from Annie Hall without his permission on one of their billboards.

We're no fans of American Apparel or their borderline creepy advertising, and we suspect that a booze-fueled conversation between Woody and AA founder Dov Charney would find that they share a lot of interests that no one else would be particularly interested in hearing about. What's particularly ludicrous about the suit is how neatly it encapsulates some of Allen's prior, er, indiscretions while seeking monetary damages from a big, successful company which the lawsuit impugns for doing essentially the same thing.

It's ironic enough for the man who made Zelig to sue a company for using an iconic image without permission, and the lawsuit's huffy, snobbish insistence that Woody Allen does not sully his artistic purity with commercial endorsements — in the United States, at least — is pretty entertaining. But for Woody, who is married to a woman thirty-five years his junior (and with whom he is alleged to have been carrying on an affair when she was seventeen) to sneer in disgust at the titillating advertising used by American Apparel is downright asinine, and for the lawsuit to go out of its way to mention AA's "provocative photography" only serves to remind that Allen's affair with his then-adopted daughter was exposed when Mia Farrow discovered the naked pictures he took of the then-20-year-old. We wish Woody lots of luck with the suit and hope that it makes him so much money that he goes away while he still has a tiny shred of credibility left.

The Boys Are Alright

John Constantine — Thu, 21 Feb 2008 22:11:00 GMT

A little break from bringing you news about the latest Marvel/DC adaptations or Watchmen set reports on the comics front today, Screengrabbers. Variety brings word that Columbia pictures has picked up the rights to Garth Ennis and Derrick Robertson’s The Boys. While superhero satire is a common theme these days, this property is different from the usual fare. About a group of five toughs who work to keep both superheroes and supervillains under control, The Boys is an excellent blend of Ennis’ trademarks: political and pop-culture commentary seasoned by a heaping spoonfuls violence and sexploitation. Neal Moritz’s Original Films are developing the picture so here’s hoping they’re smart enough to cast Simon Pegg as the book’s protagonist lead, Wee Hughie. Look at the pic below to get an idea why that might be the right call.

Tarkin ‘n’ Friends

John Constantine — Tue, 12 Feb 2008 23:59:00 GMT

While discussing this article, Vanity Fair’s first ever feature piece on a videogame, my friend lamented the game’s setting. “If it weren’t Star Wars, I might actually get it. I mean, Star Wars is just… so lame.” He’s not wrong. We are close to a decade on from the lame-ification of what was once a universally loved franchise, but there still seems to be quite a hunger for it. Just look at the mainstream interest in a new game and the new animated movie that was announced yesterday. Will Star Wars ever be cool again? Nah, probably not. But it’s still a great punchline. Here’s a delightful gag at the space opera’s expense from Paraphrase Theater. Enjoy.

Mike D'Angelo at Sundance: Part 4

Peter Smith — Tue, 22 Jan 2008 20:15:00 GMT

Mike D'Angelo reports from the Sundance Film Festival:

Just a few minutes into Ballast, Lance Hammer's methodically withholding feature debut, I already felt confident of two things. One, I wasn't going to like this movie. Two, everybody else would, for reasons having little to do with Hammer's artistry and a great deal to do with his sensibility. Sure enough, shortly after I bailed at the end of reel two, weary of the film's mannered silences and artless shakycam, I found Robert Koehler's Variety rave, which predictably declared Hammer "a humanist artist" and praised his film for "engag[ing] audiences' best human responses." (As opposed to, say, their arachnoid responses.)

Alas, since I don't subscribe to the self-congratulatory notion that a film's worth hinges on the degree to which it reflects your own worldview, thereby making you feel good about yourself for admiring it — a phenomenon I've dubbed "soup kitchen cinema" — I can't join in the hosannahs. My friend Noel Murray of the Onion AV Club, who stayed to the end (and was somewhat underwhelmed), assures me that Ballast does eventually shake off its sub-Dardennes torpor and achieve some genuine power. But let me briefly recount the moments that made me decide I'd seen more than enough. (This will involve some mild spoilers concerning events that happen in the first few minutes, which you're likely to encounter anyway if you're so much as skimming other reviews/synopses.)

After a brief, lyrical pre-title sequence, we discover Lawrence (inexpressive nonprofessional Micheal J. Smith, Sr.), a heavyset black man, sitting on the couch in the darkened living room of a dilapidated house, just staring into space. A neighbor appears, first knocking and then, when Lawrence fails to respond, opening the unlocked front door and stepping inside. The neighbor, a middle-aged white guy, is looking for someone who turns out to be Lawrence's twin brother, and finds him lying dead in the bedroom, an apparent suicide. Naturally, the neighbor has questions for Lawrence, but Lawrence says nothing. He just keeps staring into space. Eventually, as the neighbor calls 911, Lawrence silently stands and walks out the front door, without so much as a glance at the neighbor; through the open door, we can see him disappear around a corner.

At which point I had to restrain myself from saying aloud "Aaaand gunshot in five. . . four. . . three. . ." I wasn't 100% certain whether Lawrence was about to return with a gun and blow the neighbor away or just shoot himself offscreen. But Hammer's setup for an "unexpected" act of violence couldn't possibly have been more clumsily blatant. If you don't know that a nonresponsive, near-catatonic character who abruptly leaves the room is about to do something horrific, you can't have seen very many movies in your life.

One offscreen gunshot later, Lawrence is in the hospital, having survived his suicide attempt. We get a series of brief, uninflected shots showing his surgery, his recovery, his discharge. (This is all in the film's first five to ten minutes.) People speak to Lawrence, but he never says anything in return. Weeks have now passed — we hear from a doctor that Lawrence was unconscious for ten days — and the same neighbor shows up, wanting to know whether Lawrence is okay; he's also come to return Lawrence's dog, which he's been looking after since the "accident." Lawrence opens the door when the neighbor knocks and then just stands there, silent, for the entire scene. Are you okay, Lawrence? Silence. I brought your dog back, figured you'd want him now. Silence. I guess I'll just keep him a while longer, then. Silence. You sure you're okay? Silence. All right then.

I'm sorry, but this is bullshit. We're not talking here about the melancholy expressionism of a Tsai Ming-liang or the perverse whimsy of a Kim Ki-duk. This is by no means a deliberately stylized world in which a mute character violates no rule of verisimilitude. Hammer is aiming for raw naturalism, and we're apparently expected to believe not only that Lawrence's behavior is a credible expression of grief (which I might buy in the immediate aftermath of his brother's death, but not weeks later following a lengthy hospital stay), but that the neighbor, who in all respects appears to be an ordinary guy, would simply accept these unmistakable signs of mental imbalance, never once pressing or protesting.

Ask yourself how you would react if someone you knew just stood there like a statue, making no response of any kind to anything you said. This nonsense bears no relationship whatsoever to genuine human behavior — it's just a novice filmmaker's misguided notion of what might constitute badass minimalism. That so many people seem prepared to take it seriously only shows how far good intentions will take you.

Academy to Greenwood: Return That Tux

Paul Clark — Tue, 22 Jan 2008 00:45:00 GMT

The writers' strike may still be in full swing, but the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences is operating like it's business as usual. The shortlist for the Best Foreign Language Film Oscar was unveiled last week, the nominations are set to announce tomorrow, and even now the Academy powers that be are making disqualifications on questionable grounds.

The latest victim of an Academy ruling is perhaps the most feted score of 2007: Radiohead guitarist Jonny Greenwood's work on There Will Be Blood. According to Variety's Awards Central, the Academy's music branch has ruled Greenwood ineligible for an Oscar under a rule that excludes "scores diluted by the use of tracked themes or other pre-existing music." In addition to 35 minutes of wholly original music, the score to There Will Be Blood featured 46 minutes of pre-existing music (Brahms, Arvo Part, sacred music) and roughly 15 minutes of Greenwood's 2006 composition "Popcorn Superhet Receiver."

While the producers of There Will Be Blood accept the Academy's decision, fans of the film are outraged, citing Gustavo Santaolalla's somewhat less-than-original score to Babel which took home the Oscar just last year. But I think the bigger issue is that the art of the original score just wasn't what it used to be.

In the early years of the Oscars, practically every Hollywood film had an original score, with only the occasional use of pre-existing music. But in the intervening years, especially since the rise of rock'n'roll, more filmmakers have peppered their soundtracks with pre-existing tracks, which when they're effectively used can provide a different flavor you can't get from an old-fashioned orchestral score. Think of it this way- can you imagine a young John Travolta strutting down the street swinging a paint can while sweeping strings play behind him? Not the same.

Of course, the purpose of the Academy Awards is to honor people, not to single out intangible cinematic contributions. In other words, if there was an award for "best combination score," who'd take home a prize? The composer? The director? The soundtrack producer? If nothing else, the ruling over Greenwood's score underlines the limits of giving awards for individual work. In the end, a single person's contribution to a movie is less important than the collective effort made by everyone involved. It takes more than one person to make great cinema, and to honor movies strictly for their component parts is to lose sight of the bigger picture.

Morning Deal Report: Ellen Page Whips It For Drew Barrymore

Peter Smith — Wed, 16 Jan 2008 16:45:00 GMT

Rumors confirmed: Ellen Page will star in Drew Barrymore's directorial debut, Whip It!. According to Variety, the film "follows the exploits of alterna-teen Bliss. . . [who finds] herself after joining a female roller derby team." Story by one "Maggie Mayhem." Yup, this sounds like an Ellen Page project all right. Ellen Page: the Winona Ryder of the '00s? Discuss.

Dario Argento is working on Giallo, "an English-language homage to the genre that made him a cult helmer." (That would be giallo, I take it.) Argento's daughter Asia costars with Ray Liotta and Vincent Gallo. Gallo plays "a solipsistic, penis-obsessed lout who makes movies." No, I made that up.

Forest Whitaker to play inspirational basketball coach.

Where Have All The Heroes Gone?

Leonard Pierce — Tue, 15 Jan 2008 17:30:00 GMT

Since we here at the Screengrab are determined to absolutely flood you with news about big-screen superhero comic adaptations until you get so annoyed that you personally come to our offices and spill Diet Coke all over our mint-condition issue of X-Men #137, we feel it's our duty to bring you the bad news as well as the good. No, we're not talking about the bad news that most of these movies are going to kind of suck; that you can take as a given. We're talking about the bad news that as shocking as it may seem, Hollywood may be running out of superheroes.

As reported in Variety, the big studios have already strip-mined almost every first- and second-tier superhero title that Marvel, DC and the independents have to offer (and some third-tier ones as well — we're lookin' at you, Ghost Rider). This fact, combined with less than stellar box office reception for a handful of recent superhero movies (we are, once again, lookin' right at you, Ghost Rider) and the surprising popular and critical reception given to non-mainstream comic book adaptations of non-superhero material, may mean that producers will start increasingly looking for the next Sin City, American Splendor or A History of Violence.

An adaptation of Greg Rucka's unconventional police procedural, Whiteout, is already in the works, and Brian Michael Bendis' deconstruction of the Eliot Ness, Torso, may be David Fincher's next project (Bendis himself is writing the screenplay to a movie version of his spy thriller, Jinx). But there's still a pile of terrific graphic novels — not a one of them featuring men in tights — that could made a terrific movie: Kyle Baker's Why I Hate Saturn and The Cowboy Wally Show are both smart, well-crafted comedies; James Sturm's The Golem's Mighty Swing is both a visually stunning piece of storytelling and a powerful period piece about race and religion; Dan Clowes' Like a Velvet Glove Cast in Iron is a natural for a surrealist in the David Lynch mode (even if Clowes has already joked about what a catastrophe a filmed version of the book would be, he proved himself wrong once already with Ghost World); and someday, someone's got to do something with Paul Chadwick's Concrete, which takes what could be a hackneyed sci-fi narrative and turns it into a surprisingly deep and emotional character study. Maybe it's time for Hollywood to look past not only the cape, but the companies behind them, and give indie publishers as much of a chance as they give indie film.

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."

Morning Deal Report: Honest to Blog, Juno Gives Birth to Large Profits

Peter Smith — Mon, 07 Jan 2008 16:50:00 GMT

Juno continues overwriting its way into America's heart — it made as much as I Am Legend this weekend, weirdly enough. To quote Variety, "I liked the movie, but it seemed to me Juno talked [less like a pregnant teenager, and] more like a 30-year-old ex-stripper trying to make a name for herself as a screenwriter." Hey, that's just how the Facebook generation talks, homeskillet!

Michael Showalter will direct Night of the Living Dorks, a German-horror-comedy remake described as "Revenge of the Nerds meets Shaun of the Dead." Given that Shaun of the Dead was already George Romero meeting John Cusack (or someone). . .

Marlon Wayans is Ripcord in the new G.I. Joe. Joseph Gordon-Levitt is also circling, weirdly enough. Maybe he'll play Serpentor. Where's that Cheat Commandos movie I'm waiting for?

Non-Stories Of The Year

Leonard Pierce — Fri, 04 Jan 2008 16:30:00 GMT

With every entertainment section, film magazine, and industry website racing to fill up their top tens and year-in-review articles, Variety takes a somewhat different and altogether refreshing tack: Timothy Gray and a number of staffers combine resources and give us an equally informative recap of what didn't happen in 2007. Among the more important non-stories of the year: familiar movie franchises that were expected to bomb over the summer didn't; the Writer's Guild of America defied industry expectations that they would wait until after the holidays to strike; a number of predicted mergers and acquisitions (including GE divesting its entertainment division, Time Warner spinning off America OnLine, and the proposed sale of Yahoo!) didn't take place; and the high-definition DVD war never reached a satisfactory conclusion and looks to drag on for at least another year. One Variety non-story -- the delay in releasing Grand Theft Auto IV -- seems like a bit of a stretch; while the game was expected to drop this year, delays were always possible, and other huge sellers like Halo 3, Call of Duty 4 and Rock Band more than compensated for the lost holiday revenue the latest GTA iteration was supposed to produce, and all in all, 2007 was the most profitable year for the video game industry in history, with over $10 billion in profits (outperforming movie industry growth by a staggering 44%). Which, we suppose, makes it a non-non-story.

Strike Six

Leonard Pierce — Wed, 02 Jan 2008 20:00:00 GMT

By the time you read this, the Writer's Guild of America strike will be in its seventh week, with no end in sight. Television hosts are beginning to lose their patience (or, at least, their pockets are beginning to lose their depth), and with awards season already in jeopardy, the threat of scab writers begins to rear its ugly head. David Letterman's production company, showing its clout in defiance of AMPTP management solidarity, struck its own deal with the WGA in what may be a hopeful sign for the union, but the producers continue their offensive, posting recently on their own website that the strike has cost the union $151 million so far -- a figure, they claim, in excess of the revenue the strikers hoped to gain from their own proposed compensation package. Of course, since the producers and studios have continually claimed that there's no way to predict the real value of internet content, how they arrived at that figure is somewhat mysterious, not to mention the source, as Dana Harris of Variety is quick to point out. Meanwhile, Ron Galloway sides with Alec Baldwin in blaming the whole mess on the "inept" management of the WGA and predicts an end to the strike as early as mid-January as desperation sets in, while out on the picket lines, spirits seem to be pretty high despite the rock-star attitude Baldwin attributes to the WGA's Patric Verrone, even if a lot of it's attributable to the vodka-spiked Gatorade.

Morning Deal Report: Hear the Lamentations of the Women, Etc

Peter Smith — Fri, 14 Dec 2007 16:00:00 GMT

Rumor has it Die Hard director John McTiernan might direct the new Conan. Funny, I thought he was in jail.

Meanwhile, John Singleton will direct the A-Team movie. Of all the franchises to milk.

The Writers' Guild strike has now killed forty-seven of the fifty-two active scripted TV shows, according to Variety. Just give 'em the money, for Christ's sake. We need our fix!

— Peter Smith

Hollywood On Fire

Peter Smith — Wed, 24 Oct 2007 18:00:00 GMT

With wildfires raging out of control throughout southern California, the film industry is bound to feel the heat. Variety brings us a wide-ranging and surprisingly fascinating look at how the tragedy is affecting the biz: some people behave predictably (the Four Seasons is all booked up), others nobly (David Geffen's making his hotel available for free to firefighters and their families), but the whole thing is filtered through Hollywood’s always inward-turning eye. Of particular interest is the latter part of the article, dealing with the weird blend of public service and intense competition with which the local news in L.A. is covering the fires. — Leonard Pierce

Pusanity!

Peter Smith — Tue, 16 Oct 2007 17:00:00 GMT

With interest in the new wave of Korean horror films at an all-time high in the motion picture industry, Variety is all over the previous neglected Pusan International Film Festival. In the latest issue, Mark Schilling covers the debut of the Co-Production PRO event, an insider’s networking event for Asian production companies from every point of the spectrum; Richard Kuipers discusses the difficult start of the festival during a rain-soaked storm season; and Darcy Paquet discusses the horror revival that’s fueling the Korean film industry’s burgeoning growth. Meanwhile, Derek Elley reviews Crows: Year 0, the latest from the incredibly prolific Takashi Miike, which debuted this week at PIFF. — Leonard Pierce