The UBS Evening Movie News 09.20.07
Posted by George H. Sirois on 09.20.2007
The “I Wish” Edition…
Welcome everyone to the latest edition of The UBS Evening Movie News. I'm George H. Sirois, and we got quite a bit of news on our plate this week, including a little bit of wishful thinking on my part that I'll go a little deeper into in the "Mad Prophet of the Airwaves" section. For now, on with the news…
TOP STORY
Premium cable channel Showtime, having already narrowed the gap in terms of programming buzz, is making an aggressive pitch to do the same with subscriber numbers as well.
The CBS-owned pay television network has enlisted the nation's largest cable and satellite operators to offer a "free preview" weekend running from Sept. 28 through Oct. 1 that will make Showtime available in 54 million homes - its largest audience ever.
Moreover, many providers, including Comcast and DirecTV, are offering Showtime for a special rate of $6.95 for the first three months instead of the standard monthly rate of $10 to $12.
"A promotion like that will probably get a lot of people to subscribe," SNL Kagan senior analyst Deana Myers said of the introductory rate.
Showtime is betting on that happening since the buzz on the network's programming has not yet translated into bringing the channel's subscriber count within striking distance of HBO.
At the end of the second quarter, HBO had 28.86 million subscribers, about a million more than it did in 2005, according to SNL Kagan. Showtime at the end of the second quarter had 14.43 million, 650,000 more subscribers than it had in 2005.
But Showtime executives believe there's blood in the water. HBO hasn't been able to replicate the ratings success of shows like "The Sopranos" and "Sex and the City," and many of its newer series aren't gelling with viewers.
As a result, Showtime is rolling out new episodes of its biggest series in a bid to get subscribers to switch to its service.
The second-season premieres of "Dexter" and "Brotherhood" will air on Sept. 30 and new episodes of "Weeds" and "Californication" will follow the night after, marking the first time that Showtime will have four original series on the air back-to-back.
In addition to the free preview of the channel, DirecTV, Comcast, Time Warner Cable, Cox Communications, Charter Communications, Mediacom, Insight and Verizon's FiOS will all feature either online or on-demand access to Showtime's programming.
"Showtime is the right channel at the right time," said Comcast's Diana Kerekes, vice president of video content. "The on-demand content, in combination with the free preview, is what makes this great."
Wow, is this one hell of a turning point or what? For so long, HBO has had the pay-channel market cornered with their one-two punch of movies and original programming.
Audiences would pay their monthly fee and be treated to stories involving Tony Soprano, Carrie Bradshaw, Larry Sanders & Hank Kingsley, Martin Tupper, Seth Bullock & Al Swearengen, and – for a short but glorious time – Ben Hawkins & Brother Justin Crow.
Nowadays, all of those names exist only in reruns and on HBO OnDemand, and even though we still have Larry & Jeff (for this last season), Vincent Chase & Ari Gold and Jemaine, Bret & Murray (I still have to get caught up on this piece of twisted brilliance), the channel's just not the automatic powerhouse that it once was. And it's definitely no longer the only game in town when it comes to uncensored original series on a pay channel.
This is the perfect time for Showtime to strike into HBO's audience now that the biggest cash cow that they have had – "The Sopranos" – has left us. It became painfully obvious after the final episode of that show – which drew over 12 million viewers – that "John from Cincinnati" – which drew over 2 million viewers despite premiering right after "The Sopranos" – would not be the void filler that they needed. Nowadays, just as buses all over the city had HBO ads on them, now the buildings in New York City are advertising Showtime's new lineup.
I have to wonder what HBO will be working to churn out now that they know there's a reason to look over their shoulder… and they're gaining.
Credit: New York Post
SYBIL THE SOOTHSAYER
UPCOMING MOVIES
Resident Evil: Extinction: Director Russell Mulcahy brings the video game trilogy to its conclusion, as heroine, Alice (Milla Jovovich) finds herself in the Nevada desert battling new hordes of the undead.
Surprisingly, I haven't seen any of this trilogy yet. I've seen little bits and pieces of the first two, and I haven't had any problems with it. Of course, I'm not a player of the game, so I didn't have anything to compare it with, but it still looked like fun. Paul W.S. Anderson usually gets a pass from me for the job he did keeping the first Mortal Kombat moving, and he looked like a genius compared to the direction done with Annihilation, so I just might get myself caught up on this series soon.
Good Luck Chuck: Noticing that every woman he sleeps with goes on to marry her next beau, the enterprising Stu (Dane Cook) starts renting himself out as a good luck charm - until Jessica Alba comes along.
Well, you learn something new every day. Until now, I had no idea Dane Cook's character's name in this was Stu. Anyway, you know my qualms with this movie. Sounds like a decent premise, but the marketing of it is terrible. I'm sure I'll see this eventually, but this is not a first weekend viewing for me.
The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford: Robert Ford (Casey Affleck) joins Jesse James (Brad Pitt) and his gang, only to become resentful of the legendary outlaw and hatch a plan to kill the fastest gun in the West.
Way to go, Casey! Between this and Gone Baby Gone, he's getting some good exposure right around Oscar season. Both of those movies look damn good, so it looks like I'll be able to see how he does when he doesn't have a huge ensemble cast to upstage him like in the Ocean's movies.
Credit: TheMovieBox.net
DVD NEWS
If you're a Coen Brothers fan, I got good news and bad news for you. The good news is that MGM Home Entertainment and Twentieth Century Fox Home Entertainment are preparing a new box set for the work of Ethan and Joel Coen with The Coen Brothers Gift Set. The bad news is that it will include all of the DVDs that you probably already have, the current editions of Blood Simple, Raising Arizona, Miller's Crossing, Barton Fink and Fargo
No new releases, just extra packaging. But if you haven't gotten them yet, this is the time to get caught up. The set has a suggested retail price of $49.98 when it arrives on November 6th.
Here's some more news about the releases of this summer's big hits. Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix is on its way to us and apparently Warner Bros. has not been content with just one version for each format. Nope, they've gone for 8 different options for you to get your Harry fix.
Two single disc versions come with the movie only in fullscreen or widescreen.
A widescreen 2-disc version will also be available with additional scenes, the featurettes Trailing Tonks and Harry Potter: The Magic of Editing, the documentary A&E Documentary: The Hidden Secrets of Harry Potter and DVD-ROM content..
The Blu-ray release will contain all but the DVD-ROM content as well as several focus point featurettes.
The HD-DVD/DVD combo version will contain the DVD features as well as web enabled features and In Movie Experience but will not contain the A&E special.
Finally, the five movie box set will contain each of the five existing films in DVD, HD-DVD or Blu-Ray varieties. The DVD set will contain all of the existing 2-disc sets while the Blu-Ray and HD-DVD sets will contain the Phoenix discs along with newly mastered high def versions of the previous four films. Each will include two bonus discs, the first with bonus materials and three hours of content from the past Harry Potter films. The second is a series of games. The box also comes with trading cards and bookmarks.
Got all that? The single disc DVDs will be $28.98 each. The 2-disc DVD is $34.99. The HD-DVD/DVD combo and Blu-Ray versions are $35.99. The DVD box set is $119.97 and the high def boxes are $149.99 for the complete sets. Personally, I have a gripe with WB for choosing to release a box set when they know full well that there are two more films to go in the franchise. It's like when Paramount kept on releasing box sets of the Star Trek films even though they hadn't finished upgrading all of the films to 2 discs.
All of the versions will arrive on December 11th.
Credit: DVDReview.com
MOVIE TRAILER OF THE WEEK: Gone Baby Gone
JIM WEBBING AND HIS IT'S-THE-HONEST-TRUTH-DEPARTMENT
Why do you wear that stupid producer's suit?: On the eve of the release of his offbeat musical "Southland Tales," Richard Kelly has joined producing partner Sean McKittrick and financier Ted Hamm to form Darko Entertainment.
The entity, named for the writer-director's cult hit "Donnie Darko," will aim to back modestly budgeted, director-driven films.
First up is "Dirty Girl," scheduled to start in November under the direction of tyro Abe Sylvia. "Dirty" is a co-venture with Killer Films, with longtime Killer associate John Wells serving as exec producer.
Killer is unveiling Sylvia's pic on the heels of a busy Toronto, where its "Then She Found Me," starring and directed by Helen Hunt, netted one of the fest's big sales, a $3 million North American deal.
Its Todd Haynes-directed Bob Dylan pic "I'm Not There" was given a largely positive response after netting Cate Blanchett an acting prize and Haynes a special jury prize in Venice.
Also under the Darko banner is "The Box," a psychological thriller starring Cameron Diaz that is in pre-production. Pic is drawing on a recently announced fund from Media Rights Capitol.
Kelly's "Southland," a rough version of which premiered in Cannes two years ago, has been retooled and bows Nov. 9. It stars Justin Timberlake, Dwayne Johnson and Sarah Michelle Gellar.
With the Darko venture, McKittrick said, "Our goal is to get behind filmmakers with unique voices and take advantage of the Darko brand to help independent films reach a much wider audience."
While "Darko," a smash at Sundance, never became a "Little Miss Sunshine"-scale hit, the enigmatic film developed a sizable cult following. Stars Jake Gyllenhaal, Drew Barrymore and Seth Rogen have helped drive DVD sales.
CAA and the Firm rep Kelly and McKittrick.
If you haven't seen Donnie Darko, you're missing out on something really out there and fascinating. And it looks like that's the same kind of vision he wants his other films under his watch to be, which is obviously a very good thing. Hopefully Kelly is successful in his venture to help independent films reach a much wider audience, but at the same time, I can't help but see some irony in that statement since his own movies have a small cult audience attached to them.
Credit: Variety.com
YouTube Goes to the Movies and Makes a… Youvie?: MTV Films is bringing the YouTube phenomenon Million Dollar Strong to the big screen, with Todd Phillips aboard to produce.
Mike O'Connell and Ken Jeong, who star as the duo Million Dollar Strong in the satirical music video "What's It Gonna Be?" -- a favorite on YouTube and Will Ferrell's Funnyordie.com -- are set to star in the MTV comedy. O'Connell is penning the screenplay with Peter Kline.
Story revolves around the meteoric rise of a delusional rapper (O'Connell) and his Asian foreign exchange student friend (Jeong) as they take on the hip-hop world.
Clay Allen helmed the viral video, but no director is attached yet for the film version.
Management 360 is producing as well. Todd Phillips Co.'s Scott Budnick exec produces.
Will Russell-Shapiro and Scott Aversano are overseeing for MTV.
Phillips has several producing projects in development, including "Psycho Funky Chimp" at Paramount Pictures and "Man-Witch" at Warner Bros. Pictures.
O'Connell is a standup comedian who recently shot Fox pilot "The Right Now Show." Jeong, who most recently appeared as the doctor in "Knocked Up" and is filming Fox 2000's "All About Steve," is a real-life M.D.-turned-actor.
Now, something like this might cause one to roll their eyes and exclaim, "A movie based on a YouTube sketch! How unoriginal is Hollywood going to get?!" But just take a step back and you'll remember that YouTube is one of the few places where you can really find some original content to enjoy these days. Sure, there's plenty of crap on there as well, but it's great to see the film industry actually wade through that crap to find something that's worth blowing up into something that audiences would be willing to plop down over $10 a pop to see on the big screen.
Credit: Variety.com
Here It Is, Your Three Hours of Zen: The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences on Wednesday confirmed a New York Times report that it had selected Comedy Central's Jon Stewart to host next year's Oscars ceremonies for a second time.
Stewart received mixed notices when he hosted the awards telecast in 2006 -- which drew the second-lowest ratings in its history. But New York Daily News TV columnist David Bianculli told the Associated Press Wednesday that Stewart should not be blamed for the ratings debacle. "It's up to the films in contention more than anything else," he said, referring to the art-house fare that dominated the 2006 nominations.
I'm a fan of Jon Stewart, so I was pleased to hear this news. The only thing that was a major detriment to that year's Oscar telecast was how the Hollywood representatives felt the need to almost out-left Jon and the result had them coming off as way too self-congratulatory for their own good.
I'm speaking, of course, of Clooney's acceptance speech. I was thrilled that he won, but to go on and on about how Hollywood jumpstarted civil rights before civil rights were cool came off as very smug and the wrong kind of example to send to the rest of the country. It's clear that voters don't respond to being pressured to get to the polls like they were in 2004, so hopefully Stewart can just have some fun this time and maybe the rest of Hollywood will follow suit and leave their agendas at home.
Credit: Studio Briefing
Those media writers may have something there…: In an apparent effort to steal some of the thunder from YouTube, News Corp-owned MySpace said last Wednesday that it plans to begin offering exclusive high-quality short-form programming from top film and TV producers. Talent is being offered the chance to produce their material on their own terms, without interference from programming executives and advertisers.
MySpace said that it had signed its first deal with Marshall Herskovitz and Edward Zwick, producers of the movies Blood Diamond and The Last Samurai and the TV shows thirtysomething and My So-Called Life. The pair will reportedly receive $500,000 to produce a 48-minute drama called "quarterlife" (some reports spell the title with the "q" in lower case; others, in upper case), that will be offered on MySpace in six eight-minute installments. Some media writers speculated that if the webcasts are successful, they could be developed into a feature film or a network series.
I'll get back to this in a little while, but I just wanted to let you know what little developments like this can bring about…
Credit: Studio Briefing
FILM MUSIC NEWS
* AFM Reports "Dramatic Increase" in Scoring With New Videogame Buyout Agmt
* Apple Releases Logic Studio
* Christopher Young Gets Career Award
* Mikis Theodorakis to Receive Lifetime Achievement Award
* Randy Edelman Hired to Score "The Mummy 3"
* Film & TV Music Award Nominations Close Sep 20
* Sonivox Releases Sonic Implants Symphonic Harp for Kontakt
* Signings and Projects by Hans Zimmer, Jeff Rona and Michael Wandmacher
* The "A" List - Top Composer Agencies Ranked by Box Office
* Music Technology and You - by Peter Lawrence Alexander - "Logic 8 Changes the Game of Sequencing"
* The Chart Doctor - by Ron Hess - "Don't Get Caught in a Bind"
* Soundtrack Review - By Daniel Schweiger - "Skinwalkers" by Andrew Lockington
* The Scoreboard: Hundreds of composers and what they're scoring
Download This Week's Issue at: www.filmmusicweekly.com.
MISS MATA HARI AND HER SKELETONS IN THE CLOSET
Here's the world's smallest violin playing "Baby One More Time: Famous Hollywood manager and head of The Firm agency Jeff Kwatinetz has confirmed that he has dumped Britney Spears as his client. Kwatinetz's statement included this line. "We believe Britney is enormously talented... but current circumstances have prevented us from properly doing our job."
The last straw was apparently at the VMAs when Britney decided to change wardrobe and wear the outfit she wore on stage instead of the planned corset outfit without telling anyone. She then refused to attend a meeting with Kwatinetz to discuss the fiasco.
Britney's lawyer, Laura Wasser, also recently quit after she felt Britney was not controllable.
One thing you have to hand to Britney; when she fizzles out, she does it in a blaze of glory. All the other starlets in the film and music industry need to take notes. Getting arrested for drunk driving? Please, how passé. THIS is how you jump the shark!
So I'm looking at two of the news stories in this edition – the YouTube one and the MySpace one – and I'm reminded of something that I had been thinking about for some time. Something has to happen for movie theaters to get their aura back. For so many decades, it's been a magical event to take in a movie and let yourself go for at least an hour and a half and get sucked into a larger than life event. The characters on the screen, the places and times, they were all just so epic and breathtaking. Nowadays, the screen is just as big – hell, it's even bigger – and the characters and places and times are just as epic as before.
But the problem is that the competition with theaters is a much smaller screen that we can enjoy in the privacy of our own homes. We have new favorite characters that we can cheer for and hate, whether the shows are single-camera comedies and dramas, multi-camera sitcoms in front of studio audiences or hour-long dramas. In a lot of cases – too many – the writing on television is better than the writing on the screen, and even reality shows like Rock of Love (one of those all-time greats that you can only admit to yourself and a few others how much you love it) can stir up an emotional response.
The appeal to go to see a movie has definitely taken a hit in recent years, thanks to the one-two punch of rising ticket costs and the allure of just waiting for movies to come out on DVD two months later and watching them at home. Sure, tests have said that those who buy the most state-of-the-art audio and video equipment is more likely to go to the movies, but there are plenty others out there who are content to just sit and wait a couple months before finding out if the latest $200 million blockbuster was, in fact, a piece of shit.
I have a suggestion that involves bringing us back to a more innocent time, a plan that could make the theaters fun to visit again. It's a safe bet that nobody will listen to this suggestion, but to hell with it. It's my column.
My suggestion? Bring back the serials!
That's right, I'm suggesting that the theaters bring back a long-dead form of storytelling that became obsolete as soon as the first television made its way into the living room. Why am I suggesting this? Simple. As much as you are, I'm sick of seeing commercials on the big screen before we get to the previews. There's about, what, ten or so minutes of commercials nowadays that play before the trailers begin?
No wonder people don't want to go to the movies anymore. The television mindset has invaded the theater! So, instead of those commercials, how cool would it be if there were some well-written, entertaining 15-20 minute chapters of a feature-length story taking place before the trailers?
I'm sure you guys remember those short films sponsored by BMW (I think it was them) and posted on their web site? Those films were done by some very talented directors, so what would be the harm of taking those little stories and doing something like that on the big screen?
Think about this for a moment. Each chapter of the continuing story is written and directed by a different filmmaker, basically playing the old campfire game of picking up the story as it goes along. This would not only be fun for the audience, but it would be a challenge for the filmmakers to do something that they probably haven't done since their days in film school.
Each week, a new chapter comes out and each week, it's attached to the front of an awaited feature. The newspaper ads and posters for that film would have to mention the latest chapter. The web site for the serial would have the listing of where each chapter can be seen, so that audiences can map out the order of movies that they want to see so that they don't get lost.
And here's the kicker. When the film is put together and released on DVD, it doesn't come out FOR A YEAR! Yes, make the audience wait a while – like they used to - before they can own it! Once it comes out on DVD, then that would be the time for the next serial to come out, and so on and so on.
How cool would this be? It'd be almost like a double feature, but it would be even better because it gives audiences an opportunity to become caught up in a brand new storyline that they would have to see other movies to get the rest of it. What do you guys think? Could it work? Would you go see it? I'm anxious to find out…
And that's a wrap for Chapter 31 of The UBS Evening News. I'm George H. Sirois, and I'll see you next week!
