The UBS Evening Movie News 03.06.08

Posted by George H. Sirois on 03.06.2008

The “End of the Line” Edition…




Welcome everyone to the latest edition of The UBS Evening Movie News. I'm George H. Sirois, and this week will be something of a tribute edition to one of the most interesting studios in the film industry.

Before we go ahead with that, however, I do have to ask you all to raise a glass in honor of Jeff Healey, the lead singer of The Jeff Healey Band, who passed away on March 2 at the young age of 41. In case you didn't know, one movie that I hold in very high regard is the 1989 cult classic Road House, and Healey played the role of Cody, the blind bandleader at the Double Deuce. He also gave the bouncer Morgan some friendly advice about Dalton. "The story is, you fuck with him and he'll seal your fate." Advice that should have been heeded. Here's to you, Jeff!

Normally, I don't like to use the same stories that have been covered earlier in previous news reports – I know that Chad Webb did a fine job covering this one in his Monday report, and the Boss posted the story as it was breaking – but in this case, and since I had already covered the news about Robert Shaye's departure, I wanted to make an exception. Plus, I got a lot to say about this piece of news, and I have an open letter to Warner Bros in this week's Mad Prophet of the Airwaves, so it only seems right that this is this week's…


TOP STORY

Time Warner CEO Jeff Bewkes continued his quest to reshape the entertainment giant, announcing on Feb. 29 that New Line Cinema would be folded into Warner Bros. Entertainment.

The move, which is a bid to save money and better cash in on New Line releases around the world, will be coupled with the exit of Robert Shaye and Michael Lynne, co-chairmen and co-CEOs of the 40-year-old studio, best known for releasing the "Lord of the Rings" trilogy.

Time Warner said in a statement that the executives are in discussions about possible future business relationships with the company.

Under the new structure, New Line will operate as a unit of Warner Bros. New Line will maintain separate development, production, marketing, distribution and business affairs operations.

"Given trends in the industry toward fewer movie releases, the importance of a coordinated strategy for the international and digital distribution of filmed entertainment, and the need to continue to make sure that we're running our businesses as efficiently as possible, it made sense for us to combine our studios' infrastructures," Bewkes said in a memo to staffers following the move.

Bewkes flagged the ability to control international film rights as a particular focus.
"It makes sense for New Line to retain its international film rights and to exploit them through Warner Bros.' global distribution infrastructure," he said.

New Line previously had the ability to sell off international rights but that was particularly costly in the case of expensive flops like last Christmas' fantasy "The Golden Compass," which performed better overseas than domestically, company insiders said.
There was no word at press time on layoffs. But in a memo to staff yesterday that was circulating online, Shaye and Lynne acknowledged New Line "will probably be a much smaller operation than in the past."

Shares in Time Warner closed down 3 percent yesterday at $16.09.

So after all these years, when all is said and done, New Line Cinema has been reduced to a name and a skeleton crew. Not even Robert Shaye will be around for its later incarnation.

Remember a while back when I said how Michael Myers was the ECW of slasher villains? Well, to continue the wrestling analogy, it looks like New Line Cinema is the WCW of studios. For almost ten years, ever since it spent only $1.1 million to make Wes Craven's A Nightmare on Elm Street, Bob Shaye & Co. were doing a terrific job spending little and getting great returns. From 1984 to 1991 when the Elm Street series was rolling along, the average budget for each one was about $4 - $6 million, and the average return was about $25.

It only got better for New Line once they started putting out the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles live-action films. Like all their other movies, the original one had a modest budget and the return on it was phenomenal. Over $120 million later, New Line had the highest grossing independent film on their hands, a title they would hold onto for quite a few years after that. (The previous record holder was 1978's Halloween.) Sure, the series quickly went downhill in quality, but the studio was basically playing with the money that the first Turtles movie made so no real harm was done.

Things seemed to be going just fine for the company. Thanks to the first film that kicked it into gear, New Line was known through the industry as "The House That Freddy Built." Bob was getting interviewed in Premiere Magazine about the company's success. One of its first forays in the high-end independent world with Robert Altman's The Player – distributed by Fineline Features, New Line's art-house wing – got Altman another Academy Award nomination and was revered as the best movies about movies since Sunset Boulevard.

Just like studios like United Artists in the 70s, New Line looked like an attractive place for different filmmakers. John Waters made this studio his home in 1970 and churned out Multiple Maniacs, Female Trouble, Polyester, Pink Flamingos and Hairspray for New Line. (Pecker and A Dirty Shame were released by Fineline.) And even though he wasn't behind the camera for the Hairspray musical adaptation, he did appear in it.

The early 90s were a collecting period for New Line since they knew Freddy was running out of steam. So they picked up the rights to Leatherface (it helped that they handled the re-releasing of The Texas Chainsaw Massacre in 1980) and in 1993, they got Jason Voorhees under their umbrella. That resulted in the release of Jason Goes to Hell: The Final Friday, which was produced on a $2.5 million budget and even though it barely pulled in $10 million, it still quadrupled its budget.

In 1994, Ted Turner came along and bought New Line. Wes Craven's New Nightmare would open that year with great critical acclaim but poor box office. Other projects would come and go without making any real waves as well. But the next year, with financial successes like The Mask and Mortal Kombat (although both sequels quickly found their way to the ranks of Misunderstood Masterpieces), everything seemed fine.

In 1996, New Line introduced us to Austin Powers and in 1999, we saw The Spy Who Shagged Me bring in over $100 million at the box office. In between those two films, Turner merged with AOL / Time Warner to become a part of a much larger conglomerate. At the same time, Fineline was absorbed with HBO and turned into Picturehouse. (They would go on to release Pan's Labyrinth.)

As time passed, the company seemed to be doing well with the Rush Hour franchise and the Blade films. But if there was anything that New Line owed its recent success to, it was The Lord of the Rings. When the third chapter of your already highly lucrative franchise brings in over $1 BILLION worldwide and sweeps the Academy Awards at the same time, you're doing just fine.

The irony of this whole situation is that, with the sort of success that The Lord of the Rings had, you would think that New Line could coast along without a care in the world and that Bob Shaye would be allowed to concentrate on the movies that only they wanted to make. Hell, the man's company delivered big-time for all of Time Warner, right? Well, I've mentioned perfect worlds before and that's not what we live in. It didn't matter what New Line had accomplished so recently; they still had to come up with the next big thing.

Just like everyone else in the wake of both The Lord of the Rings and Harry Potter, New Line was right there throwing as many fantasy epics against the wall to see what stuck, and their latest attempt at that was The Golden Compass. The problem with that film – other than its failure to get a Tolkien-sized audience – was that it came out as New Line was on a downswing. Very few of its projects were getting the sort of returns that it had during the good old days or the good new days. And now, after over 40 years of being in business, New Line Cinema has become a skeleton crew and Robert Shaye would be going out the door.

So to recap, we have a company that starts off on its own, does very well for itself, gets involved with Ted Turner, has a bit of a rocky start but then moves up to heights it would have never imagined, and then quickly sinks to depths nobody expected before it's absorbed into an ever-growing umbrella and reduced to a skeleton crew. Any of this remind you of a few events that took place about seven years ago?

Don't be surprised if the few people New Line has left decide to plan an InVasion of Warner Bros.

Credit: New York Post


SYBIL THE SOOTHSAYER

UPCOMING MOVIES

10,000 BC: An action adventure starring Steven Strait as a young hunter leading an army, battling saber-tooth tigers and prehistoric predators, unearthing a lost civilization and trying to rescue the woman (Camilla Belle) he loves.

I have no real qualms with Roland Emmerich (although saying Godzilla was a let-down would be an understatement), but I just don't have any real interest in seeing this. It looks pretty, but judging by what I see in the trailers and commercials, even though this is a much earlier time than what Apocalypto was set in, it seems like Mel covered this area in ‘06 and did a much better job with it.


The Bank Job: Jason Statham stars in this bank heist film, in which British thieves believe they are stealing valuables from the wealthy, only to find they are rescuing a royal family member from a compromising position.

I get a kick out of Jason Statham (no pun intended, okay maybe pun intended), and the early buzz on this is pretty solid, so while I don't see myself going out of my way to see this on opening night, I wouldn't mind giving it a look and enjoying myself for a couple hours seeing it.


College Road Trip: Martin Lawrence plays a overprotective daddy who's micromanaging his daughter's (Raven-Symone) college hunt.

Remember when Martin Lawrence was in Bad Boys? I never thought I'd see the day where he starred in a G-rated film. Guess there's a first time for everything. And in an even weirder twist, the director of this G-rated film also directed Cruel Intentions. You remember that family classic, right…?


DVD NEWS

In a not too terribly surprising move, Paramount Home Entertainment will be releasing the first three Indiana Jones films as special editions before the upcoming release of the new Indy film. Each DVD will contain new extras.

Raiders of the Lost Ark will include an intro with Speilberg and Lucas, the featurettes "Indiana Jones: An Appreciation" and "The Melting Face," storyboards, galleries and a demo of the Lego game.

Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom will also contain an intro and the featurettes "Creepy Crawlies" and "Locations" along with storyboards and galleries.

Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade will follow suit with another intro, and the featurettes "The Women: The American Film Institute Tribute" and "Friends and Enemies," plus the storyboards and galleries.

Oddly the features that were in the original release - namely the trailers and full documentary - are missing from these individual releases.

With the shakeup at Paramount, it's not a shock that no Blu-ray versions of these have been announced. The DVDs will arrive on May 13th.


After Paramount and Universal made departures from the format, DreamWorks announced that their contract was a bit more complicated and they would be stuck with HD-DVD a bit longer, including the release for Bee Movie later this month.

Over this past weekend, however, things got evened out and DreamWorks is now officially out of the HD-DVD business. Bee Movie and all other DreamWorks titles for the format have been cancelled.


Get your pre-orders ready, folks!!! Anchor Bay Entertainment is releasing the Complete First Season of Bret Michaels' "Rock of Love" on DVD featuring all 13 episodes, plus bonus footage too hot for TV! Whether the episodes will be uncensored remains to be seen, but we'll find out when the disc hits stores on April 8 at a retail price for $34.97.

Credit: DVDReview.com


JIM WEBBING AND HIS IT'S-THE-HONEST-TRUTH-DEPARTMENT

Dismantling the House That Freddy Built: Parent Time Warner hasn't disclosed details of job cuts since last Thursday's announcement that New Line would be folded into Warner Bros. and that co-toppers Bob Shaye and Michael Lynne would depart. But the emerging consensus is that at least 75% of the slots will be axed in the coming months while a bare-bones staff stays on -- a plan reminiscent of what happened to Disney's Miramax arm after the Weinstein brothers departed in 2005.

Time Warner, which has been under pressure to cut costs and hike its stagnant stock price, will name a "transition team" shortly to handle the specifics of folding New Line into Warner Bros.

Though he's remaining on the job for the time being, New Line production president Toby Emmerich is widely expected to ankle. It's also anticipated that New Line will vacate its New York office and its West Hollywood HQ and move operations onto the Warner Bros. lot in Burbank.

Warner will decide how to handle New Line's upcoming films, though specific decisions on possible date switches aren't expected for several more weeks. New Line's next pics are "Harold and Kumar Escape From Guantanamo" on April 28 and "Sex and the City" on May 30; no other films are slotted until the Aug. 1 launch of "He's Just Not That Into You" and the Aug. 8 opening of "Journey 3D."

Hundreds of New Line employees converged on the Pacific Design Center's Silver Screen Theater on Friday to learn their fate as Time Warner topper Jeff Bewkes addressed the overflow crowd via satellite.

Bewkes, who was in New York, told the audience that they may be approached by headhunters in the coming weeks, but Time Warner wants to retain as many New Line employees as possible.

Bewkes took questions during the meeting; an attendee asked him who was in charge of New Line, which is being folded into the parent company as a small genre division. He indicated that Shaye and Lynne will be stepping down soon.

"They're still here," said Bewkes during the meeting, which was closed to the public. "For everyone's sake, they need to step back from the process."

Bewkes assured the crowd that the shuttering of the stand-alone mini-major had nothing to do with its performance. "New Line has been the most successful independent studio in history," he said.

Attendees said Bewkes didn't offer many specifics during the meeting, which lasted about 45 minutes, and he responded with "That's a good question" on several occasions.

I can't imagine how many people will be out of work by the time this transitioning goes through. According to the report, 75 percent of the people working for New Line will be out of work, and they're not likely to have a cushiony development deal to keep them happy in the meantime.

As for the films that are left in New Line's pipeline, it's very doubtful they'll be bringing in several hundred million dollars, but at least – with the exception of Journey 3D – the costs are expected to be relatively low, just like it was during the Elm Street era. Although if they're going to come out with a spoiler trailer like Sex and the City (which I still say is a bad idea that they're making this, and that's coming from someone who enjoyed the series) they're not doing themselves any favors.

The lukewarm opening that Semi-Pro got this past weekend doesn't help much either.

Credit: Variety.com


When NonProfits Collide: The Tribeca Film Institute, the nonprofit arm of the Tribeca Film Festival, will merge with Renew Media, a fellow nonprofit for the arts. New entity will retain the Tribeca Film Institute name.

"It's harder and harder to make movies; this is a welcoming home for filmmakers and media artists, and I think we need that," fest co-founder Jane Rosenthal said. "It's harder and harder to get arts funding in the schools, and we're going in and promoting arts education."

The fest itself has experienced growing pains as it's expanded, and both the 10-day fest and the institute are seeking permanent digs in which to cohabitate. Pier 40 has been bandied about as a possible future home.

TFI's staff will number about 16 year round, doubling during the fest. The festival employs about 50 year round, with added seasonal staff of 200-plus volunteers, whose numbers balloon to more than 2,000 to handle the fest.

The seventh edition of the Tribeca Film Festival opens on April 23 and runs through May 4.

The decision to merge is expected to be formalized in early April, but the two boards have approved a memorandum authorizing the coupling. Boards will be co-chaired by Rosenthal and founding partner Robert De Niro, with Alberta Arthurs, former Renew chair, taking on vice chair duties. Renew's exec director, Brian Newman, will shift into the role of chief exec at TFI.

Funding from TFI for artists and filmmakers will benefit youth and mentorship programs for underrepresented artists, curated documentary series, panels and workshops, and the 3-year-old Summer Arts Institute, a film-intensive program for youth.

The summer program is currently free for 20 people of high school age, but TFI plans to expand it into a larger, citywide undertaking.

Meanwhile, under a grant from the MacArthur Foundation, an upcoming project, Reframe, will digitize and make archives available to the public with the goal of helping unseen films find a broader audience.

TFI will bestow 40 or so grants ranging from $500 to $50,000 as well as in-kind donations to filmmakers and new-media artists. More than $1 million in cash is given out in fellowships or award money each year.

Considering how much the independent studios are getting swallowed up by the larger studios – I don't think I have to mention an example this week – it's a great thing to get news like this. So many smaller distributors will start out one way and eventually become something else once they're bought by a larger conglomerate, but with this kind of merger, there's hope not only for the independent market, but for the future filmmakers as well.

When you go through a week where you learn one of your favorite studios is coming to a close and a whole lot of people are going to find themselves out of work, it's good to hear news about this kind of merging.

Credit: Variety.com


FILM MUSIC NEWS

* AFM OKs Buyout Contracts for Music Library Recording Sessions
* Songwriters Hall of Fame Announces Latest Honorees
* Javier Zacharias Named BMI Film Scoring Scholarship Recipient
* The Scoreboard: Hundreds of Composers and Their Projects
* Signings and Projects: James L. Venable, Mark Isham, Richard Marvin and More
* The Chart Doctor - by Ron Hess - "When and Where to Optimize"
* Music Technology and You - by Peter Lawrence Alexander, "E-MU PM5 and the PS 12 Subwoofers"
* Soundtrack Review - by Daniel Schweiger, "Be Kind Rewind" by Jean-Michael Bernard


VOX POPULI

WEEKEND BOX OFFICE: February 29 – March 2, 2008

1. Semi-Pro: $15,075,114
Total: $15,075,114
2. Vantage Point: $12,819,245
Total: $40,823,745
3. The Spiderwick Chronicles: $8,700,378
Total: $55,028,942
4. The Other Boleyn Girl: $8,203,061
Total: $8,203,061
5. Jumper: $7,568,462
Total: $66,790,968
6. Step Up 2 The Streets: $5,742,479
Total: $48,621,711
7. Fool's Gold: $4,418,229
Total: $58,800,790
8. No Country For Old Men: $4,114,994
Total: $69,680,625
9. Penelope: $3,802,144
Total: $3,802,144
10. Definitely, Maybe: $3,382,005
Total: $26,650,585

Credit: BoxOfficeGuru.com

Click here to take part in the latest discussions in the Past/Current Movies Thread at the 411Movies/TV Forum.


THE INTERACTIVE BABE PHOTO NEWS BRIEF

Be prepared for some 80s ladies!

In honor of the fallen New Line Cinema, here's a look at some of the women that took part in the franchise that put them on the map, A Nightmare on Elm Street:

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Heather Langenkamp
Played Nancy Thompson in A Nightmare on Elm Street (1984) and A Nightmare on Elm Street 3: Dream Warriors (1987)
Played Herself in Wes Craven's New Nightmare (1994)

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Patricia Arquette
Played Kristen Parker in A Nightmare on Elm Street 3: Dream Warriors (1987)

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Jennifer Rubin
Played Taryn White in A Nightmare on Elm Street 3: Dream Warriors (1987)

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Brooke Theiss
Played Debbie in A Nightmare on Elm Street 4: The Dream Master (1988)

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Lisa Zane
Played Dr. Maggie Burroughs, aka Katherine Krueger in Freddy's Dead: The Final Nightmare (1991)

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Monica Keena
Played Lori Campbell in Freddy Vs. Jason (2003)


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MAD PROPHET OF THE AIRWAVES

While I welcome everyone's feedback, the one person that this is aimed towards is the one person I really want to hear from: Time Warner president Jeff Bewkes.


Dear Mr. Bewkes:

I trust you are very busy over-seeing the absorbing of New Line Cinema, so I doubt this will find its way to you, but I need to speak my mind about something that's very distressing to me as a fan.

Reports have been making their way through the Internet (with several stops on this site) about Platinum Dunes preparing a remake of the 1984 Wes Craven classic A Nightmare on Elm Street for New Line. Obviously, this means that they will be preparing this remake for you and Warner Bros. under the New Line banner.

I understand that this company has worked with you in the past and has done fairly well with its business of taking beloved projects and "modernizing" them for the MTV audience and alienating its original fanbases, so it was only a matter of time before they got their hands on Freddy Krueger to bring him back to theaters.

As a fan of this series and an immense fan of this character, I have to say on behalf of the other fans that made A Nightmare on Elm Street the successful franchise that it was…

Please. Don't do this.

It's not going to work. Not this time, not this franchise, not this character.

The horror genre is no stranger to getting remade. We've seen it happen since the Universal classic 1930s films, when Dracula was played by Bela Lugosi during the day and Carlos Villarias during the night on the same set. New Line already had some decent success with re-doing The Texas Chainsaw Massacre almost 30 years after the original release. But this is a different case.

Unlike Dracula, The Wolf Man, Frankenstein and the other classics that eventually were remade by Hammer Films in the 1960s, there was no trace of A Nightmare on Elm Street in popular culture until Wes Craven wrote the script AND Robert Englund brought the character of Freddy Krueger to life. These two men created a modern icon that was the perfect fit for its time.

You remember the 1980s, right? The Baby-Boomers were in control. Greed was good. It was morning again in America. What Freddy Krueger became was the ultimate slap in the face for all of those people who believed that moving to the suburbs would solve all of their problems and nobody would ever get to them. Freddy struck at the heart of what the 1980s were all about; the Anti-Reagan, if you will.

The time for Freddy has come and gone, and he had the best possible swan-song when Freddy Vs. Jason was released. There's a big reason why that film was so successful, and that was because New Line had kept audiences waiting for this big throw-down for ten long years. But to put out a new Nightmare on Elm Street film in this jaded time just wouldn't have that magic that the original franchise had.

By wiping the slate clean and re-casting Freddy, you would not only be doing a great disservice to the character, but you would also be insulting the audience. We've seen different actors playing Leatherface and we've seen a hell of a lot of different actors and stuntmen playing Jason Voorhees, but Freddy Krueger was played by one man who injected him with the personality that still resonates today.

If anyone other than Robert Englund was playing him, then your audience will automatically compare Englund to the poor actor who would be stepping into Robert's shoes. And considering the sort of character Freddy became, all you would really have is an actor impersonating Robert Englund's performance.

If you want to remake Friday the 13th, then fine. I wasn't for it before, but it seems like this new take will be a combination of elements from 1, 2 and 3 with a new story, so okay. But leave A Nightmare on Elm Street alone. You don't even need to make a prequel since there has already been so much backstory used in the original series. If you want to make more money off of the name and the character, just give the original film a nice limited re-release. There's no need to add anymore to this lore. Audiences got seven good movies (well, six, the second one sucked) and an entertaining showdown with another icon. That's a hell of a run for one character, especially with one actor on the frontlines.

If Platinum Dunes is so intent on working with you to make a horror film, then why not just bring in a writer (which you can, now that the strike's over) and let them come up with their own horror character with a personality and iconic weapon that doesn't have anything to do with Elm Street? You don't have to keep going back and rebooting franchises that worked so well before, and you definitely don't have to act under the notion that anyone can play a character like Freddy Krueger.

I hope this message finds its way to you, and as Peter Gibbons once said, "good luck with your layoffs, alright? I hope your firings go really well."

Sincerely,

George H. Sirois
411Mania.com





And that's a wrap for Chapter 55 of The UBS Evening News. I'm George H. Sirois, and I'll see you next week!