Coming into December Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close, producer Scott Rudin’s third Oscar hopeful this Fall (after Moneyball and December 21 release The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo), was expected to become an immediate major player in the Oscar game, but several problems crept up including some last-minute
shoots, a new music score and a rushed series of screenings to play catch-up, particularly with SAG whose ballots were in the hands of voters already a few days before the film’s first screening, and well over a week before Warner Bros. could send SAG nominating committee members the DVD screener — a necessity to put it on an even playing field with most other hopefuls which had weeks or months to get their message and movies in front of voters. A SAG nominating committee member who greatly admired the film told me she thinks many ballots were already sent in before members had a chance to see this movie, which she admits she had never heard of.
The film is finally opening Christmas Day on a limited basis in New York and Los Angeles and will go wide on January 20, four days before Oscar nominations are announced. But will it get any, or has all the last-minute catch-up taken its toll?
Although it received four major nominations including Best Picture last week from the Critics Choice Movie Awards (which often mirror … Read More
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Hammond: Incredibly Late, Can ‘Extremely Loud’ Catch Up In Best Picture Race?
SAG Health & Pension Plan Fund Scandal: Hundreds Sign Petition For Impartial Probe
EXCLUSIVE: An ad hoc group of SAG members describing itself as “sick and tired of the corruption” last week hand delivered this letter of protest to the Screen Actors Guild’s Board Of Trustees, including SAG National Executive Director David White and senior legal counsel Duncan Crabtree-Ireland. It is now a petition with hundreds of SAG member signatures. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: with the SAG/AFTRA merger on the horizon, the SAG board needs to put an end to the increasing lack of transparency surrounding all its meetings and activities:
December 11, 2011
SAG-PPHP
The Board of Trustees
Dear Board of Trustees of SAG – PPHP
We come to you as deeply concerned SAG members with a vested interest in our Health and Pension Plans. We want you to know that just because we have been sitting on the sidelines, it doesn’
Hot Trailer: ‘Ghost Rider: Spirit Of Vengeance’
Sony updated this one today on its website and we know how much you enjoy telling us what you think. Here’s Nicolas Cage in Ghost Rider: Spirit Of Vengeance. Directed by Mark Neveldine and Brian Taylor, screenplay by Scott M. Gimple & Seth Hoffman and David S. Goyer. Opens February 17. Now have at it.
Click here to view the embedded video.
Hot Trailer: ‘This Must Be The Place’
This Must Be The Place is one of four movies added today to the lineup at next month’s Sundance Film Festival. Sean Penn plays a retired goth rock star who sets out to find the Nazi war criminal who tormented his father in Auschwitz. The movie, which also screened at Cannes, was directed by Paolo Sorrentino and written by Umberto Contarello and Paolo Sorrentinost. Frances McDormand and Judd Hirsch co-star.
Dick Clark Prods Revives ‘Bloopers’ As Syndicated Series Launching In Fall 2012
Thirty years after Dick Clark launched TV Bloopers, Dick Clark Prods is bringing the franchise back back with Bloopers, a new weekly syndicated series, which will premiere in the fall of 2012. The program has already been cleared on the Tribune-owned stations in New York, Los Angeles, Chicago, Dallas, Washington DC, Houston, Seattle, Miami, Sacramento, Portland, Indianapolis, San Diego, Hartford, Harrisburg, Grand Rapids, and New Orleans. Comprised of 120 half-hour episodes over the next three years, Bloopers is intended to play as a back-to-back hour on weekends and will feature new bloopers, hidden camera gags and user-generated videos. It is is distributed domestically by Trifecta Entertainment & Media, the company founded in 2005 by former MGM Television President Hank Cohen. Bloopers originated as TV Bloopers, a series of 7 specials hosted by Dick Clark, which aired on NBC from 1981 to Feb. 1984. It morphed into TV’s Bloopers & Practical Jokes, a regular series Clark co-hosted with Ed McMahon on NBC from 1984 to 1988. ‘
Hot Trailer: ‘Wrath Of The Titans’
Here’s Warner Bros’ new trailer for Jonathan Liebesman’s Wrath Of The Titans which has Sam Worthington returning as Perseus. Liam Neeson and Ralph Fiennbes are also back as Zeus and Hades in the sequel to the 2010 remake of Clash Of The Titans. Opens March 30.
Nicole Scherzinger Won’t Commit To Returning For Second Season Of ‘X Factor’
Embattled X Factor judge Nicole Scherzinger wouldn’t commit to continuing on the Fox singing series, which has been renewed for a second season. Asked at a press conference whether she’d return if asked, the Pussycat Dolls singer didn’t give a straight answer, saying, “I’ve had a lot of fun this season. The reason I took this job is I wanted to mentor, first and foremost…It has been very hard on me, the elimination process. It’s something I could never have been prepared for.” Scherzinger, a last-minute replacement for original judge Cheryl Cole, has received mostly negative feedback from fans and recently found herself at the center of a controversy surrounding the surprise elimination of 13-year-old Rachel Crow. Scherzinger didn’t speak to that controversy at the media gathering hyping the two-part first season finale this Tuesday and Wednesday, where she was sitting beside Josh Krajcik, the bearded, shaggy-haired singer she is mentoring into the finals. (The other two finalists, also present at the press conference, are Melanie Amaro — mentored by Simon Cowell — and the L.A. Reid-mentored Chris Rene.) “For me, what’s important is to live in the moment. I’ve got to get Josh through this and to come out swinging,” Scherzinger said. “So I’m just going to focus on doing a really good job with Josh here.”
Cowell himself remained silent today with regard to Scherzinger’s future. Last week, he responded to a TV Guide question whether he’d want to … Read More
‘Wolverine’ Pirate To Serve Year In Prison
LOS ANGELES ‘
XMAS SLUMP, TOO? ‘Sherlock Holmes 2′ And ‘Alvin And The Chipmunks 3′ Badly Trail Big Openings Of Previous Installments; ‘Mission: Impossible 4′ Best Screen Average
FRIDAY 9:30 PM, 4TH UPDATE: Sources are starting to send me more numbers for today. Both Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows (Warner Bros) as well as Alvin And The Chipmunks: Chipwrecked (Fox) are badly trailing their previous installments. (Sherlock 1/$62.3M vs Sherlock 2/$42.4M and Alvin 2/$48.8M vs Alvin 3/$25.8M.) The Robert Downey Jr-starring and Guy Ritchie-directed Sherlock 2 includes $1.25M from 1,650 midnight shows. It’s early yet but audiences seem to be rejecting sequels and threequels. Of course, the movie studios point out that both the last Sherlock and Alvin opened either on Christmas or after kids were already out of school. Execs are hoping to make up the difference before year’s end. But more pics will open, too, creating clutter. So if this weekend’s low grosses continue, then the domestic box office slump may very well ruin Christmas for Hollywood.
One bright spot is the new Mission: Impossible – Ghost Protocol which had the best major release per screen average of $28K today helped by its higher IMAX ticket prices. It also opened with a huge $1.1 million playing on just 425 screens in 425 locations from Thursday evening through midnight shows goosed by none other than Warner Bros’ 6-minute The Dark Knight Rises preview in giant screen 70mm IMAX theaters. (As reference, M:I3 did $1.1M of midnight business on over 2,000 screens. “This is a great start,” a Paramount exec gushed. ”It’s a pretty compelling package.”) Paramount tells me that, given how strong early … Read More
Warner Bros Sets Black List Top Scribe Graham Moore For ‘Devil In The White City’; Leonardo DiCaprio To Play Serial Killer
EXCLUSIVE: Warner Bros has acquired The Devil in the White City: Murder, Magic And Madness At The Fair That Changed America, the 2003 non-fiction book by Erik Larson. The studio has set Graham Moore to script the story of Dr. HH Holmes, one of the most notorioius serial killers in Chicago history. Leonardo DiCaprio is attached to play Holmes. Moore created a stir with his spec script The Imitation Game, which was acquired by Warner Bros in a 7-figure spec deal before it was judged to be the top script on The Black List that was released earlier this week.
Warner Bros acquired the project from Appian Way partners DiCaprio and Jennifer Killoran and Double Features partners Michael Shamberg and Stacey Sher. They will produce, and they acquired the novel late last year with DiCaprio attached to play Holmes, the 19th Century equivalent of Hannibal Lecter. A cunning charmer, Holmes preyed on anywhere from 27 to 200 people at a time when the city of Chicago was enthralled with hosting the World’
NBC Buys Comedic Drama Set Behind The Scenes Of Reality Series; Mariska Hargitay, Andrew Lazar & Steve Shainberg Producing
EXCLUSIVE: NBC already has a series set behind the scenes of a sketch comedy show in Emmy-winning comedy 30 Rock. Now the network is looking to pull back the veil on the inner workings of reality series. NBC has bought American Dream, an hourlong spec written by Paul Kolsby and executive produced by Law & Order: SVU star Mariska Hargitay, feature producer Andrew Lazar and Steve Shainberg. Shainberg, director of the 2002 feature Secretary, is also attached to direct the potential pilot. American Dream is described as a bitingly funny, risque and sophisticated melodrama about the symbiotic relationship between network executives and the “talent” in a reality television series.
Kolsby, a playwright and screenwriter, had a lot of personal experience to draw on in writing the American Dream — he has worked as a producer on a number of reality series, including Jersey Shore and Bridezillas. Kolsby developed the project with Shainberg and Lazar. Original Artists, which reps Kolsby and Lazar then gave the script to Hargitay who loved it and came on board as an executive producer. Through her producing deal at NBC, she took the script to the network’s brass who picked it up. Hargitay is repped by CAA; Shainberg is managed by Industry Entertainment. Lazar is currently producing Akira for Warners with Jaume Collete-Serra directing and Gunslinger for New Regency with James Mangold … Read More
HBO Go, MAX Go Finally Launching On Time Warner Cable Systems Within Next Month
Time Warner Cable has finally reached an agreement to deliver mobile TV applications HBO Go and MAX Go to its customers. TWC has been the largest pay TV provider that hasn’t signed an agreement with its former parent company’s premium cable networks applications for TV Everywhere. Within the next month, the companyl run a brief beta trial and then the service is expected to launch to all Time Warner Cable customers who subscribe to HBO within the next month. Subscribers “to HBO and/or Cinemax will have free, unlimited access to the corresponding online services at any time, on any computer in the U.S. with a high-speed Internet connection, as well as a host of other 
devices, including the iPad,” Time Warner said in an announcement late Friday. Time Warner Cable was the last major holdout in signing a deal for the mobile application, which has been downloaded for use on iPhones, iPads and other devices more than 5 million times. The Apple and Android apps were introduced April 29. HBO Go will allow video-on-demand access to old and current programming including True Blood and The Sopranos on Internet-connected computers, mobile phones and tablet computers. The company said more than 1,400 titiles will be available online to Time Warner Cable customers who subscribe to HBO, with 400 additional titles available to Cinemax subscribers. Most new titles will be available simultaneously with their premieres on … Read More
Gary Oldman Honored By Palm Springs Fest
Palm Springs, CA (December 16, 2011) ‘
Massive Increase For NFL’s TV Rights Throws Cablers For A Loss
Cable operators are gearing up for a brutal scrimmage with broadcasters over program licensing fees — and consumer pay TV rates — following this week’s agreement by CBS, NBC, and Fox to pay an estimated $27.5B to air NFL games from 2014 through 2022. The new figure is up 63% from the previous contracts. In order for all of the media partners to break even under the new contract, Miller Tabak analyst David Joyce estimates that the average pay TV subscriber would have to pay $11.23 a month — up $6.87 from the break-even number from the previous NFL contract that ends in 2013. Although nobody expects consumer bills to rise that much anytime soon, the estimates indicate how motivated broadcasters will be to press for higher retransmission consent fees from pay TV companies. Joyce says that the deals were probably cut now so the networks and affiliated TV stations can prepare for their negotiations with cable and satellite companies.
Distributors say they intend to hold the line at a time when many of their customers are looking for cheaper alternatives. “Congress and the Federal Communications Commission need to throw a flag, because rules and regulations shouldn’
Is Congress Prepared To Deregulate Television?
Rep. Steve Scalise (R-LA) and Sen. Jim DeMint (R-SC) apparently think so based on the cable- and satellite-friendly bill they submitted today called the Next Generation Television Marketplace Act. It would end retransmission consent — the rules that require pay TV providers to negotiate deals with local broadcasters to carry their programming. It doesn’t stop there: The proposal also would end restrictions that enable syndicators to sell shows exclusively into different markets. And it would scrap rules that bar cable companies from importing network programming from out-of-market stations when they can’t strike deals with local broadcasters. DeMint used the trendy magic words — “job creation” — to support the bill. To promote innovation, he says, “we need to stop issuing new regulations and instead remove and modernize rules written to address the last century’s business and regulatory models.” DirecTV agrees, saying that the proposal would “eliminate byzantine regulations that shackle innovation, competition and consumer choice.”
But when it comes to wielding political clout, the bill’s supporters probably are no match for the National Association of Broadcasters which says it “respectfully” opposes the legislation. “Current law ensures access to quality local news, entertainment, sports and life-saving weather warnings. The proposed changes to the Communications Act strike at the core of free market negotiations and broadcast localism, thereby threatening a community-based information and entertainment medium that serves tens of millions of Americans each day.”
Anchor Bay Acquires Steven Seagal Pic ‘Maximum Conviction’
Anchor Bay Films has landed U.S. and Canadian theatrical and home entertainment rights to Maximum Conviction, an action pic starring Steven Seagal and Steve Austin. The deal for the movie — directed by Keoni Waxman and produced by Seagal, Austin and Phillip Goldfine — was done with Voltage Pictures, which is repping international rights. In the film, Seagal and Austin work for a private security firm charged with decommissioning an old prison. They all but complete the task until two mysterious female prisoners arrive, followed by elite mercenaries who are hunting them down. Benjamin Sacks, Scott Kennedy and Waxman executive produced with co-exec producer Binh Dang.
Celebs To Loom Large On YouTube Channels Gearing Up For January Debut
EXCLUSIVE: There’s a lot of last-minute scrambling among the channels poised to join Google’s potentially revolutionary initiative featuring professionally produced videos — which kicks off in earnest in just a few weeks. Several execs say they still don’t know exactly what they’ll show, when they’ll debut, and how much promotional help they’ll receive from YouTube. But one thing’s becoming clear: The initial wave of services out of the 96 picked to receive investments from YouTube will be loaded with material either from or about celebrities. That’s not part of a master plan; a lot of Web video producers already focus on pop culture and can gear up new channels in a hurry. The group includes Madonna’s DanceOn, which has been on YouTube since late 2010; it will reintroduce itself in January after it revamps its interface and programming. It plans 10 series including scripted shows, competitions, and tutorials but says it’s still figuring out when each will begin to appear. A different kind of celeb, skateboarder Tony Hawk, also is expected to have his action sports oriented Ride Channel ready next month.
When it comes to services about entertainment, some execs tell me that they’re curious to see what happens with Young Hollywood Network, which launches on January 16. It plans to have five weekly shows featuring interviews with stars and moguls including some conducted at the company’s studio in the Four Seasons Hotel. ENTV from Deadline … Read More
Madonna Comeback In Music, TV, And Film: 3-Album Deal With Interscope Worth $40M; First Album In 5 Years Coming Early March; Single Timed To ‘W.E.’ Film And Superbowl
EXCLUSIVE DETAILS: Hollywood knows that, when it comes to Madonna, never count her down and out. Because few performers are as shrewd about their careers as this 53-year-old multi-hyphenate singer, actress, producer, and now film writer and director who has stayed buzz-worthy for three decades. I’ve learned that Interscope Records is releasing her new CD in late March – her first album in 5 years. And “Gimme All Your Luvin”, the first single, is coming out the last week in January just prior to her upcoming Superbowl XLVI halftime appearance on February 5th. I’ve learned that’s the same week her upcoming Weinstein Company film, W.E., is now scheduled for a wide release on February 3rd. So it becomes clear why Harvey Weinstein delayed Madonna’s movie from December 9th in NY and LA: to take advantage of the early 2012 promotional hype which will surround her and provide him with free marketing. That’s especially useful after reviews of the film she directed and co’
Awards-Season Read: ‘50/50’ Screenplay
EXCLUSIVE: Writer Will Reiser used his own experiences with cancer to create the screenplay for Summit’s 50/50 starring Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Seth Rogen and Anjelica Huston. Described as a “cancer comedy,” it is also full of gripping drama. The result has been early awards-season success ‘
Film Academy Adds 4 To Sci-Tech Council
Pioneering camera technologist Denny Clairmont, cinematographer John Hora, comprehensive digital media studio advocate Bob Lambert and film preservationist and asset archival innovator Milt Shefter have joined the Science and Technology Council of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. Clairmont co-founded Clairmont Camera
which became one of the largest camera rental companies in the world. He’s been a member of the Scientific and Technical Awards Committee since 1993 and an an Academy member since 2002. Hora’s credits include Honey I Blew Up the Kid, Gremlins and Twilight Zone: The Movie. He has been a member of the Academy’s Cinematographers Branch since 1986. Longtime Disney senior executive Lambert has been a leader in the transition to digital technologies, such as the CAPS system for feature animation, which was recognized with a Scientific and Engineering Award in 1991. Lambert has been an Academy member since 1999. Shefter is known for the creation, design and management of the Paramount Pictures Asset Protection Program, including construction of state-of-the-art archival facilities worldwide. He’s been an Academy member since 1989.