The Hollywood Reporter: Risky Business

Forget Dumbledore -- The Twittersphere has spoken

hollywoodreporter — Wed, 15 Jul 2009 01:30:44 -0700

By Steven Zeitchik

Time was, word of mouth would boost or sink a movie between the first weekend and the next. Then it started dinging or lifting pics between the first day and the ones that followed.

Last week, some skeptical Twitter posts may have thrown a wet blanket on "Bruno" just as it was catching fire (a fuller exploration of the thesis at Time.com). That pretty much meant a consensus word-of-mouth -- and not always a favorable one -- within hours of the pic going wide last Friday.

The next big-bang summer movie to run through the cauldron of the early Tweeters is "Harry Potter & the Half-Blood Prince." Warners' sixth installment in its insanely lucrative franchise is as close to a sure bet as you can get: it has a fan base that grows with each picture, brand recognition of the sort that causes studio execs to sacrifice small children and the elusive, intangible crossover quality (or, in plain English, parents might actually enjoy taking their kids).

And yet in a socially-networked era, early word has never been as important. Those who went out to see the dozens of sneaks around the country Tuesday night are a surprisingly good focus group for what this early word might be: they're the devoted fans more disposed to liking the movie, sure, but also the kind of fans who may be harder on a picture for its flaws.

Their take? A look at a neat little Twitter module we've set up (you can view it here) suggests that despite the length (a cool 153 minutes), the more adult and darker evolution of the story has pretty much satisfied. In the uncomplicated take of MEGA_blOCkS, "WEll hARRY POttER WAS QUitE AMAZiNG :) EVEN if it WAS OVER 3 hOURS lONG!"

But there appears to be the small, nagging problem of the ending, which differs slightly from the book (we won't give it away here), and which may leave the purists wanting, or at least in a crabby mood. Several Twitterers noticed the discrepancy and were put off by it. As sexyfhqwhgads puts it, "Harry Potter 6 ending inaccurate. Otherwise good."

Of course as viral and trusted as some of these reactions are, none of them may matter in the end on a tentpole like this.

Just as there are films that are critic-proof, there may be films that are Twitter-proof. In the surprisingly insightful words of samLguess (did we just write that?): "I have a love for Harry Potter, regardless of the semi-mediocre movie."

Aronofsky fills his dance card

hollywoodreporter — Tue, 14 Jul 2009 19:30:00 -0700

By Steven Zeitchik

Darren Aronofsky likely will dance with swans — but what will it mean for his grappling with cyborgs?

The director is on the verge of a deal that would have him helming passion project “Black Swan” later this year. While a few budget and financing issues on the Natalie Portman-toplined supernatural drama still need be to ironed out, people familiar with the situation say Aronofsky pretty much has indie financing for the pic set, with Fox Searchlight (which of course distribbed his “The Wrestler” last year) monitoring pre-production closely and potentially coming aboard at a later stage.

But a fall start has another potential consequence: it throws into question Aronofsky’s involvement on “Robocop,” the MGM reboot of the 1987 hit that has been a highly anticipated project for both MGM and the fanboy universe.

Aronfosky and writer David Self have been working closely to hone ideas on the action reboot. Though it would be a tight fit, MGM could essentially hit the pause button until early-mid 2010, when Aronofsky is finished with “Swan,” and still make its 2011 release-date target.

But insiders in the rep community say the studio has also quietly put out feelers for other directors who could come on to “Robocop” in case the timing doesn't work out.

MGM declined comment on the story.

MGM has been cautious about the number of movies it's releasing, and is concentrating at the moment on projects such as the 80's reboot "Red Dawn," the male-centric comedy “Hot Tub Time Machine,” and a “Poltergeist” reboot.

That could mean the Mary Parent-run studio could afford to wait on “Robocop” -- but it would mean putting on hold a potential tentpole on a slate that isn’t currently stacked with them. After all, other projects, like "Bond 23" and the Robert Ludlum property "The Matarese Circle," are still a few years away.

Aronofsky, known for working slowly and carefully honing projects in development, has not signed on to any other pictures post-"Wrestler," a fall breakout that grossed $26 million domestically and picked up multiple Oscar noms.

He and his Protozoa Picture have, however, been shopping "Black Swan," about a woman in the New York City ballet who may or may not be imagining things about an apparent rival. The director would work off a script written by Mark Heyman, a development exec with Protozoa. (Interesting side note: Mike Medavoy's Phoenix Pictures is both involved with "Robcop" and also is producing "Swan.")

The dance project has attracted the interest of a number of studios and specialty divisions, though some were also concerned about the budget for a project with prestige elements. Searchlight has been in the pole position to land the project and has been attempting to work out budget issues in recent months.

Paul Verhoeven's "Robocop," in which a murdered Detroit cop comes back re-engineered as a cyborg, stood as a symbol of 1980's action when Orion released the film. There were several sequels over the years, but a reboot has never gotten off the ground.

Will Dark Horse's 'Fear Agent' ride into theaters?

hollywoodreporter — Mon, 13 Jul 2009 19:15:00 -0700

By Steven Zeitchik

Universal could be heading to outer space.

The studio is in early development on the Dark Horse sci-fi property "Fear Agent." The project is now an open-writing assignment, but there’s a possibility that the studio could match a spec whose rights are controlled by “Air Force One” producer Jonathan Shestack and bring Shestack on to produce “Agent.”

"Agent" centers on a colorful, borderline alcoholic astronaut named Heath Huston, a Texan who works as a so-called fear agent, the last of a dwindling breed of spacemen whose mission it is to fight threats to the planet Earth, which is partly destroyed during the course of the series.

The property emphasizes a kind of in-your-face adventure as Huston hops around the galaxy fighting various alien species and threats.

Rick Remender penned the series, which began life in 2005 as an Image Comics property before moving to Dark Horse the following year.

Dark Horse Entertainment, the production banner of indie comics powerhouse Dark Horse, has been behind a number of comics-to-film breakouts, including “Hellboy” and “30 Days of Night.” After releasing the Dark Horse production “Hellboy 2,” Universal last year partnered with Dark Horse for an overall production and distribution pact.

Universal has put several other Dark Horse properties in development. The company this spring announced that it was developing “The Secret,” an adaptation of the tale of a missing teenager that Scott Milam has signed on to write. It also is eyeing the counterculture title “Emily the Strange.”

In addition to "Air Force One," Shestack recently produced the Matthew McConaughey romantic comedy “Ghosts of Girlfriends Past” and is producing Lionsgate workplace comedy "Cover Your Assets."

'Bruno' boxoffice: Exactly like 'Borat,' except when it isn't

hollywoodreporter — Mon, 13 Jul 2009 19:06:43 -0700

By Steven Zeitchik

"Borat" may be so 2006, as the "Bruno" ads have been telling us, but the comparison is on among the pundits in 2009.

The easy headline is that Austrian flamboyance beat Kazakh incompetence this weekend, by a margin of about $30 million to $26 million -- though that would also be a slightly misleading headline, since the movie about the mustachioed one opened comparatively slowly, just 840 screens in the first weekend.

Better to look at the per-screen numbers (an astonishing $31,000 for "Borat" compared with about $11,000 for Bruno). Or, better still, compare "Bruno's" first weekend to "Borat's" second, when the picture widened to a comparable 2,600 theaters and climbed to $28 million (and ended up with $128 million domestically, a high bar to vault).

That all suggests a gap of sorts between the two pics, and that this Larry Charles/Sacha Baron Cohen concoction was not quite the phenomenon of their first theatrical collaboration, more just a solid summer comedy of many other collaborations.

Of course some other things need to be taken into account when evaluating the performance of the MRC-financed "Bruno":

* "Borat," notably, opened in the fall, an advantage given how that season lacks for comedy (which, incidentally, also raises the question of whether "Bruno" should have gone the same season or switched to the more lucrative -- but also more competitive -- summer calendar).

*Cringe-worthy antics have become far more common on both the big and small screens, which could have put the movie on an uphill climb with some audiences. Everyone's wondering how the victims of Bruno's pranks could possibly not have known what he was up to, but less discussed is the fact that audiences also knew, potentially taking some of the punch out of his jokes.

*R-rated comedies been saturating the market in the past three years. That means that audiences binging on, say, "The Hangover" may have been eager for another entry ... or maybe just a little bit more fatigued by the genre. (Interestingly, one of the kings of the bawdy summer comedy, Judd Apatow, is coming out with a new movie, "Funny People," also from Uni, that actually will be more grown-up than some of the movies he's produced the past few years.)

"Bruno" will be profitable for Uni in any event. A relatively low-cost negative pickup can do that, even if the ridiculous profits are so, well, 2006.

The Great Gatsby, Entourage's next victim?

hollywoodreporter — Fri, 10 Jul 2009 19:32:49 -0700

By Steven Zeitchik

Almost as interesting as the wish-fulfillment aspects of "Entourage" are the fake movies the show has come up with over the years.

In the show's six seasons of exploring Hollywood life in its more realistic and implausible forms, there have been some obscure ones -- like Vinny Chase's debut, "Head On" (little is revealed about it, but it's probably not the Fatih Akin German-Turkish pic of the same name). But more often these pics run parallel with the real Hollywood.

"Aquaman" -- probably the best-known of the bunch, what with the Jim Cameron references/cameo -- is a superhero movie whose effects-driven production values echoed the director's "Aliens," and in some ways also pre-figured his magical-universe of "Avatar," minus the superheroes.

"Queens Boulevard," if you recall, nicely depicted the pretensions (though, ultimately, the quality) of a certain kind of indie filmmaking, and also happened to give rise to the classic Ari Gold bon mot about a potential sequel ("What are you going to do next, "The Belt Parkway?")

The Pablo Escobar biopic "Medellin" showed Vince at his worst, and characters on the show tried to forget it right after it was made. But it, too, has plenty of similarities to real life -- the two Pablo Escobar movies in endless development, one from Oliver Stone and one from Joe Carnahan.

The new season, which debuts this weekend and whose premiere we caught Thursday night, has possibly the best in-joke of all -- a version of "The Great Gatsby" directed by Martin Scorsese. "Gatsby" is a hard enough story to film even for the appropriate filmmaker, but the gilded frilliness of 1920s Long Island seems like a decidedly poor match for Scorsese, who's more inclined to show the gritty underside of the big city than the cocktail parties of East Egg.

The problem is that the bit doesn't (at least in the first two episodes) play as a joke -- we see no faux scenes from the film to suggest any satiric intent, and everyone around Chase seems to take the movie and the fact that Scorsese would direct it seriously.

"Entourage" movies, no matter how fictitious, have an uncanny way of sparking interest in their real-life counterparts. Stone once credited Ari Gold with smoothing the way down the development path for his Escobar biopic. And the "Aquaman" arc was so believable that for a while it inspired the WB to contemplate an "Aquaman" television series.

Could this season do the same? There's a potential Gatsby in development with Baz Luhrmann, who owns the novel's rights and says he'd like to make it his next project. There would be a certain perverse symmetry in "Entourage," a show about the excesses of this century, helping to get a movie going about the excesses of last century.

Not to mention a certain irony in a director as grandiose as Luhrmann getting a boost from the antics of Vinny, Turtle and the boys.

Leave it to Jodie: Foster and Gibson in talks to join 'Beaver'

hollywoodreporter — Thu, 09 Jul 2009 19:30:00 -0700

By Steven Zeitchik

Break out the animal puns -- "The Beaver," Anonymous Content’s hot project about a man and his beaver puppet, is getting a whole new coat of fur. And it's not exactly what you'd expect.

Jodie Foster is in negotiations to head to the director's chair for, as well as co-star in, the whimsical drama, while Mel Gibson is in talks to play the lead role.

Some background/refresher: Kyle Killen’s “Beaver” has generated huge heat in development circles, landing the top spot on the Black List last year. The story centers on a grown man who wears a beaver puppet on his hand that he treats as a real person, and those familiar with the script have compared it to “Lars and the Real Girl” and the work of Charlie Kaufman.

“Beaver” has gone through several iterations since the latter part of 2008, with Steve Carell and Jim Carrey both circling the pic at earlier stages and Jay Roach eyeing it as a directing vehicle. Foster’s name surfaced on the short list of directors in the spring.

Given the buzz on the project, Anonymous is eager to make the movie this year; producers could shop it to a studio or finance it independently once the talent is all lined up.

It's that talent that makes for some interesting subplots. The pairing of Gibson and Foster would mark a reunion for the duo — they starred as a desperate poker player and his canny adversary in “Maverick” more than 15 years ago.

It would also take the two back to earlier stages of their careers. Foster, repped by ICM, has made two previous forays into directing, but both more than a decade ago: the 1995 family drama “Home for the Holidays” and the 1991 single-mother tale “Little Man Tate.”

“Beaver” would also spell just the second acting role since 2003 for the WME-repped Gibson (he's also starring in Warners’ 2010 conspiracy thriller “Edge of Darknes"). As with “Darkness,” “Beaver” would test Gibson's boxoffice drawing power after the 2006 DUI-related controversy, which he since apologized for.

Foster, who is also attached to direct the period circus tale “Flora Plum” at Paramount, last starred in Fox and Walden’s family adventure “Nim’s Island" in 2008. We have a feeling "Beaver" is just a slightly different kind of pic.

Michael Moore is feeling romantic

hollywoodreporter — Thu, 09 Jul 2009 07:48:16 -0700

By Steven Zeitchik

Michael Moore is in love.

The provocateur director has named his new film -- in which he explores the roots and culprits of the economic collapse -- "Capitalism: A Love Story."

Moore quipped in a statement that romance was the appropriate theme for a film about our current state of financial woe.

"It will be the perfect date movie. It's got it all -- lust, passion, romance, and 14,000 jobs being eliminated every day," he said, adding "It's a forbidden love, one that dare not speak its name. Heck, let’s just say it: It’s capitalism.”

Moore has a history of providing pithy, even oblique titles to his films. He of course called his movie about the greed of the auto industry "Roger & Me," and named his investigation into George W. Bush foreign policy "Fahrenheit 911."

Overture and Paramount Vantage will release "Love Story" domestically and internationally, respectively, with the movie coming out in the U.S. on Oct. 2.

Remo Williams rides again

hollywoodreporter — Wed, 08 Jul 2009 20:00:00 -0700

By Steven Zeitchik

"The Dark Knight” producer Charles Roven and “Transporter” producer Steve Chasman are teaming up to produce “The Destroyer,” a franchise vehicle that brings back ’80s action hero Remo Williams. The pair have set up the project at Columbia.

Charley and Vlas Parlapanides, who are penning the action epic “War of Gods” for Relativity, are on board to write the screenplay.

Warren Murphy and Richard Sapir wrote the initial batch of “Destroyer” adventure tomes, which centered on Williams, a New Jersey cop convicted of a crime he didn’t commit. Williams is sentenced to the electric chair, but his death is faked so he can be reborn as the vigilante character the Destroyer, joining a top-secret assassin squad set up by the government to operate outside the bounds of the law.

With the help of an Asian assassin named Chiun, Williams also then wreaks havoc on the criminal underworld as well as on those who framed him.

Murphy and Sapir wrote scores of “Destroyer” paperbacks in the 1970s and ’80s, with other writers eventually taking over scribe duties. New installments of the series — more than 100 have been written all told — continue through this decade.

Ace Media, a joint venture between Roven’s Atlas Entertainment and Chasman’s Current Entertainment, is producing “Destroyer,” with Atlas’ Steve Alexander exec producing. Atlas has an overall deal with Sony.

Atlas and Columbia are in control of rights to the entire series; this pic, however, is an origin story that will center on the first book.

Murphy and Sapir’s novels gained big-screen credibility when they were turned into “Remo Williams: The Adventure Begins,” an Orion feature from 1985 that starred Fred Ward as the title character. A television movie continuing the saga was later produced for ABC.

The new project continues a trend of reboots or other updates of 1980s action franchises, a group that includes last year’s “Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull” and MGM’s “Robocop” and “Red Dawn” remakes.

Among other projects, Roven is producing the upcoming fantasy-adventure “Season of the Witch,” while Chasman is on board to produce the serial-killer thriller “Blitz.”

In addition to “Gods,” the Parlapanides brothers, repped by WME, are penning the manga adaptation “Death Note” for Warners.

A room with a viewmaster

hollywoodreporter — Wed, 08 Jul 2009 03:42:27 -0700

By Steven Zeitchik

Anyone keeping an eye on studio development over the past few weeks could be forgiven for thinking Hollywood is either so tireless it's finally coming up with some fresh ideas or so tired it's coming up with some really lame ones.

Two brand-related projects that have come to light over the past few days suggest both extremes.

The first, which just broke Tuesday, is the MacGruber movie that's getting going at Relativity with Ryan Phillippe, Will Forte and Kristen Wiig likely starring and original helmer Jorma Taccone directing. The SNL sketches on which this pic is based puts a distracted, self-defeating crisis man in a series of high-pressure situations in what's a pretty cagey spoof of MacGyver.

There are plenty of tie-in associations with these skits -- not just to the original MacGyver but to Richard Dean Anderson (who has cameoed) and a series of Pepsi spots that have been built around the MacGruber character.

But though the skit savvily plays on nostalgia, it's hardly a remake, nor does it rely lazily on brand association; when you watch the bits (you can find one here ) the cleverness is apparent whether or not you've seen the original.

That these sketches gained added currency after they went viral makes it even more encouraging. The Web component here shows that movie execs finally seem to get what their television counterparts have understood for years: that it's far smarter to try to take advantage of what people are watching on their computers instead of the alternative (that is, crossing your arms and saying you work in a different medium).

We wish we could be as sanguine about the View-Master idea, which has DreamWorks developing a movie about the plastic toy that showed squinting children in a pre-Internet era both faraway landscapes and landmarks via small reels dropped into a plastic toy.

Execs often like to say that building a movie around a property is no creative crime (even if anyone who's been forced to sit through a "Pirates of The Caribbean" movie might disagree). Their argument is that all the studio is really buying is the brand; the story could be turned into anything, so why judge it more harshly than one would any other feature?

All well and good, except for a few small problems. First, the sheer volume of evidence (and common sense) suggests otherwise. It's certainly possible that a studio buys rights to a line of talking robots and makes "Slumdog Millionaire." But it's a lot more likely they make "Transformers."

Even if you buy into the argument, however, that reasoning misses the point. It's not that a toy like a View-Master can't theoretically be turned into a good story (though it does look weirdly like a Transformer in the photo above). It's that the studios' whole impetus to make the film is a product, and so everything about it -- from the age groups that screenwriters have in mind to the scope of the campaign -- is guided by something other than what a writer (you know, the people who've written good movies). The tail is wagging the Neopet.

Studio execs like to say that these brands offer creative freedom, and the toy just helps the marketing. But it's fatuous to say the toy is a Trojan horse for some great script. The script isn't even written. And that's exactly the problem. It's hard enough to come up with a good movie even when the script shows promise. When there's nothing but an old toy to guide a writer, it's even harder.

That a toy offers a studio a complete blank slate isn't cause for reassurance -- it's the exact reason we should be worried. Even MacGruber could spot that impending disaster.

A memorial for Michael Jackson, forerunner of the modern movie star

hollywoodreporter — Tue, 07 Jul 2009 11:00:53 -0700

By Steven Zeitchik

If they could come up with a way to measure interest in spectacle like they do boxoffice, the Michael Jackson funeral would of course trump any blockbuster in any theater in decades (yes, even you, Michael Bay).

As it is, the tens of millions of people Googling, YouTubing, channel-surfing, live-blogging ( a good one from THR's Live Feed) and otherwise engaging with the pop-star's funeral at the Staples Center in Los Angeles today (some pics here from THR's Matt Belloni, who's Twittering from the event) will merely have to stand on its own (though that's not stopping a few theaters from trying to convert the interest into boxoffice).

Jackson was an anomaly in modern stardom -- one of the most recognizable and beloved faces on the planet who, save for one dud, never had a major turn on the big screen (a savvy take from THR's Gregg Kilday on Jackson's decision/unwillingness not to cross over into film here) and yet someone who paved the way for the contemporary celebrity age that so many of today's big screen celebs are both a part of and benefit from.

His legacy stretches into many genres. But as eulogizers inside Staples tout his musical and media influence, it's also worthwhile to note his impact on our appetite for, interest in -- and yes, even the salaries of -- the modern movie star as well.

After the 'Hangover': What Zach Galifianakis may do next

hollywoodreporter — Mon, 06 Jul 2009 19:30:00 -0700

By Steven Zeitchik and Borys Kit

Zach Galifianakis has one of the biggest hits of the summer in "The Hangover."

But he's deciding very carefully before ordering his next drink.

The actor's name has surfaced in connection with at least three projects, people familiar with those pics say: the Todd Phillips' pregnancy-themed comedy "Due Date;" the comedy "Say Uncle;" and another Phillips' project, the supernatural laffer "Man-Witch."

All three are set up at Warners, which after "Hangover" and with a potential "Hangover" sequel clearly wants to be in the Galifianakis business -- and perhaps in the Phillips-Galifianakis business, which could mimic what Sony has going with its Judd Apatow-Seth Rogen collaborations.

(By way of background, while many discovered the CAA-repped Galifianakis at multiplexes this summer as the dazed, baby-carrying slacker , he’s of course hardly a newcomer. The 39-year-old is well-known on the stand-up comedy circuit for his offbeat brand of humor and has had a number of Comedy Central specials that raised his profile.)

The Phillips' projects (he may or may not direct; the helmer is producing them via his Green Hat Films as potential directing vehicles) could rep a new direction for Galifianakis -- or could take him back to very familiar ground.

“Witch" is an entirely different animal than "Hangover": it centers on a man who finds he has supernatural talents and ends up at an all-girls witch school.

But "Date" centers on a slacker who takes a road trip with an uptight businessman. Like "Hangover," it also features a road trip and a baby as plotlines. And while nothing is stopping him from playing the yuppie, we have a feeling Galifianakis would play the slacker.

But while the pics have been presented to managers and agents of other talent as Galifianakis-attached projects, the actor has yet to commit to any of the three.

That's a little odd. Typically, an actor will make a new deal just before his new movie comes out, or, in the case of a pic that's expected to be a hit, not long after.

The success of "Hangover," which has earned $204 million in five weeks of domestic release, was expected to prompt a flurry of deals. One of the film's other stars, Bradley Cooper signed on for a plum role in Fox's reboot of "The A-Team" shortly after "Hangover" broke out. Galifianakis, though, has been far more deliberate even more than a month after his stock shot through the roof.

Interestingly, it was Jack Black who was once attached to "Man-Witch," which would further fuel the notion that Galifianakis is the new Black. First, though, he has to sign on to something.

UFC fighters are basterds

hollywoodreporter — Mon, 06 Jul 2009 13:20:47 -0700

By Steven Zeitchik

We're personally not the sort to call the spectacle of men locking their legs around each other's necks while thousands watch in frenzied enthusiasm the pinnacle of modern sport.

But a lot of young males who follow the UFC do, and they're the ones The Weinstein Company is hoping to reach with its campaign for Quentin Tarantino's "Inglourious Basterds." It's part of a bold -- if not exactly foolproof -- promotion for the upcoming World War II pic.

The movie will be all over the org's landmark UFC 100 event from Vegas (an event you may be familiar with if you've tuned in to an on-demand cable channel any time over the last few weeks, or if you've been in the unfortunate position of spending a lot of time at South Bay frat-boy bars). There'll be logos in the ring at the fight, billboards for the movie and a trailer shown to the thousands packing the Mandalay Bay to watch the greasy pummelings.

As much as what the campaign says about the UFC as an increasingly mainstream venue for movie promotion, it says more about the kinds of marketing studios see themselves needing, especially studios marketing a 2 1/2 hour movie that's heavily in non-English languages (and especially a studio like TWC, which urgently needs this pic to be a hit).

The company did do a promotion with the WWE for "Grindhouse," Tarantino and Robert Rodriguez's previous homage to movies of a different era. Of course that was an action film replete with flourishes sure to appeal to the Spike TV set (Rose McGowan spraying gunfire from her machine-gun leg, eg).

This one, though it does feature some vamping from Brad Pitt and a few bloodlusty vengeful moments from the likes of Eli Roth, is still fundamentally a French- and German-language movie about a plot to defang elements of the Third Reich and the dangers of moral equivalency. Not entirely a multiplex-y premise.

Of course, that may be exactly why the pic's marketers want to reach out to a young male audience at UFC; that's how one lands moviegoers one wouldn't ordinarily get. We just hope some of the amped-up fans don't get the wrong idea about who are the bad guys and who are the good guys.

'Public Enemies' tries to make a few new friends

hollywoodreporter — Thu, 02 Jul 2009 19:42:51 -0700

By Steven Zeitchik

We're heading out for a few days so posting will be light, but before we do we're keeping a close eye on the box-office, where this July 4th finally offers a legitimate horse race.

This date on the calendar has been the province of a single summer blockbuster since as far back as we can recall (or at least since Will Smith exploded numerous bad guys in "Independence Day" 12 years ago, effectively obliterating any memory we previously had). In the last few years, the date been home to the likes of "Superman Returns," "War of the Worlds" and the first "Transformers" -- with very little room for anything else.

But there's of course no action tentpole launching this weekend (though it may not feel that way to any movie going up against "Transformers 2"). That means there's no film that will easily steamroll the competition, just two movies at opposite ends of the spectrum, on a holiday that doesn't tend to draw one kind of audience over another.

(And there's a greater potential for an upstart or fluke this year, since box office overall tends to be down when Americans celebrate July 4th on a Friday. The two lowest weekend-winner totals in the last decade came when we took Friday off, in 2008 and 2003.)

So far, at least, the family fun is beating the adult fare, as "Ice Age 3" handles "Public Enemies" (as well as "Transformers").

The reviews have been solid for "Enemies," which should give an arthouse-y boost to what is already a solid foundation of Depp-loving women and action-minded audiences who've already seen "Transformers." It'll be an uphill battle to finish any higher than third, but any market share is good market share for the pic going up against sequels with heavy brand recognition (incidentally, the exact kind of films that Hollywood says it wants to make over the original concepts and historical drama that "Enemies" epitomizes).

So if it finishes respectably, "Enemies" -- effectively a big-budget counterprogram -- could give new life to the latter, non-franchise way of thinking. Which is to say, it could remind us of the movie choices that used to appear this weekend before Mr. Smith and his save-the-world ambitions came along. That is, assuming we can remember that time.

Grant Morrison and Clive Barker have a heart-to-heart

hollywoodreporter — Thu, 02 Jul 2009 19:08:05 -0700

By Borys Kit

Some of the more imaginative minds in literature got together Wednesday as horror master Clive Barker interviewed comics superstar Grant Morrison at Meltdown Comics in Los Angeles.

Morrison, whose deconstruction of DC heroes work “Final Crisis” just hit the N.Y. Times bestseller list, recently moved to LA from Scotland for movie work. The discussion ranged from gender politics and violence in comics, to Wonder Woman to the gayness of Captain America.

Among the nuggets: Morrison said he was “miserable and sick over a year” writing "Final Crisis" as he got into the head of the evil character of Darkseid. He also said he preferred working at DC over Marvel (”They love the artist and creators...At Marvel, I love them, but there’s more of a house style to create a universe.")

Hundreds of eager fans showed up for a chance to see the Q&A, held in the Meltdown’s back room, though most only managed to get in line for the signing session. (Also turning out were comics industry and Hollywood players like Mark Waid, Boom Studios’ Ross Ritchie and "Transformers" producer Don Murphy.)

The conversation turned to the political when audience member asked why there weren’t more gay and lesbian working in comics. In addition to the culture of the industry, Barker said that comics are relentlessly violent, noting that when he recently bought comics, every single cover had blood on it.

“In that world, I’m not sure there’s room for love, let alone gay love,” he said.

Meteor shower: Studios keep on loving them some videogames

hollywoodreporter — Thu, 02 Jul 2009 10:39:10 -0700

By Steven Zeitchik

Now that Hollywood has plumbed every videogame out there and turned them into (mostly) bad movies, studios are scrambling to pick up...Atari 2600 games?

Four studios have been battling to land rights to the Atari classic "Asteroids," in which (unlike every other Atari game at the time) you controlled a dot on the screen, and pressed your button furiously in an attempt to shoot dots at all the other dots. God we loved the '80's.

Universal triumphed yesterday in what we're told was a furious bidding war. (Interesting move for the studio -- it has faltered a bit with adult-oriented dramas like "State of Play" and "Duplicity" this season, so it has been pushing ahead with what seems like even mor development on a slew of branded titles [the Ludlum books, Hasbro properties, monster remakes.])

There's a difference, though, between this pickup and most of the Playstation/Xbox frenzy of the past few years. "Asteroids" has about as much plot and backstory as a Cinemax special feature. Which means that, without the conventions of modern videogame storytelling to slow it down, it may actually work.

'Unstoppable,' the latest example of what studios are trying to stop

hollywoodreporter — Tue, 30 Jun 2009 23:53:55 -0700

By Steven Zeitchik

Steven Soderbergh, rest easy. The studio system is not picking on you -- though it may have seemed that way after Sony abruptly pulled the plug on your baseball statfest "Moneyball" days before it was to enter production. It's just carefully weeding out filmmakers who want to make movies for a certain price and whose box-office slugging percentage doesn't exactly keep Albert Pujols up at night.

The latest such victim, which we've been reporting on these last few days, involves the Denzel Washington-Tony Scott action pic "Unstoppable." Not since the Danny Devito flub "What's the Worst that Can Happen?" has a title had more of an unintentional double entendre. The project is very much stoppable, and may in fact be stopped.

The story behind the runaway-train pic, which was to be the fourth Washington-Scott collaboration in the last five years, is developing into a story of runaway budgets. As a result, the movie is in pretty serious peril -- not "Moneyball" peril, but not much safer either -- and will likely miss its fall start date, if not a start date entirely.

The skinny on the Scott pic is that producers wanted to make the movie in the $90-100 million range -- not out of proportion to how the director tends to budget his movies.  But this is an era when directors whose names don't rhyme with Michael Shmay don't get that kind of latitude.  And Fox in particular doesn't give directors that latitude even in the best of times -- it certainly is unlikely to write that kind of check in tough times (especially when the director and star are coming off a $53 million earner, as they are with "The Taking of Pelham 1 2 3").

As with "Moneyball," there are still a lot of questions about what each side was thinking when the project was first signed up. If in fact Fox is lowering its budget allowances, what changed between the original thumbs-up and now? And if they signed it up at a lower budget from the start, what made Scott think he could get them to go higher?

While some involved with the pic were saying the discrepancy is just a matter of five or ten million, the open secret around town is that a cost-conscious Fox  wants it made for a lot less or it's not going to make it. Filmmakers, meanwhile, say the movie, with its cost-intensive action and effects (there is a large-scale freight train packed with chemicals and other explosive-happy materials) a big-ticket director and star, and other costly items, simply can't be done for a price. Guess which argument wins.

Which means that, like a slew of other pics we expect to suddenly find in turnaround for these and other reasons -- because the star doesn't draw like he used to, because the budget is too high, because the genre is too serious -- "Unstoppable" could become the latest example of the belt-tightening that serves as an overused but resonant metaphor for the current Hollywood. We live, for better or worse, in the Jared Fogle era.

Both sides involved with "Unstoppable" say the movie is still breathing. But around town, the line is that it's not very alive  -- or, maybe, about as alive as a team down six runs in the ninth.