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Miramax Fatally Wounded

Dave — Mon, 02 Nov 2009 16:35:28 +0000

There’s a book called Down And Dirty Pictures that chronicles the rise of Miramax and Sundance in the 1990s as “independent” film went mainstream when studios like Miramax realized they could make films for close to nothing and push them out in wide distribution deals to turn a profit. That book had it’s final chapter written today.

The 1990s independent strategy gave birth to many a boutique distribution company when Miramax started making major bank and pulling Oscar nominations. New Line splintered off, as did older and deader acquisition companies like USA Films (kept partially alive in Focus Features).

When the 2000s reared their ugly, superhero/vampire heads, many of the formally “independent” companies were absorbed by the larger studios or disappeared into the dark night. Now, the company that was the figurehead of the new model of independent distribution is on its way to being sucked up by Disney and reducing their release schedule to 3 pictures per year.

Miramax has been dying a very slow death since the Weinsteins left to head The Weinstein Company. TWC has barely kept itself afloat with Inglorious Basterds all but saving the studio and keeping it in the black for Oscar season. Miramax hasn’t been doing so well this year with Adventureland, The Boys Are Back and Extract all under performing.

Now, what seems to be the death knell has sounded:

Miramax Films president Daniel Battsek is exiting Disney’s specialty film division.
The indie’s remaining employees will be moved from Miramax’s headquarters in New York to Burbank as Disney becomes the latest studio to back away from the specialty film business.
Disney announced plans just four weeks ago to trim Miramax’s sails. It said at the time that Battsek would “continue to oversee all aspects of creative, development, production and business and legal affairs.” Since then, Rich Ross has taken over as Disney Studios chairman, and he met with Battsek on Friday to discuss Miramax’s future.
[...]
In an e-mail to his staff, Battsek said, “After further reflection and discussion about the change in direction for Miramax, Rich Ross and I have agreed that I will step down.” He said he will use the remainder of his tenure to work with the unit on a transition plan.

This is certainly the end of an era, adding on to a disappointing performance for Indie films this year. With Toronto and it’s neighboring festivals resulting in a small amount of sales and with folding studios all around us, the question remains: what is the new format for independent cinema?

Save us internet?

How John August pitched Prince of Persia

Liam — Wed, 14 Oct 2009 08:17:35 +0000

John August, writer of The Nines and Corpse Bride, has a blog which he updates now and again with interesting stuff about screenwriting and the movie industry in general. Today he updated it with a post which describes how he and Jodran Mechner (writer, game designer) pitched the Prince of Persia movie to studios. In order to sell their idea to the studio executives they used footage from the actual game, which he says isn’t common, but it worked.

Most movie pitches don’t involve video, but with PoP, most of the studio executives weren’t familiar with the game at all, so it became an important way to introduce them to both the franchise and the world. As Jordan notes in his post, this trailer doesn’t really tell the story of the movie, but it does give a sense of the characters and style: the dashing prince’s acrobatics, the devoted priestess/princess, the dagger with its time-reversing slickness.
Jordan and I pitched seven studios over two days. Each time, the presentation was pretty much identical.
1. Introductions. Apologies for keeping us waiting. (1 minute)
2. John hyping Jordan’s prestigious videogame background. (1:00)
3. Play the video. (2:10)
4. Jordan describes the world of the Persian empire, using artwork. (:30)
5. John pitches Prince Dastan, using artwork of him. (:30)
6. John and Jordan alternate pitching story, introducing character/prop artwork as new things come up. (6:00)
7. Questions about story, tone and scale. “Somewhere between Pirates and Raiders. It’s not Lawrence of Arabia.”(3:00)
8. Promises that they’ll follow up. (1:00)
Altogether, we could get through the pitch in less than 20 minutes. Disney liked it, and sent us to Jerry Bruckheimer’s company, who bought it from Jordan. The film comes out next May.

Below is the footage that they used:

August says that we should be getting a trailer for the film shortly, and there have been hints we could see one next month.

Jack Kirby’s Estate Wants Their Disney Money

Dave — Mon, 21 Sep 2009 15:27:54 +0000

Remember that court case that told us we’d be getting a Superman movie in the next few years because otherwise Warner Bros would be open to a bunch-o-legal-claims from the Seigel (one of Superman’s creators) estate? Well, it looks like another hero of comics is going to see his creations go to court based on the actions of his living family members: Jack Kirby.

And you know what sucks about that? Jack Kirby had a hand in creating most of the successful Marvel properties and Marvel treated him like crap when he worked there, including a well-documented fight over artists owning their original work.

Now, reports Bleeding Cool, the Kirby estate has seen Marvel sold to Disney and is ready to make some money:

The estate of Jack Kirby, co-creator of Captain America, The Fantastic Four, The X-Men, The Avengers, Iron Man, Hulk, The Silver Surfer and Thor and has sent notices terminating copyright to publishers Marvel and Disney, as well as film studios that have made movies and TV shows based on characters he created or co-created, including Sony, Universal, 20th Century Fox and Paramount Pictures.
Just as the Jerry Siegel estate has done so with rights to Superman, so Kirby’s estate is looking to regain his share of copyright in the characters and their use in comics and other media. the estate is using the same lawyers as the Siegels, Toberoff & Associates, who have been fairly successful in their case against DC/Warner so far.
Such claims, if found valid, would begin from 2014 and, as always, its worth noting that Marvel/Disney will still own the trademarks of the characters in comics, and the studios in movies. The likelihood is that, if successful, the Kirby estate would enter into negotiation with Marvel over terms to continue publishing comics based on his work.

This is going to be an interesting process, as the Kirby estate needs to strike a balance between accepting a low-ball offer the conglomerates will undoubtably begin with and strangling Marvel near-to-death by stripping characters or Kirby-created aspects of the characters from the comics/film zeitgeist.

The good news for us is that this process is probably going to take between 7 and 10 years of the Kirby estate actually tries to reclaim the copyright. Every Marvel superhero film you are looking forward to should still come out on schedule.

The Cheapest Muppet Movie Ever Made

Dave — Tue, 15 Sep 2009 15:45:34 +0000

Good news for those of us who continue to be big fans of Jim Henson’s Muppets, even though the property has been woefully absent from the theatrical film landscape since 1999s Muppets From Space.

At the end of last week and into the weekend was D23, Disney’s expo for Disney fans where the company makes Comic Con equivalent announcements about upcoming goings-on in film and at the Disney theme parks.

Last we heard about a new Muppet movie, Jason Segel (Knocked Up, I Love You Man) had taken his puppeteer storyline from Forgetting Sarah Marshall and found a way to spin that into a writing gig on the new Muppet film. The best part for old Muppets fans is the news that Segel’s Muppet movie wouldn’t feature the Muppets re-telling a classic story (Muppet Treasure Island) or in a nonsensical setting (Muppets From Space), but would be based on the classic Muppet formula: putting on a show. “[It] is going to be incredibly old fashioned,” said Segel, “with the familiar Muppet characters putting on a show to save an old theater. The danger? An evil character wants to tear the place down to get at the oil underneath.”

At Friday’s D23, more details about this Muppet movie were revealed:

Disney Studios Chairman Dick Cook officially announced that the upcoming Muppet film (written by Jason Segel) will be titled The Cheapest Muppet Movie Ever Made.
This title references an old title, developed Jim Henson in 1985 but never produced that would have featured Gonzo directing a Hollywood film and quickly blowing the project’s budget.

Slight curveball there are the plots don’t seem to mesh, but it’s being widely reported that this is Jason Segel’s Muppet movie still, even if the title might refer to a plot adapted from previous conceptual material.

As a guy who just checked out The Muppets Take Manhattan streaming instantly on Netflix, I can say I’ve got the itch. The itch for more Muppet.

Disney buy Marvel for $4 Billion

Liam — Mon, 31 Aug 2009 18:03:53 +0000

Disney recently looked at their finances and came to the conclusion that they haven’t had a good old spending spree since buying Pixar in 2006 for $7.4 billion. So they’ve decided to buy Marvel for $4 billion.

From ComingSoon:

“This transaction combines Marvel’s strong global brand and world-renowned library of characters including Iron Man, Spider-Man, X-Men, Captain America, Fantastic Four and Thor with Disney’s creative skills, unparalleled global portfolio of entertainment properties, and a business structure that maximizes the value of creative properties across multiple platforms and territories,” said Robert A. Iger, President and Chief Executive Officer of The Walt Disney Company. “Ike Perlmutter and his team have done an impressive job of nurturing these properties and have created significant value. We are pleased to bring this talent and these great assets to Disney.”
“We believe that adding Marvel to Disney’s unique portfolio of brands provides significant opportunities for long-term growth and value creation,” Iger said.
“Disney is the perfect home for Marvel’s fantastic library of characters given its proven ability to expand content creation and licensing businesses,” said Ike Perlmutter, Marvel’s Chief Executive Officer. “This is an unparalleled opportunity for Marvel to build upon its vibrant brand and character properties by accessing Disney’s tremendous global organization and infrastructure around the world.”

UPDATE #1: In a conference call, the companies said that the deals for movies for characters at other studios (Spider-Man, X-Men, etc.) will stay in place under the terms set by Marvel and the other studios.

UPDATE #2: John Lasseter met with Marvel last week about a possible team-up between Marvel and Pixar and got “pretty excited, pretty fast.” They say there’s definitely an opportunity there.

UPDATE #3: The deal with Paramount Pictures to distribute “Iron Man 2,” “Thor,” “Captain America” and “The Avengers” stays in place as well, but Disney would like to self-distribute down the line. “When the time comes we’ll take a closer look at it.” It was actually stated that the deal still included five films, so that is one more film after “The Avengers.”

What I found encouraging about this deal is that Walt Disney President Bob Iger said that Disney will have an “if it ain’t broke…” attitude when it comes to the future of Marvel films. This means the people making Marvel films now will still be making them, and Disney won’t be stepping in to make The Avengers kid friendly. This deal also means Marvel movies will have a lot more financing behind them in the future, and Disney know how to market movies worldwide.

What do you think about Disney buying Marvel? Is it a good move?

Tron Legacy teaser trailer

Liam — Sat, 25 Jul 2009 17:53:23 +0000

Disney have released the first teaser trailer for the newly titled Tron Legacy. I wasn’t around when the first film came out in 1982 so I didn’t get a ‘geekgasm’ like a few people have experienced, but I still think it looks cool. Getting Daft Punk to score the film is probably the best decision in movie scoring history. A perfect match. Anyway, here’s the teaser below!

Sean Flynn (Garrett Hedlund) is the 20-something son of Tron protagonist Kevin Flynn (Jeff Bridges), whose curiosity about his father’s disappearance leads him to the now-abandoned site of Kevin’s old arcade. Inside the old building, Sean is transported into the Computer World and embarks on an adventure in which he learns what has happened to his father, and of the shocking new threat to the Computer World

The Ocean is epic

Liam — Wed, 22 Apr 2009 19:32:21 +0000

Disney have released a teaser trailer for Oceans, which will be released Earth Day next year. As the title suggests, it’s about the Ocean and all the wonderful lifeforms that live within it.

If that interested you then you may enjoy these video’s I’ve embedded below. They are from a BBC series called Nature’s Great Events, which will be Americanized and then shown on The Discovery Channel under the alternative title Nature’s Most Amazing Events, beginning on 29th May 2009.

(If you don’t want to watch all 8 minutes skip to the 6 minute mark)

Gore Verbinski will not be directing Pirates of the Caribbean 4

Liam — Wed, 08 Apr 2009 04:08:10 +0000

Pirates of the Caribbean trilogy director Gore Verbinski has decided not to get back into the directors chair for Pirates of the Caribbean 4 according to Variety.

Verbinski has informed Disney and producer Jerry Bruckheimer that he will not helm a fourth installment that’s expected to set sail in 2010 with Johnny Depp back as Captain Jack Sparrow.
Sequel is in development but not yet greenlit. It’s unknown how Verbinski’s ankling will affect the pic’s schedule.
“I had a fantastic time bringing ‘Pirates’ to life, and I am eternally grateful to Jerry, Johnny and the rest of the creative and production team,” Verbinski said. “I’m looking forward to all of us crossing paths again in the future.”

This is understandable considering Gore has spent 6 years of his life surrounded by pirates. While the exotic filming locations will no doubt have been tempting, most directors prefer to use their creative talents on different things. Variety say that Gore will instead be focusing on the movie adaptation of Bioshock, which he has been attached to direct since May last year. Filming on that is expected to begin sometime in 2010, so Gore will not be escaping the sea entirely, as Bioshock mostly takes place under it (or in it if you want to be technical).

This obviously means Disney will be searching for a new director for Pirates 4, which won’t necessarily be a bad thing depending on who they get. Someone else guiding Captain Jack Sparrow on another adventure will be interesting, and some fans of the trilogy may welcome it. Screenwriters Ted Elliott and Terry Rossio will be back to write the script, so we shouldn’t expect anything too drastically different from what we saw in the trilogy.

Disney drops Narnia like it’s hot

Liam — Wed, 24 Dec 2008 16:20:18 +0000

Disney must have been rather pleased after The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe earned nearly $750 million worldwide when it was released back in December 2005. Looking at the numbers now, it earned more than Transformers, the first Pirates movie and was around $30 million short of Spider-Man 2.

However, when The Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian was released earlier this year it made $300 million less than The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe. That’s not how things are supposed to work! Sequels usually make more than the first film. Disney must have been doing a lot of thinking because the third film, The Voyage of the Dawn Treader, was not given the swift greenlight, and now it has been announced that Disney will no longer co-produce or co-finance the next Narnia film.

From THR:

Walt Disney Pictures and Walden Media have confirmed that for budgetary and logistical reasons the Burbank-based studio is not exercising its option to co-produce and co-finance The Chronicles of Narnia: The Voyage of the Dawn Treader with Walden.
The Hollywood Reporter says the third installment was in preproduction and set for a spring shoot for a planned May 2010 release. The development puts the participation of the talent attached in doubt, adds the trade. Michael Apted was on board to direct a script by Steven Knight. The key players of the second installment, “Prince Caspian” — Ben Barnes, Georgie Henley, William Moseley and Anna Popplewell — were to return for the third film.
Walden has a strong relationship with the C.S. Lewis estate and will shop “Treader” in hopes of finding a new partner. The most likely candidate at this stage is Fox, which markets and distributes Walden fare under the Fox Walden banner.
Any partnership on a “Narnia” movie will require a substantial investment, however. “Caspian,” which filmed in the Czech Republic, Mexico and New Zealand, cost $200 million. The first film, “The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe,” was shot mostly in New Zealand for $180 million.

The Princess And The Frog Teaser Trailer

Liam — Thu, 31 Jul 2008 01:18:33 +0000

There are two main things going for this movie. The first is that it is Disney’s first 2D film since Home on the Range in 2004, and the second is that it is the first time Disney have had a black princess as the lead character.

Up until this point that was all I knew about that The Princess and the Frog, and thanks to the newly released teaser trailer that is still all I know about it. Oh, apart from that it is set in New Orleans, and the only reason I know that is because some dude is singing about it in the teaser.

The Princess And The Frog will be released in December 2009.