Category: media

“Ticket sales rose 2% to 7.25 billion from the previous year and B.O. grosses leapt 10% to $28 billion, helped by falling exchange rates for the U.S. dollar. Research is based on findings from 57 countries, whose 4.5 billion people account for more than 95% of worldwide B.O. grosses.”

Producers of Angels and Demons were turned down because the film “does not conform to our views”, a spokesman for diocese told AP news agency.

“We decided at Symphony Space that we didn’t want to get involved in the hassle and anxiety of censorship. Each year in the past few years there have been worries about a word or two.”

“As more than 30 film critics have abandoned or lost their posts since 2006, the discussion among many cineastes has evolved from confusion and disappointment to concern about the future: What will a world without print film critics be like?”

“On- and offscreen ad revenue in 2007 rose 18.5 percent each to $494.6 million and $45.3 million, respectively.”

“For all Bollywood’s flash, it cannot compete with Hollywood. India makes about 1,000 movies a year, 10 times Hollywood’s total. Unlike the US, though, its films don’t travel. Nor has it achieved the crossover successes of films from Britain, Japan and, more recently, China and South Korea.” Now a push to go head-to-head with Hollywood.

“Today’s wealth of customer-driven, see-it-when-you-want TV is a revelation for adults, who have won a glorious freedom from the networks’s long hegemony. For more and more people, live TV has become a special, rarefied category of viewing, reserved for sports and “Idol”-style reality contests.”

“A controversial push by the Screen Actors Guild to defeat a recent accord negotiated by a rival union has touched off an open rebellion within Hollywood’s largest actors guild… SAG’s contract expires June 30, but talks with studios have ground to virtual halt since AFTRA announced an agreement that was modeled on one negotiated by Hollywood’s directors and writers.”

“A Bay Area lawmaker is pushing a new bill that would force federal regulators to ratchet down the volume of commercials… British regulators approved similar rules last month that require broadcasters to limit the ‘maximum subjective loudness’ of TV ads after receiving complaints.”

When did the general public begin caring so much about “spoilers” in movie reviews, sportscasts, and online columns? “Now it seems that everything is a potential spoiler… People will dive into the shrubbery to avoid hearing anything about anything.”