Category: media

Municipal officials there asked to have the word “sex” removed from the posters. “We told them, the way you don’t remove the word “Coca” from “Coca-Cola” and just leave “Cola,” we can’t do it in this case. It’s ludicrous.”

“It’s the first time the Smithsonian name has appeared in a title produced for theatrical distribution– not just any movie, of course, but the sequel to “Night at the Museum,” which made $250 million when it came out two years ago. The studio approached the Smithsonian about setting the film in D.C., and officials spent six months reading scripts until approving the final version last month.”

“The summer movie machine is in full swing, and, once again, it’s almost impossible to find a studio film with a woman at the helm during the season that provides more than 40% of the year’s box-office revenue. According to Media by Numbers, all 30 of the 30 top-grossing films from last summer were directed by men. According to my informal survey of major studio films from this summer, only two — “Mamma Mia!” and “Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants 2” — are directed by women.”

“The 2008-09 season is going to be experimental in a way the caution-bound TV industry has never before seen. That’s because for the first time, because of the writers strike and changing attitudes among the network brass. The networks will be flying, if you will, even more blindly than usual.”

“India produces more films than any other country, and sells more than four billion cinema tickets a year, far more than in America. Now one of its biggest companies is to become a significant Hollywood player, it was announced yesterday in Cannes.”

“There is a Web site called StopUweBoll.org, with a petition demanding that he stop making movies. The petition had drawn only 18,000 names until last month, when Mr. Boll told the horror-movie Web site FearNet.com that he would quit making films if a million people signed. With his own version of “bring it on,” the list has now grown to more than a quarter of a million.”

“IFC Films is setting the early pace among US buyers on the Croisette,” purchasing the rights to three films only a couple of days into the Cannes Film Festival. “So far no other US buyer has got out its wallet, although deals are expected later in the week.”

“According to the results of a new ‘mystery shopper’ campaign by the U.S. Federal Trade Commission, kids under 17 years of age were turned away 80 per cent of the time when trying to purchase or rent a mature-rated video game… The 80 per cent turn-down rate represents a 38 per cent improvement [from] 2006, and 433 per cent better than the turn-down rate measured in 2000, the year the study was launched.”

“So this is the Cannes International Film Festival: an elegant pregnant lady in low-cut evening gown strolling through a Riviera Coney Island as French hicks gnaw on their baguettes, begging for freebie tickets for the latest in Hungarian cinema. The high-low thing? Somehow it just works.”

There’s been much insider talk in the TV business about the broadcast networks’ unconventional rollout announcements for next season, and what the departure from tradition in the wake of the writers’ strike will mean for the industry. TV execs insist that nothing much will change once everyone is caught up in fall 2008.