Daniel was well liked and rather effective.
I don’t know. The New Disney is really, really not going to be The Old Disney… not even The New Old Disney.
It as though Bob Iger, who for years has seemed to be playing a very, very smart game of chess in reestablishing what Eisner and Katzenberg had built after they had allowed it to overmature and ripen into too many personal vendettas and self-reflections, has suddenly gotten God and is going to try to turn Disney 3.0 into a hard-driving future-focused leader instead of being a solid, sleepy, history-considering village.
There is something honorable about Iger and his new right-hand, Rich Ross, knowing their intent well enough to not bother keeping Miramax alive as anything much more than a non-theatrical brand. (That’s what Battsek’s exit suggests… and it also suggests more to come.) But there is also something a little bit scary about a company like this galloping so intensely and almost without any restraint towards an uncertain future.
I’ve been watching the well-curated, tremendous 4-disc Blu-ray packages of Up and Monsters. Inc. and it struck me yesterday just how different the Disney brand may be soon… how many more icons will be placed in the background of The Castle in years to come.
The only good thing about this news is that it will create an even greater vacuum in the art house distribution world… and no matter how tough things are, nature abhors a vacuum. But as small as a Miramax business should be at a company like D3.0, not having one is just not smart. The future of the film business is the ability to play to ALL fields, as the revenues for all filmed entertainment gets smaller. Studios that throw away $10 million a year here and $10 million a year there are setting themselves up for dangerous waters ahead. Take a look at the history of the 1960s in the business. Those who forget the past are condemned to repeat it.

Gawker made a big deal out of catching Nikki Finke re-spinning her ignorance, but they make it seem like a unique event and not the daily reality of Hollywood’s answer to Rush Limbaugh… all self-promotion, all talking points fed to her by others, all rage and unearned arrogance over insight and knowledge, all the time.
But the idiocy around anyone calling This Is It “disappointing” is a classic and epic form of insider masturbation… all insiders… most journalists.
On Tuesday night – Thursday, the film will come close to matching the 3-day weekend opening of The Jonas Brothers: The 3D Concert Experience. Before this weekend is over, it will be the second highest grossing concert film in movie history with only the $65 million run of the Hannah Montana/Miley Cyrus: Best of Both Worlds Concert Tour ahead of it domestically.
A $30 million domestic gross for this piece of kitsch history will be a massive success. It likely means $70m+ worldwide, which puts the film about $45 million away from profitability. The big question for Sony, in terms of profitability, will be DVD sales and record sales. And that DVD is more likely than most to sell strongly… at least in the 6 or 7 million range, which would put Sony well into the black before the record sales.
Who set this up to be a perceived failure? An overzealous press – which yes, includes Rush Finkebaugh – hyping this thing into the stratosphere… overconsidering the information offered by the electronic ticker sellers… trying to draw eyeballs to their various blogs instead of thinking.
And to be fair to Darling Nikki, it is not she who needs to be smacked for listening to Sony insiders who were mouth breathing about this film last week… even if she needs to go back to Journalism 101: Don’t Be A Laydown, Use Your Brain. It is whoever at Sony told her that they were expecting the film to do better than the tracking and pre-sale based estimates. Dumb.
This is the opposite number to Paranormal Activities, where the media has tripped over its own feet to praise the grosses of the film. And indeed, a $15,00 production plus another minimum of $500,000 in finishing costs, millions spent to make prints, etc, is more impressive against a gross of over $50 million than this $60m investment in a concert film, album, and DVD. But it will still work out to be a good piece of business for Sony.
I guess that’s not enough.

I don’t mind Paramount pushing out new stats to promote a movie. “Most Profitable Movie Ever” would be a more significant stat than “Best Friday Matinee Gross For A Comedy Starring Hermaphrodites”… if it were true.
“Most Profitable Movie By Percentage, Based On Publicized And Obviously False Production Cost” wouldn’t probably play as well. But I don’t blame Paramount or the movie, Paranormal Activity, for selling this lie of language. It is the media that sells this stuff with misleading headlines who should be embarrassed (and/or publicly flogged).
The most profitable movies released in 2009 to-date will be, by a distance, The Hangover, Transformers 2, Ice Age 3, and Harry Potter VI. Paranormal Activity will be very, very profitable, along the numbers of Taken.
Again… the enthusiasm is what drives this movie. And the media, which sells a movie like to a wider-than-normal audience, much more than Twitter or even TV ads or trailers, can be manipulated. But when we start lying outright in headlines, it really pisses me off. People want to get angry over The Hollywood Film Awards or The Golden Globes, but the same people love to roll over for stuff like this.
I apologize again if this feels like a slam on this specific movie or the publicity dept at Par. It’s not. Never has a movie’s actual content been more irrelevant to its gross. And the publicity and marketing has been brilliant in selling this film with similar skills to see a Roland Emmerich show-up-to-see-landmarks-explode film.
But when media wonders why journalism is dying, it needs to ask Walt Kelly, not just Craigslist.

This will be a quickie.
The stars of This Is It! are Don Brochu, Brandon Key, Tim Patterson and Kevin Stitt. They edited the footage together and made it coherent.
There is always something interesting about a backstage glimpse of a big talent putting things together. This is not Michael Jackson’s best work. It’s not even a full rehearsal, with the exception of one number. I have been to many sound checks that blew it out more impressively.
One thing you do get from the film is that Jackson was a person and not a freak.
In any case, for what this is, it is very well put together and worth seeing. It’s not something I would spend the time on, but that’s an issue of personal interest. If you are interested, you aren’t going to walk out of the theater disappointed, even if there will be small disappointments along the way.
One a side note, singer Judith Hill may offer the sexiest onscreen performance of the year without trying much. She’s one of those women who sizzles with the combination of looks and a clear charm that comes across on screen, much more so than in stills. And she can sing her ass off. Killer.
So… if you are going to see This Is It, you should see it in IMAX, even if most of the IMAX opportunities are FauxMAX. The experience is about feeling like you are in the room and the size and somewhat better sound make that experience all the more real.
Seacrest out.

You know… I try to stay out of the religious beliefs of others.
And whatever you or I feel about Scientology, the people who believe are true believers… and if you want to say they are crazy, you can start lining up people who think that Judaism and Christianity are equally dubious.
The one thing that struck me, however, about both the 2-night Nightline coverage and the BBC Panorama coverage is that I have real concerns about any organization that seeks religious standing with the US government and refuses to speak about their beliefs.
When a publicist/believer explains that he won’t speak about, either to confirm or deny, the basic positions of the faith, something is wrong… really wrong. And I am saying this as someone who deals with people who cannot tell the truth, as a matter of business course, every day. I am not even talking about lying with a straight face, which some do and some do not.
Can you imagine if Christians decided that Jesus rising was not to be spoken of publicly, but was still at the center of the idea of Jesus as the third part of the holy trinity. Can you imagine if priests stormed out of interviews if asked about whether the faith believed that Jesus had risen?
Would anyone be able to take them seriously?
Like I said, what you have faith in is not my call… but when you refuse to acknowledge what you believe, it suggests a lack of true faith and by the very lack of transparency, it calls your beliefs into question.
Me? I have no problem with Tom Cruise being anti-psychiatry. That’s his right, just as it’s Jenny McCarthy’s right to be anti-vaccination. These are opinions and we should all be allowed to express ours without fear of being called “crazy” simply for having them. And we should be willing and able, to a reasonable degree, to defend our positions… or at least exclaim our faith, no matter how blind.
In any case, here is the Nightline Package -
Nightline Day 1
Nightline Day 2
And here is a channel on YouTube where you can see the BBC’s “Scientology & Me”
Also, this little bit on Paul Haggis… who seems to remain one of the sober individuals of this industry, even when we disagree on ideas profoundly. How could anyone ask more of someone’s principals?
Decide for yourself.

Quietly creeping up on us is the Governor’s Awards, this year’s spin-off of the honorary awards traditionally featured during the Oscar telecast.
This show, which will be taped but not televised, is in the ballroom at Hollywood & Highland where the Governor’s Ball is done each year (since the Kodak). The honorees this year are John Calley, Roger Corman, Lauren Bacall, and the great cinematographer, Gordon Willis.
The only reason it is now on my radar at all is that I looked it up after being reminded that it was happening after I tried to schedule something with a friend who is obliged to attend. That’s a little quiet when you consider The Academy is honoring 4 true legends.
Sadly, Calley is not expected to attend due to health issues. And the price per ticket is scaring away some who you would expect to be in the ballroom… $350 a head for dinner.