Globing…
February 3, 2021
February 3, 2021
January 26, 2021
I’ve been at this a long time. The other day, another long-termer pal was commenting that they had started following Oscar publicly the year Gladiator won Best Picture. I was in a tux on on E! that year, swearing that, “As God as my witness, Gladiator will not win Best Picture.” God let me and […]
January 25, 2021
This will be brief. Episode 3 is “The Brady Bunch” Birth episode. I see a lot of the “Easter egg” conversations online. Fascinating, but not my thing. Twins. The looming threat of Mephisto continues. Agnes is still hanging around, talking about her evil husband, Ralph. The little girl from Captain Marvel (Monica Rambeau) is all […]
January 23, 2021
I was really, really looking forward to Malcolm & Marie. I have watched every episode of the first season of Euphoria at least twice. The hour “special episode” with Zendaya and Coleman Domingo talking for an hour in a coffee shop is one of my favorite hours of television, period. John David Washington is clearly […]
January 21, 2021
Seven months ago, I offered a list of planned theatrical releases that were “untouchable.” There were eighteen 2020 titles. I didn’t project into 2021. Tenet and Mulan were theatrical release experiments back in September. WarnerMedia released Wonder Woman 1984 day-n-date domestically and internationally in theaters… and after a month, they’ve done $143 million worldwide. Their […]
January 18, 2021
I watched the first three episodes of WandaVision that were provided to the media… with modest interest. The buzz was super-hot. The internet, as it sometimes does, so oversaturated the web with anticipation that the actual show seemed anticlimactic. Still, when the content became available, I jumped on it, not because I wanted to see […]
January 14, 2021
It’s almost over. It hasn’t even begun. That is the story of this *Oscar season. Netflix seems to have blown off the extended Oscar calendar. They are already all-in. They have a couple more movies that will go public this month and next… but media and Academy voters have access to everything now. Nomadland has […]
January 12, 2021
I pondered this for years, especially as YouTube and blogging were first happening. In this business called show, what is the difference between being a pro and being an amateur? My answer: Intention. And by intention, I don’t mean goals for a desired outcome. I mean the intention in doing the work. Amateurs become pros. […]
December 28, 2020
I don’t want to review Wonder Woman 1984. Honestly, it would force me to think about the film too much. Oh… that terrible CGI. Oh… the complete illogic of the mall sequence. Oh… why does the Latino with the preacher wig and the blonde without lines and a fear of carbs have an Asian child? […]
December 24, 2020
You’ve seen stories on resetting the brain. The brain gets stuck on an idea or image or perception and the only way to reset? A serious shock to the system. Seems dangerous. The study of this phenomenon has continued in people who get these shocks randomly and see change. In recent years, more controlled electroshock, […]
December 18, 2020
Writing this feels a bit like whistling past the graveyard, but as we move inside 20 weeks to the award show formerly known as Oscar, intensity is picking up. We are a long way from the Academy membership settling into this season. Lots of complaining about the content on the Academy app, which suggests that […]
December 4, 2020
I realize that most of my thinking on what may be a very significant moment ended up in tweets. so I gathered them for a more complete picture. 12/3/20 11:10amJason Kilar will be out of his job by 2022. Waiting on NATO response. But here we go… WB passes Universal as most experimental. Netflix, which […]
December 3, 2020
There are only five studios left. Disney, Paramount, Sony, Universal, Warner Bros. Paramount is as shaky as Don Knotts. Sony is stable, but lacks a clear vision for the future. And now the tie-breaker between the high (Disney and Universal) and the low, Warner Bros is taking itself out of the movie business. Netflix has […]
November 26, 2020
After 22 years of doing an annual Thankful column, I shouldn’t let a mad king and a pandemic get in the way. I am always thankful for filmmakers doing the work, even when the work doesn’t live up to my idea of the highest quality. The work of making movies is almost never easy. The […]
November 24, 2020
2020 has been a brutal year… at the movies and everywhere else. Most of us are hopeful that 2021 will bring positive change, starting with the taming of the virus by habit and vaccine. I believe, intensely, that The Academy is making a mistake by moving forward to have a competitive season at a time […]
November 18, 2020
Sing it! We are floating in the Mini-Me *Oscar season. Some people are happy. Some less so. But it is undeniable that this is not just a two-month delay in the way things normally are (except at Netflix… and not really even there). We are in a shrunken season, with as many players that are […]
November 12, 2020
Working my way through DOC NYC 2020 this last couple weeks, I realize the multiple factors that are setting reactions to documentaries. First, there is content, and how each of us connects to that material. Something we didn’t know about something that fascinates us is always the “best” film. Something we know a bit about […]
November 9, 2020
Phew. The last time I wrote about the film and television industry, aside from Twitter, was three full weeks ago. Actions have taken place in the industry, but nothing foundational has really changed since then. That doesn’t mean that the losses haven’t hurt and the wins haven’t soothed all of us. NATO still should get […]
October 18, 2020
An article this weekend by A.O. Scott at the New York Times and a thread on Twitter by Ted Hope got me riled up. The Scott article is a mélange of consumer and critic judgements about the theatrical experience combined with assertions of how theatrical is seen within the finance of the industry, with almost […]
-30-
May 1, 2022
"Netflix, the great disrupter whose algorithms and direct-to-consumer platform have forced powerful media incumbents to rethink their economic models, now seems to need a big strategy change itself. It got me thinking about the simple idea that my film and TV production company Blumhouse is built on: If you give artists a lot of creative freedom and a little money upfront but a big stake in the movie’s or TV show’s commercial success, more often than not the result will be both commercial (the filmmakers are incentivized to make films that will resonate with audiences) and artistically interesting (creative freedom!). This approach has yielded movies as varied as Get Out (made for $4.5 million, with worldwide box office receipts of more than $250 million), Whiplash (made for $3.3 million, winner of three Academy Awards), The Invisible Man (made for $7 million, earned more than $140 million) and Paranormal Activity (made for $15,000, grossed more than $190 million).From the beginning, the most important strategy I used to persuade artists to work with me was to make radically transparent deals: We usually paid the artists (“participants” in Hollywood lingo) the absolute minimum allowable by union contracts upfront, with the promise of healthy bonuses based on actual box office results—instead of the opaque 'percentage points' that artists are usually offered. Anyone can see box office results immediately, so creators don’t quarrel with the payouts. In fact, when it comes time for an artist to collect a bonus based on box office receipts, I email a video clip of myself dropping the check off at FedEx to the recipient."
Jason Blum Sees Room For "Scrappier" Netflix
| April 30, 2022
"As a critic Gavin was entertaining, wry, questioning, sensitive, perceptive"
Critic-Filmmaker Gavin Millar Was 84; Films Include Cream In My Coffee, Dreamchild
April 29, 2022
| January 24, 2022
DP/30 Audio: Bombshell, Jay Roach
| December 13, 2019
DP/30 Audio: The Last Black Man in San Francisco, Jonathan Majors
| December 4, 2019
DP/30 Audio: The Mustang, Laure de Clermont-Tonnerre
| December 4, 2019
