Hollywood Babble On & On #106: Random Musings on a Sunny Day

1. I suppose you've heard of the fire at Universal Studios. Gladly, no one was hurt, but I can't shake the notion that in the old days some executive would have looked at the column of smoke rising from the back-lot and said:

"Get some cameras and film that fire! Every angle! We can use that later! Then check our files for a script that needs a lot of burnt out buildings, something post-apocalyptic but more hip-hop, with Will Smith as the hero and Shia La-whateverhisnameis, as the sidekick! Get moving now!"

2. Sex & City once again illustrated the inanity of box-office forecasting. When it started to exceed the modest predictions they made, they instantly shifted gears and started saying that it was going to be bigger than Gabby Hayes and curly fries combined. And then they feigned disappointment when it didn't meet their second set of inaccurate predictions. What happened to the dry, dull, statisticians who just studied raw data instead of flipping around like the wind?

3. Nikki Finke is pondering if sexism is behind Warner Bros.'s lack of enthusiasm for releasing The Women, a remake of a 1939 play/chick flick that was updated by sitcom queen Diane English. Ms. Finke might be right, but it might also be snobbery about letting out a film made by someone from the TV Sitcom Ghetto, it also might be worry about Meg Ryan's status as a Box-Office toxin similar to hemlock, but there are some points to ponder.

• The film is made, done, complete.
• The film only cost $18 million to make.

Using a cost-conscious ad campaign, targeting the SATC demographic (during the show's edited reruns on basic cable & a trailer before the movie) could deliver a film that goes in profit on the first weekend at best, within a week at worst. It might not be a blockbuster, but it doesn't have to be a blockbuster to be profitable.

But no one listens to my wisdom, because I'm not a studio boss.

Yet.