Hollywood Babble On & On #745: Never The Twain Will Meet?

Hollywood has a big case of China on the brain lately. The newly minted chief of the MPAA, former Congressman, Chris Dodd visited China to preach the gospel of doing business with Hollywood, producer Mike Medavoy is forming partnerships in Shanghai, while Legendary Pictures is starting Legendary East, to produce English language pictures in Asia.

I love international trade. Nothing makes peace better than people making money in a healthy way, but is business in China as healthy as it should be, especially for Hollywood.

Let's look at the Pros and Cons of this relationship:

PROS:

1. China is huge market, about a billion people. It is also a market that is very cash flush right now. Why? Look at the products in your house, count the percentage was made in China. Then you know why.

To paraphrase Ned Beatty's character in Network: "The Chinese have taken billions of dollars out of this country, and now they must put it back! It is ebb and flow. Tide and gravity. It is ecological balance."

Because when you have a lot of currency from another country, you are pretty much stuck spending that currency on goods and services from its country of origin. Right now the Chinese are weaning themselves off of buying US government debt with said currency, and are now looking for other ways to put it to work.

2. China's movie business is exploding. Production is expanding, the numbers of theaters are expanding, and the average Chinese citizen is an avid and regular moviegoer. There is also a hunger for product from the west to go alongside their own popular domestic product. (Just look at how much piracy involves bringing western movies into China.)

CONS:

1. While China is a large market, as well as a rich market, it is not a free market. It's still a communist dictatorship. The simple truth is that the majority of the people you do business with in China is either going to be part of the government or a crony/political ally of the government. That's a recipe for trouble.

It also has a funny idea of what trade actually is. They love selling their stuff to the west, but are leery about bringing stuff from the west in, especially something like movies & television. Right now only 20 foreign made movies are allowed to be released in China each year, and even if you do get a shot at the brass ring of a billion plus audience, you're only going to get less than half of the box-office share you'd get in any other market.

And let's not forget how touchy the Chinese government can be. Films can be banned from China for having what the government considers the wrong sociopolitical message, and the Chinese government is not above banning other films by the same company, or threatening the "nationalizing" of foreign owned assets, just to mark their territory. Hence you get things like MGM's Red Dawn remake being rewritten and partially re-shot to change the invading army from Chinese to North Korean. (I believe the ending's been rewritten to have the invasion stall when the North Koreans find their first supermarkets and fast food joints, and stuff themselves too much to fight anymore.)

2. Demographics. China is a booming economy, however, the boom doesn't have the healthy bloom that it should. Vast wealth is pouring into China on a daily basis, but it is tightly concentrated in a very small class of politically connected elites. This is because China is putting the bulk of their eggs in the basket of cheap labor and large scale mass-manufacturing, instead of fostering the combination of highly educated entrepreneurs and skilled tradespeople needed to create new domestic industries and products for export, like they are in neighboring India. Because of this, the wealth coming into China isn't trickling down to the ordinary folks as well as it would in a truly free economy/society.

Then there's the issue of age and sex. The population of China is going to grow old before it grows rich. The decades old "One Child" policy, and cultural preference for boys has created a potential societal powder keg. The population is aging, there are not enough young people to replace them, and the young people they do have are expected to support a senior citizen population that outnumbers them. There's also a escalating shortage of marriageable women in China, and many of those that are marriageable want careers and lives of their own either before, or instead of, settling down to start a family.

So, the combo of state enforced class inequity, limited socioeconomic mobility, and many unsettling population issues shows that while China has great potential as a market, it also has many great risks.

My advice is to tread lightly and watch every step.

Hollywood Babble On & On #744: Insert Foot "A" in Mouth "B"

Oh what a tangled web we weave when our brains pack up and leave.

Tracy Morgan, former SNL cast member, and current co-star of 30 Rock, went on a tirade about gay people during a stand-up performance in Nashville, saying that if he had a gay son he would "get a knife & stab him."

That story shocked and horrified me in two ways.

1. That Morgan would say something nasty and stupid like that in public.

2. That people were actually there to witness it.

While I was shocked, I wasn't surprised.

Morgan has a history of running off at the mouth in directions that have nothing to do with comedy. Personally I suspect that his inability to self-edit comes from the almost constant hype that surrounds his career as he's the second coming of Eddie Murphy (circa 1980s).

Eddie Murphy without the charm, versatility, or much of an audience outside of people who dish out TV awards.

But then again I've never found him particularly funny, mostly a grating, one note performer.

His employers, 30 Rock writer/producer Tina Fey, and network NBC both put out statements condemning his statements but also accepting his apology and not firing him.

That's fine by me.

You see, I'm not going to join any of the calls to fire him from his show, or to censor him. I'm a firm believer in the freedom of speech, including ugly asinine speech like Morgan's. Because if you don't let the assholes be assholes out in the open, they start acting like assholes on the sly, and that's when they go from being nuisances to being real troublemakers.

So what can you do in response to Tracy Morgan's statements?

Easy. Make statements of your own. Use the internet to tell the world that he is an asshole. That is your right. Practice it.

Then just don't give him your money. If he offends you so much, don't watch his TV show, don't pay to see his movies, and don't pay to see him live.

However, judging by the ratings for 30 Rock, and the box office performance of his movies where he's used as a selling point, most people were already doing that before he opened the big hole in the front of his fat head. As for his live shows, well, they might do better because half the audience will be bringing camera-phones in the hope of catching another case of verbal diarrhea that they can sell to TMZ.

Someone once asked me on Twitter how he can mend fences after this. Well, we live in a hyper-sensitive age, and no one in the public really mends fences after something like this. They just get pounded with broken pickets until people get bored, then they move on, not only ignoring their target, but pretty much forgetting them.

Just ask Mel Gibson how this has hurt his career, and pretty much crippled his showing Jodie Foster's Beaver to the American audience.

Morgan's situation is different, because the American audience is not Morgan's target demographic. Thanks to 30 Rock, his target demo is essentially Hollywood, and Hollywood can be harsher on political incorrectness than any other place on the planet.

Morgan has to do something drastic to keep his place as the third lead on the 106th most popular show in America where movie stars go to do cameos to make themselves feel clever. Because if he doesn't, they will find a way to slide him aside until he's out the door, and then he has to rely on the box office winnings of movies like Cop Out.

So here's what he can do to save his career in the eyes of Hollywood.

1. Go gay. Blame the rant on self-hatred, then introduce the world to a new male life partner named Bruce. Then do PSAs about self-hatred leading to hatred of others. Now Morgan might not be willing to go this far to save his job, but there are other options.

2. Rehab. Blame the rant on the drugs and "exhaustion," check into a posh rehab, and then come out cured of not only drug addiction, but addiction to the sound of your own brain farting in public. Perhaps he could share a room with Anthony Weiner.

3. Scream racism. Accuse anyone and everyone who criticizes you of being racist. Nothing shuts up the militantly PC than a good old cry of racism.

4. Go after a Palin. There is nothing Hollywood loves more than going after Sarah Palin. Now anyone who doesn't have this obsession sees it as unseemly, but, if you play your cards right as an anti-Palin, it can keep you working in Hollywood no matter how obnoxious you act. Now to recover from such a massive public shit-storm you need to do something really drastic. The option that hasn't already been used in Hollywood is sucker-punching one of the Palin children as drastic enough, but Kathy Griffin's already got that planned to get a regular slot as a parent on Glee.

Of course, unlike those suggestions, the only real way to avoid having your career wrecked by being an asshole, is to not be an asshole.

Then try being funny.

Hollywood Babble On & On #743: MTV No Longer Has Skins In The Game

MTV has canceled it's soft-core melodrama about hard core high schoolers Skins after its first season due to low ratings.

If you're like me, and the majority of North Americans, and didn't watch the show, here's a little precis for you. The series was an Americanized remake of a British show of the same name. Both series can be summed up as the cautionary melodrama of Degrassi cranked up to 11. Basically teens surrounded by a non-stop litany of sex, drugs, alcohol, abuse, mental illness, and any other social / sexual / psychological problem the writers can think of.

Now those who claim to be in the know are saying that America was too prudish to take the "truth" that the show dealt with, but I, as a know it all, have to differ. There were several reasons behind the show's failure.

1. Sex Doesn't Mean Sexy, & Doesn't Always Sell. TV executives are obsessed with the notion that "sex sells." If it ain't "sexy" they don't want to touch it. Yet they don't seem to realize that the audience is onto them, and now see attempts at being "sexy" as a sign that the show isn't going to deliver in the story department. Lord knows how many times I changed the channel on a pilot when they have the leads have some sort of "racy" sexual encounter in the first five minutes. It's the sign that the show was written for executives, but not the audience. I'm not the only one who does that, considering the amount of failed pilots every year.

Skins not only had that strike against it, but also the fact that not only was the show set among high schoolers, it starred high schoolers. Thus the hyper-sexual hype that surrounded the show salted it with a soupcon of pedophilia. The might as well called it "Jailbait Theater."

2. Teens Found Its "Realism" Boring. Teens took one look at the unending litany of melodrama, and the reports that this was "real" and said: "That ain't me." The majority of teens, despite what the panic prone media say, aren't screwing like rabbits while hopped up on a veritable pharmacopia of mind-bending substances, even if they wanted to. Instead, they're just trying to survive the usually petty, and un-melodramatic trials of high school life. Sure, the stuff on the show happens, but not to everyone.

Then add all the self-importance the producers and broadcasters couched with their "realism" and teens see the show as a lecture, not an entertainment. If they're going to see teens acting irresponsibly, they prefer to see 20 something, model pretty, faux teens do it in candy colored consumerist fantasy lands like Glee or Gossip Girl.

3. It Served Its Purpose. The real reason for MTV to do the show was to get the MTV Brand out in the mainstream media. The surest way to do that would be to do a show guaranteed to get media's self-proclaimed watchdogs all hepped up. What better than a show full of sex and drugs starring real high schoolers? Well, one starring real elementary school kids, but the unions rules wouldn't let them do it.

MTV markets itself as TV's home for youthful rebellion and "edgy" entertainment. Only it's version of "edgy" is basically to do lots of cheap "reality" shows about unlikeable people with loads of product placement. Real edge could cost them sponsors, so they aim for faux edge, something just obnoxious enough to get them the publicity they crave. My favorite story about MTV was about a Canadian TV show about a group of foul mouthed pot dealers and petty thieves. MTV said that they loved everything about the show, and wanted to buy it, just get rid of the coarse language, the drugs, and the petty crimes.

The show in that story wouldn't have generated the artificial controversy / publicity they wanted, so they wanted it sanitized to the point of being a completely different show they can slather with product placements.

That's MTV, and those are the real reasons why Skins was doomed to fail.

Hollywood Babble On & On #742: Thursday Thoughts

The evidence of my theory that the major studios not living up to their responsibilities as producers of quality entertainment content are all around us.

1. New distributor Open Road has announced their first release, the Jason Statham, Robert DeNiro action thriller The Killer Elite.

If you haven read my previous posts about this company, Open Road is a movie acquisition and distribution company founded by rival movie theater mega-chains AMC and Regal Theaters. The reason they created the company is because there are too few releases from the major studios, too many stinkers among those releases that they can't afford clogging up their screens, and huge gaps forming in audiences targeted by those releases.

It's a risky move. It's expensive, and like I always say, and will say again, any idiot can make a film, but it takes a special kind of idiot to distribute one properly. But it's a necessary risk, because the theaters have been put into a corner and need a way out.

(Note this film is not a remake of the 1970s Sam Peckinpah action film The Killer Elite, starring James Caan and Robert Duvall, but an adaptation of Ranulph Fiennes novel The Feather Men, I'm just using the poster to mess with your head.)

2. Meanwhile, Legendary Pictures, co-financier of such blockbusters as The Dark Knight, is opening up a new joint venture with Chinese partners to be based in Hong Kong. The plan is to make English language movies that can be sold internationally. It goes along with their recent opening of a comic book company as part of their plan to wean themselves off their co-dependence on the studios, and eventually create and distribute their own content worldwide.

Why do they crave their independence when they have such a cushy position as Warner Bros's big partner in blockbusters?

Because when you're a content creator that isn't just another subdivision of a multinational, multi-national media conglomerate, like Legendary Pictures, you need to create said content in both quality, and quantity. In the ever expanding 500+ channel/internet download/streaming/direct beam into your brain universe having your own library to license out is the key to the prosperity of your company, and the bigger the library, the bigger the power you wield with such outlets.

They will not achieve that as the mere partner of a major movie studio. That's because major movie studios treat their partners the way a 350 lb bodybuilding lifer treats their 120 lb prison cellmate whose in for shoplifting. The partners usually carry the bulk of the risks, and get the least of the rewards. If they are going to survive, thrive, and have a viable future, they are forced to find their own path.

3. Even the major studios are feeling the pinch caused by the decline of quantity/quality decline in content. 20th Century Fox have recently laid off 22 from their home video division.

Why?

Because home video sales and rental figures are somewhere between piss poor and atrocious.

Why are the sales and rental figures so bad?

Because the recent output of the recent studios, while they may enjoy some luck at the box office, really don't garner the repeat home viewings the way their older "classic" films do. Folks might go for the giddy thrills of a big screen spectacle in a theater, but if said spectacle lacks the sort of story that makes people want to watch it again and again, it's going to gather dust on the warehouse shelf.

Now Fox has made a move to try to break out of the death spiral by starting a program looking for new writers with new ideas. However, the odds of them handling such a program successfully are somewhere between slim to none. To find the new writers and new ideas they desperately need they would have to take a big step out of their heavily insulated Axis of Ego comfort zone, and I just don't think they have the stones to take that step.

Hollywood Babble On & On #741: Wednesday Wamblings

Bit of a random news day today, so let's get the ball rolling...

CBS FILMS GET THE ADAPTATION PALPITATIONS ROLLING

CBS Films, the theatrical movie arm of the venerable TV network, has inked a deal to adapt Vince Flynn's action thriller American Assassin for the big screen. American Assassin is a "prequel" to the best-selling book series about Mitch Rapp, and tells the story of his transformation from mild mannered scholar to hardcore CIA agent and terrorist hunter.

Fans describe the books as cinematic and action packed by nature, so it should be pretty simple to adapt them to the screen and make them a viable movie franchise.

But remember, this is Hollywood we're talking about here, and Hollywood loves to complicate simple things.

The biggest complication that could sink this franchise before it even begins is simple politics.

The books are described as unabashedly patriotic. Mitch Rapp goes after Islamic terrorists with great gusto, and uses what ever means are necessary to stop them. America is unabashedly the good guy, and the terrorists are unquestioningly the bad guys.

Hollywood has lately been iffy on the issue of Islamic terrorists as the villain in an action movie. On the rare occasions that they deal with material that should involve Islamic terrorism, Hollywood either changes them into German Neo-Nazis, as in The Sum Of All Fears, or making them the unwitting dupes of the seemingly all powerful grey haired American WASP in a suit, or driven to their acts because America did something to deserve it, like buying oil.

Most of the time when it comes to spy thrillers that don't involve James Bond they follow a formula that is both tried and tired. I'm talking about how the "rogue operative" has to go fight the minions of the government he used to serve because said American government is up to no good. It's been done to death in...

• Hanna
• Salt
• The A-Team
• Green Zone
• The Losers
• The Bourne Identity
• The Bourne Supremacy
• The Bourne Ultimatum
• Shooter
• Mission: Impossible 1
• The Long Kiss Goodnight

and many many more....

I even laid out how to compose your own story along those lines using a simple multiple choice chart. The reasons for this are two-fold, a politically correct desire to avoid offending anyone, and a politically incorrect belief that a non-Caucasian / non-American villain just can't possibly be any kind of a match to the usual Caucasian/ American hero.

So I wonder if this book would be remotely recognizable to its fans by the time it hits the big screen.

FOR SOME REASON TITLING IT HEMORRHOIDS SEEMS MORE APT

Roland Emmerich is set to direct a big screen big budget adaptation of the 80s video game Asteroids.

I'm not sure if Emmerich's up to the task, the game has way more story to it than pretty much all of his previous films combined.

LAURENCE FISHBURNE LEAVES C.S.I.

Actor Laurence Fishburne is not going to renew his contract for long running crime-drama CSI after 2.5 seasons.

I can understand his decision, he works regularly in movies, so the security of a spot on a weekly TV drama may not be the best for him creatively or financially. I can also understand putting a bow on his character, while Fishburne was always one of my favorite character actors, I didn't like what the CSI people were doing with his character. The whole "serial killer playing head games with a cop on the edge" storyline they did was drawn out too long, and took too many ridiculous turns. It crossed the line from suspenseful to boring so fast, and plunged so deep, not even Fishburne's burning authority could save it.

I wish him luck, and just a quick thought to the producer's of CSI: try John Malkovich this time. Because I'd just love to see him bring new levels of eccentricity to the show.

L.A. SCREAMS TAKE ME TO THE PILOT, TV INDUSTRY DOESN'T LISTEN

First the good news.

Thanks to the explosion of cable channels craving original content, the decline in the popularity of reality television, and the rise in quality scripted material there were pilots shot this past pilot season, than in a very long time.

That's the good news.

The bad news, at least for the traditional production hub of Los Angeles is that while the number of pilots being shot has gone up, the percentage of them being made in LA has shrunk.

There are 2 main reasons for this.

1. Technology has made it easier to shoot on location, away from the center of the TV universe, AKA Hollywood.

2. LA city regulations, California state regulations, union rules, and the sheer expense of getting around the poorly laid out civil engineering boondoggle known as LA, coupled with on-location tax breaks makes shooting outside of LA way cheaper and easier than shooting inside LA. A complete reversal of what used to be one of the fundamental truths of the film industry.

Can Los Angeles turn this situation around and win back the well paying film/TV jobs that was the city's birthright for decades?

It's possible, but it requires a certain amount of political will that I don't think the city of LA and the state of California has.

Hollywood Babble On & On #740: It's All Gone King Kong!

20th Century Fox has officially gone monkey crazy. Hot on the heels of the upcoming release of Rise Of The Planet Of The Apes the venerable studio has announced plans to do an animated remake of the classic big-ass monkey story King Kong.

But wait there's more!

Not only will it be animated, they are going to tell the story from the POV of the title character, King Kong.

What can I say about this....

NO!

NO! NO! NO!

BAD FOX!

BAD BAD FOX!

DON'T MAKE ME RUB YOUR NOSE IN IT!!

Seriously, I can't think of a worse idea, and here's why:

1. Motives: I think the motivation behind this film is bad. It's purely an exercise in cash grabbing, and not seeking to tell a decent story or fulfill a unrequited desire in the audience. They just looked at the $550 million take Peter Jackson's remake took in, and said "me too!"

Of course they're not stupid and realized they mustn't spend the hundreds of millions of dollars spent making and marketing the remake, so they go the cheaper animated route, and will probably tack on a happy ending so the kiddies can enjoy repeat screenings.

Of course they must acknowledge that the remake left many fans of both Peter Jackson and the original 1933 masterpiece unsatisfied. There was no sense of wonder attached to the film, just an overwhelming sense of indulgence on the part of the people making it. No feeling that Jackson had to make the film, just that he could make the film and make it BIG.

Fox knows that these same fans are not going to play a game of "fool me twice" with another re-boot. That is why they're going for the kiddie market. Fox knows that most children haven't seen the original in its city-stomping glory, or know that the story is supposed to be a tragedy. All Fox hopes is that they'll love the big monkey and have well timed conniptions until their parents buy them the King Kong plush toy and the Empire State Building play-set.

2. Understanding: The pitch that the film will be told from the big ape's POV shows that the people behind it really don't understand the original source material. The 1933 King Kong is as close to the ape's POV as you can get without him being able to talk.

Kong is the most sympathetic character in the movie. Carl Denham's charming, but a bit off his nut, and reckless about little things called human lives. The romantic leads Jack Driscoll and Anne Darrow come across an oaf and a naif respectively. It's Kong who becomes the center of your attention, and even affection the moment he comes on the screen.

He's the film's anti-hero. Yes, he does do terrible things, and a lot of innocent villagers and New Yorkers perish because of it, but why does he do those things? He does them because his kingdom on Skull Island is invaded, he's kidnapped, and dropped into the middle of a crowded island metropolis. He's a wild animal, in an unfamiliar environment with people screaming and shooting at him. It's perfectly natural for him to go ape-shit under those circumstances, and the audience understands that.

Take away that bit of wild animal believability, in order to make him cute and kid merchandise friendly, and you lose the sympathy that gives the film its emotional impact.

I'm sure the folks Fox are talking about working on this project are nice folks, and probably talented, which is why I suggest they step back from this intellectual and narrative abortion, and go do something different.

Maybe something original for a change of pace.

I know original material scares studio executives, so just call it "source material for future remakes."

Now that you know what I think, why don't you tell me what you think in the comments.

Hollywood Babble On & On #739: Monday Miscellanea

It's Monday, time for a few quick snarks to get your work-week started on the right foot.

WON'T SOMEONE PLEASE THINK OF THE CHILDREN!?!

Word is all over the web that Robert Pattinson, you know, the sparkly guy from Twilight, dropped an "F-Bomb" during the MTV Movie Awards, the one awards show that makes the Golden Globes look like paragons of integrity.

You know what that means.

Months of complaints from the Parents Television Council, the self-appointed watchdog of TV morality. Those complaints will insure that the clip, tastefully bleeped, will be on every entertainment news show, complete with MTV logo in the corner, over, and over and over again until the entire world just screams "Just shut the fuck up about this!"

Which is why I am convinced beyond a shadow of a doubt that the PTC has been secretly taken over by a cabal of particularly devious Hollywood publicists.

Why?

Because they sure as hell aren't helping the cause of "cleaning up" TV.

There was a time when the concept of "least objectionable viewing" dominated the TV biz. That meant that networks tried to avoid offending people, for fear of letter campaigns threatening them with the dreaded "boycott" by viewers angered by their indecency.

Then came "Nipplegate" where Janet Jackson's nipple was accidentally briefly exposed during a "wardrobe malfunction" during the Super Bowl Halftime show (interestingly the half-time show was produced by MTV). While millions have been paid in fines, and legal fees in the subsequent battles with the FCC in the courts that had their last round in 2009, CBS, the Super Bowl, and MTV reaped tens of millions of dollars of free publicity for themselves. This is because while the majority of the America people pretty much wanted to forget about it, the media wouldn't let it go because it qualified as "news" in their eyes. It was news to them because it had everything they wanted, celebrity, sex (as Seinfeld defined it), and self-righteous prigs plopping Jeremiads about obscenity that served only to keep the story going, and feed the just as self-righteous condescending elitism of the media who want to paint the rest of the country as puritanical rubes who can't take a dirty joke or a wayward nipple with getting a case of the palpitations.

In fact, the only real victim of the Nipplegate controversy was Janet Jackson, whose career outside of appearing in Tyler Perry movies is pretty much in oblivion. This oblivion was caused by the overwhelming quantity and quality surrounding the affair. The quantity of the unending and repetitive coverage of the incident, which went on years after anyone outside the media gave a actor's cuss about it, paired with the sadly poor quality of the nipple in question.

This created a whole new dynamic.

Suddenly the powers that be in TV realized that goading groups like the PTC is a great way to get their "brand" planted all over the place. The risks of dropping an "f-bomb," flashing a tipple of nipple, or just plain going for the lowest common denominator were greatly outweighed by the free advertising such "obscene" materials could garner.

Which brings us to the law of unintended consequences, the more the PTC complains, turning trivialities into national news stories, the more that people like MTV will give them things to complain about. So they get the opposite of what they claim to want.

If they really wanted to end "obscenity" on TV, then do what the TV industry fears even more than boycotts and threats, just ignore them. If they are ignored, then they cease to exist.

It's just that simple.

IS PARTICIPANT PARTICIPATING IN THE MOVIE BUSINESS?

The Wrap asks a pertinent question about the film production company Participant Media: Is it a business, or is it a hobby?

For those not in the know, Participant Media (formerly Participant Productions) was founded by Ebay billionaire Jeff Skoll to produce feature films and documentaries. While they've had some films do well, the company has dropped more turkeys than a drunk father on Thanksgiving.

This decidedly lackluster box office track record has caused Abu Dhabi funded Imagenation to drop out of their co-production fund before they lose their keffiyehs.

However, Mr. Skoll, who has already invested hundreds of millions into the company, says that he's happy to invest hundreds of millions more. Which causes The Wrap to theorize that this whole endeavor is more of a hobby, than a serious business.

Personally, I have to disagree.

It is a business, but the goal of this business is not to make money, but to get Jeff Skoll a spot among the beautiful people.

Don't believe me?

Look at Participant Media's filmography. While there are a handful of films that people may have actually seen, the majority of the titles would probably get a "never heard of it" from the members of the great unwashed known as the movie-going public.

My theory is that reaction is perfectly fine with Skoll, because the movie going public is not the target audience of Participant Media. The target audience of Participant Media is Hollywood itself. Those films that the public ignores are the sort of films that Hollywood loves to make, as long as someone else is paying for it, and it's failure at the box office won't cost them their cushy jobs. They deal with causes that are politically correct, and fashionable in Hollywood, that get the makers awards, adulation, and pats on the back for "courage" even though the only risk inherent in the film is that the audience will ignore it, which they often do.

It won't make you any real money, but it will get George Clooney to return your calls, and that automatically takes you from the chess club and makes you one of the cool kids in Hollywood, which is essentially high school with money.

That's Skoll's real business plan, and I hope he thinks it's worth it, because nothing makes a millionaire faster than being a billionaire investing in Hollywood.

Hollywood Babble On & On #738: Is This A Question I See Before Me?

The news is a little slow today, so I'm going to reply to a question from a reader.

Blast Hardcheese asked...

I'd heard about HDYK costing a boatload, but I figured that was due to Jack.

It can't go on. There has to be some point at which investors will just say 'heck wit it' and bail, right? Or will the 'glamor' of being in the movie industry keep the suckers, I mean investors lining up?

Well, that's a bit of a two-part question. While the stars of How Do You Know were paid their full "quote," which added up to about $50,000,000, there is actually a lot more to why the finished product cost about $120,000,000 by most conservative estimates. (They are reported to getting $20,000,000 in tax credits/rebates, but those savings were lost in the $50-$75 million spent promoting/releasing the movie.)

You see the biggest thing that a movie's budget buys you is time. Word is that writer/producer/director James L. Brooks took his sweet time making the movie. The longer he took, the more that had to be paid to, not only, the cast, but the crew as well, and crew members, being all skilled tradespeople, don't come cheap.

Then there are the reported re-shoots to make Reese Witherspoon's character likable, which ended up costing even more, and then you have a boondoggle.

Now how was Brooks allowed to take so long to do so wrong?

The answer is that he is James L. Brooks, and no studio says no to the great James L. Brooks.

You see, it's a case of being just too big to deny.

If you are a big name within the Hollywood community, you can pretty much get away with almost anything, at least until you crash and burn, leaving a smoldering $120 million plus hole in the ground. Then, and only then, it can get a little iffy.

If you're big within this narrow circle you can be like Katie Couric and sign a big money deal with the ABC network for a syndicated talk show and occasional butt-ins with the news, even though your much hyped stint as the CBS News anchor was a complete and total ratings disaster. But she's a member of the right clubs, supports the right causes, and moves in the right circles, so, like Mr. Brooks, it's an extremely rare moment when they hear the word "No."

An ironic twist is that if you're not one of the "in crowd" but still commercially successful, you get beaten like a rented mule. Harassed regularly over budgets, schedules, and content, just ask the producers of AMC's hit show The Walking Dead.

Now onto part two of the question.

A lot of investors are fleeing Hollywood. When times are good, and lots of money flowing, folks don't mind the "more risks than rewards" business model that currently dominates investing in Hollywood. It's always good to have a few minuses on your balance sheet to balance out the pluses during tax time.

Now, with lean times among the big money players, there really isn't as much cash lying around for them to play with. Hollywood studios don't really need the money, they are massively cash-flush subdivisions of even more massively cash flush international conglomerates, but they like to have it around, because it's more fun than spending their own money.

Movies will always be appealing to investors regardless of the problems partially because you are more likely to score with a starlet/model if you tell her that you're a movie producer instead of a the plumbing supply king of Pennsylvania. And there's always someone with money saying: "That won't happen to me," just waiting around the corner, so there will always be another sucker investor willing to get into movies.

There are ways both Hollywood and investors can end this self-fulfilling idiocy, but explaining those ways would take up way more time and space than I can put into a single post.

Hollywood Babble On & On #737: Everything's Relativity

Ryan Kavanaugh, the man who runs indie company Relativity Media, is a genius, I know this because Ryan Kavanaugh has told the world. Repeatedly.

His latest brain-fart stroke of genius is to "spin off" the $600 million Beverly 2 co-production fund Relativity had in partnership with hedge fund Elliott Associates and Universal Pictures.

Now some are saying that the emphasis in that story is on the word "spin" because other sources are saying that the Beverly 2 fund was taken away from Relativity, because both Elliott Associates, and Universal Pictures were unhappy in their dealings with the company. Elliott didn't care for Kavanaugh's decidedly flamboyant management style, which included announcing that he was selling their stake in the company, when Elliott says he couldn't, and Universal was definitely not happy with Relativity scheduling their releases to directly compete against Universal releases.

Oy gevalt. This is not how you run a railroad.

Sure, as a producer Kavanaugh has racked up a few films that made over $100 million at the box-office, but the emphasis has to be on the word "few." And some, like Little Fockers, that had a production budget over $100 million, and about the same amount spent on marketing, most likely still lost money, despite the ticket sales.

With that record you need all the friends you can get.

Especially when those friends have a $600 million co-production fund.

Investors and partners are simple creatures, and henceforth are easy to take care of. They want stability, security, and above all, a nice return on their investment. They don't care about how glamorous your lifestyle is, or how grand your entrance is at the latest film festival, they just want to know that your eye is on the ball.

If they're experienced film investors then they should understand that the business has great potential for rewards, but that potential goes alongside extreme risks. That's why you need to be a picture of stability and probity. And don't go and RELEASE MOVIES TO DIRECTLY COMPETE WITH YOUR OWN PARTNERS WHILE ALIENATING A MAJOR INVESTOR!

It's not rocket science, it's just plain old common sense.

Comic Book Confidential: The Great Reboot of 2011

It's official.

DC Comics is going to reboot their major superhero titles this August 31, restarting them at #1, with modified designs, new updated origins, and hopefully clear up their convoluted back-stories in the hope that it will stop them from being completely impenetrable to new readers.

I've been saying for years that this has to be done. Comics, especially superhero titles, have a lot of influence on pop culture that is directly inverse to the sales of actual comics. There are two main reasons for this:

1. Kids don't read comics anymore. It's not just because they're all planted in front of their Playstations and Xboxes and playing with their Wiis. It's because if a kid was to casually pick up a comic* they wouldn't have a frikking clue as to what the hell is going on because the story hinges on them having intimate knowledge of a major "event" that could possibly have happened before their parent's birth.

2. Regular comic buyers are an aging group and will soon become a shrinking group. The average comic book reader is in his thirties. Without kids getting into comics this group will age, die out, and get smaller and smaller.

Now people will go to comic book/superhero movies because they are one and done, complete stories all wrapped up in a neat little bow. They don't have to wade through decades of back-stories that are treated like holy writ in the comics.

This reboot has to be done if DC Comics and the rest of the comics industry is going to win new readers and remain viable in the 21st Century.

Now we know that it has to be done, the question we must ask is if this thing is going to be done right.

I have to ask this question because DC has tried to do this sort of thing before, and only dug the hole deeper.

In the 1960s DC Comics wanted to fix continuity problems between their original Golden Age characters, and the revived but often very different Silver Age characters.

To get it to work they created "Earth 2" an alternate reality that was the home of the Justice Society made up of Golden Age characters who would occasionally cross over and interact with their mainstream "Earth 1" counterparts.

By the 1980s the concept of alternate universes and alternate heroes and villains got really, really, really convoluted, creating as many problems as it solved. The powers that be at DC decided to clear it up in one big crossover even that would fix everything, and the characters, as well as the company, could start over fresh.

That event was Crisis On Infinite Earths, and it really didn't much of anything. Especially since the people writing, drawing, and editing the post-Crisis DC Comics spent the next two decades undoing everything accomplished during the crisis.

Now comes the big reboot.

Will DC Comics have the will to make it stick?

That will have to be seen.

Another question that has to be asked is about the timing.

They just announced it, giving readers, retailers, and the general audience just 3 months to prepare.

Will the currently running stories get a chance to wrap up in that time?

Is this enough time to get audience anticipation going, especially among new potential readers?

Personally, I would have gone for almost a year to do it. Put ads outside the usual comics media that are only read by people who already read comics, and find a way to get the damn issues in stores where non-comic fanboys and fangirls go. I'm talking places where regular magazines can be bought by regular readers and have the sort of stories that casual readers can enjoy.

If they don't, then this whole thing is just another publicity stunt trying to sell hymns to the choir.

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*That is if the kid lives within walking distance of a specialty comic book store, which is highly unlikely, actually goes inside, and has the money to buy the book and the will to do it. The days of picking one up off the spinner rack at the local convenience store are long over.