The Hot Button by David Poland

Weekend, 29 August 1998

NEWS BY THE NUMBERS

10. KNOWLES NEWS: As more than a few readers wrote, Harry Knowles and Ain't It Cool News were way ahead of the curve on the Lord of the Rings project that was just set up at New Line with director Peter Jackson. So much so that Jackson has now started contributing to the site. I don't normally detail who broke news on every story, but this was something that Harry stuck with for, it seems, a full year. So, congratulations to him and congratulations to all of us for the news that Jackson is being given room to stretch his incredibly artistic muscles by New Line.
9. SEX FOR MONEY: Priscilla Presley, who starred in the Naked Gun series (I needed some excuse to write about this non-movie story) has won her lawsuit that claimed defamation because some guy (his name is Lavern Currie Grant) claimed he had sex with her before she married Elvis. She won $75,000. Watch for the legal population of local bars, restaurants and coffee houses to multiply exponentially as lawsuits over lies about who slept with which starlet (or star) become fashionable.
8. HEADLINING SEXISM: Kinda pissed off at Variety for a story they headlined "Laker Girl Becomes Movie Director." Sounds a lot like some 20-year-old in spandex just jumped into the director's chair, doesn't it? Turns out that former Laker Girl Morgan Lawley will make her directing debut with a comedy called Babe in the Woods. In the meantime, she hasn't just been diddling Jack Nicholson, she's become a well-established director of music videos like so many other first time directors. And, when they get their first gigs, no one mentions their sexy pasts. I'm hardly a P.C. kind of guy, but this bugs me. Hollywood has enough pigeon holes. We don't need to create any more.
7. FRESH MEAT: The William Morris Agency has a new client. It's a big one. It's known for taking big risks that deliver big payoffs. This client has destroyed relationships and come in between couples (married and not) drawing otherwise honorable people to stray. But it's finally settled down into a sort of domesticity. Even so, there's no end to the sights of flesh it offers. Have you guessed who it is yet? No, it's not Sharon Stone. It's the Rio Casino Hotel in Las Vegas. But, it's the same difference, huh?
6. CHANGING PLACES: Janis Joplin is finally getting the official big-screen treatment after Bette Midler channeled her in 1979's The Rose. Behind the camera will be Gary Fleder, whose movie directing career up until now consists of Things to Do in Denver when You're Dead and Kiss the Girls. He'll be using interviews and flashbacks to tell the story. Sounds like something that Michael Apted would be perfect for. Maybe Fleder could do Bond 19 and Apted could do this biopic. Hmmm.
5. FROM THE BLACK AND BLUE HOUSE: Want to see Wag the Dog this weekend? You had better have gotten to the store early on Friday, or maybe you'll just have to go for the pay-per-view, because they can't keep the thing on the shelves. Wonder why? Rental spending for the film went up 40 percent last week to $2.6 million. In turn, pay-per-view sales tripled last weekend in many markets, and the dry cleaning business has probably had a big boost, too. Only, instead of calling it "Martinizing," the signs now read "Evidence Control."
4. PEELING AWAY THE SENSE OF HUMOR: The Onion, a humor mag out of Wisconsin, sold Disney's Hyperion books a pitch on a book of joke headlines from the last 100 years. Everything was cool until they wrote it. According to Variety, segments included a Nazi propaganda cartoon by Hitler and Walt Disney himself and a report of Oprah Winfrey (an author on the label) forming a start-up with "cheesecake-eating housewives" called Ugogirl. Disney dumped the project, which works out well for the Onion-ers, who got more for the book on its re-sale. I guess it's safe to put that part back in about portraying Cinderella and Snow White as competing Castle interns.
3. COME TOGETHER: The industry trend of corporate consolidation and reconsolidation has hit theaters. Actual movie theaters. This week, Loews Cineplex (a combination of Loews and Cineplex Odeon owned by Sony) sold 31 of their theaters to Cablevision. Cable TV buying movie theaters? What up with that? Loews Cineplex was forced to sell the screens as part of its merger agreement. Included, sadly, is the classic Ziegfeld Theater, which sure smells like a candidate for multiplexing in the hands of new ownership. Argh! Meanwhile, it looks like another New York theater, the Upper West Side's New Regency, will face the wrecking ball. And still no art house uptown. In a city the size of New York. Hell, we only have one revival house in all of L.A. I love the tube, but movies deserve to be seen on a screen, and you deserve to see them there. I hate this stuff.
2. BEAM THIS GUY UP: As I detailed on Thursday (THB 08/27), Kirk Kerkorian is building up MGM, so he's probably planning on getting out. But I'll offer this prediction: When he goes, he'll take with him some portion of the rights that MGM is demanding to make a movie version of Spider-Man. Which would leave us with a great irony. MGM is suing, claiming they hold the rights because they were illicitly (remember, this is their accusation) lifted, as the company was repeatedly bought and sold in the past. Kerkorian is not only smart, but he keeps coming back and plundering the same village. (Insert your own Clinton joke here.)
1. THE BOAT FLOAT: It happened quietly, but it happened. Titanic, near the end of its theatrical run, just days away from its release on video, sailed past the $600 million mark. Breathtaking really. A few years ago, Disney became the first studio to have a $1 billion year. Titanic beat that overseas alone. With the video sales, Titanic should easily pass the $2 billion mark in revenue generated by movie sales alone. Star Wars and the rest of the trilogy did that kind of money, but the vast majority of the numbers came from merchandising (another often forgotten legacy of the underappreciated-for-its-effect-on-the-business classic). Amongst Titanic's legacies is the launch of Reel.com into significant TV advertising and a sea change in Blockbuster's advertising, which has been built around the release of the video (and some would say, stolen completely from the terrific Hollywood Video ads that evoke movie clichés so amusingly).
READER OF THE DAY: Cooldaddy wrote: "Blade was fun comic book action. There's not much of a story, I know, but that wasn't what the movie was about. It's a prime example of a movie going for complete style over substance, and it worked on both levels, in its own way. The movies I'm looking forward to are 54, Rounders and Urban Legend (hey, the previews look pretty good), though I'm sure there's more, just haven't seen much about the fall lineup."

E ME: That's all the news that's fit to print. And some of it wasn't all that fit. How I love the summer doldrums. Send me your random thoughts.