The Hot Button by David Poland

Weekend, 17-18 October 1998

NEWS BY THE NUMBERS

10. PSST! WANNA BUY A FILM FESTIVAL?: The Hollywood Reporter got the scoop on a plan by the American Film Marketing Association to sell the American Film Market. Which would leave them with... a lot of stationery. The world is getting a little too small for the markets, and even much of the festival circuit, to be anything more than industry cocktail parties. Not much actually sells anymore at Cannes or AFM or even on the highest levels at Sundance. They just save the bidding and acceptance and promo for the event. And how much is that actually worth? At Sundance, it's worth a lot. But that still doesn't mean that the imprimatur of the festival can make Hurricane Streets a hit. On the flip side, AFM is kind of the Cannes of sleaze. Low budget all the way. So, who wants to go to a week-long cocktail party made up of men who are trying to bed down the girls who hand out the trades at the door. And who aren't powerful enough to succeed? Not me. And apparently, not them anymore either. So, get out a check and watch as Joe's Film Market comes to life.
9. DON'T WATCH THAT, WATCH THIS!: Now, this is what synergy is all about! ABC's "20/20" made the mistake of proceeding on a piece about some of the safety issues at Disney's parks (the network is owned by Disney). Not only that, the show paid the publisher of Disney: The Mouse Betrayed for an early exclusive on the book in order to do this story. The reporter delivered his story. His bosses told him to go back and investigate other non-Disney properties. He did, but he found no problems. So, ABC President David Westin determined that the story was just inappropriate. Uh huh. It wasn't that ABC is owned by Disney. Of course not! Of course, in my twisted mind, I'm thinking that maybe this was all a set-up to buy the rights to this book and then, after a great expenditure of effort and money, to kill the story, preventing anyone else like, say, NBC's "Dateline" or CBS' "60 Minutes," from doing the story while making it look like a sincere effort was made and wires just got mysteriously crossed. I'll leave it to you to judge. And, as is always the case with troubling stories, Variety reports "a Disney spokesman did not return calls seeking comment."
8. GUILT IS IN THE EYE OF THE SEASON TICKET HOLDER: Pop quiz: What's the difference between Kim Basinger and Michael Jordan? I mean, besides the hair, the height, the sex, the Oscar, the jump shot, the implants and the ability to give birth. No, I don't think Alec Baldwin has slept with Jordan, but that's not the answer I was looking for either. No, it's getting a sympathetic jury for a lawsuit over a movie they didn't make. Basinger was forced into bankruptcy after a jury saw her as a spoiled movie star who reneged on a deal. Jordan not only was found "not guilty," but he was awarded $50,000 in a countersuit for his troubles. (This is all over a movie called Heaven is a Playground, but you don't really care about that, do you? Didn't think so.) As Mel Brooks once said, "It's good to be the King."
7. PERVERT ALERT: There is something joyous and artistic about the idea of Nicole Kidman appearing in David Hare's play in London that deals with sex and has onstage nudity. But, now she's bringing it to Broadway, so they had better have an enforced raincoat checking policy. I guess it's a weird reflection of what America has become like lately, but I have this sickening feeling that half the ticket sales are going to be about a naked Nic and not an interest in art. I hope that I'm wrong. But with Rudy Guliani shutting down Times Square's more colorful storefronts, these guys have to go somewhere.
6. ON THE NOSE: Francis Ford Coppola's legal win against Warner Bros. over the non-production of Pinnochio was cut significantly on Wednesday. An L.A. judge (now there's a series we'll see soon) threw out the entire $60 million finding for punitive damages. Yet, the judge affirmed the compensatory award of $20 million. Does this make sense to you? Forget that I will be disappointed if Coppola loses some of the money that would allow him to go creatively wild up in Napa Valley, creating art that might change the world of film. (Remember: Coppola's One From the Heart may have failed financially, but many of Coppola's production advances on that film have become industry standard and that influence can be traced all the way to the mindset that allowed James Cameron to build a 90 percent reproduction of the Titanic in Mexico.) But if the jury was right that Warner Bros. had done the wrong thing, how does the judge have the right to tell them that punitive damages are inappropriate? I can understand saying, "$60 million is too much, but $20 million seems OK." But nothing?
5. SINK FOR YOURSELF: Speaking of Titanic, Paramount will launch Titanic as a pay-per-view event on November 30. So, let me get this right. You can buy the video for $9.95 at reel.com. You can rent the video for $3.00 at the videostore and watch at your convenience. You can even go see the movie in many $2.00 houses around the country. And you're going to pay for pay-per-view??? I guess you could tape the thing, but what's the point? The only good thing is that you get a copy of the movie's sequel when you do PPV. That is, the sequel to the film's soundtrack, Back to Titanic. Wow.
4. THE CPA AVENGERS: And, in another bit of $60 million Time-Warner news, Warner Bros. will write off about that amount on The Avengers, their deadly dose of daring do this summer. And the movie was based on a series from... hmmm.... the '60s. And Francis Ford Coppola will be... oh, my!... 60 next April. And the number of times people were heard to murmur "This sucks" when I saw the film? Two hundred and forty seven. So much for the conspiracy theory.
3. Y? BECAUSE HE DOESN'T LIKE YOU ANYMORE!: The war between DreamWorks and Disney goes beyond Antz vs. Holy Man (a first round TKO). Newsweek reports that Jeffrey Katzenberg is about to sue Disney for more money, claiming that Disney sold their programming short by selling it too cheaply to subsidiary ABC-TV. If Katzenberg succeeds, he'll do more than line his pockets. There have been charges by ABC/Disney performers over the same issue before (see: Tim Allen). This may be the most costly battle in the war between the Mouse House and the man who was once its most important employee. Truly, hundreds of millions of dollars in play here.
2. BABES WITH BUCKS: Jodie Foster scored a $15 million payday this week and Julia Roberts scored $17 million. Both actresses seem to be perfect fits for their big dollar roles. Foster as Anna, the teacher of the children and the King of Siam and Julia as a giggling Runaway Bride. I wish I could get more excited about this issue, but the bottom line is still dollars and cents. None of the Top 10 all-time grossers were female dominant. Ghost is No. 12 on the all-time list and lo-and-behold, Demi and Whoopi were both, at different moments, the highest paid actresses ever. (Whoopi got $6 million for Sister Act 2, back when that was real money, and Demi got $12 million for G.I. Jane.) Pretty Woman is No. 19, which explains why Julia is taking the new top rung of payments.
Mrs. Doubtfire doesn't really count, does she? Down at No. 26 is The Bodyguard, which is why people keep throwing money at Whitney Houston, hoping that she had some responsibility for the gross other than the song. Gone with the Wind follows with $400 million worldwide. And only Fatal Attraction, 101 Dalmatians and Disney animated films also make the $300 million worldwide mark with women as true leads. (I guess that means Glenn Close is the real underpaid actress in town.) That's six movies out of the Top 69. Harrison Ford has eight by himself. Cruise, Hanks, Costner and Carrey have three each. And Sly, Robin, Arnold, Mel, Eddie, Jack, Will and Bruce have two each. Cha-ching!
1. NET LOSS: The Internet-first release of the Universal's Psycho trailer created some controversy this week. Syndicated series "Access Hollywood" (a 20th Century Fox show with NBC) accessed the trailer on the Web on Tuesday and ran parts of it on their show on Wednesday. That was one day before "Entertainment Tonight" (a Paramount show) was to air the trailer exclusively on their show. This kind of thing hurts you, the Internet surfer. How? Well, when will a studio try a stunt like this again? Not soon. "Entertainment Tonight"'s exclusive was significantly more valuable to the studio, in terms of eyeballs and promotion, than the Web exclusive could be. The Web premiere was an "added-value" effort. And now, they got slapped for it.
"Access Hollywood" knew exactly what they were doing. There was a press release that indicated ET's Thursday exclusive and Access made a point of blowing it. And, as much as I hate the rules, when you play the game of publicists, you oblige yourself to play by their rules. (One reason that I don't do a lot of junkets and the like.) If you care about this at all, I would like you to send a simple e-mail to NBC (Access Hollywood doesn't have an e-mail address) and put "Access Hollywood's Psycho Story Sucks" in as the Subject. And, if you know other sites that would object to "Access Hollywood"'s action, please send this to them, asking them to add an e-mail link with instructions. This is a blip in Hollywood, but it is a real loss for we 'Net warriors.
READER OF THE DAY: Lots of great, great letters this week. And not enough room. I'll figure something out. In the meantime, here's a quickie from Donner: "I visited the Psycho site yesterday after reading about it in your column. I've had my doubts about seeing it, as I love the original, and although I really like Vince Vaughn, I didn't want to see him play (read: ruin) Norman Bates. And there's the ubiquitous Anne Heche. A good actress, but do we have to see her in everything??? Jeez... However, I, too, am impressed with the trailer enough to go see the movie (isn't that how marketing gets ya?). I will go with some trepidation, and will kick myself if it turns out to be lousy, but I guess I'm going... they win... here, take my seven bucks and get it over with..."

E ME: Just for today, forget about mailing me. If you are thinking about taking a second out of your day, send that e-mail to NBC and cc me if you like. And if you really want to write me, I'll be happy to read you. But, I really want to let NBC know how we feel about this stupidity. The 'Net deserves to get the Phantom Menace trailer first. And Harry Knowles deserves to run Peter Jackson's entire Lord of the Rings film on his site as a pay-per-view before it hits theaters. Don't let one stupid TV show ruin it for everyone.