Weekend, 12-13 December 1998

NEWS BY THE NUMBERS

10. CASH FOR TRASHED FLASH: Actress Alyssa Milano (Jennifer Love Hewitt before Jennifer Love Hewitt, minus the shirt) actually got a settlement from an Internet company that was selling fake and real nude images of her on the 'Net. It was only five figures, but it is a historic moment for the 'Net and the movie business anyway. The settlement came after Milano filed suit against three different companies, the other two still pending litigation. I don't think that Mark Wahlberg will be suing New Line for misrepresenting his nether regions in Boogie Nights, but anything that leads to the industry understanding that the 'Net is just another communications form and not some sort of mystery is great for all of us who toil here.

9. EXPANDING UNIVERS(AL): Another long week at Universal. First, they announce plans to write off $65 million on Meet Joe Black and Babe: Pig in the City. By the end of the week, The massive entertainment empire swallowed PolyGram Filmed Entertainment whole (that includes Gramercy Pictures, Propaganda Films, Working Title Films and Interscope Communications). Universal made official long rumored plans to make the Julia Roberts/Hugh Grant starrer Notting Hill a Universal release. Plans for the long-delayed Arlington Road are still pending.

8. PUBLIC DISPLAY: Break out the black stretch pants! Sony has bought the rights to a New York magazine article about young publicists wreaking havoc in New York City called "Welcome to the Dollhouse." Will Hollywood ever actually make this movie? Probably not. But if they do, expect a virtual remake of My Fair Lady with an all-female cast or maybe even a guy as Eliza Dolittle.

7. I.Y.C.U.T.Y.A.P.T.M.A.: Jupiter Communications released the results of a 2,200 person poll of Web surfers that found that most people on the Web are only interested in skimming news sites and get most of their news from the major portals' headline services. In other words, you are freaks!!! What are you doing reading something with depth? You make me sick! (You also pay my bills. New media means new rules. It's time that people start learning that. I believe that one of you is worth 100 newspaper subscribers or 1,000 TV viewers because you do care and you're making a real investment of your time. In other words, you are the core audience that everyone needs. The sooner the studios and the advertisers figure that out, the better.) By the way, the tag for this story translates to: If You Can Understand This, You Are Paying Too Much Attention.

6. BONDING BOND: Early in the week, UA announced that it had hired busty boy toy Denise Richards to play Dr. Christmas Jones (sounds like an old Pam Grier role) in Bond 19 aka The World is Not Enough (that title is too much). As the week progressed, fabulous French babe Sophie Marceau (you may remember her from Braveheart) joined the fray as the object of Bond's protection. With Michael Apted at the wheel, this Bond is beginning to smell like exactly the Bond we might expect from Sony and the sensibilities of Sony topper John Calley. Hmmm.

5. SECRETS & SPIES: Some tabloid freelancing putz named Eric Ford used a scanner to monitor cell phone calls between Nicole Kidman and Tom Cruise. He was nabbed by the FBI after trying to sell the transcript of the conversation to a British tabloid. The Hot Button recreates the transcript here in a world exclusive of B.S. Tom: "Hi." Nicole: "Hi." Tom: "What's for dinner?" Nicole: "I don't know. The head chef is off tonight, but his second assistant is doing dinner." Tom: "Damn it, Nic! He always overcooks the asparagus!" Nicole: "Wooooo! You are a feisty little guy tonight!" Tom: "Don't call me 'little.' What if someone is listening?" Nicole: "Who would be listening?" Tom: "One of those Internet guys! They always get this stuff. Harry Knowles ran a story on my underwear last week." Nicole: "You're paranoid!" Tom: "You never worked with Oliver Stone!" (Click. Phone goes dead.)

4. STEVE & TOM: THE MOVIE: Forget Memoirs of a Geisha. Forget Indiana Jones 4. Even forget the Lindbergh movie getting made before 2000. Steven Spielberg and Tom Cruise will spin box office gold together with Minority Report, a cop movie set in the future. The deal teams Fox with DreamWorks on the project that was developed at Fox, with an equal split on costs and revenues between the partners and Fox handling all the distribution. (Add another big feather in Fox Distribution chief Tom Sherak's cap.) Ironically, with all the rumors about Tom Hanks and Lindbergh, it's Fox who will also be partnering with DreamWorks on Castaway, the Robert Zemeckis picture that will star Hanks and leave Hanks potentially available for Lindbergh in Spring 1999.

3. NOW YOU SEE IT, NOW YOU DON'T: In other DreamWorks news, the great Caleb Deschanel was fired from his director of photography gig on the studio's production The Haunting of Hill House. The studio says that the release of the man who shot The Natural, The Black Stallion and The Right Stuff, among others, was amicable and was simply because of artistic differences. But that's an excuse right out of the Museum of the Hard to Believe. Especially when the studio says that the film "may" re-shoot Deschanel's work of the first week. If it was such a problem, they would have to re-shoot. And I doubt that Deschanel wasn't able to do the work. There could have been some major personality conflict, though it seems unlikely, especially with no major stars on the show to cause friction. My guess? Speed. Deschanel probably wasn't moving fast enough for former DP-turned-director Jan DeBont. You know what you can be after a week of shooting? Two days behind. That will get anyone fired, especially when you are trying to keep a budget on a genre film under control.

2. TOP OF THE SONY TO YOU: Ch-ch-ch-changes at Sony. Howard Stringer, who has been lingering at Sony for over a year after overseeing the demise of CBS, has been given the keys to the place. Movie czar John Calley and music man Tommy Mottola now report to Stringer. Reports are that Sony will be offering an entertainment division IPO much like Rupert Murdoch's successful fundraiser at Fox. Will this really affect what you see on movie screens? It could. It will depend on how the first generation of Calley-based movies do at Sony and on how much corporate games-playing Calley is winning to do. Buzz already has him halfway to retirement, so this could be just the beginning.

1. DISNEY BUYS ENGLAND, FILM AT ELEVEN: American studios have been trying to take advantage of Brit hits like The Full Monty and Bean for the last couple of years, but Disney has stepped up to the plate with the big bucks. Buena Vista International (that's the international arm under Disney's other movie name) is making a two-year deal to invest, produce and distribute British-made films with two major producers in the UK One company is Fragile Films, which produced the hit Spice World for Sony last year. And one of the partners is a former partner of Lorne Michaels, who has been Paramount's unofficial exclusive low-budget comedy arm for years now. The other company is TalkBack, which teams the UK comedy team of Smith and Jones, who have been involved with such projects as Bean and The Tall Guy, a film that could have been a hit in America, but arrived in a time when those films just weren't given a real shot. (It also marks Emma Thompson's first major U.S. exposure.)

READER OF THE DAY: From Greybird: "Even though I liked Gods and Monsters, I can't fathom why anyone would rate it the best film of the year. The only superlative I could offer would be that it's this year's best movie about moviemaking. So far I have only eight titles for my 10 best list, but I'm hoping something will excite me in the next three weeks. I'll be seeing Rushmore and A Simple Plan this weekend, and I've still got hopes for The General and The Thin Red Line. In the meantime, I've got a few special citations, listed below:

"Most Sublimely Tawdry Movie: Wild Things

"Best Dumb Comedy: The Waterboy

"Best Bodice Ripper: Elizabeth

"Artiest Bodice Ripper: Artemesia

"Most Conflicted Bodice Ripper: The Governess

"Silliest Bodice Ripper: Dangerous Beauty

"Most Extraordinary Filmmaking: The bookend combat scenes in Saving Private Ryan

"Best Sequel: Babe: Pig in the City

"Worst Sequel (that I saw): Halloween: H20

"Most Annoying Trailer: Patch Adams

"Runner-ups: City of Angels, The Theory of Flight

"Best Trailer: Star Wars: Episode I -- The Phantom Menace; Runner-Up: The Mask of Zorro

"Trailer Least Likely to Sell a Ticket: Hurlyburly

"Most Insufferable Art Movie: Marie Baie des Anges

"Least Satisfying Gay Movie: Billy's Hollywood Screen Kiss

"Worst Movie (that I saw): Sphere

"Most Disappointing Movie: The Gingerbread Man

"Worst Casting Decision: Kenneth Branagh in Celebrity

"Best Casting Decision: Christina Ricci in Buffalo '66

"Most Divertingly Welcome Performance in a Summer Behemoth: Jean Reno in Godzilla; Runner-Up: Owen Wilson in Armageddon

"Most Engaging Performance in a Movie Nobody Saw: Kate Beckinsale in Shooting Fish; Runners-Up: David Arquette and Stanley Tucci in The Alarmist

"Most Irritating Performance: Rebecca Pidgeon in The Spanish Prisoner

"English Language Film Most in Need of Subtitles: I Went Down

"Worst Trend: The Three-Hour Intimate Epic

"Oddest Movie Trend: The Geometric Thriller (e.g. Pi, Cube, Sphere)"

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E ME: Send me your lists for the year-end lists that are coming up soon. Also, your takes on Star Trek, Jack Frost and all the exclusives are hereby requested. And still looking for hard-core defenders of Gods and Monsters.