Weekend, 8-9 July 2000

NEWS BY THE NUMBERS

10. A Tangled Web They Weave: I have no problem with Laura Ziskin as a producer. I like her films (Pretty Woman, No Way Out, Everybody's All-American, What About Bob?, To Die For, etc.) and for the most part, they make money. But what in hell is she doing as the producer of Spider-Man for Sam Raimi and Columbia Pictures? The idea of Scott "I'm so clever, but I think plot is for suckers" Rosenberg rewriting the movie is scary enough, but is this recent deal designed to make sure that Sony is stuck with a loser after they dump the current administration? How many effects movies has Ziskin done? Zero. How many action movies has Ziskin done? Zero. In fact, I don't think there is a single second of CG in any movie Ziskin has done. Has she ever had a below-the-line budget of over $30 million to deal with? Again, I respect this woman's work. But even indie producer Christine Vachon seems infinitely more qualified for this particular gig than Ziskin. Just one thought…with power comes responsibility. That's from Spider-Man, right? (he he he)

9. What Goes Up: For those of you who think that The Patriot is going to make a comeback versus The Perfect Storm, Wednesday was time to wake up and smell the slaughter. A week ago, The Patriot opened to $5.02 million on Wednesday. A week later, The Perfect Storm's sixth day of business, after a huge weekend and holiday, was $5.22 million. Not only is that a good day, but it suggests that word-of-mouth on The Perfect Storm is better than reported. (Yes, I have gotten a fair amount of negative mail myself, about 30 percent.) The first Wednesday after a big opening for the top two movies of the summer so far were well behind TPS, Gladiator ($3.4 million) and Mission: Impossible 2 ($3.7 million). M: I-2 hit $200 million on Wednesday as well, but if this huge Wednesday is a sign of things to come, The Perfect Storm will take the summer going away. Monday morning will tell the full tale.

8. Another One Bites The Dust, Take 27: FasTV.com was yet another entertainment high-flier that went the way of the dinosaurs this week. The company had deals with New Line Cinema, Miramax, MGM and the American Film Institute, among others. They had 79 employees. Now they have 1. But they also had one funny thing…absolutely no awareness of their existence on my part. Now, you don't need to be on my personal radar to exist, but I pay attention to this stuff for a living and I never heard of FasTV.com, much less saw it on my computer. I'm guessing that their staff of 79 meant a minimal annual budget of $10 million. They launched last May and now, they’ve run out of money. Buh-bye.

7. On The Flip Side: The Wall Street Journal's Emily Nelson wrote a story in Thursday's edition about mega-advertiser Procter & Gamble now focusing on the Internet in dramatic ways in efforts to launch new products. The example in this story was a recent launch of a new women's hair-care line called Physique. But the specifics of that campaign isn't what's all that interesting to me. P&G's $1.7 billion in advertising is now seeking a more tightly targeted market than ever before, moving towards the Web and slowly away from the virtual TV-only minded. Instead of bringing their Web efforts into line after the TV ads are ready to go, the Web experts at the ad agencies P&G uses are bringing in the Web geeks to brainstorm from the start. In the Physique launch, they offered a free bottle of shampoo to Web surfers who e-mailed the link to the brand site to 10 friends…even before the product launched. Here come da' Web…here come da' Web.

6. Beating A Dead Movie: I covered this before, but I've been seeing media reports calling Things You Can Tell Just by Looking at Her, the deeply mediocre art film that MGM recently sold to Showtime for a premiere showing rather than to throw another good dime after a lot of money spent to send the film to Sundance and Cannes to no fanfare, a Calista Flockhart movie. It is not a Calista Flockhart movie. Nor is it a Cameron Diaz movie or an Amy Brenneman movie nor a Holly Hunter movie nor a Kathy Baker movie or a movie starring any one or two of the many gifted actresses who appear in this well-acted mess. It is a true ensemble. And just as Love's Labour's Lost should not be blamed in any way on Alicia Silverstone, this film should not be counted as a dark mark against any of these actresses. And as much as I dislike the film, if I were you, I would catch the last segment (as I recall), featuring Brenneman and Diaz in one of Diaz's best turns as an actress ever.

5. Privacy Please: Thank goodness that People got to the bottom of the Meg Ryan/Dennis Quaid break-up. Just think about the serious personal risk that the source of the "Russell and Meg nuzzling in first class" story took. And oh the joy of speculating about what was going on in Meg's cute little head when she decided to…well, you get the redundant joke that is best not written out here. It's funny. I'm so used to this stuff that I really don't even think about the parade of crap that floats by anymore. Kind of sad and sick, really. So, I'm thinking about the week and what's been going on and I realize that this has been "the" story. Then I think, "why?" I thought of one friend who got upset when I suggested that the privacy that Nic Cage and Patricia Arquette demanded for their marriage seemed reasonable, even honorable. "They are public figures…we have a right to know." Of course, this same person freaked out once when I threatened to put one of their e-mail messages in this column. Funny how the rules change. (The really good Hollywood rumor this week is that Ed Frumkes, once Warner Bros.' key international guy, is heading to Universal when his contract runs out in December. He resigned in May, but it looks like he will ride out the contract as a consultant--think "no compete clause." This will actually affect the movie business. Meg's sex life will not…except in the promotion of Proof of Life.)

4. The Price of Infamy: Six months in jail and five years probation. No, that's not the sentence for beating another human being to a pulp or for looting a computer store after a Lakers win. It's the sentence handed down against Lawrence Ledent, the 38-year-old who pleaded no contest to one count of grand theft auto in the case against him for stealing, unsuccessfully, the 55 Oscar® statuettes for this year's awards. But that's not enough of a beating for this luckless loser. He'll also pay $50,000 to Roadway Express to cover the cost of the reward paid Willie Fulgear for finding the 52 of the Oscars in a garbage bin and $1050 to the Academy for the 3 still-missing Oscars. That's $51,050 and six months in jail for attempting to steal less than $20,000 in merchandise. I'm not saying the guy doesn't deserve to suffer for acting in an illegal fashion, but…Only in Hollywood.

"The Top Three & ROTD"