MOVIN’ ON UP:  The Academy has voted to move The Oscars into late February, starting in 2004.  Brilliant…. I hope.  The upside of the move is that it eliminates the February hammock in which the Christmas releases start to fade before Oscar arrives.  With summer starting earlier and earlier – Universal tried to get it rolling two weekends before May with The Scorpion King this year – the ability to boost February and early March box office with the Oscars is good for the industry.  Most of the big box office hopefuls this spring (The Time Machine, Ice Age, Blade II, Panic Room) arrived in Oscar’s direct or post-awards shadow.  In 2004, those slots will be even more open, while studios will probably get out of the way of Oscar – expect an increase in January/February expansions like Black Hawk Down – with product like this year’s We Were Soldiers and John Q.  Now the industry needs some sort of Sept/Oct machinery to rev those months up.

There has been some concern expressed by The Academy that other awards shows would move earlier, but the only major, The Golden Globes, can’t realistically move any earlier… a week, tops.  If Oscar tries to announce nominations before the Globes, it could get dicey.  But my guess is that The Academy will close nominations the Friday after the Globes and have a two-week voting period for the final awards.  It’s tight, but why not?   The current six-week dirge is truly painful. 

To read the news story from Reuters, click here.

PARAMONUMENTAL:   I somehow missed Sunday’s business section story on Paramount in the New York Times, but Roger Friedman (in what read an awful lot like me on a cranky day) threw it in my face with his column.  He basically ripped into the Times for writing a kind story on the most boring studio in town.  So, I expected a big, wet kiss on Sumner Redstone’s butt… but I got no such thing.  Geraldine Fabrikant may not have come to the typewriter with the sharpest of knives, but she wasn’t being overly nice. 

For instance, she could have pointed out that Paramount took the cheaper half of Titanic, but also made less than half the profit that Fox, the bigger spender, made.  While Paramount got about $390 million in domestic rentals for their $75 million production investment – the $60 million figure she states is a fish story – Fox got about $720 million in rest-of-the-world rentals back from their $100 million production investment and own a moderately profitable production facility in Mexico that represents the other $50 million invested.  The bigger risk-taker got the bigger reward, but you wouldn’t know that from the way the Titanic tale is framed. 

Another example is Fabrikant allowing Sherry Lansing to get away with claiming Forrest Gump as  “one of the riskiest films ever made.”  Uh… Tom Hanks, coming off of powering A League of Their Own to over $100 million domestic back in a time when there were only eleven $100 million movies a year, and pulling in almost $80 million for Philadelphia, an AIDS drama in which Hanks plays a sick, gay man.  Zemeckis?  He had failed with Death Becomes Her… and still grossed almost $60 million domestic.  But before that, his previous four films (the Back to the Future trilogy and Who Framed Roger Rabbit?) had grossed more than $570 million domestic… again, back when that was money.  Compared to Cast Away, which cost about double what Gump cost, had a six-month break in production and featured a 40-minute segment without music or dialogue, Forrest Gump was a walk in the park.

One more stick in my craw is the argument that Lansing was right to insist on a star, Sam Jackson, for John Singleton’s remake of Shaft.  I love Sam Jackson.  I am particularly thrilled that he signed on for the new Ashley Judd woman-in-danger film, being directed by Phil Kaufman, because Jackson and Kaufman together are sure to find something worth playing with in what may be a hackneyed premise.  However, Sam Jackson as Shaft meant a strong opening and a lame film.  As Jackson has complained, he was no longer the sex machine for all the chicks.  And the whole idea of Shaft was reduced to a cop drama with one bad ass mutha… hush my mouth… in the lead.  But Shaft could have been a $100 million movie had it been the right film.  Now, maybe there were other problems in that project that would have gotten in the way.  But, damn it, Shaft is Shaft because it was a black man breaking new ground.  I still say that a Shaft that questioned both white America and black America could have been something truly special.

But I digress…

I think Fabrikant did the job.  She profiled the most consistent studio in town, acknowledging the lack of both peaks and valleys.  Despite Friedman’s rant, the Travolta/Judd/Freeman thrillers, which have not burned up the domestic box office, are still making small profits.  The Oscars he seems so worried about  are an ego play that most studio execs responsible for cash flow will admit add little to the profit picture in this day and age of huge opening and stubby legs.  How much did A Beautiful Mind make in America after Oscar night?  $16 million… less than 10 percent of its domestic gross.  The days when an Oscar meant tens of millions at the box office are long gone. 

Anyway, read it for yourself.  Click here, free subscription required.

BIG BALL BOB:  The Kid Stays in The Picture is a remarkable film.  I’m not sure that it’s really a documentary.  It’s something.  One of the filmmakers, Brett Morgan, told The New York Observer, “If Disneyland had a ride called Bob Evans, this would be it.”  Pretty close.  The Observer story is here. I’ll review the picture some time next week. 

THE CREEPING TERROR:  There’s another interesting article in the New York Times, about television and a new wave of product placements… even in non-fiction shows.   File it under, “Keep An Eye Out.”  Click here.

PAGE TWO:  “Getting Old & ROTD”