October 3, 2003

The screener dirge goes on… but I’ll give you guys a break for the weekend…

However, the first great stunt of the new and thinned out Oscar race comes from Fox Searchlight on behalf of Jim Sheridan’s In America. Starting next Thursday night and on every Thursday night for the next seven weeks until the film’s official release, In America will play on four Los Angeles area screens, and will soon expand out to New York and a number of additional cities. Card-carrying members of AMPAS, BAFTA, DGA, HFPA, PGA, WGA and SAG Nominating Committee are all invited to attend for free. (See the web promo here.)

Searchlight is a THB/MCN advertiser, but before you claim any prejudice, many of you know, I have adored this movie since I saw it 13 months ago at Toronto and walked out of the screening shouting about its Oscar prospects. I have also written that this film is the most likely to be hurt by the screener ban, since I believe deeply that Djimon Housou and Samantha Morton deserve Oscar nominations for their work here.

This is the first move. I don’t expect it to be the last.

ONE NOTE: Sorry… but Variety reports the “5 Movie” theory about the screener ban, citing Pirates of the Caribbean, Master and Commander, The Alamo, Lord of the Rings and Last Samurai as the reason for the ban. Unfortunately, Variety was too busy listening to rumors on Thursday to do any research. Pirates has a DVD street date of December 2, which eliminates it from being a major piracy issue title.

There is no question that New Line is more protective of Rings than any studio is of any other title… and with good reason. None of the films listed is expected to play as long, gross as much and draw as much attention from the hacker-aged crowd.

As for the other three, the titles are the serious Oscar contenders most likely, along with Miramax’s Cold Mountain, to get a very high percentage of awards voter sampling, making them the least needy of screeners. I, for one, question the logic of believing that Barry Meyer is willing to give up a major tool in the studio’s Oscar campaigns for Matchstick Men and Mystic River to save $10 million to $15 million on Samurai. In reality, those two other WB titles would be effected financially in a much more profound way by successful Oscar runs than Samurai, which will sell primarily on Tom Cruise’s name and face. I believe that he is a true believer, on a fiscal level. Whether it is a good call is an entirely different conversation.

Okay… so I lied… 450 words on the same issue, really… sorry… it’s like potato chips heavily salted with human whining.

CREDIT WHERE DUE: When I wrote about Texas Chainsaw Massacre and Elf last week, some people thought that when I called them “Classic Mike DeLuca” projects, I was suggesting that they were DeLuca leftovers that the studio somehow lucked into. Not the case.

They are projects that we would expect from DeLuca, which he has not really had a chance to deliver during his tenure at DreamWorks. Toby Emmerich and others currently at New Line should get credit for setting up these back-to-back surefire hits.

Interestingly, Miramax’s Dimension Films had first shot at the Chainsaw remake when it was being shopped by producer Michael Bay and Bob Weinstein passed with lightening speed. Now, execs at the studio are said to be quite concerned about the second weekend of Kill Bill, Volume One getting buzzsawed by Leatherface.

Speaking of Kill Bill, Jay Leno wouldn’t let go of Quentin Tarantino’s drunken appearance on The Tonight Show, pushing Lucy Liu to the edge talking about it during her Thursday night appearance.

And back to Elf… one of the great sights in L.A. right now is a massive close-up of Will Ferrell’s head covering the south side of the warehouse on Highland and Santa Monica. I expect a few car accidents from people laughing a little too hard.

UHHHH: One has to wonder why Universal is taking on Morgan Creek, a company that has been remarkably unsuccessful in recent years and is led by the notoriously prickly Jim Robinson. The company is so iffy at this point that even Variety, which always is looking for that silver lining, couldn’t come up with a better title to push than the delayed Exorcist: The Beginning, on which they dumped their director because they wanted something more gory. But what the hell were they expecting when they hired Paul Schrader and weren’t they watching dailies?

The closest Morgan Creek has come to a hit in the last five years was either Heist, the underrated David Mamet movie that grossed $24 million, or The Whole Nine Yards, which cost $57 million, much of went to Bruce Willis. But the negatives included some of the worst titles of the half-decade, including Battlefield Earth, Get Carter, Wrongfully Accused, Soldier, Juwanna Mann, American Outlaws, Angel Eyes and Chill Factor. Oy!

What’s next? Franchise Pictures?

DICK, JANE, DEAN: Dean Parisot is about the perfect choice to replace Barry Sonnenfeld on the Imagine re-make of Fun With Dick & Jane. He knows how to handle comedy and he won’t get in the way. One of the nice things about the original is how simple it really was. Good call.

WEEKEND PREVIEW: The question of the weekend is, how big can The School of Rock open? Paramount is launching the film, which seems to be EVERYWHERE, on a relatively lightweight 2614 screens.

There is little to work with in terms of history in estimating where this movie will start. Do you look at Shallow Hal, which was driven by Li’l Gwynnie and The Farrellys, or do you look at Old School, which started a little light, or are you looking at Daddy Day Care, which had Eddie Murphy, who is big money when near kids?

Out of Time, on the other hand, should be pretty predictable. Denzel Washington’s last three films have all opened between $20 million and $23 million.

Lost In Translation, expands yet again, from 376 screens to 864 screens. We’re see is anything is lost in transition.

READER OF THE DAY: NY ANON writes: “Believe it or not, screeners are a bigger source of piracy than you think. There's an old man here in NY, who has a brother who works in the industry, that supplies him with dozens of screeners each year. He makes a ton of copies, which he then sells for $15 a pop. He supplies a lot of the "bootleg" street vendors in NYC.”

ANOTHER ANON writes: “I felt compelled to chime in once again on the subject of whether or not the Oscars really matter. It's clear they do. Not to me and you, but to the studios, and all who stand to make more money from their movies being seen by more movie-goers in a pay environment, be it DVD or the theater. I don't have solid numbers, but I think it's fair to say that if a movie wins a major Academy Award the number of people who pay to see that movie increases.

Within the industry, there's still a certain amount of prestige attached to winning, even though I feel that most everyone understands like so much in Hollywood, the Oscars are all hype, in the end, all bullshit. Certainly, a writer who wins best screenplay or an actor who wins best actor is likely to get a pay increase on his next project, get more offers because of the buzz. And it still must feel good to go up there and get an award that, unless you really think about it, does validate one's self and one's work - at least for a moment.

I hate to sound so cynical about this, but I think it has something to do with the fact that my view of the Academy Awards has changed as I've grown up, seen more movies, and learned a little more. When I was younger, and I hate to say a kid, because I was far from a serious movie watcher until just four or five years ago, I always assumed that the movies that won Oscars were the "best" movies. In a creative medium where people are supposed to disagree, and things can't be quantified like they can to a certain degree in say, baseball, it's almost impossible to say what's the best. But I didn't know that. There's something very romantic and idealized about this feeling. It's a feeling that eliminates the gray, makes things easy to understand, and beautifully simple. This feeling's now lost, and I know it always was false, and to an extent, I feel scammed by the whole process.

Maybe that's why it's easy for me to say the Academy Awards are all bullshit, they don't matter, except for what boils down to money, and a little bit of ego....Having said that, I'd still like to go up there some day. Though, with regards to people like Stanley Kubrick, I wouldn't be in bad company if I didn't.”

And STAX OF FILM FORCE writes: “While I understand and support the need to curb film piracy, I feel this new policy might have a negative impact on films that rely on screeners for both Oscar consideration and word-of-mouth. Here's a suggestion for a solution. Since the films that online pirates seem to be targeting are the wide release event pictures, what if only films that debut on 900 screens or less can qualify for encrypted screeners? That way if Academy members are unable or unwilling to attend screenings for smaller fare then they can still get their tapes. If you want to see the next big event picture, though, then you'll have to go to the screening, which would be the best way to view a such film anyway.”

E ME: Jeff Wells is floating a similar idea in his column today… I’m guessing that you might have picked the 900 number because Lost In Translation is still under that figure. I think it would be an interesting discussion to have. But if you really wanted a two-tier system, it would probably need to be a lower number and it would probably be most fair to set this rule well ahead of time. Like so much of this, the fairness is a problem mostly because of the timing. So, what are you guys going to see this weekend?