April 15, 2005

Beware the Ides of April…

Shouldn't Tax Day be on Friday every year, like a nightmare Thanksgiving, so people can drink their filings away all weekend?

I'm writing from Lake Worth, FL, home of the Palm Beach International Film Festival… and a lovely view of the intercoastal waterway. Next week, I'll be heading to Champagne-Urbana, IL, home of Ebert's Overlooked Film Festival… and a lovely view of the interfarmal cementway. Then, of course, comes Passover.

But Passover came weeks early in Hollywoodland with jobs, titles, offices and ownerships being passed around like that E.P.T. Britney Spears left in her trash. Of course, everyone saw it coming, no one saw it coming and the media acts like everything is a hot story.

Alli Shearmur's gig was telegraphed weeks ago by Grey & Minions, a slow developing play on the field. With all this time, you would have expected that they could come up with more to tout the not-so-poor exec than "From The Woman Who Brought You The Remake Of The Bad News Bears And A Movie To Be Greenlit Soon."

Jacobson & Rosenfelt will, of course, land on their mink-lined feet, though Paramount sources "crediting" Rosenfelt with the relationship between MTV, Nick and Paramount to Claudia Eller is almost an act of cruelty, as the poor relationship between the divisions is a big part of the current clean-up efforts.

Paramount is also still on the search for a great corporate publicity person, which might explain why the news of Ms. Shearmur's leap came in the same week as The Stuber/Parent Affair. Perhaps someone wanted the two events to appear to be connected. Perhaps Shearmur's announcement was pushed up so people would stop wondering whether Parent & Stuber were offered the slot and passed. Regardless, by releasing the news two days later, there is a chain between the events, intended or not. Worse, the City Of Hum is back to speculating about Paramount and is off the Universal transition issue completely. Universal's Paul Pflug should be sending someone at Par a big fruit basket for pushing the news cycle along so generously.

Next on the New Paramount turnover parade… could be Classics, could be marketing. Seems to me that the big dates to look at are June 1 and August 1. June 1 because that'll be two weeks after Mad Hot Ballroom either makes the valuation on Vitale & Dinerstein's rise or fall. August 1 because it's two weeks after Hustle & Flow - the toughest movie on the summer schedule and the first one loaded with synergy hopes - arrives. These are the first two films of the Tom Freston era, even if both are Park City pick-ups.

Paramount's slate of Lansing/De Line leftovers has plenty of ammo to make noise this summer. And it's too late to change horses effectively when the whole thing will be determined in the next three months.

Paramount hasn't grossed $700 million in an entire calendar year since 2001. I would argue that they have the films on the schedule (and that is without a rumored move of Aeon Flux into summer) to hit that figure in the summer alone this year.

Selling Adam Sandler and Cruise/Spielberg isn't exactly the world's biggest challenge. The challenge, as one competing pub exec recently put it, is to hit $150 million by Monday with War of the Worlds… that's pressure. If Par Marketing can do that and do Bruce Almighty numbers with The Longest Yard over the Memorial Day weekend, Hustle & Flow might become a moot issue. Then it would be getting The Honeymooners running hot on BET, getting Ms. Shearmur's Bad News Bears running hot on MTV and to use both nets to make Hustle & Flow go. (Ironically, the key outlet for Bad News Bears, Nickelodeon, will probably be unable to run ads for the slightly raunchy film.)

Regardless of the summer, I would argue that a few key changes have to be made. With due respect to a long career, Gerry Rich was no better than the 10th choice to head marketing while hiring was almost impossible during the Lansing fade out. He is a pro. But he is not the future. With a highly successful summer and new leadership, a lot of very strong people at marketing can turn around the attitudes that have made the Marathon Building a glum place for a long time.

I can imagine a meeting with Freston and Grey, the new marketing chief and a few key members of the team and a determined decision to slice out all the problem children… to be replaced by new problem children. (ha ha) But you get the idea… aggressive, clear signals while allowing the disheartened folks who still have muscles under a layer of inches of winter fat to get right back into shape.

As far as Classics, I don't know what Freston thinks is realistic. What's remarkable is that in just the last few months, we've seen a major turnaround in the fortunes of the Dependents. After all the shake-ups, the only straight indie-style Dependent left and not in danger is Sony Classics, with Fox Searchlight the only hybrid that has a clear vision of its own future. New Miramax, New Fine Line and Tri-Star are going to be forging new ground in the next year. Where do Ruth Vitale's skills fit in? We shall see.

Then there is Rob Friedman... A king without a sword... a country without a king. It's time to either define a role for him in all of this or to get off the pot. No?

Anyway… off to the beach… and to the movies and the movies and the movies….

Happy Tax Day! Have a few shots for me, wouldya?

E-ME: How do you see the future?