Inglourious Actors: Starpower Brownout
Meet Dave‘s head may be big, but his paydays are getting smaller… The NYT recently took on an ongoing trend story that New Medici has brought up in relation to the talent agencies: the downward spiral of A-list (with grade inflation forcing some B-listing) talent compensation. It’s definitely a “starpower brownout” in terms of how talent is being relegated to the coach seats of the Hollywood pay-or-play bus. Star vehicles, aka films, from the likes of A-listers Jim Carrey, Tom Cruise, Adam Sandler, John Travolta and even Denzel Washington have fallen in audience regard. Studios while not necessarily going “indie” in terms of concept, are definitely benching high-end talent in favor of niche and sometimes, ensemble casting. Witness the JJ Abrams, Judd Apatow (minus his latest), Quentin Tarantino, Michael Bay’s successes of late. Yes, Inglourious Basterds (Acterds?) leveraged Pitt’s name, but people went for Tarantino’s take on WWII. Bay’s career has been resuscitated via Hasbro and one assumes some behind-the-scenes’ producing from Spielberg. Abrams’ Cloverdale and Apatow’s use of young, gross-out talent is assuredly making studios and talent agencies rethink their strategies. Read more >>
Jim Cameron’s Avatar Movie Video
Jim Cameron’s latest – click here for the exclusive video link via UK’s The Sun. Good to see News Corp controlling the exclusive, although surprised MySpace didn’t get the first placement. With very strong anticipation tracking, Avatar cries out for some understanding of the main character – not the 3d or special effects – but the actual blue creatures.
Looking forward to some viral backstory on this tribe. Audiences want to live and breathe these characters, and their human counterparts. It’s all about conditioning people online in advance of the big picture pay-out. 20th Century Fox has the right team, imho, to pull this off brilliantly. View the video: The Sun link
SXSW: Multi-Picture Your Media
Woke up this am, and found the excellent SXSW PanelPicker via @ischafer (Ian Schafer from Deep Focus) recommending the PanelPicker conference scheduling site. Now here”s a topic that would engage me!
Multi-Picture Your Media: Marketing & Distribution in a Multi-Platform World
Description:
With the film and tv markets feeling the struggle of lowered DVD expectations, less foreign money and tighter windows in marketing and distribution, how can a filmmaker make a creative dent, much less drive a theatrical release? We’ll discuss the traditional “multi-picture” play with an eye to creating a definitive niche, an aggregated audience and a release schedule that exhibitors, film buyers and studios have to pay attention to. From Robert Rodriguez’s “El Mariachi” to Peter Jackson produced “District 9″ – an interactive-focused walkthru on how to attract publicity, marketing and distribution using multi-platform next-generation practices. Read more >>
Universal Pictures Gets Transparent
An enlightening LAT interview by Claudia Eller (Universal execs under fire for a flop-filled season) with Chairmen Marc Shmuger and David Linde around their disappointing summer slate. Three comedies and 1 period drama – respectively “Land of the Lost”, “Bruno”, “Funny People” and “Public Enemies” – all fell short at the box office given expectations, casting and previous filmmaker histories. The transparency of such an interview in Hollywood is to be commended from the two execs, and yet Nikki Finke will still be gunning for Jeff Zucker, one presumes. Per Schmuger: “First, there’s a real need to be making movies for less money. Second, there’s a real premium on sharper, more marketable concepts. Audiences are clearly seeking escape from their lives.” More after the jump… Read more >>
Weinsteins’ Media Makeover: Project Add-More-Runway
Via the NYT’s The Weinsteins Scramble to Regain a Golden Touch in Hollywood story, there’s more personality restructuring going on within the Weinstein Company: talk of the relatively new “newco” being stretched too thin in creating a “Barry Diller-style conglomerate” with the 2005 $1 billion in private equity from Goldman Sachs, which Joe Ravitch set up. Ravitch is now working with William Morris Endeavor. A few directors “made” by the Weinsteins, via Miramax/Disney days, impart that the guerilla-style of old, indie studio days needs to return. Kevin Smith, following “Zack and Miri Make a Porno,” suggests that the brothers succeeded when they were hungry, but now are “starving and desperate.” Harsh but perhaps realistic. Read more >>
The Future of Pay Walls
With Rupert Murdoch’s mention yesterday of making consumers pay for all content, no matter the relative quality, e.g., WSJ, NY Post, Telegraph, Fox News, etc. has again paved the way for a heap of dicussion about “pay walls.” With the WSJ’s 1 million users bringing in $65 million per year, and the FT free-to-pay model working, Murdoch is trying to lead by supply, and see if demand and the rest of the competition accept the anti-free model. While this may momentarily resuscitate some of the publishing models, while recreating the cable model where free tv became paid, will it also curtail more voices or media navigators (read: niche blogs and news aggregators). Read more >>
Netflix’s Winning, Innovative Culture
Netflix became more transparent recently, by posting its internal company culture preso, i.e., how it inspires great hires, values context not control, and rewards adequate performance with severance. Given that Twitter had its internal documents hacked and sent to many blogs, it’s a welcome blast of fresh air when a next-gen, New Medici-like company like Netflix shares its values.
Backgrounder: Liberty Media’s John Malone
An interesting Financial Times interview with John Malone, who epitomizes cable holdings in the US, and with Liberty Global, the world. The interviewer, Richard Milne, focuses on Malone’s rise through his $48 billion sale of TCI to AT&T, then spin off of Liberty Media with holdings in DirecTV, Discovery Channel, QVC and the Atlanta Braves. Read more >>