Tuesday, March 31, 2009

100th BLOG!!!! YAY


Yes men!

Ok, let's talk film. This is my 100th blog but that really doesn't matter because this blog doesn't have a huge following. Actually only one person reads this blog. So, for you! Thank you for reading 100 times! Let's dive in cause there is a lot to talk about.

First off from ShoWest.com
Before presenting the trailer for Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince, Warner Bros head Alan Horn joked that he hopes fans can forgive him for moving the film to July, and that “we got a few emails about that one.” The footage was incredible, as is to be expected. A lot of really cool visuals which I won’t even attempt to disservice by describing.



I wrote about this a while ago. Summer I think it was. Now Alan Horn knows he should not have moved Harry Potter to Summer. He needed the competition with Twilight. Twilight made a killing and is off to make its sequels. If Harry Potter has taken away from Twilight even a little,(Shadowed Twilight in it's numbers) New Moon would not have the budget and the insane hype it has now. Yes it's my sole theory, but I do believe that if Harry Potter had been released as it should have, it would have taken millions away from Twilight. Sadly there was no Harry Potter. So the Harry Potter audience, seeing nothing to watch at Christmas, went to Twilight. I am well aware free society can see more than one film at Christmas. Yet the multiple viewings of Twilight would have gone to Harry Potter, thus taking steam away from it. It's my bold theory and I think I am right about this. As usual.
So look at this...Basically, and Alan Horn knows this, they set up a tee ball for Twilight to hit it out of the park. They sat back and let Twilight make a ton of money and let the sequel, New Moon, become greenlit with a gazillion dollars, and Dakota Fanning (an expensive buy), behind it. They let that happen and I am sure that Warner would have preferred to have taken some steam off that saga.
Here's the other part of the article.
As the keynote began, Horn made another funny joke. He noted that the large auditorium was very full, and that if every person in the room had paid $10 to see Watchmen, the film might have performed better. I’m paraphrasing, of course, but it was pretty funny. But I’m surprised that he would make that joke.

I predicted Watchmen to make a sub par box office. I talked about this last summer when Warner was battling out with Fox for the rights. This whole project was a "urination contest" if you will, from the beginning among Fox and Warner. It was a project built on ego. Now don't get me wrong, it was a good fanboy film. If you loved the novels, you probably really liked the movie. But it was not a project for a broad audience in mind. It was another superhero ego project. It was a ego project from Warner to begin with...And thus, ego projects just about always fail. Read my blog from last summer, I talk about this and I predicted this. And NOW Alan Horn has Watchmen, Twilight running amok, and a bad choice for a Harry Potter release date to wear on his shoulders. Good Job Alan, you'll be cleaning 7-11 restrooms soon.

From Variety

As Paramount Pictures readies the May 8 release of its "Star Trek" franchise relaunch, the studio is moving forward with a sequel, and has hired Roberto Orci, Alex Kurtzman and Damon Lindelof to pen the screenplay.
J.J. Abrams, who directed and produced the latest chapter, is onboard to produce the follow-up alongside his Bad Robot partner Bryan Burk. No decision has been made yet on whether Abrams will return behind the camera for the sequel.

Story is still in the embryonic stage,

"There's obviously a lot of hubris involved in signing on to write a sequel of a movie that hasn't even come out yet," said Lindelof, co-creator with Abrams of ABC's "Lost" who produced the upcoming "Trek" but did not contribute to Orci and Kurtzman's screenplay. "But we're so excited about the first one that we wanted to proceed."

Well, as I have talked about before Orci and Kurtzman are secretaries that just take down what execs want written. They don't really have a lot of creativity in themselves. That's what Paramount wants, they don't want Maverick screenwriters taking liberties with a story. They want secretaries, yes men. And that's what these men are. It's funny that Lindelof says that "Hubris" is involved. Of course it is. You're a million dollar screenwriter! It's what Joe Estarhaus used to call a "bank heist". Estarhaus is the once ego inflated writer of Basic Instinct who went on to sell his "Showgirls" script for three million. It's robbery! So to speak. You can write a mediocre script and get paid millions. However, this is not how creativity florishes. Three overpaid guys in a fancy room is a recipe for a crappy script. Bet on it! Talk to Nicholas Meyer if you want advice on a Star Trek sequel. I will talk about that later. Until tomorrow, let's talk film!

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