'Where The Wild Things Are' Runs $32.4M 
Oscar Can't Always Get What He Wants 
NBC Bright Spot Of Lousy GE 3Q Earnings; 4Q … 
Oops! Vivendi May Delay 20% NBCU Sale? 
65 Nations Vie For Foreign Language Oscar 
Elle's Women In Hollywood Power List 
HOW BIG IS BIG? AEG Predicts Michael Jackson … 
Sane Debt-Reduction Move By Redstone; But … 
EXCLUSIVE: Comcast Wants NBCU Deal Done … 
I'm told Sony's Da Vinci Code will hit the magic $500 million mark worldwide later this week. To date, the religious thriller has racked up over $465 mil worldwide since opening a little more than a week ago, $320 mil of it from international. The foreign front was bolstered by huge holds in Europe and Japan. Belgium was down only 2% from its opening weekend, Holland just 9%, Germany 18%, Japan 19%, and France 30%. Before Da Vinci opened, Sony execs were praying for a $500 mil summer. Now, they're doing that boffo box office by the end of Week #2.
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Da Vinci Code Hits $500 Million This Week
Two Puff Profiles of Sony's Sir Howard
Jeez, the Sony corporate flacks are working overtime. But don't bother reading The New Yorker's just published profile of Sir Howard Stringer in the June 5th issue. Or The New York Times' profile of Sir Howard in Sunday's edition. Egads, haven't there already been enough puff jobs penned about this guy that we don't need two more? (If I have to read one more description of how diplomatic he is, I'll puke.)
At least the NYT doesn't contain the usual pages of pablum about Stringer's background at Oxford or at CBS. New Yorker writer Mark Singer seems so in love with the fact that he's birddogging Stringer that he fails to ask the hard questions. (Why does access always equal acceptance?) Sheesh, Stringer isn't even pushed to name names about who helped destroy Sony's once-upon-a-time technological lead in the marketplace: no talk, for instance, about longtime Sony Music honcho Tommy Mottola reputedly helping sabotage Sony's Ipod-like device that preceded Apple's gazillion-dollar goodie by two years. Neither is that in the NYT piece.
Interesting that the NYT didn't challenge Sir Howard's claim that "he recommended that Sony acquire rights to the book two years ago — well before it sold nearly 60 million copies globally." If that's the case, why didn't Sony buy the book earlier? Instead, John Calley (too sick to travel to Cannes for the premiere) personally went after it for Sony Pictures and clinched the deal in June 2003 -- well after the book had became a publishing phenomenon. Neither piece really pressures Stringer on what the world already knows is Sony's next tech debacle: the Blu-Ray digital-video disc player, aka Betamax Deux.
Instead, we get the relentlessly self-deprecating Stringer, who says stuff to The New Yorker like, "The last time I truly knew what I was doing was when I was producing the CBS Evening News because I felt in command of all aspects of the process." Or who is reluctant to talk to MBA candidates because "somebody might ask me a business question." I, for one, am sick of Stringer's self-effacement. So I'll take him at face value and tell him to get off the media blitz he's been on since Day One and let someone with real business knowledge and management skill take over Sony.
Cannes Film Festival: Palme D'Or to Ken Loach's The Wind That Shakes The Barley
PALMARÈS DU 59e FESTIVAL DE CANNES – 59TH FESTIVAL DE CANNES AWARDS
May 17th - May 28th 2006
LONGS MÉ TRAGES/FEATURE FILMS
PALME D'OR: THE WIND THAT SHAKES THE BARLEY réalisé par Ken LOACH
GRAND PRIX: FLANDRES réalisé par Bruno DUMONT
PRIX DU SCÉNARIO/BEST SCREENPLAY: Pedro ALMODÓVAR pour VOLVER
PRIX DE LA MISE EN SCÈNE/BEST DIRECTOR:
Alejandro González IÑÁRRITU pour BABEL
PRIX D'INTERPRÉTATION MASCULINE/BEST PERFORMANCE BY AN ACTOR: Jamel DEBBOUZE, Samy NACÉRI, Roschdy ZEM, Sami BOUAJILA, Bernard BLANCAN dans INDIGÈNES réalisé par Rachid BOUCHAREB
PRIX D'INTERPRÉTATION FÉMININE/BEST PERFORMANCE BY AN ACTRESS: Penélope CRUZ, Carmen MAURA, Lola DUEÑAS, Blanca PORTILLO, Yohana COBO, Chus LAMPREAVE dans VOLVER réalisé par Pedro ALMODÓVAR
PRIX DU JURY/JURY PRIZE: RED ROAD réalisé par Andrea ARNOLD
COURTS MÉTRAGES/SHORT FILMS
PALME D'OR: SNIFFER réalisé par Bobbie PEERS
PRIX DU JURY: PRIMERA NIEVE réalisé par Pablo AGUERO
MENTION SPÉCIALE: CONTE DE QUARTIER réalisé par Florence MIAILHE
PRIX UN CERTAIN REGARD – FONDATION GAN POUR LE CINÉMA: LUXURY CAR réalisé par WANG Chao
PRIX SPÉCIAL DU JURY UN CERTAIN REGARD: TEN CANOES réalisé par Rolf De HEER
PRIX D’INTERPRÉTATION UN CERTAIN REGARD: Dorotheea PETRE dans CUM MI-AM PETRECUT SFÂRSITUL LUMII réalisé par Catalin MITULESCU
PRIX D’INTERPRÉTATION UN CERTAIN REGARD: Don Angel TAVIRA dans EL VIOLÍN réalisé par Francisco VARGAS
PRIX DU PRESIDENT DU JURY UN CERTAIN REGARD: MEURTRIÈRES réalisé par Patrick GRANDPERRET
CAMÉRA D’OR
A FOST SAU N-A FOST réalisé par Corneliu PORUMBOIU présenté dans le cadre de la Quinzaine des Réalisateurs
CINÉFONDATION
PREMIER PRIX: GE & ZETA réalisé par Gustavo RIET
DEUXIÈME PRIX: MR. SCHWARTZ, MR. HAZEN & MR. HORLOCKER réalisé par Stefan MUELLER
TROISIÈME PRIX: EX-ÆQUO MOTHER réalisé par Siân HEDER; A VÍRUS réalisé par Ágnes KOCSIS
Le jury de la Commission Supérieure Technique de l’Image et du Son a décidé, à l’unanimité, de décerner le prix Vulcain de l’Artiste-Technicien à : Stephen MIRRIONE, pour son travail sur le montage de BABEL.
UPDATED: X-M3 Busts Record For Biggest Mem Weekend Opening Ever; But Da Vinci Bigger Overseas and Set for Half-Billion $$$ Gross Worldwide This Week
3rd Update: *So here's one for the record books! The superhero movie X-Men 3: The Last Stand had a superheroic gross of $120.1 million for the biggest opening ever for a U.S. Memorial Weekend. The comic book franchise also posted the 4th best three-day opening ever and second-biggest one-day gross ever on Friday. Needless to say, 20th Century Fox was super-delirious over the box office, which far exceeded their expectations for the holiday.*
2nd UPDATE: *X-Men 3 boasted the fourth biggest U.S. opening weekend of all time behind only Spider-Man, two Star Wars, and Shrek 2. But Da Vinci Code continued to surpass X-M3 overseas ($91 mil to $76 mil) and will hit the magic $500 million mark worldwide later this week. Domestically, the 20th Century Fox comic book movie grossed $107 million dollars, after earning an estimated $45.5 mil on Friday, $32 mil on Saturday and $29 mil on Sunday. Sony's religious thriller stayed steady, earning $10.2 mil for Friday, $12.4 mil Saturday and $10.8 mil Sunday, for a 3-day second-weekend-out total of $136 mil. To date, Da Vinci has racked up over $465 mil worldwide since opening a little more than a week ago, $320 mil of it from international. The foreign front was bolstered by huge holds in Europe and Japan. Belgium was down only 2% from its opening weekend, Holland just 9%, Germany 18%, Japan 19%, and France 30%. Before Da Vinci opened, Sony execs were praying for a $500 mil summer. Now, they're doing that boffo box office by the end of Week #2.*
1st UPDATE: *Saturday saw X-Men 3's U.S. box office take go down almost 30% from Friday to $31 million for a still very impressive $75.9 mil earned so far this Memorial Weekend. But Da Vinci Code's haul went up from Friday to Saturday's $12.4 million, earning an impressive $125 mil domestically in just 9 days out. Again, Sony's Da Vinci outshone 20th Century Fox's X-Men 3 internationally. Da Vinci fell just 40% overseas to a whopping $92 mil over its second weekend. In Japan, the film fell only 19%.*
20th Century Fox's X-Men 3 opened record-breaking big in U.S. markets, earning a staggering $44.1 million just on Friday making it the second highest opener of all time right behind Star Wars: Revenge of the Sith. But Sony's Da Vinci Code was bigger overseas even on its second weekend out. Though X-Men 3 was opening in 90% of foreign territories this weekend, I'm told all of Europe except the UK still belongs to Da Vinci ... Read More »
NYT: Studios Go Sane & Pull Plug On $112 Mil Jim Carrey/Ben Stiller Comedy. Wow!
The terms "fiscal responsibility" and "movie biz" rarely appear in the same sentence. That's why I'm thinking there might still be hope for Hollywood after reading Sharon Waxman's story in Friday's New York Times. It's all about how 20th Century Fox and Sony Pictures pulled the plug on the movie Used Guys because the budget had crept up to $112 million even though "millions of dollars were spent, sets were ready in Santa Fe, and all was on track for production to start next month on what seemed to be a can't-lose comedy from the reigning superstars Jim Carrey and Ben Stiller with Jay Roach of Austin Powers and Meet the Parents fame, as director." At that price, she reports, "Used Guys stood to be one of the most expensive original comedies ever made. And in an industry with crushing marketing costs and top-shelf stars taking a huge chunk of every ticket sale, the studio decided the math didn't add up, to the surprise of filmmakers who were on the verge of shooting."
But here's the meaty part: "The real problem, said executives at Fox and elsewhere, is the percentage of box office revenues that these stars now command. 'At an over-$100 million budget, the talent is making $60 million before the studio can recoup its costs,' said a senior Fox executive. 'The economics on it make no sense.' Mr. Roach and executives on the project noted that, to win the studio's green light, Mr. Roach and the stars of Used Guys had already sharply cut both their upfront fees and their expected participation in revenue. Even so, executives said, the compromise meant that the three principals would take 27 percent of the studio's gross box-office revenues." Congrats, moguls, for finally growing big swingin' cojones.
This seems a good time to repeat what I wrote last July in my LA Weekly column 12 Steps to Better Box Office: Make more and mostly comedies, but not costly comedies! "Let’s say I have a choice: I can make a $180 million movie based on a comic book, or I can make a $40 million original comedy. I say, no contest: Make the comedy. I don’t know about your life, but mine can always use a laugh that isn’t just based on a fart joke. Comedies are cheap to make, and hard to get ... Read More »
Come Back, Howard, All Is Forgiven?
As everyone expected, that CBS vs Howard Stern lawsuit officially ended today. Now the clock's ticking: how long before Howard does a deal to get himself back on FM as well as Sirius satellite radio? God, how I miss him in Los Angeles. For seemingly forever, we’d heard about him here. Occasionally, we’d see him – that tall gawky guy with the Prince Valiant hair and the Prince of Darkness face, showing up as a guest on David Letterman (circa NBC’s Late Night) and proclaiming how he was the world’s best entertainer -- yet demonstrating no visible talent beyond self-love. But, most of all, those of us who lived outside of New York didn’t get Howard Stern: not on our radios, not as an iconic figure. Sure, we were curious to hear just how dirty and despicable his act supposedly was. But if Howard Stern was the Frank Zappa of modern radio, then Los Angeles was stuck with white-bread Michael Bublé in the form of KIIS-FM’s Rick Dees, Pirate Radio’s Scott Shannon and KLOS-FM’s Mark and Brian.
That is, until Howard came to town at KLSX-FM (97.1). I know exactly when I became a Howard addict: during the 1991 Clarence Thomas hearings when Anita Hill's testimony rocked Capitol Hill and beyond. I remember staying up until 3 a.m. the next Monday because I couldn't wait to hear Howard's take on it. From the moment his mike was turned on, Stern let loose; I even recall what he said, "Of COURSE, he did it. My God, LOOK at her. She's GORGEOUS!" He had summed up in a dozen words what it had taken TV analysts a million and more to spew. So look what we're stuck with now: Adam Carolla, that unwitty slow-talker who's not just a panderer but also a punishment to listeners in LA (and also KIFR-FM San Francisco, KPLN-FM San Diego, KZON-FM Phoenix, KUFO-FM Portland and KXTE-FM Las Vegas). We have ABC's lame late night talk-show host Jimmy Kimmel to damn for Carolla's presence: Mr. Smug is not just the show's creative consultant but he's also the "advisor" -- and I use that term loosely -- to develop new talent and show ideas for Infinity (and make guest appearances on Carolla's program). So I'm told that, as long as Kimmel's contract is ironclad, Carolla stays put. And that dickwad Ryan Seacrest at KIIS-FM racks up more of Howard's former free radio ... Read More »
Ovations and Catcalls for Sofia's Marie
Today, Sofia Coppola's Marie Antoinette screened for the world press this morning and for the VIPs tonight at the Cannes Film Festival, then opened big in France today. (It doesn't open wide in the U.S. until the fall.) Frankly, I always thought the idea of debuting this film in the country that helped invent the class revolution -- with a plot that presents Miss Let-Them-Eat-Cake as Paris Hilton, only more sympathetic -- was crazy talk. (I, for one, found her Lost in Translation some of the more tedious hours of my life, so that's where I'm coming from.) So I've been especially curious to see the French reaction to it. After all, they're not as much in love with Sofia as America's film critics and indie hipsters, who all swoon over everything Sofia does. Example, her U.S. sycophants adore how she's set the trailer of this 18th century biopic to New Order's "Age of Consent" and juxtaposed period costumes, facilitated by Manolo Blahnik of Sex and the City fame, with Bow Wow Wow's "I Want Candy" and a cover of "Fools Rush In." Anyway, Marie was booed by audiences at the media screening, I'm told (and that's backed up by AP and AFP news services). The film had been expected to be a contender for this Sunday's Palme d'Or, but, c'mon, we all know that award is going to either Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu's Babel, or Pedro Almodovar's Volver.
At the VIP screening, a source gushed to me how Marie received a 10-minute standing ovation, and Almodovar made a point of wrapping his arms around Sofia and her father, Francis Ford Coppola. But the press screening was another story. Not only did it prompt snickering at times, I was told, but boos drowned out the very light applause at the end. Coppola initially was downcast about the catcalls, but it was her idea to show it first in France because the movie was made there, and even filmed at the Palace of Versailles in the actual locations where Marie's life unwound. Word to the wise, Sofia: stay away from any and all sharp objects.
AFI's Uninspiring "Inspiring" Movie List
Please, someone, anyone, stop them before they whore themselves yet again. CBS on June 14th will air AFI's latest b.s. list, this time the 100 "most inspiring" films. And, again, the "jury" composed of VIP moviemakers and movie critics and movie academics only got to pick from a short list of 300 films weighted heavily towards studio product, which isn't fair to deserving indies. Amistad, The Color Purple, 8 Mile, Erin Brockovich, Dead Man Walking, Rocky and The Karate Kid made the ballot, while Sidney Poitier, Denzel Washington and Gary Cooper each have seven movies on it. The final 100 will be counted down in a three-hour special for CBS entitled, 100 Years…100 Cheers: America's Most Inspiring Movies. This is the ninth such special between AFI and CBS, and it gets more embarrassing every time.
Finke/LA Weekly: The Passion of the Cash
Here's my latest 
column, The Passion of the Cash: Da Vinci Cannes the World, about how I've seen the future of Hollywood, and it is foreign, as demonstrated by the craptastic Da Vinci Code. This time, I'll tease you with the ending (and, by the way, if we can have a Gay Vito, why not a Gay Superman?):
"So what can we expect from the rest of the summer, here and foreign-wise? 20th’s X-Men 3 will fare well, though Brett Ratner’s violent, Hard-R direction was ridiculously given a PG-13 rating. Not even Universal thinks The Breakup is funny, despite Vince Vaughn’s best efforts. (Please, can we accept once and for all that Jennifer Aniston is a movie stiff?) Disney’s Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man’s Chest is gonna kill both here and overseas. Warner Bros.’ Superman Returns, now a metrosexual in Metropolis, will bring more than respectable returns. Paramount's World Trade Center will be box-office challenged, despite Oliver Stone’s international luster, because of its 9/11 subject matter. And the anticipation is that M. Night Shyamalan’s Lady in the Water from Warner Bros. will drown, and, pity, not even near a topless beach in Cannes."
Gore's Cannes Screening Serves Up Sherry
There was a surprise at the Cannes Film Festival screening of Al Gore's ecodoc An Inconvenient Truth. No, it wasn't the packed Salle Bunuel on the fifth floor of the Palais des Festivals giving Gore a standing ovation before and after the screening. ("In all my years of politics," Gore modestly told the crowd, "I've never had that long a standing ovation.") No, it wasn't how he was the model of self-deprecation. ("I never thought in a million years that my little slideshow would bring me to the red carpet in Cannes.") But I'm told the Hollywood crowd was stunned by the presence of past Paramount Pictures boss Sherry Lansing at the screening hosted her replacement, present Paramount Pictures boss Brad Grey. It was awkward.
Not that Sherry didn't have a right to be at Cannes; her husband, director Billy Friedkin, had the movie, Bug, screening there. But why go to the Paramount event? After all, she didn't greenlight the picture: that bragging right belongs to Paramount Vantage topper John Lesher, who scooped it up at Sundance. And she wasn't a Gore insider. Sure, she gave to Gore during the 2000 race, but she was a John Kerry supporter during the 2004 contest. About the guy she casually calls "Johnny", Lansing told me back then, "I never supported anyone as early on as John. I agreed with his positions and I found that he’s a man of principle.” She didn’t waver even when Gore looked likely to run again, or Howard Dean became No. 1 in every poll, or Kerry’s candidacy looked DOA before the first primary vote had even been cast. Hollywood pals asked her to meet with frontrunner Dean. “No, I'm a 100% John Kerry supporter," she told them.
With the Iowa caucuses fast approaching, Lansing threw a Kerry fundraiser with her husband (whose own friendship with Kerry went back decades to when Friedkin dated Kerry’s first wife). Even with the added draw of singer Carole King, Sherry wasn’t sure she could fill her home. “I was really panicked,” she admitted. “Because at the time John was just polling 1%, and everyone was jumping ship.” When Kerry arrived at the party at the end of a long day of campaigning, he was inexplicably upbeat, telling ... Read More »
DHD Update: 1,250,000 Page Views
Today, DHD passed 1,250,000 page views in 9 weeks of operation. And, this past weekend, DHD had a 24-hr traffic ranking of 2,590th among all Internet sites.
Pellicano: Limp NYT H'wood Lawyer Angle
As I promised you, The New York Times has a new Pellicano scandal story, this time focusing on the Hollywood lawyers. Frankly, it's not even worth your time reading; it's all dated stuff, wrapped around an old premise. Without naming names, reporters David Halbfinger and Allison Hope Weiner claim that the fraternity of lawyers located in LA's Century City "are waking to a grim truth: The government believes they are the problem." The story confirms what I've heard for many months now: that the real object of the U.S. Attorney's Office isn't the rich, famous and powerful clients as much as it is their rich, famous and powerful attorneys. "It is only now becoming clear that powerful businesspeople and stars are just collateral damage in a hunt for the real target: what government lawyers see as corruption in a legal system that is suddenly being policed after decades of neglect," the journalists write. "Nothing like this assault on lawyers and the famous people they represent has happened before in Movieland, where studio walls and security departments were built to keep the outside world out."
Unfortunately the NYT story is long on commentary from academics, ex-prosecutors and even lawyers not involved in the scandal -- but short on new facts. There is this bland quote from George Cardona, the acting U.S. attorney for the Pellicano case: "To the extent that people in various positions have felt that they were immune from prosecution, hopefully, the case will send to those people the message that they're not immune, and if their conduct is uncovered, they will be prosecuted just like anybody else." But I might have had more respect for the article if it had at least examined the Pellicano prosecution in light of George W. Bush et al's widening judicial assault on litigators since we know the GOP has long targeted trial attorneys as Corporate Enemy No. 1 because they give so much campaign cash to Democrats. (I'm also surprised that the piece doesn't distinguish between different prosecutions: many of those ascribed to the feds were actually initiated by New York State Attorney General Elliot Spitzer.)
There's not even any more detail about the Pellicano prosecutor, Daniel Saunders, beyond what we already know. (See my ... Read More »
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