EXCLUSIVE: David Carr steps down and Melena Ryzik steps in as the new lead writer starting December 1st of The New York Times' "Carpetbagger" awards season blog covering the Oscar, Golden Globes, Sundance Film Festival, and other movie campaigns. She is a general assignment culture reporter who chronicles NYC life for The New York Times' "UrbanEye", which is a video series and daily email events guide. Ryzik will also continue the Carpetbagger video series, which Carr launched on NYTimes.com. (Remember this one? NYT's David Carr May Have Lost His Mind) Additional reporting for the blog will come from several other NYT journalists, including LA-based Michael Cieply and Brooks Barnes. The UrbanEye video series will go on hiatus during Carpetbagger season; the UrbanEye e-mails will continue. So, after four seasons on the Red Carpet, David Carr who originated the blog now retires his tuxedo. These days, the media columnist and general assignment reporter primarily blogs for the NYT's "Media Decoder".
So now the question is whether the "Carpetbagger" blog can be franchised. Its name was not only a play on Carr's but also captured the notion of a NYC elitist coming to Los Angeles to poke fun at the film folks. His first year, Carr had a naive take on all thing Hollywood. But by the last year, he was as jaded as the rest of us. What never ... Read More »
FYI, it started its life in my comments section, and now is making the rounds on the email circuit. I have no idea if it's from a real William Morris employee.
Once again, I will be live-blogging (more like live-snarking) the Spirit Awards on Saturday and the Academy Awards on Sunday. Come for the cynicism. Stay for the subversion. Add your comment. Warning: Not for the easily offended or shocked.
DHD readers who don't scrutinize the comments (hard to believe) have been missing one of the more amusing analysts of the Hollywood scene -- the PoetKnowIt. After this past week's depressing news, we all can use some grins. So here are recent gems from the PoetKnowIt. Wish I knew the identity of this gifted guy or gal...
YOU MADE MONEY IN DRESSES AND PUMPS.
BUT THEN YOU PLAYED WRITERS LIKE CHUMPS.
YOUR LIES THEY ALL TRUSTED.
YOUR CHEAP ASS GOT COLD BUSTED.
NOW PAY UP, YOU CROSS-DRESSING HUMP.
(Tyler Perry Studios And WGA Resolve Dispute)
---
POPE AND WEINBERG ARE GONE.
BUT THE JEFF & BEN SHOW GOES ON?
FOR THIS WRECK OF A TRAIN,
I SHOUT THIS REFRAIN:
“PUT A FORK IN THE PEACOCK, IT’S DONE!”
(NBC UNIVERSAL SHAKE-UP!)
---
DAISIES HAS COME TO AN END.
A TERRIBLE AND ARTISTIC SIN.
WHILE WE TEARFULLY MOURN YOU,
I WISH I COULD TOUCH YOU
AND BRING YOU TO LIFE ONCE AGAIN.
(Ax Falls On 3 Shows In ABC Primetime)
---
MRC HAD A PRIMETIME DREAM.
OF A TV CROP THAT WAS THE CREAM.
BUT THIS WOULD-BE HERO,
BROUGHT IN NIELSENS ZEROS.
AND NOW IT’S A FUCK UP SUPREME.
(MRC Fails So Miserably That CW Pulls Plug)
---
CRAIG PLESTIS WAS HIRED BY ZUCKER.
AND TREATED EVERYONE LIKE A MUCKER.
HIS SHOWS WERE ALL CRAPPY.
BIG BEN IS NOT HAPPY.
ADIOS YOU NO-TALENT FUCKER.
(Look Who's Talking About NBC's Plestis)
---
MAD MEN BROKE OUT OF THE PACK.
MATT WEINER ADDED AN EMMY TO HIS STACK.
SO HE ASKED FOR A RAISE,
AND WAS COMPLETELY AMAZED,
TO FIND LIONSGATE SMOKING CRACK.
(Lionsgate Execs Look To Replace 'Mad Men' Creator Weiner)
---
HE MOLESTED A CHILD IN A FIT.
RAN
... Read More »
WEDNESDAY PM UPDATE: Now the blogger says she can't "confirm with certainty when this meeting took place". Nor, judging from the corrections she's already made, the rest of the story. But she still has it online. Amazing.
WEDNESDAY 10 AM UPDATE: Wow, this is sad. Now the blogger has put the story back up. "It was not deleted; I was editing it last night to further check facts and inadvertently left it in ‘draft’. I have now reposted, and apologies to those who missed it in their sleep," Sharon Waxman writes. But, inexplicably, she claims, "On further reporting, I learn that the essence of the story is correct. I have amended the time element, however." Actually she amends other errors I've pointed out here. But she also fails to correct many still inaccurate elements of her story: that there was a strike vote, that federal mediation was going on, that new conspiracies were at work, etc. She also ignores the fact that SAG is denying her strike story. And she adds a new post attacking me. All I can say is that this doesn't bode well for her future blog endeavors.
WEDNESDAY AM: Blogging Hollywood is damn hard, especially when it involves the SAG-AMPTP strife and impending strike authorization vote by the big actors guild. So I was surprised to see a WaxWord blog story circulating online for 24 hours about a supposed "secret SAG meeting" last month where heavyweight Hollywood stars were asked to give the thumbs up or down on a strike. Surprised, because this meeting never took place.
The story was first posted on WaxWord, which is ... Read More »
I guess it was inevitable. (And, no, this is not the real UTA job list which is sent around by email.) Anyway, the blog is kinda funny. Enjoy!
Tina Brown's website went up today. It sucks. And no Hollywood coverage.
I'm told that not only is Pixar/Disney internally hoping for a $70+ million dollar opening for Wall-E, but also a Best Picture Oscar nomination for the L'il Robot. 
It's possible with 100% great reviews from top critics and even rival studios bigwigs gushing about the pic: "I saw it on Wednesday and it's just adorable and smart and interesting. It has more character development and emotion than any movie I've seen this year." My box office gurus are projecting a $65M to $70M opening, and maybe more from 3,992 theaters. Clearly it'll be another giant box office since Universal's Angelina Jolie / James McAvoy starrer Wanted now looks like an all-round date movie instead of just a guyfest.
Universal is hoping for at least $35M and maybe even $40M from 3,175 venues for Wanted's Fri/Sat/Sun total. My box office gurus are projecting $40M to $42M. "In terms of comps, that would be an extraordinary result for an R-rated summer action movie," a source tells me. "So anything above $35M is absolutely a franchise." 
The appeal for well-reviewed Wanted is a surprise: women want to see it as almost as much as men, young and old are coming in nearly even, and relative newcomer McAvoy is almost as much of a draw for the film as veteran Jolie.
Wall-E and Wanted will compete for older females. But it won't matter. "All the Wall-E reviews have been extraordinary. And Pixar is a brand that has earned the complete and total trust of the public," ... Read More »
I'm told that Disney and Pixar are going to push hard for a Best Picture Oscar nomination for Wall-E on the basis of its anti-toon moody darkness and rave reviews by critics who matter. Certainly many toons have tried for that high honor over the years, and then settled for "just" a recently added Best Animated Feature nod. Only one animated movie has made it into the most competitive Academy Award category -- Disney's Beauty And The Beast in 1991 -- but, alas, didn't win. But that may not be the obstacle in Wall-E's way. No, I'm hearing the problem may be Andrew Stanton's arrogance in that interview in last Sunday's New York Times:
"Stanton, who wrote and directed the film, doesn’t care if the kiddies want to hug Wall-E or not when the movie comes out on Friday. 'I never think about the audience,” he said. “If someone gives me a marketing report, I throw it away.'” Because them thar's fightin' words in the movie industry. "Half of Hollywood went, 'You've got to be kidding!' " a bigwig Hollywood marketer said, echoing sentiment heard within the Industry. "Nobody can say, 'I don't care what the audience thinks', especially when making a mainstream movie for families. Nobody can live outside the envelope like that. His disdain for the audience was really obvious."
Ah, I love the smell of nastiness at the start of Oscar season. Smells like... controversy!
With Comic-Con fast approaching (July 24-27) and all the Hollywood studios getting ready, I understand that Warner Bros has been nervously monitoring the deteriorating situation at its subsidiary DC Comics. There could be a major shake-up -- especially if Time Warner CEO Jeff Bewkes keeps cleaning house inside the Big Media corp. There's a lot of chatter, from comic book circles like io9.com to trade media like Publishers Weekly, that DC Comics Senior VP and Executive Editor Dan DiDio, who oversees the DC Universe line of superheroes, is in major trouble. I don't pretend to know all the ins and outs of the comic book culture. But my own reporting, and others' coverage, show the following:
The problem isn't just that, under DiDio's leadership, fanboys are disappointed with the directions of Batman, Superman, Wonder Woman and other characters. (How dopey of DiDio to come out with a new series Decisions this September where the superheroes take political stands timed to the election.) Little wonder that fanboys are selling "Dan DiDio Must Die" t-shirts. But also average sales of the DCU line are down more than 20% from a year ago, and DiDio has lost a big chunk of existing readers in a year while deliberately failing to reach out to new ones.
But the biggest bad news is that DC's much hyped Summer 2008 release Final Crisis, the 7-issue miniseries, isn't the huge hit it was supposed to be. Comic Book Resources reviewed, "This isn't ... Read More »
I give TV and movie fans a lot of credit: when they get mad, they scare the crap out of the moguls. That's happening at Lionsgate where the studio's phones and email accounts are jammed with angry fans for the past week. They're making a stink because new Lionsgate topper Joe Drake appears to be dumping all of ex-prez Peter Block's movies. That includes Midnight Meat Train, the adaptation of the Barker short story that's a fan fave. Supposedly the trailer tested higher than any film in Lionsgate history. But when Drake took over, he promptly bumped Midnight Meat Train from its May 16th release date. The result was that Rogue Pictures' The Strangers (which was skedded two weekends later) had zero competition in the hard-R category. And guess who was exec producer of The Strangers? Joe Drake.
Then, the websites, Shock Til You Drop and Fangoria found out Lionsgate is planning only a 100 theater run on August 1st to merely fulfill the contractual obligation with Lakeshore Entertainment. The plan is to release the DVD immediately after. So fans are asking if Drake is such a dummy that he'd intentionally sink what to them is a sure-thing hit. And they want to know if the studio that was built on horror gross (both the gory and cash kinds) is going to bite the hand that's fed it so well in favor of four Tyler Perry movies a year.
The result is a lot of anti-Lionsgate blogging in Horrorville by fans, by self-appointed horror flick experts, and also by Barker himself. "I would passionately encourage everybody who cares about my work ... Read More »
Those WGA writers and writer/producers who walked out on Sony's IATSE primetime toon for Fox, Sit Down, Shut Up!, received breach of contract letters last night. Funny thing is, they never signed their contracts. But I truly can't believe the inacurate reporting by the trades on this. Oh wait -- yes I can. Because Variety and The Hollywood Reporter keep genuflecting to Big Media spin. Anyway, the central fact of my original story is that Sony lied to the WGA writers for months on end. Because if everybody were always on board about this being an IATSE show, why did this dispute only blow up now vs months ago when the WGA writers were hired? See my previous, Sit Down, Shut Up, Now Walk Out!
Vanity Fair magazine has created a Blogopticon which charts the tone and content of what it considers "the most influential or amusing blogs" vying for the attention of the world’s billion-plus Web surfers. The sites are categorized along four attributes: "news" vs "opinion", "earnest" vs "scurrilous", and everything inbetween. I am very proud to say that VF included my Deadline Hollywood Daily and gave it high marks indeed: at the very top of "news" and in the "earnest" category.
SUNDAY AM: North American box office gross expanded bigger than expected this weekend -- a gargantuan 25% more dollars taken in than the same weekend last year. DreamWorks Animation's feisty pot-bellied Kung Fu Panda distributed by Paramount led the way, fighting to a $60 million finish after opening to $20.3 million Friday and $22.5 million Saturday in very wide release at 4,114 theaters. 
This made the Jack Black-voiced toon Dreamworks Animation's all-time non-sequel opening, overpowering 2004 Shark Tale's $47.6M, and 2005 Madagascar's $47.2M (the latter over Memorial Weekend). The two studios were surprised how much the PG panda pic played like a non-family film. "More like a live action film than a traditional animated film where you normally get a Friday number, then a huge bump on Saturday," a Paramount insider told me. "But our Friday was bigger than we expected because we got more of a general audience. I attribute it to people loving pandas and Jack Black being a big star." Interestingly, exit polls showed that 55% of the audience was female, and 51% over age 25, and 71% age 17 and older.
Best of all, the toon has the next two weekends to itself before Disney/Pixar's Wall-E opens. Kung Fu Panda's success just goes to show that DreamWorks Animations' strategy of making 90-minute toons is shrewd: not only can theaters get in a lot of screenings, but both parents and offspring can sit through anything that short without too much squirming. (Actually, this panda received rave reviews.) Plus, I have a pet theory: almost any animated film featuring ... Read More »
I would like to formally welcome every other now blogging or about-to-blog Hollywood print journalist to the already crowded online neighborhood. It's a big tent, with room for all. But the aahs or angst that all these blogs are causing the Hollywood community is palpable, believe me. (Mine included.) For example, United Artists this week found a cushy home in Peter Bart's new blog to combat the bad buzz by spinning what a genius movie Valkyrie supposedly is. (Why does his content remind me of Larry King's random thoughts in USA Today years ago: "I like Tom Terrific.... I like toast.") Down on his luck Bob Shaye has repeatedly vented in Patrick Goldstein's Los Angeles Times column and now will have an additional venue in which to boast about his under-appreciated genius. ("From the first, they were all against me ... Ahh, but the strawberries, that's where I had them...") All while my sources give me chapter and verse about the very un-genius behavior of the mental and physical midgets who run the Biz. So I had a thought: what is the going rate for a Hollywood industry blog mention -- good or bad -- these days? I'm not talking about something so crass as cash. Because this Industry has other currencies, too. I can't wait to watch who'll do what to whom and why to get them in or out.
UPDATE: A Fox spokesperson issued a public denial tonight. "The Defamer.com story about the Studio banning CAA from the Fox lot, is categorically untrue. The exchange, which took place well over a year ago, between a Fox executive and a CAA agent -- that supposedly triggered the 'ban' -- never at any point escalated to the level and language as reported on Defamer.com."
The gossip website Defamer today is running word-for-word with a CAA-Fox story which an anonymous tipster emailed me two weeks ago. But the website failed to do what I did: I checked it out exhaustively, and, even though I've come down harder on CAA than any media outlet over the years, I found that the facts weren't anything like the story which the tipster was passing along. In fact, the truth was not newsworthy. (I'm not linking because the Defamer blogger who wrote it gets paid by the page view. So don't reward someone for inaccurate info...) 
That's also the same gossip website and blogger that recently reported erroneously that Tracey Jacobs was leaving United Talent when she wasn't. Yes, reporting on Hollywood agents would be so much easier if only pesky facts didn't get in the way. But here's what really annoys me: supposedly reputable news outlets and reporters are now picking up erroneous information from gossip websites like Defamer. This is wrong on so many levels that I'm dismayed. Which is why I've decided to go behind-the-scenes of one such egregious and recent example of a showbiz reporting inaccuracy:
Back on April 9th, I broke the somewhat stunning news here that superstar ... Read More »
UPDATE: As expected, FBC is picking up the J.J. Abrams pilot Fringe (WBTV/Bad Robot). He's the writer/exec producer. Network was really high on it all along.
UPDATE: After Fox cancelled, Back To You now being shopped to other networks.
FBC has picked up the animated comedy from Mitch Hurwitz Sit Down, Shut Up (Sony Pictures TV / Granada / Tantamount) to series. It's a 13-episode order. All star voice cast: Jason Bateman, Will Forte, Will Arnett...
As was expected, FBC also has picked up Cleveland (20th Century Fox TV), the spin-off of Family Guy, for 13 episodes.
I hear the pilot Bob & Doug (aka The Adventures of Bob and Doug McKenzie) is cooling back off, though not dead yet. FBC will take a look at the completed pilot when it's shot in July -- on hold til then.
The pilot The Pitts (20th Century Fox TV) is dead.
The last time I saw a studio resort to prayer for a movie opening was Universal for Evan Almighty. And the Box Office Gods didn't make it a hit pic. But now Warner Bros is figuratively on its knees praying for at least a mid-$30 million weekend opening for its kiddie anime Speed Racer -- already down from a hoped-for $40 million just a few days earlier. There are some positive, and some negative, factors to consider. For instance, a plus is that the "Parents and Kids" premium tracking has bettered by a lot. But before I delve into those issues, I have to say that I rarely see Hollywood so gleeful to dump all over a movie's release. But my box office gurus can't wait to puncture the tires of what they say will be Speed Racer's slow crawl of a domestic opening Friday. Still their predictions are a bit higher today than a few weeks ago; they now range from high $20sM to mid-30sM from 3,606 theaters. That's well behind Marvel's blockbuster holdover Iron Man which Paramount has placed in 4,111 venues and projected a $50M second weekend.
As a Warner exec told me this afternoon, "I remain optimistic that families will go. I’m hoping we mirror something like Alvin And The Chipmunks. Industry projections based on tracking had it opening at $25M, but it opened to $44M." Unfortunately, Warner's film will get creamed by the competition from the Disney/Walden blockbuster Narnia 2 opening the very next weekend. One bright spot is international: ... Read More »
Carl Icahn Now Wants ALL Of Lionsgate 
Action Comedy TV: Showrunner Matt Nix 
SAG National Board Approves Joint Bargaining … 
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