Weinsteins Want Miramax Name Back 
'Saw 3D' vs 'Paranormal Activity 2' Battle … 
TV TUG OF WAR: It's Ellen vs Simon, And … 
Robert De Niro Returns To CAA From WME; Jane … 
Fox Wins Studio War For Robert Rodriguez' … 
Weinstein Co Gets "New Lease On Life"? 
Nicole Kidman Hires Angelina's Manager 
So What Are The Hot Films At Sundance? 
Huge $70M Settlement In TV Writers Age … 
TOLDJA! Momoa Chosen 'Conan' Barbarian 
Oscar Campaign Badmouthing Has Begun! UPDATES Here's That Dave, Jay, Oprah, Super Bowl Ad
UPDATES Hot Super Bowl Spot: 'The Last Airbender'
UPDATES Few Films Advertising For Super Bowl XLIV
The Super Bowl used to showcase the best of the ad biz. But Madison Avenue has grown as uncreative as Hollywood, judging from this year's lame-ass commercials. Bridgestone's "Killer Shark" ripped off The Hangover. CareerBuilder's "Casual Fridays" thought men's tighty whities were a laugh riot. Monster showcased a violin-playing "Beaver". Budweiser ads really sucked. But all those Doritos ads made by aspiring filmmakers get my vote for the worst.
UPDATE
Little wonder Warner Bros' New Line is in love with the Garry Marshall-directed Valentine’s Day because of its formula of cramming more than a dozen stars into a film and keeping the budget below $50 million. Now I'm told there's a sort-of-sequel underway. Valentine’s Day scribe Katherine Fugate has turned in a draft of New Year’s Eve, which Toby Emmerich and Richard Brener are reading this weekend, with Warner Bros bosses to follow shortly.
Michael Mann just told me all about the hot title that’ll get buyers buzzing in Berlin this Wednesday: Avatar’s Sam Worthington has closed a deal to make The Fields, a fact-based drama that marks the big feature directing debut of Ami Canaan Mann who is Michael Mann's daughter. Michael Mann will produce with Michael Jaffe in a co-production between QED and Mann’s Forward Pass. The film will begin shooting April 5 in Louisiana. Financing is QED, whose chief Bill Block put up the money for the Oliver Stone-directed W and District 9 and is heading to Berlin to broker international rights. QED and CAA will sell domestic.
The drama is based on a true story of a pair of detectives investigating a series of unsolved murders in a stretch of bayous near the oil refineries in coastal Texas where as many as 70 bodies have turned up over the past 30 years. “Sam read it, met Ami, and he was in. And for me, this is a dream come true to enable Ami to do this," Michael Mann told me. "Sam will play Jake, this tough-minded misanthropic Texan, who with his partner Brian wind up waging something of a war against these unknown assailants, a ferocious battle to save each other and the life of this young street kid.”
Corporate raider/shareholder activist Carl Icahn is still at it. I've learned he bought another 291,000 shares of Lionsgate common stock at the price of $4.968 on Friday. So he now owns 
Meanwhile, Lionsgate's 3rd place From Paris With Love starring John Travolta and directed by Taken helmer Pierre Morel is very soft. The R-rated pic opened with only a $3 million debut Friday but did +33% better Saturday for $4.0M from 2,722 runs for an underperforming $8.1M weekend.
He's already Hollywood's highest paid teen. Pretty soon, he may also be Hollywood's richest teen. He's certainly Hollywood's hardest working teen. Universal has just cast the 17-year-old Twilight Saga star Taylor Lautner to play title character Stretch Armstrong based on the Hasbro toy. The studio is giving Stretch superhero powers in the new 3D franchise that is scheduled for release in 2012. Universal Pictures Chairman Adam Fogelson and Co-Chairman Donna Langley think Lautner is "the real deal" and are undaunted by all the other projects which Taylor also is launching, including the Max Steel franchise at Paramount and the 3rd and 4th installments of the Twilight Saga for Summit Entertainment, and other films.
Universal is moving the release of its epic Hasbro action-adventure Battleship to May 25, anchoring 2012's Memorial Day weekend. Originally slated for release in July 2011, the film was moved "to give it the time and resources to thoroughly realize its huge-scale ambitions and position it," the studio announced tonight. “Universal has put all the elements in place to successfully launch our classic Hasbro brands on the big screen,” said Brian Goldner, President and CEO of Hasbro, praising the, Inc. “Giving Pete Berg and the filmmakers the extra time and resources to make Battleship an even bigger summer blockbuster, is sure to pay dividends when the film is released in 2012.” 
Will Smith's and James Lassiter’s Overbrook Entertainment, and Jada Pinkett-Smith’s 100 Percent Womon Film Investments filed a complaint in California Superior Court this week. I'm told the filing is meant to head off a threatened lawsuit by an investor in Human Contract, a film Pinkett-Smith wrote and directed which went straight to video and apparently lost money. Lawyers filed the complaint for declaratory relief against David Grasso, described in the filing as a Philadelphia real estate mogul who invested in Pinkett-Smith’s film through his Tycoon Entertainment banner. I'm told the complaint was a proactive legal move by Pinkett-Smith and Overbrook after Grasso sent a letter threatening to sue for fraud unless he got his money back. Overbrook is involved because the company manages Pinkett-Smith. 
It's Daredevil, the movie named after the sight-challenged hero played originally by Ben Affleck. Regency is mounting the remake with former News Corp No. 2 Peter Chernin producing. Writing the redo is screenwriter David Scarpa, who scripted The Day The Earth Stood Still for Fox, which will distribute Daredevil 2.0 or whatever it's going to be called. The reason this is happening is simple: Hollywood studios with Marvel superheroes need to keep reinventing these Marvel movie franchises or the rights revert back to Disney-based Marvel. Fortunately, the properties are as resilient as the indestructible superheroes themselves. 
I heard scuttlebutt even then that Andrea Wong would by replaced by Nancy Dubuc, the President of History (aka the History Channel). "She's not set, but odds are they're going to her," one source tells me. "It's assumed she'll get the job." In 3 years, Dubuc has made the "Hitler Channel" contemporary and even cool with such unscripted fare as Ice Road Truckers and Ax Men and Pawn Stars and the high-brow The People Speak. Before that, she did the same thing as head of programming at sister network A&E with Dog The Bounty Hunter and Growing Up Gotti. Most importantly, History had its best ratings ever in 2009, and made it into the top 10 basic cable channels in the key 25-to-54 advertising demo for the first time.
As a result, Dubuc is now a highly sought-after rising star who's been approached for most big primetime, cable, and broadcast gigs over the past 18 months -- from Discovery networks, to NBC Universal, to Viacom networks, I've learned. "She's a real programming savant in this space," a source gushed to me. "Her reputation as a stellar marketer and developer is unrivalled. But I hear she's also a total team player." Good thing she also has a reputation as patient because this is going to take some time because A&E Television Networks is run by Disney/ABC and Hearst and ... 
But it looks overall like fewer films will be advertised compared with last year. Studios often keep secret what specific films they will promo there, and rarely are new trailers premiered. For this year's game, I've learned that Disney will advertise both Prince Of Persia and Tim Burton's Alice In Wonderland. Universal will spotlight both Benicio Del Toro's Wolfman and the Ridley Scott-directed Russell Crowe-starrer Robin Hood. Sony Pictures will will show the trailer for Bounty Hunter during a pre-game show. Paramount's Marty Scorsese-directed, Leonard DiCaprio-starring Shutter Island will be hawked during the game. And a spot for M. Night Shyamalan's The Last Airbender, also from Paramount, will run during the Super Bowl Pre-Kick-Off show. Will CBS Films show up? But Warner Bros, Summit, Lionsgate, and Relativity won't be advertising this year. And not MGM which is for sale as it teeters on the brink of bankruptcy. "Nope," one MGM exec tells me. "Unless we could use our Hot Tub Time Machine to get 1986 rates, why bother?" I checked, and back then the Super Bowl was selling for $550,000 a spot. 
Lionsgate announced today that Ryan O'Hara, the president of TV Guide Network and TV Guide.com, is leaving effective immediately to take a new position in New York that will be announced next week. The 8-year TV Guide vet exits after 9 months after the TV Guide Network was acquired by Lionsgate which then brought in One Equity Partners as a partner. And after veteran Diane Robina was named EVP of Development, Acquisition and Programming Strategy. Robina also continues as President of Lionsgate's branded multiplatform horror/thriller network FEARnet with partners Sony and Comcast. TV Guide Network and TV Guide.com continues under Lionsgate Co-Chairman/CEO Jon Feltheimer and TV Guide Network Board Chairman Allen Shapiro. 
Not so long ago, Hollywood studios were reluctant to look beyond a list of 20 high-profile directors to helm the big blockbusters. And when those veterans were busy, the majors had to put projects on hold until the directors freed up. That was hardly practical, so the studios began looking outside the Top 20. Now more than ever, the moguls are taking a chance on names so low profile that the Industry has barely heard of them. Today, there are two more examples. I've learned that New Line president Toby Emmerich is setting Bandslam director Todd Graff to helm Damn Yankees, a big-scale musical that has Jake Gyllenhaal and Jim Carrey attached. And Paramount's Adam Goodman is giving screenwriter Etan Cohen the chance to make his feature directorial debut on Daddy’s Home, a comedy that will star Will Ferrell and Ed Helms. 
Loading ...