The Hollywood Reporter: Risky Biz Blog

Cannes Begins; Let Puns and Pricing Complaints Follow

By Steven Zeitchik

Overnight, the crowds on the Croisette multiplied, the screenings cranked into gear and Jack Black decided to show up with humans in panda suits on a pier in the south of France.

On Wednesday morning,  journalists and critics -- when they weren't lamenting  the cost of a cup of coffee paid in dollars -- packed the first screening of the festival, the 10 a.m. critics showing of "Blindness." We were able to catch only the first half hour or so, but Fernando Meirelles' comments on his own work struck us as apropos -- the use of an anyonmous setting (the movie was shot in Sao Paulo), vague accents and the general lack of distinguishing locational details puts you a little off-kilter and gives the film a mystical, metaphysical feel.

On the business side, the real question will be the buyer action on available titles. While market pics and reel showings will inevitably provide a breakout, the competition lineup is where the cachet -- and sales buzz -- lies. A lot has been written about the effect of the tempered market, Hollywood labor pains and the contraction of specialty companies like Picturehouse. But like at all fests, the sales will in the end rest on reaction to the movies themselves.

For that, the hope lies, as reported in today's THR, with two lovers, a two-parter and a headtrip -- that is, with James Gray's romantic drama, Soderbergh's "Che" epic and Charlie Kaufman's "Synecdoche, NY." None of the three films have distribution, and while all have the kind of artistic ambition that could make them a commercial reach, they also have the artistic ambition that could turn them into this year's "No Country for Old Men."

Also, look for Israeli ani doc "Waltz with Bashir" as this year's "4 Weeks, 3 Months and 2 Days" -- a unique and perhaps even difficult film that will draw a small-midrange distributor and a modest amount of actual currency but enormous amounts of the cultural kind. And on the market side, "JCVD" will be the high-concept gamble -- a Jean Claude Van Damme biopic that's a parody of the aged action star. A Jean Claude Van Damme parody may be a comic redundancy, but then, aren't those the best kind.

Cannes, Kingdom of the Unintentionally Comedic Posters

By Steven Zeitchik

The construction crews and tourists are already starting to fill up the Croisette, which means that the tuxedos, the flashbulbs and the Blackberries won't be far behind.

One of the nice things about arriving at Cannes early is a chance to take a leisurely look at the posters promoting market pics, with a general rule that a sign's size is in direct proportion to the desperation of those selling it.

Topping the list so far are a French thrillerm "Secrets of State" ("manipulation is the key to convert human into weapon," as the tagline reminds) and a wartime romance "The Baby Doll Night" (in which the question of whether "a night of pleasure can mend sixty years of pain" is finally -- finally -- answered).

Close behind them is Studio Canal's awkwardly titled "Baby(ies)," which promises a "unique and universal adventure" and lots of close-up on the little ones. Actually, this pic -- a doc tracing the lives of babies across four continents -- looks promising; another Studio Canal movie, Daniel Auteuil's "Me Two" (about "the person who is two persons"), less so.

Somewhat smaller are the promotions for companies like Millennium, which we were pleased to see is already sporting a poster for "Brooklyn's Finest," Antoine Fuqua's Richard Gere-toplined crime-thriller that Warner is releasing Statseisde and which was part of the post-strike spec boomlet.

And, because you know you want it, there is, indeed, a new Jean Claude Van Damme movie: an action-comedy with the very fashionista title of "JCVD."

(Guarded optimism, or at least a less aggressive pessimism, seems to be the mood for the market generally; though the most recent Berlin and AFM have been ice cold, there's a feeling, or at least some hope, that there could be a rebound here, in part because anyone buying in euros will see their money go further. "We're expecting a pretty vibrant market," Summit's Patrick Wachsberger, whose company is selling titles like Terrence Malick's "Tree of Life," told us. "The (international) independents are really short on product, and I don't think they want to release substantially less movies than they used to.")

Grand poster displays here in Cannes are also a province of the tentpoles, which included the gamut of expected biggies like "Tropic Thunder" and the Edward Hopper-ish image for M. Night's upcoming "The Happening." And there's a tantalizing billboard advertising Spike Lee's "Miracle at St. Anna," promoting private market showings of the Disney pic's "first images."

Of course no promotions come grander than "Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull," signs for which can be seen as far away as the Nice-Cannes highway. An entire temple facade has been constructed in front of the actual facade of the Carlton hotel to go along with the giant banners adorning the face of the hotel.

In an informal focus-group moment that Paramount would be proud of, we heard several young children belting out a few bars of the "Indiana Jones" theme song as they passed one of the ubiquitous posters. The moment underscored what sources had told us about Paramount's thinking: the studio is banking on having locked up anyone over thirty and anyone under 13. The trickier demo will be teenagers and early twentysomethings, who are too young to remember the originals but too old not to harbor skepticism about a franchise their parents remember so fondly.

Of course it's nothing a few thousand shrieking fans on the Croisette couldn't cure.

The Boll keeps on rolling

By Leslie Simmons

Uwe Boll takes his criticism in stride.

Introducing his latest release "Postal" to members of a Los Angeles screenwriting group, the frequently lampooned director of video-game adaptations told the audience, “I’m surprised you’re here and not signing the anti-Boll petition,” which, he added, is now being sponsored by a gum company that promises a free pack to all signees. (It's true.) “I will get Budweiser to sponsor a pro-Boll petition for free beer,” Boll retorted in his thick German accent. "It's not like I’m so happily received for my movies.”

As for "Postal," based on yet another video game -- this time a controversial one in which a character named "The Postal Dude" runs amok, shooting whoever gets in his way -- Boll said he decided to "write a movie about what I wanted to see, what I would enjoy" and that he didn't "give a shit about the ratings." He used the theme of going postal to express "everything that was pissing me off and what is going on politically."

Apparently, what Boll wanted to see on the screen was a stuffed children's toy with phallic overtines and a full-frontal Dave Foley smoking a joint in the bathroom “I didn’t ask him to that. He decided to do that on his own," Boll proudly whispered into our ear during the screening when the Foley scene rolled.

Later, when a black police officer, riding with his German speaking partner, shoots point-blank at an old Asian woman, Boll again whispered, “That was my homage to ‘Crash.’” (Funny, we don't recall a similar scene in the Paul Haggis film.)

Boll also told the audience that since Sept. 11, there have been no movies that really push buttons in the vein of "The Life of Brian" and "The Blues Brothers." "It was time to take out the hammer and not make a nice comedy," he said. "I really wanted to offend everybody."

RIP: WIP, Picturehouse and....

By Steven Zeitchik

So what really happened in Thursday's WIP-Picturehouse shocker? Borys Kit and Gregg Goldstein have the full scoop in today's THR. Among their more telling revelations is that, if you were surprised, you're not alone -- the principals were right there with you. "The decision to cease operations was made only about a week ago, and many inside the company were caught off-guard -- including Cohen, who said she was having meetings about a merged division with Berney as recently as Friday," they write.

Bob Berney and Polly Cohen, both talented execs, will find good gigs, and we hope the same is true for the many good staffers at both companies. The longer-term lesson, and in some ways what's more sad, is what all this shows about the business. Weepiness isn't entirely warranted; there's still plenty of money and many new companies. Agencies are putting together packages at  record rates. Independent production shingles, buoyed by tax rebates and star interest, are robust. Films funds are as active as ever. But what's increasingly clear is the particular model of the specialty biz -- the idea of a dedicated unit for a certian type/budget of film which both lives within and operates parallel to a studio -- is undergoing a radical transformation, if not an imminent contraction.

It was only a decade or so that the model was essentially invented, and the last five years or so when it's reached full flower, with big commercial hits and untold numbers of statues. But in the last year the picture has started to look a little different . Paramount Vantage is spreading into broader genres and is so production-driven it's practically a mini-studio. Ditto for Focus. Sony Classics is sui generis. True, Searchlight and Miramax are on top of their games, thought the former's slate is a little thin in the near term and the latter is very prestige-driven, a good model it's refined nearly to perfection but one that means it doesn't play nearly as much in the finished-film market that's often the specialty-biz's lifeblood.

In quality and range, specialty films are as strong as ever. And yet the business is on the cusp of a major transition. Welcome to the paradoxical film world of 2008.

The Chronicles of Andrew Adamson

By Steven Zeitchik and Gregg Goldstein

Tonight was the premiere of "The Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian," and though we're hardly in the target demo, that gave us a chance to have a nice casual sit-down with writer-director Andrew Adamson.

A laid-back New Zealander with the look of a surfer-boy and the work ethic of a presidential candidate, Adamson's had a rather unique career. Primarily an fx guy, he landed a job when DreamWorks signed him to write and direct what was then a small movie that was basically testing some new stop-motion technologies. That movie was "Shrek," and a few star voices, plenty of sharp storytelling and some shrewd marketing later, a pop-cultural sensation was born. Though it should be noted, it wasn't quite that smooth -- Adamson basically shot the film three different times over a period of four years, dumping a first cut he himself didn't like. After that cut endured a bad screening, Jeffrey Katzenberg sat Adamson down to tell him he wanted a new version. "He thought he was breaking the bad news," Adamson says. "To me it was a relief."

After the movie became a hit, Adamson then wanted to stick around for the sequel --"we were trying to create something a little more complicated with the second film," he said."And I wanted to protect what I had created."

He's doing the same thing for "Narnia," writing and directing a more ambitious follow-up to an already well-told original. And while Adamson hardly seems like the most obvious choice to adapt a set of books that many Christians take as Scriptural parable -- the director has a wry, slightly subversive sense of humor that has him telling stories about how C.S. Lewis became a Christian after taking a motorcycle ride with J.R.R. Tolkien ("It makes you wonder what happened on that ride") -- he says he enjoyed playing with the big themes and devices of the source material without dwelling on any religious significance. "So many movies have a Resurrection story. 'Stars Wars' has a Resurrection story. 'The Matrix' has one."

He's also, one sense,s a punctilious type; after more than a year of shooting and posting the new "Narnia" pic, he was still fiddling a week ago and just finished the film. In fact, until a few days ago he carrying two alternate versions of one reel.

For his next gig, Adamson is contemplating directing one of several movies he's already producing. The juicies choice is another allegory, though with a far different tone: a movie called  "Benighted" that's kind of an adult parable about a world ruled by werewolves but where a minority of humans must take control during the full-moon part of the month and the werewolves lose their heads. Adamson says it has echoes of apartheid and other political themes.

And the next Narnia pic, which is slated to go into production in the fall? Adamson's attached as a producer but he's not looking to get too involved. "I think it would be great to sit on the beach somewhere and take a phone call," he said. Somehow we doubt there'll be too much beach-sitting in his future.

What If the Film Business Was More Like a Presidential Primary?

By Steven Zeitchik

After watching a retina-bleeding amount of TV punditry Tuesday night on the endless Obama-Clinton saga (we think the diplomatic Hollywood word would be "franchiseable"), it made us wonder if the film world and the election-blather worlds shouldn't come a little closer.

After all, politics already borrow so much from entertainment -- note the lukewarm reviews of Bill Clinton in those shots of him behind Hillary on Tuesday (who gave that director final cut anyway?) or Anderson Cooper's reference to John King's digital-screen-savant act as "the Rain Man" of the political process. Why not have film borrow from politics?

Turns out at least one bigwig is already there. Todd Wagner -- the powerful Texas outsider-turned-insider (Ross Perot, anyone?) told Risky Biz recently in an interview that one of his big goals for 2008 was to import some political strategy into the movie-marketing process.  We don't think that means linking the Rev. Wright to his boxoffice rivals. So what does he have in mind?

"It's tougher to get movies out and have them survive. We should bring in political consultants who've run political campaigns and see if they can help us run movie campaigns," he said.

He continued, "I'm fascinated by the political world. You have a candidate you never heard of and twelve months later you're trying to get people to vote for them. We do the same thing. You have a movie people never heard of and twelve months later you have to get them to go out and see it."

And how would he use specific tactics? "There are lessons to be learned from (political) people and how they database-mine. You're going to see us experiment this way. Everything is fair game. What if for example you could come up with a system where you spent 20%-30% less and still reached the same people?"

Actually this seems like precisely the opposite of what happens in politics, where each election cycle candidates spend 20%-30% more to reach fewer people. But we get his point, and it's a good one -- why not think about how to market in ways that are more inventive instead of just more expensive? (Cue "end of marketing-as-usual" jokes here.)

Of course, there are some juicy development ideas to emerge from this election cycle already. HBO later in the month will debut the 2000 election saga "Recount" -- which, by the way, garnered a nice gratis plug from CNN's Jeff Toobin on Tuesday night -- so we're casting for the 2016 movie version. By then Chelsea Clinton will be making her presidential run and Hollywood's labor troubles may actually be over. (Sumner Redstone, of course, will still be running Viacom.)

So who's attached to our movie version? We think Will Smith is Barack, Meryl Streep is Hillary, Alan Arkin is John McCain, Alec Baldwin is Mitt Romney (mostly for the hair), and Anderson Cooper is Anderson Cooper. As for who plays John King, we're thinking it should be -- who else? -- Dustin Hoffman.

Speed Racing to a new Madison Avenue no-man's land

By Steven Zeitchik

First, the refreshing news: For such a big summer tentpole, "Speed Racer" appears to have very little product placement.

Now the other news: Appearances can be deceiving.

The Wachowski Bros new film is all about the evils of corporate sponsorship in general and NASCAR -- we mean trippy-colored Faux-mula One -- in particular. Main character Speed (Emile Hirsch) rails against it. Pop Racer (John Goodman) has devoted his life to fighting it. Mustache-twirling villains spend their days reveling in it. The corporate sponsors are so venal they hire cars with nail-spewing tires to sabotage the races of the honest drivers. (Isn't there a governing body in this sport? Figure skating would be an improvement.)

Yet there's still placement for sponsors like Cheerios and Yokohama tires. Benign enough, right? But check this. The symbol adorning the protagonist's car, the Mach 5, looks unmistakably like the golden arches. Just a coincidence, we thought -- the filmmakers are probably just using the logo from the original cartoon. Not their fault. Plus McDonald's isn't involved in this, are they?

Oops.

The second point first -- McDonald's is actually a tie-in partner. As this Ad Age piece makes  clear, they're distributing the toys in Happy Meals and doing the requisite tie-ins for a family film.

Now to the first point, which is more insidious. The original logo of the Mach 5 is indeed an M (named for the Japanese version's main character, Mifune). But it  looks nothing like the symbol in the film. In the TV show the M looks much more angular, and its curves don't nearly slope the way the M does in this rendition, which looks so  much like the global McDonald's symbol that when you see it painted on the side of the car you might think McDonald's is the car's sponsor in the context of the film. It may not be brand placement. It's something much newer and trickier: brand suggestion.

Product placement can be good when it works -- one of the great pop classics, after all, "Back to the Future" -- started the  whole thing. But isn't it weird to hear how a sport (or an art, as racecar driving is labeled here) is being ruined by corporations in a film that then has unannounced brand placements for corporations? And then to pretend that it isn't brand placement? Go weird inconsistencies, go go go.

Iron Man, at his less indestructible

By Borys Kit

In what we promise -- no, really -- is the last "Iron Man" post, we're wondering where "Iron Man 2" goes now that it's officially on. Will, for instance, Marvel take on the classic "Demon in a Bottle" storyline from the early 1980s which featured industrialist playboy Tony Stark dealing with alcoholism?

Robert Downey Jr. (who's not yet signed on for the pic but could very well end up doing it) said he thinks oblique is the way to go. “I have a feeling that the best way to go into Tony and the 'Demon and the Bottle' storyline is show his 40th birthday party," he told Risky Biz at the premiere. "Let that tie in with something people can understand, (people) who maybe don’t have that disease. Anyone over 40 knows what it’s like to feel like you’re looking at the back 9 of your life. Mid-life crisis. A couple of bottles of champagne and he’s just getting started, and they think there’s something wrong with him, and you understand why he’s going to these excesses. It’s much more fertile when you don’t call a spade a spade."

Downey already faced a lot of questions from journalists on the subject of substance abuse during the worldwide tour promoting his new hit movie, and probably won’t be thrilled to rehash it again. In fact, he doesn’t think most fans are interested in that facet of his life. “It's simply not what people want to read or hear about. Its a failsafe thing for journalists who dont know that I’ve moved on from that.”

Marvel will Avenge '09 Absences

Hey, we could have been further off. This morning's Marvel earnings call shows that a few of the projects we predicted below will in fact be making their way on to the track that is fast.

According to THR's Georg Szalai, the company revealed this morning that "Thor" is next up for Marvel, with a 2010 release scheduled, while "Captain America" and "The Avengers" will follow. in keeping with its internal cross-promotion theme, the studio will actually brand the "Captain" movie as an Avengers pic. Also, Marvel will turn around an "Iron Man" sequel for 2010 after all, despite initial concerns about rushing the follow-up. Downey and Favreau may reteam for that one. Get your 'suit up' puns ready.

The next Iron Men?

By Steven Zeitchik

With "Iron Man" putting the hurt on the boxoffice this weekend, Marvel is smacking its lips over which of its superhero properties it can next unleash on -- we mean set free to rescue -- the great global public. But what will that property be? (Besides "Iron Man 2," that is, which will have to wait until 2010 and may in fact not come out until 2011, according to what Marvel president of production Kevin Feige told us last week -- before the dollars rained down at the boxoffice, it should be noted.)

Fans won't have to wait long to find out. The studio is expected to announce its next green light on an earnings call Monday morning; the movie likely will come out in 2010 from Paramount,  which has distribution rights to the next pic. (There'll be no movie from Marvel Studios in 2009.)  Here's a handicap of which project the studio will select, which we'll maintain is deadly accurate ... at least until we're proven dead wrong Monday morning.

*Ant-Man: "Shaun of the Dead" director Edgar Wright, who's signed on to "Ant," is moving ahead with another graphic-novel adaptation, "Scott Pilgrim Vs. the World," which could prompt Marvel to back-burner the insectoid one -- though if 2010 is the target, that could give the helmer enough time. Plus it's got the comedic, post-superhero quality that worked so well with "Iron Man."

*The Hands of Shang-Chi: There's already a director on board, but martial arts may be too niche for the splash Marvel wants with Wall Street.

* Captain America: It was originally supposed to be the studio's first project until Jon Favreau decided he wanted to concentrate on Stark & Co. But how in the name of Thor does a distributor retail to the international market a product of WWII jingoism?

* Thor -- Speaking of Thor, Guy Ritchie protege Matthew Vaughn is already attached, and Marvel may feel inspired to give him the reins after its windfall with a similarly vision-driven helmer like Favreau. Vaughn does have a passion project at Miramax called "The Debt" -- and "Thor" does seem a little dated -- but don't be surprised if it ends up on the fast track.

* Nick Fury -- The military/boxing tale would be an attractive choice; it's topical and the character has a high Q rating. But the project lacks a writer and a director and it's unclear if Marvel will want to start from scratch when so many others have attachments.

*The Avengers: The mother-lode, the big kahuna, the property that actually resonates broadly, and which as an ensemble piece, already contains "Iron Man." Will Marvel go for the big score now or save it for rainier days?

Regardless of which project they choose, the next project will be a lot easier after the $100 million opening for "Iron Man.' "

That's because the b.o. knockout doesn't only justify the half billion dollars in credit Marvel  nabbed form Merrill Lynch or the multiple executive shuffles over the last few years -- it shows the company can kickstart a property little-known outside the world of fanboys. And that, in turn, will help it launch other lesser-knowns. As  chairman David Maisel told us last week, "We can have our lesser characters pop up in other movies ... and the audience can get to know them that way." There's already, for example, an "Iron Man" cameo in "The Incredible Hulk," though we can imagine the superpowers they'd trade to have it the other way around. But hey, sometimes even "Iron Man" can't get what he wants.

Stars, shooting and exploding

By Steven Zeitchik

Of all the things that struck us as we reported a story about the decline of star power at the box office is how little anyone seemed to be troubled by it. Even agents, whose bread and butter is to turn star salaries into, well, bigger star salaries, were ready to admit a new world order.

A quick recap: We've been busy the last few weeks talking to studio execs, agents, publicists -- not to mention tempting our optometrist's wrath by poring over box-office numbers -- studying the whole question of how much stars matter. Really matter, in a clinical, box-office, Moneyball sort of way, not in how many times they can be seen on E! over the course of a week (actually, that might be a reason why they don't matter). And the answer is -- less than they used to even a few years ago. A lot less.

As we outlined in the piece -- which you can read here -- some notable trends popped out. The decline is evident in every metric, and from every angle. The average number of top grossing films over the last few years that are driven by stars has fallen by 200%-300%. The number of stars who can reliably drive box-office no matter the picture has slid from nearly a dozen to two or three, and we're not sure about the three.  Over this time box-office overall has continued to rise. Which means that while stars' brand-recognition and perceived power has multiplied, their actual power has diminished. Other factors and players -- a highly diverse group that ranges from toy-licensors to indie directors -- have wrested it away.

When stars do make a difference it's because they've landed in a franchise that gives them a boost; Universal and Disney may now need Damon and Depp for "Bourne" and "Pirates," but that's only because franchises like "Bourne" and Pirates" made them
indispensable in the first place. (Doubts? Just ask someone who had adjusted first-dollar on "Good Shepherd" or "Sweeney Todd.") None of this, it should be said, should be taken as particularly relevant for SAG negotiations -- lord knows most of the actors covered by any labor agreement wouldn't get within flicking distance of what these relative handful make. If anything, all these trends argue for more equity in actor payment.

These are pretty powerful numbers, the kind that if leveraged in the right way, could be used by studio chiefs to lower salaries. And yet despite hearing all of thi,s many agents --even those who rep some of said A-listers -- seemed more zen than Phil Jackson at a yoga retreat.

So why no concern?

A recognition of the truth is part of it. But more likely, it's stratgeic.  Agents who rep stars may want salaries to stay high, but they want expectations to stay low. Because you argue that they do matter at the box-office, you're essentially ceding the argument, because they don't. So better to decouple the two. This way expectations aren't that high, and stars' stocks stay where they are. Really,would "Leatherheads" be perceived as the dud that it is if people stopped expecting Clooney to open at $30+ million in the first place? Meanwhile, those whose stars actually do draw in keeping with their salary -- and they do exist, though many of these stars are below the $20-million line -- will be more than fine with the new system, because they're bringing results anyway so why not get paid accordingly?

We realize this system is little like paying a baseball player for stadium attendance (which happens) or journalists for the number of click-throughs they generate (which happens too). It may seem a little too linear, but in a world of so many measurables, it's also logical, and inevitable. That's why top-paid actors will probably soon feel the heat, and why, okay, we'll ask you to refresh this page two or three times. (Hey, we never said we were above it.)

Strike Two: This time, it will be a swing and a miss for film producers

By Steven Zeitchik

With SAG deadlines bearing down, it's becoming increasingly clear that while the writer's strike was primarily a television stoppage, this one, if it happens, will be a film one. Part of that is a function of the calendar -- when the WGA walked off, most television productions should have been in full swing, whereas now those shows are getting ready for summer hiatus anyway. Many film producers, on the other hand, desperately need to shoot now if they're going to meet studio slate needs, festival deadlines, etc.

But the other factor is the nature of the strike itself, which is designed to yank out the rug from projects that take longer to gestate and shoot -- that is, films. By its nature a writers walkoff freezes things early in the development process, which means as long as you're past a certain hurdle (i.e.,  the script stage) you could move ahead unaffected. But an actors strike freezes it later, when a project is seemingly in good shape, and so it means that you have to stop production even months ahead of the actual walkout lest a strike halt you mid-shoot.

That's why any film that wasn't already in pre-production sometime in April isn't going to get started now -- while television shows like "Ugly Betty," because they can begin and wrap over the span of a few weeks, will start shooting a new crop of episodes for their strike reserve beginning as late as June. About the only movies that will get made as we enter this dead zone between now and the potential walkout on July 1 (and it will be a dead zone, as Leslie Simmons' story in today's THR about the latest sorry state of negotiations makes clear) are a group of productions that might best be described as suffering from the Paul Krugman effect -- that is, no middle class. These productions are either really rich or really poor.

The biggest franchises are still going now because productions are so expensive anyway that shutting them down if a strike comes at the end of June amount to little more than a rounding error. (One exec today noted that this is a list so small it can be counted on two hands, with a few fingers left over for other purposes).

At the other end of the spectrum are the indie productions that have received waivers. They'll also be starting in the next two months because they can sail right past the July 1 date as carefree as a schoolboy at recess. Again, this is a small number, because of course in order to obtain the waiver you need to show SAG that no part of your financing comes from any company that might get struck.

It is true that these indie films might now get a higher cut of talent -- both crews and actors are, anecdotally, taking gigs with productions they'd normally eschew because they want to be assured of work. Thin silver linings underneath larger black clouds? Sounds like another Hollywood labor mess to us.

Stay off Canal Street...or get hit by a Carr

By Steven Zeitchik

In the 1980's the Green Bay Packers would play several games a year a few hours south, in Milwaukee. We're not sure why this comes to mind, except that it's been a few days since we caught up with the Tribeca Film Festival, which this year is being played in the East Village. So a rundown is in order:

* You know how when a movie is bad you compliment the cinematography?  David Carr pretty much does the same in a partial drive-by -- call it a walk-by --on the fest that Jane built, making sure to say it has " enormous size, a catholic range of film interests and a backdrop in a world-class city" before going on to say what's been on a lot of people's minds and lips about identity, buyers and (movie) buzz. Even if it's been said before, Carr still does a decent job of throwing in a defense or two before sloshing through the problems. Plus, there's a bonus knock on Park City public transportation.

*There still are no big sales at the fest -- we don't count IFC's purchase today of "Fermat's Room," which was one of those "has bought a movie that screened at a fest" deals -- but we wouldn't be surprised if it happens soon, and with a fiction film, no less. Which brings us to...

*...Two shameless plugs for people we know who have Tribeca movies we like. Steven Kaplan is a relative,  but he's also the star of the consistently well-reviewed "Bart Got a Room," which we'd say is the breakout of the fest even if we hadn't shared many a Thanksgiving table with the star. It's sweet, funny, human, plays exactly within its ambitions and can be a nice little addition for a distributor who will care for and feed it. (Okay, now we're sounding like we're describing a puppy. You know what we mean.) And director Brian Hecker is destined for some good gigs, though your guess is as good as ours whether he takes the Tamara Jenkins road and puts ten years and thousands of pages between him and his next project, or opts for the quick studio (bet you never thought you'd see those words together) gig. Either way, expect a "Bart" sale pretty soon.

* The other plug: Dana O'Keefe's "The New Yorkist," apart from offering the opportunity to call the Cinetic Media exec names like "The Duluthist," is one of the funniest, hippest movies you'll ever see about an overreaching intellectual striver/poseur contemplating Central European wars and the gamut of human experience from his apartment while insistent classical music plays loudly over his wordless thoughts. This is a good thing. A very good thing.

* "Tennessee" is a pretentious, needlessly moody movie that got made after someone watched a few too many pay-TV airings of "Sling Blade." Still, gratuitous singing scene aside, Mariah Carey is actually not half-bad.

*There was a big screening in Tribeca this week -- only it wasn't part of the Tribeca Film Festival. It was the Cinema Society event for "Iron Man," and while some of the people -- particularly visting L.A. execs -- tippling with Robert Downey Jr., Jon Favreau and Terence Howard all talked about the Tribeca Film Festival, the casually star-studded and buzz-generating event was so good it pointed up just how much Tribeca needs, but doesn't have, events of this sort. Sure, it was a little exclusive and would eliminate the more democratic crowds of a Tribeca fete, but the scores of fans lined up outside the Odeon didn't seem to mind. Of course if this weekend's closing film "Speed Racer" can light things up at the box-office, it could spell the best opening/closing one-two punch the festival has had in a long time. And with the news that "What Just Happened" will wind things down on the Riviera, Tribeca can now legitimately say its closing night film was better-reviewed than Cannes'.

Outfitted as Iron Man, in non-ideological colors

By Steven Zeitchik

There will be much written about "Iron Man" -- the box-office potential, Downey Jr.'s ironic take on the role, the fact that Jeff Bridges may be the first superhero villain to resemble Rob Reiner -- but  what struck us after seeing it tonight is the politics of it all, or, more accurately, the apolitics of it all.

In an otherwise sophisticated and intelligent film -- the script cleverly does away with the tired superhero conceit that those closest to him don't know his dual identity; Downey Jr'.s Tony Stark even makes a meta quip about it -- politics are the subject that dare not speak its name. Clearly Jon Favreau and Marvel didn't want to go the "V for Vendetta" route, with its dystopia that actively plays on 21st century fears, or the way of "The Kingdom," an action pic with clear ideological battle lines. But even by the standards of the tentpole film, "Iron Man" works hard to remove political meaning, despite the fact that the origin myth (and film's critical first scenes) take place in an overseas U.S. war, and the fact that the whole reason Stark creates the Iron Man suit in the first place is to further a pacifist, weapons-free agenda.

Stan Lee's comic book was first set during Vietnam and featured a strong anti-Communist message; though he later scaled it back, Iron Man was clearly a hero forged by ideological flames. In the new film, the war part stays, updated here to Afghanistan (what, you thought they'd make it Iraq?), and for a minute one wonders if politics might become backdrop, or even more.

Then the feeling fades. Stark is captured in a desert after shots are fired at his army jeep, but the antagonist turns out to be a generic warlord/fanatic (even the attack winds up being aimed at him and isn't the crossfire of a war zone, as you might expect in, well, a war zone). The film in any event later disposes of any negative association by having Iron Man save a small village from the menace of the warlord, whose motive, if it's religious or political, is never expressed. The rescue, meant to show Starks' sudden burst of conscience, could  just as easily have happened with drug dealers or the Mafia.

Even the U.S. military -- oh U.S. military, reliable opponent numero uno of the outlaw superhero -- appears mostly benign. At worst the army is innocently identifying flying foreign objects that happen to be "Iron Man." Mostly it's just helping him out. (Stark even gives a mini-speech saluting the soldiers who died in the jeep attack, which for a movie with a pacifist theme seems a little strange, but that's another matter). Even a shadowy government branch called S.H.I.E.L.D pitches in to help Stark. The main villain isn't an ideological figure either -- he's an inside man in Stark's company who could be the bad guy from any corporate thriller.

We know, we know. This is a four-quadrant superhero movie, trying to hit not just the full spectrum in this country but many different audiences abroad. Still, for a movie set in, and whose character is shaped by, conflict overseas -- and for source material that embraced geopolitics -- it's a striking absence. Heck, even "Rambo" had a political point-of-view. It's also a deft absence -- "Iron Man" may be the first film whose desert-battlefield setting, obscure languages, guerilla warfare and high-tech weapons make it feels utterly contemporary, and yet which contains not so much as a single stray mark of ideology. In other words, it may be the first film to find its way out of Hollywood's recent dilemma: how to make a film rooted in the modern geopolitical world that doesn't conjure up specific Iraq impressions or divide its audience, and in so doing risk box office.

Of course there's plenty of room for the script to turn political in the sequel. And there could be room for Favreau to explore it. We caught up with the director after the premiere and he was notably open to the idea. "A sequel will depend on how the movie does commercially," he said. "But I would do number two in a heartbeat." And once there's a few hundred million under the belt, hearts sometimes beat a little differently.

Babies, mamas, men and women

By Steven Zeitchik

Regular readers of this blog know there's nothing we enjoy more -- besides for random references to sports teams, that is (puzzling Jets draft, no?) -- than parsing weekend box office for trends. So what can this weekend's tally teach us? Well, "Baby Mama," a pregnancy comedy starring two women but with enough raunch gags to keep ye local frat house amused and quote-happy earned more in its opening weekend than last week's opener, "Forgetting Sarah Marshall," a male comedy in which (by writer Jason Segel's admission) the men get all vulnerable and teary and act like, well, women.

Michael McCullers' Tina Fey/Amy Poehler-starrer earned about half a million more, or 4% ($18.3 to $17.7m) than Judd Apatow's and Nick Stoller's pretext for writing really academic pieces about genitalia -- we mean poignant rom-com -- despite opening on fewer screens.

That means that by the new Hollywood rules, if you're making a comedy of love and raunch, you're better off aiming at women and sneaking in something for the men than the other way around.

Strictly speaking, this shouldn't surprise us given the demographers who are always telling us about female purchasing power. But since each of these movies camouflages its humor for one audience by aiming it at another, there's another lesson: Women don't mind seeing women act like men, but men don't want to see men act like women, at least not to the same extent.

Some gender-studies students are going to have a field day with this one.

Big wheels keep on turning

By Steven Zeitchik

Could "Trucker" be the first big feature deal to come out of Tribeca in years? Sure, James Mottern's drama, about a hard-bitten truck driver reconnecting with her pre-adolescent son after her ex falls ill, has so much minimalism, moodiness and blue-collar atmosphere it makes a Ray Carver story look like a chocolate milkshake (though with Michelle Monaghan at the center, it also has the most attractive truck driver you'll ever see; we'll never look at a CB radio the same way again).

But the film's premiere at New York's Village East Cinema -- for our money, home to the coolest old theater in Gotham -- drew a stable of acquisition execs Thursday evening. Buyers from Par Vantage, Sony Classics, Miramax, Searchlight -- and, most juicily of all, Harvey Weinstein, who rarely sits for festival screenings but turned out for this one for at least an hour -- all showed up to view the Plum Pictures title just a little while after Madonna's Malawi advocacy piece "I Am Because We Are" unspooled for distributors down in actual Tribeca.

With many heads of companies at home in either New York or Los Angeles, an overnight sale on "Trucker" is unlikely. But six figures and a respectable theatrical run -- something which hasn't been all that common at Tribeca over the last few years -- may not be too farfetched for the Cinetic-repped pic being handled by 42 West.

If you're thinking those elements makes the movie seem like a Sundance pic, you should. The movie actually was on a shortlist to play there this year until it became clear it wasn't ready. But Plum, which after last year's run with "Grace is Gone" and "Dedication" had a less auspicious Sundance this year with Craig Morgan's "Birds of America" and the Alan Alda-Matthew Broderick collaboration "Diminished Capacity," may have figured out a nifty little secret: Instead of premiering a movie into the maw of Park City because it feels like it belongs there, open the same movie in a smaller festival. That will make a tough-to-sell indie drama seem bigger and less difficult, and it could find buyers in a mood to spend money instead of to say no.

And, oh yes, do it after a really earnest screening of a documentary about an AIDS pandemic in Africa. That might help too. It could make a drama seem...not quite as bleak.

Who's your baby mama

By Steven Zeitchik

God bless the Tribeca Film Festival. Or someone should. Where else can you see Jeff Zucker, a slew of gossip columnists, a host of "SNL" alumnae like Steve Martin, Jimmy Fallon and Chevy Chase, a battalion of Endeavor agents, and, just to keep it indie real, Killer Films' Christine Vachon, muttering to her guest about "how bad" that prescreening commercial from the New York tourism board was.

Nowhere, apparently, but for the surreal precincts of the Ziegfeld on Tribeca night, which in this particular year topped off the Jane Rosenthal press conference/opening remarks (more opening-night films over the last seven years for Rosenthal-De Niro go-to studio Universal than not, she noted) with a screening of "Baby Mama," the movie that seeks to add an important contribution to the criminally underserved genre of the concept pregnancy comedy.

In case you were wondering, Bobby wasn't at either press conference or opening-night festivities, reluctant, as he was, to face the post-CAA heat -- we mean shooting "Righteous Kill" really, really far away, in Connecticut, a full hour up I-95 (Patrick Goldstein -- not a fan) -- so the crowd was feted not with the sobriety of "United 93" of two years ago or last year's goofy earnestness of Al Gore and John Bon Jovi. instead, after the film said group went directly to MOMA, in what what we're willing to gamble is the venerable institution's first-ever time tricked out in giant baby blocks and plush teddy bears.

As for "Mama," it's better than the buzz has it. Yet again, Universal has another adult-themed comedy aimed at the kid in the adult, or the other way around. Writer-director McCullers (behind a few of the "Austin Powers" sequels) more or less pulls it off -- Amy Poehler gets to ham it up in her preeningly blue-collar comedy self, Steve Martin steal the show as a New Ager (even if he was poaching more than a little from Tim Robbins' crunchy pretentiousness in "High Fidelity") and that foul-mouther wiseacre from "40-Year-Old Virgin" offer his trademark tough love while engaging in offhanded weirdness like fixing a wooden owl (yes yes, we know he's Romany Malco), even if it all does dissolve in a puddle of goo at the end.

Nowhere else could you see a comedienne try on the fake-pregnancy apparatus known as a '"he-tus" and get huge laughs from a lot of people in suits. Nowhere but Tribeca, that is.

French flirtations

Thierry Fremaux, you sneaky devil. We've had too busy a day running around a festival in this country to fully process the news of a big festival soon happening in another one. But obviously it was a big morning for Cannes, which announced its competition and several other lineups Wednesday morning. As THR Paris correspondent Rebecca Lefler reports, movies that people thought wouldn't be there --like Eastwood's "Changeling" and Soderbergh's twin Che pics --will sneak in under the wire.

On the other hand, noticeably absent are a handful of movies that, ahem, certain festwatchers projected could make it, including Fernando Meirelles' "Blindness," Guillermo Ariaga's "The Burning Plain" and Michael Winterbottom's "Genova." The middle one isn't ready, but 2929 and Ariaga could bring it to Venice, we're hearing. The first one keeps with the low Miramax profile at the fest (no "Brideshead Revisited" either). The last one we're still poking around on.

But though the feeling is of a thin field on U.S. and U.K. productions, international and multi-national selections -- with Wim Wenders, Walter Salles, Nuri Bilge Ceylan and the Dardenne Brothers premiering films -- feel more robust. And there's out-of-competition slots to the likes of Spielberg and Woody Allen. And the directors fortnight. So it may not be such a U.S.-light festival after all. And Thierry, you thought you could fool us.

Fey, as in quaintly unconventional

And speaking of Tribeca, and opening nights, and baby mamas (weren't we? oops, maybe that was a different conversation), we admit to being amused by this Videogum piece about "Baby Mama" and "Tina Fey-tigue," which is, well, exactly what it sounds like.

Brought to our attention by Defamer in an item that brilliantly parses the movie's spots, Videogum coins a great cognate. Oh, and the analysis is pretty good too.

Bobby, Jane and the seven-year itch

By Steven Zeitchik

In this, its seventh year, the Tribeca Film Festival is trying again to make this the year of the breakout. It's a noble attempt, one made nobler by the hiring of Gena Terranova, nee of the Weinstein Co., to streamline the slate and filter for quality/commerciality (well, the film-festival version of commerciality, at least). After all, as an exec involved in "Transamerica" a few years back, she's connected to the festival's only bona fide boxoffice hit, and that expertise/karma should rub off).

Along with indie-beat stalwart Gregg Goldstein, we run down some of the more promising titles in this year's line-up -- and with genre pictures like "From Within," dramatic comedies like "Bart Got a Room" (full disclosure: it stars our cousin -- no, not William H. Macy with a fro, the other guy) and thrillers like "The Caller," there is promise to spare.

Of course for all the changes the fest made to both the slate and the way movies are presented and screened, Tribeca still faces some of the issues it faces every year: buyers can be thin on the ground, movies can feel small and money can be scarce ahead of Cannes.

Plus this year there's the added concern with even markets at higher-profile fests have been rocky. John Sloss says it all when he notes that "The specialty market is in flux." When a bigtime seller like Sloss is saying that, you know there are obstacles.

The right -- or wrong -- side of the ledger

By Borys Kit

Fan-fiction films featuring characters from the likes of "Star Wars" or "Harry Potter" have been booming of late.

But this one featuring Batman and the Joker -- a spin on the new movie and some, uh, more current events -- is either hilarious or just ridiculously over-the-line, according to the viewers who've chimed in. Either way, we're sure it has Warners lawyers huddling up as we type. We'd say more but we just report the information, we don't comment on it (on something as sensitive as this, anyway). You can view the video here.

The strife before our eyes

By Steven Zeitchik

Vadim Perelman's "House of Sand and Fog" was one of the most artful, if at times self-conscious, depictions of loss and tragedy to come out of a major studio in a long time. But it looks like a Monty Python skit compared to the director's new effort, "The Life Before Her Eyes," a suburban-family drama, parallel-universe mystery, class allegory, sexual coming-of-age tale and school-shooting tragedy.

You know, that genre.

The movie, which opens next week, centers on a high-school student (Evan Rachel Wood, excellent in her well-honed modes of playfulness and precociousness), who survived a school shooting but watched her friend get killed in front of her. Wood then grows up to be, well, Uma Thurman, wracked with guilt over surviving the Columbine-esque massacre but living a perfect little suburban life.

Or does she?

The central mystery is whether Wood's character actually survives and is living the Thurman sections, or if she's inventing the whole thing in her head the seconds before the shooting. The movie melds ambitions with an almost reckless insistence: an auteurish vision (lots of stylized shots with spinning cameras aimed at the sky and close-up water lapping at the lens), an indie drama's sense of loss and contemplation and the sci-fi-ish conceit in which half the movie may or may not be taking place. Not since "The Lake House" has such an extravagant Twilight Zone hook been married to such a familiar genre. (As a movie that was first called "In Bloom," it may also may be the first example of a film that reverted to the title of its source material upon release, and as such the first film we can think of that gives out the big reveal in its name).

But "Life" is more than just a symbol of a kind of stylized filmmaking that we don't see as much as we used to; it's representative of the cold climate for indie drama, even the more ambitious kind. The 2929 production failed to land a satisfactory deal when it played Toronto last year and so is now going in-house through Magnolia, a perfectly good home for it -- assuming Wagner et al. didn't pay a very un-Magnolia price to make it.

Perelman's career is in a trickier place. He's the kind of guy who would've flourished in the indie drama-happy '90's. Now he's caught between the prestige world and the indie one, and though he's decidely more capable than your typical Sundance director -- check out this insightful interview with him on Box Office Mojo -- his movie still feel a little too distant and not quite grand enough for the current Oscar zeitgeist. (His next project is an adaptation of Ayn Rand's "Atlas Shrugged." You see what we mean.)

Perelman showed some self-awareness when he said at the premiere of his new pic earlier in the week that "it's a difficult film to get made and get out there and possibly even to watch." For the sake of a maturing director with no small amount of promise, let's hope America doesn't agree.

Pioneering spirits

By Carl DiOrio

The Pioneer of the Year dinner of the Will Rogers Motion Picture Pioneers Foundation is always one of the most well-supported charitable events in Hollywood. But it's not necessarily one of the most ripsnorting soirees in town.

That could change after Wednesday night's affair. In addition to the usual throngs of distribution execs from all the major studios, the event saw actor and comedian Kevin Pollack entertaining guests during dinner with impersonations of Jack Nicholson, Peter Falk and Alan Arkin.

Regal Entertainment chief Mike Campbell, long known for his charitable activities personally and corporately, was presented the annual Pioneer award by Tom Cruise, with the A-lister’s presentation to the exhibition topper preceded by an energetic set by former Creedance Clearwater Revival frontman John Fogerty.

Cruise seemed to wrap himself in the businesslike mantle of his current role in the United Artists exec team, offering warm if understated congratulatory remarks. There was certainly no jumping on couches, anyway.

Campbell, for his part, appeared most impressed by the mere presence of his boss at the event. "I want to thank Phil Anschutz for coming tonight, though he had to leave early,” Campbell said. "He even let them take a picture -- after he found out it was a charitable event."

Cannes-Watch: 'What Just Happened' will happen on the Croisette

One of the big Sundance disappointments will get a do-over of sorts at Cannes, where we're hearing "What Just Happened?" will make an appearance. Barry Levinson's tale of a producer's unraveling life was a potential blockbuster sale in Park City, then it wasn't, and then things just went quiet. Cinetic and CAA were repping the film at Sundance, at one point asking for high seven figures. But in a lukewarm sales climate, buyers didn't go for it.

The movie has its laughs but also has its problems -- its Hollywood satire doesn't bite sharply enough, and its non-biz sections don't carry the movie far enough to make it work as a drama.

But can the Art Linson-penned movie get more buzz on the beaches of the Riviera than than it did in the mountains of Utah?

It will be an interesting play for producer 2929, which had the big Cannes sale of last year with "We Own the Night" but has had less success with buyers at Sundance. The news also comes at a transitional time for Robert De Niro, who of course just left CAA.

Either way, the movie will pose an oddly self-referential viewing experience since its final scenes actually take place in Cannes. That's where the movie-within-a-movie that De Niro produced screens and where a bewildered De Niro poses the title question after a spell of bad fortune. We'll see if the film's reps are asking the same question once all is said and done.

UPDATE: Not only will the film be at Cannes, it will be closing the festival. That means it could play to smaller audiences, as more wanderlusting festgoers might have already flown the coop. But it also will give the film a showcase spot and help highlight it for the international distributors who are no doubt at the center of its do-over strategy. In any event, it's probably the first time a movie partly set on the opening-night of a festival will play its closing night.

Meryl, Meryl, Meryl, it's a Streep man's world

By Steven Zeitchik

First things first from the Meryl Streep gala (the best moment captured brilliantly here by S.T. VanAirsdale at Defamer) at Lincoln Center Monday night: The new "Mama Mia" drew some seriously mixed reactions.

Maybe it's just the footage that organizers sneak-peeked -- Streep belting out a 70's kitsch lyric as she spins on the seaside mountaintop of a Greek island, interposed with long shots of the scenic coast and tight shots of a wordless, fidgety Pierce Brosnan -- but what comes off as good camp in the live show translates here as the unintentional, Rocky Horror kind. A few in the audience started tittering until they realized it was supposed to play straight.

Afterward, some praised Streep's singing, but Universal and director Phyllida Lloyd, the British opera director making her feature debut, may be turning skyward in the hope of a box-office recitative that's more weighty than light comedy.

But enough about studio adaptations of decade-old theater adaptations of thirty-year-old Swedish pop ditties like "Wish I was dum dum diddle, your darling fiddle." The "Mamma Mia" clip reminded once again -- not that we, or you, needed it -- of just how much range Streep has, and how much of it comes unexpectedly from her voice. Whether she's singing for the pre-War working-class in "Ironweed," speaking in the sing-song condescension of Miranda Priestley in "The Devil Wears Prada" or scratching out a perfectly loopy Minnesota accent in "The Prairie Home Companion," Streep can adjust the vocal nuance so well everything else just seems to follow.

Then she came out and proved the point, projecting a kind of Broadway presence that managed to hold the attention of the thousands in Avery Fisher Hall like she was giving a dining-room toast. "I was really dreading this, for so many reasons. The dress. The speech. Seating the relatives with the stars." Comic pause. "So many minefields."

Lately, Streep has played either nurturing and conscience-stricken ("Prime," "Lions for Lambs") or commandeering and bluff ("Manchurian Candidate," "Prada"). As we sat there inhaling all that talent, we wondered if she might, in an upcoming stint as Julia Child, bring back some of comedy and flair she showed in her previous roles. Or maybe just play a rabbi.

And then on cue, she dismissed our fears like Miranda Priestley dismisses assistants. "The famous people will get gifts from me tomorrow," she told the audience. "I'm just giving you...the nod."