Recent box office may be slow, but it was a hot summer for the Feds. In June a series of major arrests were made against fraudulent film companies. In each case, the federal indictments read like a primer on boiler room flimflam. The cases are...
Making a movie is often compared to crawling through broken glass. Trying to exhibit a movie is the same only worse. Often, it feels as if you are on your hands and knees in an exploded glass factory and it’s a long way to the...
The 3rd quarter reports are coming in, and it has been a great year for the major studios. Too bad they're all still stuck making movies, because that has been the consistent downer to the biz. Disney had a net income rise of 11 percent thanks...
As Ronald Reagan once said, facts are stupid things. In light of this, the impending release of the faux documentary Apollo 18 and the viral advertising campaign surrounding it is a pretty good reminder about the slippery post-modernist nature of facts in the virtual universe. Much like...
There are two ways to raise money for a movie. Dumb luck is one way. It is certainly preferable to the other method, which involves lots of hard work and a high tolerance for failure. A wistful hope for dumb luck can be found in...
What do Sarah Palin, Ayn Rand and David Zucker have in common? They have all given us proof that political posturing often translates into box office poison. The spectacular no-go of the recent release of the documentary The Undefeated may not have an effect on Palin's...
Long considered a staple of the movie market, the romantic comedy appears to be dead. Well, maybe not dead. But it has taken a beating and seems to be mutating. The new variation could be called the anti-romantic comedy with an emphasis on mismatched lovers...
Everybody is looking for the next game changer -- something radically new that is pretty obvious and doesn't necessarily alter anything, but that is still a clear indicator of future developments and concisely changes the whole structure of the industry while not exactly changing anything....
Who exactly goes to movies these days? It's an important question, and the current answer is a tad murky. It is especially murky when you are trying to pinpoint the modern representative model for the movie audience. More than fifty years ago the answer seemed pretty...
Stop the press! Paramount Pictures has just crossed the billion dollar threshold, and the summer has barely begun. Oh whee! They are rolling in it and everything is beautiful (at least along their legendary gates on Melrose Avenue). Hollywood loves the smell of success, and Paramount's...