Yes, it's official. According to the Digital Entertainment Group, DVD sales dropped 9% and rentals followed at a flat-liner pace. While sales of Blu-Ray discs managed to offset some of this loss (they increased significantly), it has not been enough to produce a positive increase...
Thank God Oscar Night has come and gone with all of its suffocating hyperbole, ever-deepening cleavage, breathless fans and endless pre, post and live television coverage. I'm not sure I could take another day of Mickey Rourke trying to smile but looking vaguely like a...
September 30, 2005, my birthday night. I was in London, teaching securitization, missing Sylvain, browsing the news on the internet...
Dennis Toth's thought-provoking musings on film-finance led The Spectrum's blog editor to ask him some questions that have been on her mind around Oscar time…Q: How does film financing most directly affect what we see or don't see in local cinemas? What kinds of things...
As the weekend success of the new Friday the 13th has demonstrated, you seemingly can't go wrong with a horror film. Well, sort of.Despite its $45.2 million dollar take at the box office, the film will redoubtably drop like a rock from here on out....
R&R's Ann Rutledge contributes to "House of Cards," David Faber's definitive report on how a subprime credit crunch turned into what may be the most severe worldwide economic crisis in a century.The program, initially aired on CNBC on February 12, will be repeated over the...
As reported in Tuesday's edition of Variety, Mickey Mouse has taken a hard dive. OK, the king rodent is not exactly lying flat on the mat, but he is reeling toward the ropes (presumably with some cartoon stars circling around his head). Net income has...
An editorial by Sylvain Raynes and Phillip L. Zweig urges the Obama administration to end the credit crisis through a valuation process acknowledging that the intrinsic value of a security may be substantially greater than what a buyer is willing to pay for it in...
An article by Anousha Sakoui and Nicole Bullock in Financial Times entitled "Liquidation risk grows as DIP finance dries up" is one more piece of evidence that hybrid systems don't work. I'm referring here to the two corporate bankruptcy systems the U.S. has put in place:...
"The Academy will never vote for the comedy crap you make. They only vote for the arty crap."This blunt assessment of the Oscars® by the old Columbia Pictures mogul Harry Cohen was later proven wrong. At the time, he was arguing with the director Frank...