Thursday, March 18, 2010

'Dragon' versus 'Titans' versus 'Alice' in fight over 3-D screens

Paramount Pictures is using high-pressure tactics against theaters to book DreamWorks Animation's upcoming big-budget 3-D film, "How to Train Your Dragon" onto scarce 3-D screens around the country, according to industry executives.

"Dragon," opening March 26, will be going head to head against the swords-and-sandal 3-D picture "Clash of the Titans," from Warner Bros., which opens a week later, and Disney's 3-D "Alice in Wonderland," still drawing audiences and expected to remain in theaters for several more weeks.

Paramount Pictures is telling theaters that if they don't show the upcoming DreamWorks-produced "Dragon," on a 3-D screen, then it will withhold from the theater a 2-D version of the movie to play instead, according to four theater industry executives.

Who asked not to be identified for fear of reprisal. Many multiplexes only have a single 3-D screen, so not having a conventional version of the highly anticipated DreamWorks family film to play on their other screens would severely affect ticket sales.

"The message is: If you have one 3-D screen available and you don't play ["Dragon"], they're not going to give you the version in 2-D," one California theater operator said. "It's an underhanded threat."

Studios are also engaged in the mogul equivalent of hand-to-hand combat over scarce 3-D screens.

Last month DreamWorks Animation SKG Inc.'s Chief Executive Jeffrey Katzenberg, one of Hollywood's biggest champions of 3-D filmmaking, fired off an e-mail to Barry Meyer, chief executive of Warner Bros., over the studio's decision to convert "Clash of the Titans" to 3-D from 2-D and open it only a week after "Dragon" was set to debut in theaters.

Disney, meanwhile, is pressing theaters to continue playing "Alice," which so far has racked up more than $215 million in domestic ticket sales. Warner Bros. is aggressively lobbying them to forego "Dragon" in order to book "Titans" the next week, according to people familiar with the situation. The Warner Bros. picture is on track for a strong opening of about $50 million, according to market surveys.

A Paramount spokeswoman declined to comment about the studio's efforts to place "How to Train Your Dragon" on 3-D screens.

The jockeying among studios underscores how much is at stake with their costly 3-D bets in the aftermath of "Avatar," which has sent Hollywood scrambling to stud release schedules with the splashy special-effects films. A 3-D movie adds at least $10 million to the cost of a conventional 2-D production, making it crucial that films land on 3-D screens where studios recapture their investment through higher ticket prices.

The three largest U.S. theater circuits recently secured $660 million in financing that would double the number of digital 3-D screens, but it will be months before the technology is installed, causing an acute shortage. There are about 3,500 3-D screens in the U.S. and Canada, less than 10% of the total. That's not enough to accommodate two 3-D movies at the same time, let alone three.

The problem is acute for smaller regional theater chains that often have just one 3-D screen in a multiplex, forcing them into a tough decision, potentially alienating a studio upon which they rely for movies.

Nonetheless, with audiences showing a preference to see spectacles like "Avatar" in 3-D and ticket price surcharges boosting revenues, studios are teeing up one 3-D film after another. Nineteen 3-D movies are scheduled in theaters this year, up from 14 in 2009.

The outsized performance of "Alice" has only exacerbated the bottleneck for 3-D screens, since theaters are reluctant to pull it as long as it continues to generate tens of millions in ticket sales in coming weeks.

"This is the most unusual and intense situation that I've ever seen," said Robert Bagby, a 30 year-industry veteran who is president of Missouri-based B&B Theatres, which has 200 screens, only about 40 of which are 3-D. "Of course, it's a wonderful problem for us that 3-D is doing so well in the market that we're having these kinds of issues."

DreamWorks Animation's Katzenberg has frequently touted the benefits of 3-D to the public and as a boon to his company's investors. The studio now produces all of his movies in 3-D.

The normally outspoken Hollywood executive, who regularly has a high profile at ShoWest, the theater industry's annual trade show, wasn't a presence at this week's event in Las Vegas where the 3-D conflict was a hot topic of conversation. Instead, he held a private screening of DreamWorks Animation's May release, "Shrek Forever After," for overseas theater operators"

Katzenberg set up the screening for the third sequel in the "Shrek" franchise because the screening slot he wanted at the ShoWest convention featured rival Disney/Pixar's 3-D summer movie, "Toy Story 3," according to two people familiar with the matter. Katzenberg did not respond to a request for comment and a spokesperson for DreamWorks Animation declined to comment.

A spokeswoman for Paramount denied that a screening slot was sought. She said ShoWest requested to screen "Shrek Forever After," but the studio declined because that would prevent it from premiering the movie next month at the Tribeca Film Festival in New York

Katzenberg has downplayed the squeeze for 3-D screens and what it means for DreamWorks Animation, which has three 3-D movies this year. He told analysts recently that "we will have more than enough screens to accommodate our audiences in 3-D" for "Dragons."

One person close to the studio said Paramount was confident that it would book about the same number of 3-D screens to play "Dragon" as Disney secured for "Alice in Wonderland" on its opening weekend: 2,063.

Fights for 3-D screens should die down by next year once exhibitors have added enough screens to handle the supply of movies, said Gerry Lopez, chief executive of AMC Entertainment, one of the nation's largest theater chains. In the meantime, he said, both sides should try to work together.

"We've got people out there threatening theater operators," Lopez said. "It's a dangerous game . . . . I don't think this is part of a productive solution."
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Monday, March 15, 2010

Tim Burton's Alice still in US box-office wonderland

Over the past 13 weeks all the hyperbole in box-office circles has been reserved for Avatar, so it would be remiss not to praise the achievements of Alice in Wonderland. After less than two weeks in release, Disney's fantasy has already crossed $200m (£133m) in North America, becoming the first 2010 release to do so.

It is also single-handedly propping up the box office: thanks to Alice's commercial heft, box-office revenues are running about 9% ahead of the same period in 2009 – which, lest we forget, was a record year. Incidentally, combined with its international run, Alice has already amassed more than $420m worldwide.Summit's decision to re-release its multi-Academy Award winner The Hurt Locker is paying small dividends.

Because the movie has already completed its theatrical run and gone out on DVD, cinemas won't accommodate a wide release, ie more than 600 cinemas. However, nobody's grumbling about $828,000 from 349 venues. That puts Kathryn Bigelow's best picture winner on $15.7m. It's still the lowest grossing best picture winner since the dawn of time, but if it can get to $20m that would be a nice round number for financiers who think box-office grosses are all that matter.

The loser
Universal executives were expecting more from Green Zone than the $14.5m debut in second place. You'd think that the potent combination of Paul Greengrass and his Jason Bourne star Matt Damon would muster more than this, but it was always going to be a tough weekend with Alice still so fresh and several other new releases to choose from. Green Zone is a thrilling ride, and even though the protagonist's Bourne-like antics in the second half beggar belief, it deserves to prosper. As the only action thriller in release for a while, Green Zone has a chance to gain momentum. This week will be crucial as the movie heads into the second weekend and either thrives or dies on word of mouth. And it's brutal out there. Summit's romantic drama Remember Me, with the distributor's Twilight hero Robert Pattinson, crept out in fourth place on $8.3m and will also do well to keep going in a significant way, but this has more to do with the quality of the script than anything else. Also, does Pattinson amount to much on screen without Kristen Stewart? Time will tell.

The real story
Each year, Hollywood's lobby group, the Motion Picture Association of America, unleashes a volley of statistics designed to tell us how cinemagoing is the most affordable and magnificent pastime anybody could possibly contemplate, yielding ever-increasing revenues and profits for the distributors. We-ell, as we all know, that's not really the whole story. If it's true that the market can expand to accommodate more episodes of Harry Potter and Twilight and a second Avatar movie, it's also true that consumers are choosing to watch movies in different ways.

And that's where the MPAA's annual Theatrical Market Statistics Report, published last week, fails to tell the whole story. It tells us that ticket sales in North America in 2009 reached a record $10.6bn, while international and global revenues reached new highs of $19.3bn and $29.9bn. We learn that the average US ticket price climbed 4.4% to $7.50 and there were 1.42bn admissions, the first rise in two years and the highest level since 1.5bn five years earlier in 2004. 3D screens are booming all over the world, and 3D movies accounted for $1.14bn or 11% of that $10.6bn North American box office, with 20 3D movies coming out in 2009, compared with eight in 2008.

Nowhere does the MPAA adjust the figures for inflation, and nowhere do we learn about levels of consumption on VOD, cable, DVD and online. We know that repeat visits by moviegoers will turn a humble blockbuster into a glistening titan like Avatar, and indeed the report notes that "frequent filmgoers", defined as people who visit the cinema once a month or more and who currently make up 10% of the population in the US and Canada, accounted for half of all tickets sold in 2009. What the report doesn't say is how they were seeing movies when they weren't at the cinema. That's important, because once they can agree that cinemas and cable and VOD etc are all viable ways of consuming movies, maybe the studios can start to talk openly about the data.This may be the era of high-fidelity viewing, but the overall picture is murkier than ever.

The future
Next week brings an action comedy from Columbia called The Bounty Hunter, starring Gerard Butler and Jennifer Aniston – action comedies are notoriously difficult to pull off, so it's going to have to be very good indeed to stay afloat in the coming weeks. Fox has the comedy Diary of a Wimpy Kid, while Universal finally releases the action sci-fi Repo Men featuring Jude Law and Forest Whitaker.

North American top 10, 12-14 March
1. Alice in Wonderland, $62m. Total: $208.6m
2. Green Zone, $14.5m
3. She's Out of My League, $9.6m
4. Remember Me, $8.3m
5. Shutter Island, $8.1m. Total: $108m
6. Our Family Wedding, $7.6m
7. Avatar, $6.6m. Total: $730.3m
8. Brooklyn's Finest, $4.3m. Total: $21.4m
9. Cop Out, $4.2m. Total: $39.4m
10. The Crazies, $3.7m. Total: $34.2m
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Thursday, March 11, 2010

Movie Review - Alice in Wonderland

It appeared to be a match made in heaven; unfortunately, things never came together properly while making what could have been a tremendous achievement. The cinema gods decided to take one of the all-time great Disney movies that is known for its obscurity and have the two kings of weird remake the project.

Tim Burton and Johnny Depp have built their careers on making movies that show people things they either weren't expecting or haven't ever seen before. Speaking literally, this movie shows you plenty of things you didn't see coming. The visuals are jaw dropping on a level that competes with "Avatar," but it's not the presentation of the film that makes the movie fall short.

The movie loses its charm any time Mia Wasikowska, who plays Alice, is on screen. When your main character is the weakest link in a film, you're in trouble. She just wreaks of mediocrity. She lacks the quirk that a movie like this requires.

Even a solid performance from Depp wasn't enough to make up for the lack of a strong Alice character. Anne Hathaway did well playing the White Queen, but her role wasn't significant enough for an actress of her ability, despite the fact that she requested the role.

For the most part, the rest of the cast is made up of computer-generated characters. As I mentioned before, they look amazing and the voice acting was dead on. The standout of the computer-generated characters had to be the Blue Caterpillar, voiced by Alan Rickman.

I had high hopes for this movie. Perhaps they were too high considering remakes are rarely any better than their predecessors. I don't regret seeing this movie, but I can't give it a high recommendation when the character that the movie is based around is the biggest downfall. If insane visuals are enough to keep you entertained for a couple hours, see this movie, but if you're looking for something more in-depth, wait for it on Blu-Ray.
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Wednesday, March 10, 2010

Rapunzel renamed by Disney because it doesn't appeal to boys

The studio's forthcoming version of the Brothers Grimm story will be renamed "Tangled" after market research showed that boys do not like films with girls' names in the title.

Disney bosses believe that is the reason for the disappointing box office performance of its recent offering, The Princess and the Frog. The flaxen-haired heroine of Tangled will still bear the name Rapunzel when the 3-D film is released in November.

However, Ed Catmull, president of Pixar and Disney Animation Studios, said of the title change: "We did not want to be put in a box. Some people might assume it's a fairytale for girls when it's not. We make movies to be appreciated and loved by everybody." The Princess and the Frog would have fared better "if it wasn't pre-judged by its title", Mr Catmull told the Los Angeles Times.

Disney's efforts to attract boys to the film do not end there. The prince who finds Rapunzel imprisoned in her tower has become Flynn Rider, a swashbuckling character who bears more than a passing resemblance to Errol Flynn.

Roy Conli, the film's producer, said: "It's a really fresh, smart take on the Rapunzel story. In our film, the infamous bandit Flynn Rider meets his match in the girl with the 70 feet of magical golden hair. We're having a lot of fun pairing Flynn, who's seen it all, with Rapunzel, who's been locked away in a tower for 18 years."

Not everyone is impressed by the new project. Floyd Norman, a retired Disney animator, said: "The idea of changing the title of a classic like Rapunzel to Tangled is beyond stupid. I'm still hoping that Disney will eventually regain their sanity and return the title of their movie to what it should be." Disney has also shelved another film, The Snow Queen, based on the Hans Christian Andersen fairytale, fearing it will alienate boys.
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Tuesday, March 9, 2010

Disney restyles 'Rapunzel' to appeal to boys

Disney is wringing the pink out of its princess movies. After the less-than-fairy-tale results for its most recent animated release, "The Princess and the Frog," executives at the Burbank studio believe they know why the acclaimed movie came up short at the box office.

Brace yourself: Boys didn't want to see a movie with "princess" in the title. This time, Disney is taking measures to ensure that doesn't happen again. The studio renamed its next animated film with the girl-centric name "Rapunzel" to the less gender-specific "Tangled."

The makeover of "Rapunzel" is more than cosmetic. Disney can ill afford a moniker that alienates half the potential audience, young boys, who are needed to make an expensive family film a success. "We did not want to be put in a box," said Ed Catmull, president of Pixar and Disney Animation Studios, explaining the reason for the name change.

"Some people might assume it's a fairy tale for girls when it's not. We make movies to be appreciated and loved by everybody." So Disney is taking no chances with "Tangled," positioned to take advantage of holiday family moviegoing when it opens Nov. 24. The studio's marketing campaign will amp up the role of the dashing Errol Flynn-styled male lead to share the spotlight with the golden-haired namesake of the classic Brothers Grimm story. Hints of swashbuckling action are already being leaked online.

"In our film, the infamous bandit Flynn Rider meets his match in the girl with the 70 feet of magical golden hair," wrote the film's producer, Roy Conli, on Disney Animation's Facebook page. "We're having a lot of fun pairing Flynn, who's seen it all, with Rapunzel, who's been locked away in a tower for 18 years."

Flynn Rider, of course, is nowhere to be found in the original "Rapunzel" story.

In the Grimm tale, a prince riding through a forest is enticed by Rapunzel's sweet singing and climbs up the tower where the imprisoned girl is reachable only by her golden tresses. The prince is hardly the boastful swordsman type, let alone a charming rogue. And in Disney's latest version, the demure princess is transformed into a feisty teen.

Disney hopes the introduction of the slightly bad-boy character will help it tap the broadest possible audience for "Tangled," emulating the success of its corporate sibling, Pixar. Pixar's movies have been huge hits because they appeal to girls, boys and adults. Its most recent release, "Up," grossed more than $700 million worldwide.

"The Princess and the Frog" generated considerably less -- $222 million in global ticket sales to date.

"Based upon the response from fans and critics, we believe it would have been higher if it wasn't prejudged by its title," Catmull said.

In rethinking "Rapunzel," Disney tested a number of titles, finally settling on "Tangled" because people responded to meanings beyond the obvious hair reference: a twisted version of the familiar story and the tangled relationship between the two lead characters.

However, some in the Disney animation community think the name change is misguided.

Floyd Norman, a retired Disney and Pixar animator, lampooned the new name with a cartoon on his blog that depicts Rapunzel in her tower brandishing a machine gun and declaring "Rapunzel Salvation: This Is Not a Princess Movie."

"The idea of changing the title of a classic like 'Rapunzel' to 'Tangled' is beyond stupid," said Norman, who worked on films including "Mulan" and "Monsters, Inc."

"I'm still hoping that Disney will eventually regain their sanity and return the title of their movie to what it should be. I'm convinced they'll gain nothing from this except the public seeing Disney as desperately trying to find an audience."

Rapunzel isn't the only Disney princess to have a boy problem.

Concluding it had too many animated girl flicks in its lineup, Disney has shelved its long-gestating project "The Snow Queen," based on the Hans Christian Andersen story. "Snow Queen" would have marked the company's fourth animated film with a female protagonist, following "The Princess and the Frog," "Tangled" and Pixar's forthcoming "The Bear and the Bow," directed by Pixar's first female director, Brenda Chapman, and starring Reese Witherspoon.

Since the release of its first movie, "Toy Story," in 1995, Pixar has uniformly featured male leads in its films, including Buzz and Woody; Mr. Incredible, the middle-aged superhero in "The Incredibles"; and Lightning McQueen, the stock-car star of "Cars."

But princesses have played an integral role in Disney's animation division since the 1937 debut of "Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs" all the way to last year's "Princess and the Frog." Princesses and other female protagonists helped lead the 1980s and '90s revival of the animation unit with "The Little Mermaid," "Beauty and the Beast" and "Mulan." The difference between those releases and "Princess and the Frog" is that those earlier films weren't marketed as princess movies.

The female characters emerged as a brand only in 1999, when Disney Consumer Products lumped nine of the favorite Disney princesses together to sell toys, clothing and other merchandise. That licensing business accounted for $3.7 billion in retail sales last year. Even though "Princess and the Frog" was a box-office disappointment, dolls depicting Disney's first African American princess flew off shelves last holiday season.

Over the last decade, "Rapunzel" has had a tortured history. The movie was conceived as a straightforward retelling of the German fairy tale about a girl who, at the age of 12, is locked away in a tower in the woods by an enchantress.

Initially, veteran Disney animator Glen Keane, who had worked on "Beauty and the Beast" and "The Little Mermaid," was developing "Rapunzel" in the hand-drawn tradition. Then in 2003 Disney retooled the movie creatively and technically in response to the popularity of such computer-animated tales as "Monsters, Inc." and "Finding Nemo."

Redubbed "Rapunzel Unbraided," the new version attempted to echo the snarky tone of DreamWorks Animation Studios' blockbuster "Shrek." Two years after Disney's 2006 acquisition of Pixar, Keane relinquished his director role, citing health issues, and was replaced by Nathan Greno and Byron Howard, who were asked to give the film a fresh take.
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Thursday, March 4, 2010

Malice in Wonderland - News of the World puts the boot in

News of the World film critic Robbie Collin's review of Alice in Wonderland has become something of an international news event. Collin slated the film in his review as a "bums-in-the-air fiasco" and gave it one star.

But he reserved special venom for its star Mia Wasikowska: "In 2008, when Tim Burton chose Mia to play Alice, she had never acted in a big feature film before.

And that remains true to this day. Cos bejaysus – there's not been a lead character this paper-flat since the South Park movie.

The girl's got all the warmth of a refrigerated trout, and a face you'd expect to see Blu-Tacked to the inside of a London phone box. She's not a heroine she looks like she's ON heroin." Wasikowska is Australian, and stories about the review have run on the ABC and Sydney Morning Herald and other websites. Sydney Morning Herald readers were so interested in the story that it was the second most popular on its website, behind its top story, Thousands gather for naked Opera House photos, a story Monkey feels the Screws would have been proud to run.
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Wednesday, March 3, 2010

Alice In Wonderland Movie Review

A hyper-digitalized, dizzying makeover of an enduring classic succumbing to an identity crisis of its own, Tim Burton's Alice In Wonderland veers uneasily between razzle dazzle weirdness and standard kid entertainment.

And with a narrative more internalized in the collective audience consciousness than even the most sequelized of blockbusters, this Alice instead opts for showmanship over storytelling, and whose dense enchanting visuals progressively wear thin.

There's something about becoming parents that transforms directors and actors alike, no matter how dark their cinematic rap sheets, into giddy performers more intent on clowning around as entertainment for their own offspring, than focusing on viewer expectations, and this film seems to be no exception. And though the surreal surroundings and quirky characters are visually intoxicating, that journey to the cartoonish lower depths with not much of an itinerary in mind that we haven't seen before, fails to satisfy with its tedious notion of repetitious theatrics and extravagant goofing around.

A kind of sequel to an original that doesn't actually exist, at least not as a Tim Burton production, the film possibly imagines Lewis Carroll's own followup to Alice's Adventures in Wonderland and also Through the Looking Glass had he been so inclined, though elements from both figure a great deal in this return to that trippy subterranean realm. An older though not wiser Alice (Mia Wasikowska) is reimagined as a nineteen year old, but the childlike interactions with her hallucinatory environment oddly remain, in a kind of stunned arrested development.

And not much is particularly made of Alice as perplexed cipher to this alternately euphoric and nightmarish world. The center stage clearly belongs instead to the supporting cast of delirious lunatics and babbling creatures, especially main maniacal attractions Depp's Mad Hatter and Bonham Carter's swollen headed bratty queen, who repeatedly upstage the wandering bewildered womanchild along the way.

With its busy and bustling world teeming with extravagant sights but somehow as hollow at its core as say, a rabbit hole, Alice In Wonderland is a little like a splendid feast for the eyes at dinner time, not intended for devouring. Or rather, a tantalizing travelogue a little heavy on tunnel vision.
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