Posts Tagged ‘Disney’

Dear Pixar,

Allow me to explain to you why Cars 2 might forever be known as your first real “flop.”

Some people thought that it was inevitable – that it was just a matter of time before you did something less than extraordinary. You have had one of the most incredibly successful run of releases going all the way back to your first full-length feature film in 1995’s Toy Story. With each new film it appeared that you could do no wrong, following up each critical and financial success with another. What’s more is you have continued to raise the bar for filmmaking practices in general, not just with computer animated family fare. You have become the yardstick to which all storytelling of your ilk must be measured, but it appears the time come when you have finally failed to measure up to yourself.

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What could "The Expendables" teach us, besides why you don't want to pick a fight with any of them?

Back at the beginning of Summer we gave a preview of three films that were to come out that have something in common. What these films share is a focus on a tight-knit group of ex-military soldiers who work towards a shared goal of some kind. With The Losers it was about getting revenge, with The A-Team it was about living up to one’s duties as a patriot, and with The Expendables it was about serving the human condition. As you may have noticed, the motivations of the groups got progressively nobler, from serving selfish incentives to fulfilling an intangible obligation to heroic morals; namely the moral that the strong have to protect the weak. The three movies, and by extension the three groups in these movies, may share a similar basic premise, and may interact within their respective contexts in a similar way, but their differing motivations distinguish them from each other more so than we may have anticipated. Likewise, they also shared more in common than we previously thought. What exactly, though, can we learn from comparing them further?

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The agreement between Disney and Ron Tutor and Colony Capital (now dubbed Filmyard Holdings) to sell Miramax and its library has been made official. The latter will purchase the studio for $660 million, including the rights to its books, developing projects, and other assets. The deal is expected to close sometime between Sept. 10 and the end of the year.

“Although we are very proud of Miramax’s many accomplishments, our current strategy for Walt Disney Studios is to focus on the development of great motion pictures under the Disney, Pixar and Marvel brands,” said Robert Iger, Disney president and CEO. “We are delighted that we have found a home for the Miramax brand and Miramax’s very highly regarded motion picture library.”

Disney agreed to distribute Miramax films that have already been completed under its ownership.

Complications still persist, however, as The Weinstein Co. still owns the rights to a handful of coveted films that reside under the Miramax label. Filmyard Holdings would need Weinstein’s approval before any sequels or remakes of these films could be made.

Source: Variety

Quick Opinion: It’s still not a given that Filmyard will be able to pay the entire asking price for Miramax, but even if it did there hasn’t been much consideration for how well the company is going to be able to finance films in the near future. The Weinsteins had a strained relationship with Disney largely due to financing restrictions. It will be interesting to see how strongly Filmyard will be pinching their pennies, though at least they don’t have to worry about funding any smaller branches of Miramax, as The Weinstein Co. took Dimension Films with them in their 2005 exit agreement. The selling of Miramax might be in the books, but its future is still very much uncertain.

Metro Goldwyn-Mayer is drowning in debt, but its survival behooves its investors

In order to play catch-up with the latest news that has happened over the past few days, here are some of the more notable headlines aside from Despicable Me‘s opening weekend box-office numbers (which reportedly exceeded $60 million).

Metro Goldwyn-Mayer Requests 6th Debt Extention

The longstanding Hollywood studios is reportedly almost $4 billion in debt. More than 100 lenders who will assume control of the company soon (due to this debt) are in the process of phasing in new management, but in the meantime the company still owes the lenders a $250 million payment with a $200 million interest tag, which must be paid by July 15th. However, MGM will have more time to come up with these funds if the lenders grant the company a sixth extension, which they have until July 13th to do.

Disney to Finally Sell Miramax?

Disney has made an agreement (but not an official deal) with a group headed by construction executive Ronald Tutor and joined by Colony Capital that will sell the latter Miramax studios, along with its 611 film library, for $650 million. Only $300 million is available in equity to Disney at the moment with more to be raised in the near future, and so a $200 million debt is to be expected for Tudor and Colony Capitol if the deal goes through. Disney appears to have confidence that the buyers will be able to raise the money.

The Weinstein Co. still claims to have interest in buying Miramax, but their 2005 exit agreement happened because they felt Disney’s asking price of $650 million was too high. If the Tudor/Capitol talks fall through, Weinstein will reportedly consider making another bid. If the current deal does become official, it will raise questions about the rights to certain films that Weinstein still owns due to their exit agreement. Miramax will not be able to make sequels or remakes for any films Weinstein owns without their approval.

Academy Changes Rules for Animated Films

The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences’ board of governors has released new rules about which animated films can be nominated for the Best Animated Feature category. The original cutoff for animated shorts was a 40 minute maximum, and animated features had to be at least 70 minutes. The gap has been corrected to include animated films over 40 mins in the feature-length category.

Also, the board has decreed that motion-capture animation does not qualify as true animation, which is the traditional “frame-by-frame technique”. So, mo-cap animated films will not be eligible for Best Animated Short or Feature Oscar categories. The new rule regarding animated films is as follows: “An animated feature film is defined as a motion picture with a running time of greater than 40 minutes, in which movement and characters’ performances are created using a frame-by-frame technique. Motion capture by itself is not an animation technique. In addition, a significant number of the major characters must be animated, and animation must figure in no less than 75% of the picture’s running time.”

Netflix and Relativity Media have made a deal that will allow the video-rental giant to stream up to 30 of the studio’s films during the “traditional pay-TV distribution window.” Netflix has deals with all major studios that allows them to stream online a certain amount of those studios’ films, however up until now only Disney and Sony were allowing the streaming of their movies during this period.

The deal will begin with only the 10-12 films that Relativity will release over the next year (their typical output) but Netflix will be able to max out at 30 over the next five years. Both companies have stated that they believe this deal will be the beginning of a different age of distribution, away from pay-TV channels.

“Our continued goal is to expand the breadth and timeliness of films and TV shows

Netflix's streaming rights continue to grow, which will possibly help smaller studios gain better exposure

available to stream on Netflix,” Netflix chief content officer Ted Sarandos said.

“We have always been about finding new ways to grow and monetize our business,” Relativity chief Ryan Kavanaugh said. “This clearly is a natural step in the evolution of the movie business and opens up a whole new world of revenue and marketing opportunities.”

Source: Hollywood Reporter

Quick Opinion: That Netflix is now making streaming deals with non-major Hollywood studios should be encouraging for those who are excited about the idea of “big” Hollywood not having as big a monopoly on exposure. With more streaming movies being from smaller (but not small) production and distribution studios the greater leverage they have in making distribution deals with those bigger companies. The more people see your films – and the more evidence you have that they do – gives you more creative authority because there is less reason to bend over backwards to appease a big distributor’s standards. One easy example to cite is how Disney doesn’t tell Pixar how to make their films, they simply get a cut of the profits for distribution. What this all could do is open up an opportunity for production studios like Relativity (Lionsgate, Focus Features, Rogue Pictures, etc.), who prefer to create movies for peripheral audiences.

It’s a question that’s plagued me for a while now: whatever happened to big Hollywood movie musicals?  Movie genres typically go through cycles of popularity and I think we’re due for another round of flashy, dance-filled musicals.

Busby Berkley's kaleidoscopic dance numbers, like this one in "Footlight Parade" (1933), helped make American musicals world famous

Musicals have been a long-enduring genre since the early days of film.  In fact, the very first sound film was a musical—1927’s The Jazz Singer.  When it became a runaway success, studios rushed to create more musicals, some of which became the beginnings of a series.  Warner Brothers’ triumph with The Gold Diggers of Broadway led to The Gold Diggers of 1933, which became one of the most celebrated musicals of all time thanks in large part to Busby Berkeley’s intricate choreography.  RKO Radio Pictures first paired dancers Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers—who danced together in nine films—in 1933 in Flying Down to Rio, creating arguably the most famous dancing couple in film history.  Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer released The Broadway Melody in 1929, which not only started a series but also won the Academy Award for Best Picture.  As time went on, production companies made more and more musicals until the genre reached its greatest popularity in the 1940’s and ‘50s.

Though many studios made musicals during that time, MGM arguably became the company most associated with producing expensive, opulent and immensely successful musicals.  They produced Easter Parade, Summer Stock, An American in Paris, Singin’ in the Rain, The Band Wagon, Seven Brides for Seven Brothers and Guys and Dolls, as well as numerous others.  Those films were a mixture of song and dance and while they weren’t exactly realistic, they were always entertaining. MGM musicals have always been my favorites and when I think of the kind of musicals I’d love to see now, I imagine huge productions with the same glamour and spectacle as MGM’s greatest musicals.  I’m talking musicals with big, expensive set pieces and extended dance sequences with dancers wearing costumes of every conceivable color.  I’m talking great songs that not only convey exactly what the character feels, but are also catchy and make the audience want to sing along.

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Woody and the gang are back this weekend in Pixar's "Toy Story 3"

ComingSoon.net recently conducted an interview with Toy Story 3 director Lee Unkrich and producer Darla Anderson. Unkrich has been the co-director for Toy Story 2, Monster’s Inc., and Finding Nemo and has been part of Pixar’s creative team since the company’s beginning, which was why he was given the job of directing the Oscar-winning and highly prestigious studio’s first “threequel.”

In the interview Unkrich and Anderson reveal some interesting tidbits about how Toy Story 3 got off the ground, and how the creative minds behind it were able to make it happen.

For starters, Unkrich and a few others tried getting the film started back when Toy Story 2 was released, ready to continue on to another story involving the characters they grew to love. However, legal troubles with Disney kept the film from being made and so the studio was forced to put the idea of a third movie on the back burner. When Disney eventually bought Pixar, the red tape was finally removed and the studio was free to pursue the project head-on.

Michael Arndt, who wrote the script for the film, was met by Unkrich and the others at Pixar after they looked at a copy of the screenplay for Little Miss Sunshine. They liked his work for that movie so much they immediately wanted to get in touch with him in order to maybe start working together. Later that same year Arndt was awarded an Oscar for Best Screenplay for Little Miss Sunshine, which helped give the studio more confidence that they were working with the right guy.

The interview covers a dozen other issues like these, which help paint Pixar as a company that redefines the word “harmony” when it comes to how its creative teams work together to create such memorable films. Definitely a good read for those of you looking forward to Toy Story 3 opening this weekend.

Miramax has long been considered a haven for independent financing and distribution, but with it being limited to only a few films per year who will pick up the slack?

Every few months or so, I get into this strange mood where I think the film industry has become all hype and no substance and I feel nostalgic for the movies I used to love.  Typically during these periods, every film I see only seems to confirm that sense and I grow increasingly disappointed until something finally snaps me out of it.

This time last year, I found myself in the midst of one of my film industry doldrums and I walked into Greg Mottola’s coming-of-age film Adventureland expecting yet another gross-out teen comedy like his previous film Superbad.  However, what I encountered was a film that restored my faith in the medium.

I remember the moment exactly.  Kristen Stewart’s character Em and Jesse Eisenberg’s character James are simply driving in a car as the Velvet Underground’s “Pale Blue Eyes” plays on the radio.  They have just left a bar after Em’s secret lover and his wife walk in and the couples share an awkward and loaded exchange.  Em is clearly thrown by the encounter and the scene that follows basically shows her reaction to it.  As she drives, Em’s face goes from sad to angry to disappointed to confused in a matter of seconds, displaying all of the complicated emotions she feels.  And it was during that scene that I remembered how much I love film and how powerful film could be.  It wasn’t just Stewart’s incredible performance or the music choice or the way Mottola filmed it, it was the combination of all those things.  It was the realization that I was seeing a truly extraordinary moment of creation happening on the screen and I had suddenly regained that passion for movies I had experienced as a child.

I’ve recently felt myself moving toward another bout of movie despondency so I popped in my Adventureland DVD and prepared to have my faith restored.  On a whim, I watched the previews before the film and one of them happened to be a roundup of Miramax films, the same company that distributed Adventureland.

As the preview rolled, I realized how many Miramax films I’ve enjoyed throughout the years.  I mean, this is the production/distribution company that first sparked my love for movies all the way back in 1996 with the release of Anthony Minghella’s The English Patient.  I may not have fully understood all the film’s themes at eight years old, but I certainly appreciated the beauty.  The passionate yet tragic love story of the central characters and the gorgeous cinematography are the reasons the film remains one of my favorites even today.  Miramax was the company that sparked my love of musicals too.  Sitting in a half-empty theater in the middle of the day watching Chicago was a positively transformative experience.  The sex appeal and the combination of stage performance and cinema that only film could supply was positively incredible.  Miramax was even the company that taught me about post-modernist referencing: I delighted in the way Wes Craven’s Scream deconstructed the horror genre and was positively astounded by the endless layers of pop culture reference Quentin Tarantino used in the Kill Bill films.  So I began to wonder, what happened to Miramax?

Miramax began some thirty years ago in New York as an independent production and distribution company founded by Bob and Harvey Weinstein.  The goal of the company—named for the Weinsteins’ parents Miriam and Max—was to produce and distribute independent films which were often more notable for their artistic value than their potential box office earnings.  Between their opening in 1979 and 1993, Miramax distributed such films as Sex, Lies and Videotape and Reservoir Dogs.  However, it really began to flourish after the Walt Disney Company bought it in 1993.  After the sale, with more financial backing at their disposal, the Weinsteins were able to run the company fairly independently of the rest of the Disney family.

The Weinsteins had always been fairly aggressive in their business practices, from acquiring films to acquiring promising filmmaking talent, and that same style carried over in their Disney period.  Nowhere was this aggressive business style more apparent than the company’s Oscar campaigns.  Perhaps the best example of a successful Miramax campaign came in 1998 when Shakespeare in Love beat Saving Private Ryan for a Best Picture Oscar.  According to a New York Magazine article from 1995, Miramax spent an estimated $5 million campaigning for the film and its arguable whether it would have been so fortunate without such significant backing.  Miramax carried on in this manner with one successful Oscar-winning film after another.  And then 2005 rolled around.

The Weinsteins had a tenuous relationship with former Disney CEO Michael Eisner over issues like financing and creative matters and when it came time to renew the brothers’ contracts in 2005, the negotiations went so poorly they ultimately decided to leave to create The Weinstein Company.  Miramax continued relatively unchanged under the direction of Daniel Battsek until this past January when Disney closed the its New York and Los Angeles offices and made it a part of the larger Disney infrastructure, thereby reducing the production output to only a handful of films per year.  Though companies like Summit Entertainment and even The Weinstein Company have showed interest in purchasing Miramax from Disney, it’s likely the $700 million asking price, as reported by The Deal Magazine, will mean the company will stay in Disney’s possession for years to come.  However, the real question in all this madness is what company can audiences expect to take up the creative slack?

Miramax’s most obvious heir is The Weinstein Company.  In it’s few short years, it has already made some impressive films like quite a few of this year’s Oscar nominees including Inglourious Basterds, Nine and A Single Man.  And it has quite a few promising films in the pipeline including two Sundance Favorites, The Company Men starring Ben Affleck and Chris Cooper and Blue Valentine starring Ryan Gosling and Michelle Williams.  However, another independent company that might give the Weinsteins a run for their money is Summit Entertainment.  Former Paramount Vice Chairman Robert G. Friedman and Patrick Wachsberger established Summit in April 2007, but it’s already shown some promise.  It produced and distributed this year’s Best Picture winner The Hurt Locker and with the cash cow that is The Twilight Saga as one of its properties, Summit shows no signs of disappearing anytime soon.

Regardless of what the future may hold, I’m sure there will always be films to help remind me why I fell in love with the medium in the firs place.  And if not, I can always pick something from the Miramax library for a little reminder.

Disney's "Alice in Wonderland" has made the majority of its profits off 3D ticket sales, but did the technology justify the higher ticket price?

There is a big debate going on about the influx of 3D movies that has been going on the past few years, and continues going on strong. Some claim that the technology has already reduced itself to a gimmick, while others believe wholeheartedly that it is the future of cinema. Who is right? Can anyone be wrong? In order to come to any kind of conclusion, we first have to look at the facts.

Much of this topic comes down to economics. An article in Variety by Pamela McClintock examines this angle in-depth, and answers a lot of questions regarding why the film industry is so keen on this latest and greatest technology. To put it simply, there is a lot of money in it. The unfathomable success of James Cameron’s Avatar has driven a number of studios into a frenzy, spurring them to make some 2D movies into 3D in order to cash in on the popularity. The upcoming Clash of the Titans (April 2^nd) is one such film that was made into 3D at the 11^th hour. For some, these half-baked conversions are one of the major points of contention. The claim is that such last-minute conversions are adding to the thinking that 3D technology is nothing more than a money-grabbing gimmick. This may be true, but consider this: producing a film in 3D from the get-go adds $20 million to its budget almost automatically, while converting a film into 3D during post-production only adds $10 million to the budget (some studios even claim $5 million). The issue over post-production conversions, then, may not entirely be an issue about getting more money from audiences, but also about saving money. So, it is not completely about the first goal of business (making profit) but also the third (reducing cost). But what about the second goal (increasing revenue)? Read the rest of this entry »

Director Joseph Kosinski at Comic Con 2009

For those of you who missed it, ComingSoon.net published the first of three articles documenting their visit to the set of Tron Legacy this past week, which is the long anticipated sequel to the sci-fi cult classic Tron (1982). This first piece covers a number of elements about the project but mainly focuses on detailing the circumstances which have led the film to being made at this point in time.

One such detail is Disney’s (who owns the rights to the franchise) decision to hire Joseph Kosinski to direct the movie. For starters, he is a first-time director with a background primarily in commercials and his studies are rooted in architecture (he has a Masters from Columbia University in the field), which make him a peculiar candidate for the job. Nevertheless, everyone seems convinced that he withholds a great vision for the film. Steven Lisberger, the director of the original film, is fulfilling a consultant’s role on set and also is encouraged by the work Kosinski’s doing.

Actor Jeff Bridges, also from the original, is reprising his role as programmer Kevin Flynn. His role here wont be very big because his character’s son is the main protagonist this time around, but it is nevertheless integral to the story and helps bridge the gap between the two stories.

“Joe, our director, was an architect,” says Bridges. “That’s where he’s coming from. It’s interesting, different filmmakers, where they come from and what they bring to the film and he’s an architect and so the film has a very heightened design feel to it. By the way, this is his first film. Can you imagine? I don’t know if it’s the most expensive ever made but it’s right up there. To have a first-time guy… Got to give Disney credit for taking that risk. They were smart because he’s such a calm, can-do guy. He’s gonna pull this off. He’s out of commercials, and I saw some of the technology that he had available to him that he could use. It was basically the same reason that I did the first one.” – ComingSoon.net

For those interested in keeping up with Tron Legacy until its eventual release in mid-December, this set visit article series is definitely something to check out and keep checking up on. This opening article steers clear of spoilers, and because ComingSoon.net is publishing it you can feel pretty safe that you wont run into them later on.