Show Business Short Notes
A few brief notions:
The Lead Compass: The Golden Compass took in just under $26M when it opened last weekend. It’s probably headed to the basement as more holiday movies, I Am Legend in particular, open. For a film that costs upwards of $180M to make that’s south of bad news.
A few months ago I bemoaned the fact that all the fantasy epics seem to be of British pedigree. Compass was most likely greenlighted because studio heads believed it hewed to the successful paradigm: English fantasy novel + Lots of Effects = Box Office. But seriously, is Phillip Pullman (who wrote the book the big ol’ bomb was based on) anywhere near the recognition level as J. R. R. Tolkien, J. K. Rowling, or even C. S. Lewis? Nope.
Actually, maybe the problem isn’t the fact that studios imagined English fantasy books-turned-movies are automatic hits: maybe it underperformed because the original author didn’t have initials for his first name. P. N. O. Pullman doesn’t exactly roll off the tongue, does it?
Cut! Print! Don’t Strike the Set! If the WGA was hoping for a united front with other trade guilds against the AMPTP, they can forget it. The Director’s Guild of America (DGA) is moving to renegotiation with the studios with all due haste.
The DGA is not just comprised of the guys with megaphones and jodhpurs; they also represent the army of Assistant Directors, 2nd ADs, 3rd ADs and UPMs who control on-set production. The DGA has historically been extremely eager to reach accord with the studios: The only time they ever struck, back in 1987, the action lasted less than a workday.
Is the WGA working it’s way onto a limb? Hard to say.
End-Cap of an Era: The Mitchell Report on steroid use in Major League Baseball has been released. The neologism I noticed starting to pop up during the middle of the 2007 season– “The Steroid Era,” as in “The report effective provided a summary of the abuses of the Steroid Era”– has finally arrived.
Look for fleeting appearances of the next new coinage– I’m going to go ahead and guess “The Post-Steroid Era”, as in “Thank God we’re in the Post-Steroid Era now”—- to be media-inserted in the next few months, at least before Spring Training.
British Secret Cinema: I stumbled upon a film due to release in the UK Christmastime: St. Trinian’s. It chronicles the madcap adventures of a boarding school full of uncontrollable, incorrigible girls. The film features Colin Firth, Mischa Barton and the shortest pleated skirts this side of The Pussycat Dolls. Sure, it’s middle-brow entertainment, but nobody does middle-brow better than the Brits.
Question 1: This is apparently the sixth St. Trinian movie, from a series started in 1954. How the hell did you blokes in the UK keep this under wraps for so long?
Question 2: When does it land in the US?
–Skot C.