April 1
Globes producer says company is reason show a hit
By Anthony McCartney, Entertainment Writer
LOS ANGELES (AP) – The longtime producer of the Golden Globe Awards has asked a federal judge to uphold its broadcast deal with NBC, arguing that it helped restore the show’s reputation after a scandal in the early 1980s.
Dick Clark Productions and the show’s organizers, the Hollywood Foreign Press Association, are locked in a federal lawsuit over who owns broadcast rights to the glitzy awards show, which draws in millions of viewers each year. The HFPA sued the production company last year claiming that it sold the broadcast rights to the show through 2018 without proper permission.
Attorneys for Dick Clark Productions, also known as dcp, however claim they have rights to produce the show as long as it airs on NBC.
They wrote in a filing Monday that the production company spent years restoring the reputation of the show after controversy about whether an award was improperly bestowed knocked the Globes off major networks for a decade. CBS c anceled its broadcasts of the show after the HFPA awarded Pia Zadora a best newcomer award allegedly after intense lobbying by her husband.
The filing references the Zadora controversy and claims the HFPA is attempting to cut the producers out of its share of profits now that it “has built the Golden Globe Awards show into a highly lucrative production generating millions of dollars annually for the HFPA.”
A federal judge will determine who owns the broadcast rights during a trial scheduled to begin in September. The association has said it needs the issue decided with enough time to solicit a new producer and broadcaster if it wins.
“Simply stated, those facts are that dcp licensed NBC seven years of television broadcast rights to the Golden Globe Awards Show that dcp did not have,” HFPA attorney Linda J. Smith wrote in a statement in response to the filing.
She wrote that the only way the production company could have licensed the show to NBC would have been with the association’s permission and that had not been granted. The HFPA has claimed the NBC deal is worth far less than the true value of the broadcast.
After the CBS cancellation, the Golden Globes were taped for several years and eventually returned to a live broadcast on cable network TBS. It has aired on NBC since 1993, which dcp claims is a result of its work and reputation to restore the show’s luster.
This year, 17 million people watched the ceremony according to the Nielsen Co.
The HFPA is comprised of about 90 members and has been repeatedly accused of handing out nominations and awards to court Hollywood stars – claims the association denies.
Malaysia’s 1st gay film makes profit in 5 days
By Sean Young
KUALA LUMPUR, Malaysia (AP) – Malaysia’s first gay-themed romance film has become a swift box-office success, attracting curious cinema audiences who rarely get to see movies centered on sexuality because of strict censorship in this Muslim-majority nation, its producer said Wednesday.
The Malay-language movie, called “Dalam Botol,” or “In a Bottle,” grossed slightly more than 1 million ringgit ($330,000) in its first five days, recouping its production and marketing costs of 970,000 ringgit ($320,000), said Raja Azmi Raja Sulaiman, who wrote and produced the film.
The movie depicts a Muslim man who has a sex change operation because he believes it will please his male lover, but his effort ends in heartbreak for both of them. Some gay rights advocates have called it an unfairly negative portrayal of gay and transgender people.
Part of the movie’s financial success is likely due to intense advance publicity, including earlier speculation that the government-run film censorship board might ban it.
The box-office results “prove that Malaysian audiences can handle such movies, that they’re more open and not so conservative anymore,” Raja Azmi told The Associated Press. “I hope it’ll inspire more films that are meaningful and linked to the reality of people’s lives.”
Raja Azmi declined to predict how much the movie might ultimately make. According to the government’s film development agency, “Dalam Botol” has the lowest production budget of seven Malaysian movies that opened so far this year and is the fifth to breach the million-ringgit mark.
Raja Azmi said “Dalam Botol” is a neutral work that is not meant to support or slam gays, stressing it is based on the experiences of her friend who had sex change surgery in Thailand. It stars heterosexual actors who are seen bare-chested together on a beach and in bed, but the movie only shows them hugging without any kissing.
Raja Azmi had to submit her script to censors before filming. She was advised to change the original title – “Anu Dalam Botol,” or “Penis in a Bottle” – and remove a bedroom conversation.
Raja Azmi said her next film will likely be a “fantasy drama” about a young man who has relationships with older partners, both male and female, but whose closest friend is a fish in a bowl that suddenly transforms into a man.
Former film academy exec James Roberts dead at 87
BEVERLY HILLS, Calif. (AP) – Former film academy executive James Roberts, whose 35 years with the organization included the establishment of the Margaret Herrick Library, has died. He was 87.
Academy officials say Roberts died Monday from emphysema.
Roberts joined the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences as controller in 1954 and he was promoted to executive director in 1971. During his tenure, the academy staff tripled in size and the organization moved into its Beverly Hills headquarters.
Roberts also helped oversee the conversion of the historic Beverly Hills “Waterworks” building into the Herrick Library, which has grown into one of the world’s most comprehensive cinema research facilities.
Roberts is survived by his daughter, Jana, and granddaughter, Jamie Michelle.
Hollywood leaders say weak business will rebound
LAS VEGAS (AP) – Hollywood is in a tailspin at the box office, but industry leaders say business will bounce back soon enough.
John Fithian, who heads the National Association of Theatre Owners, and Chris Dodd, new chief of the Motion Picture Association of America, offered reassurances Tuesday that the business was simply going through a cyclical downturn.
Few recent movies have grabbed people’s interest, Fithian said at CinemaCon, a Las Vegas convention for theater owners.
Hollywood had an unusually strong first quarter last year because of “Avatar” and a few other early hits, but revenues are down about 19 percent so far this year compared to 2010.
At CinemaCon, studios are showcasing a strong lineup of summer and holiday films, and some predict Hollywood will rebound with record revenue for the year.
O’Donnell to move into Winfrey’s Chicago studio
By Caryn Rousseau
CHICAGO (AP) – The Chicago studio where Oprah Winfrey tapes her soon-to-end talk show soon will be home to Rosie O’Donnell’s latest daytime television effort, which is set to debut on the Oprah Winfrey Network this fall, Harpo Studios announced Tuesday.
The announcement ends speculation about what will become of Winfrey’s Harpo Studios on Chicago’s West Side when “The Oprah Winfrey Show” ends taping this spring. Winfrey opened the studios in 1990.
“I’m delighted to welcome Rosie to the studio I’ve called home for so many years,” Winfrey said in a statement.
The network announced last summer that O’Donnell would return to television with a one-hour talk show to air on OWN. The network said at the time that the show would be based in New York.
“I can’t wait to do my show from Chicago,” O’Donnell said in a statement. “It’s a dream come true … beyond the beyond.”
O’Donnell previously hosted “The Rosie O’Donnell Show” from 1996 to 2 002, earning six daytime Emmy awards. O’Donnell also spent time on “The View.”
Harpo Studios presidents Erik Logan and Sheri Salata called the announcement “an exciting new chapter” for the company.
The final original episode of Winfrey’s show, which has been on the air for 25 years, is scheduled to air May 25.
‘Mad Men’ season 5 pushed back to 2012, AMC says
NEW YORK (AP) – AMC says “Mad Men” is definitely coming back, but the new season won’t be on the air until 2012.
The network’s announcement on Tuesday came amid reports of ongoing negotiations between Lionsgate, the studio that produces the series, and its creator-executive producer, Matthew Weiner (WY’-nur).
The announcement took note of the delayed start in shooting the new season, which will be the series’ fifth. In the past, “Mad Men” has aired in the summer or early fall.
The much-acclaimed drama stars Jon Hamm as an advertising executive and divorced family man working in Manhattan in the 1960s.
‘Trek’ captain Abrams revisits youth in ‘Super 8’
By David Germain, Movie Writer
LAS VEGAS (AP) – J.J. Abrams is making good use of his boyhood apprenticeship shooting super-8 movies.
The director of 2009’s “Star Trek” and creator of TV’s “Lost” revisits his childhood with this summer’s “Super 8,” about a band of kids shooting a monster movie who end up documenting a train wreck that unleashes an alien force.
The movie is the most autobiographical he has worked on, Abrams said in an interview at CinemaCon, a Las Vegas convention for theater owners where he showed off footage Monday night.
The youths in “Super 8” are doing exactly what the 44-year-old Abrams was doing three decades ago, when he was obsessed with making his own horror films and monster flicks.
“It was sort of an uncanny thing shooting it, because it felt like I had gone back to my childhood in a way that was just incredibly surreal and oddly disturbing,” Abrams told The Associated Press. “There are moments where I was like, ‘My God, this is exactly w hat it was like.’ The set dressing, the costumes. Certainly, some of the subject matter was just very transportive.”
Due in theaters June 10, amid Hollywood’s onslaught of visual-effects and action tales, “Super 8” began as a quiet drama about teen filmmakers in a small town. Abrams decided that while he loved the characters he had created for that scenario, it needed something to make it an event audiences would want to see.
At the same time, he was working with distributor Paramount Pictures on a sci-fi adventure about a train that crashes while carrying an alien presence from Area 51.
“The problem with that premise is I didn’t have characters that I loved and cared about inside that world. So I had a sort of premise on the one hand with no characters I could get inside of, and on the other, I had characters I was inside of with no story. So I thought, fit them together,” Abrams said. “Why don’t they answer each other’s problems and become one thing?”
Abrams has been making sci-fi movies for decades. He fondly recalls a visual effect he created by making an alien ship out of papier mache and model parts, then suspending it in front of a makeshift rear-projection screen displaying footage shot from a moving car, so it looked as though the ship was flying.
“I was always trying to do things that any kid now with a computer would fall over laughing at the preposterousness of it,” Abrams said.
“Super 8” has an alien master among its producers in Steve Spielberg, whose blockbusters include “E.T. the Extra-terrestrial” and “War of the Worlds.” Spielberg also gave Abrams an early job as a teenager.
After reading a news story about Abrams and other young filmmakers, Spielberg’s office contacted him with an offer: repairing and restoring the super-8 films Spielberg shot in his own youth.
Jack Black takes Po the kung fu panda to 3-D realm
By David Germain, Movie Writer
LAS VEGAS (AP) – Jack Black figures if any action hero deserves the 3-D treatment, it’s his pudgy panda with the martial-arts moves.
Black joined DreamWorks Animation colleagues Monday night to show off extended action scenes from “Kung Fu Panda 2” at CinemaCon, a Las Vegas convention for theater owners.
The 2008 original took in $630 million worldwide in just two dimensions. But the sequel due out May 26 will be in 3-D, with the extra box-office revenue that generally follows as fans shell out a few dollars more to gain the illusion of depth.
Black said the 3-D action will make “King Fu Panda 2” more of a thrill ride, dropping viewers right into the heart of the battles.
“My feeling is that 3-D with the right people, the right artists and technicians flying it, is amazing and definitely enhances the experience for the right movie,” Black said. “‘Kung Fu Panda 2’? Yes, it will make it more exciting and dynamic and amazing to watch. Whereas, let’s say, there was going to be ‘My Dinner with Andre 2.’ I would say not necessary to do 3-D.”
Ken Burns’ next project for PBS: Vietnam War
NEW YORK (AP) – Having already done the Civil War and World War II, Acclaimed documentary filmmaker Ken Burns is working on a documentary about the Vietnam War.
PBS said the 10- to 12-hour film by Burns and longtime partner Lynn Novick will be broadcast in 2016.
Burns said his film will tell the human stories of Americans and Vietnamese affected by the war, along with those of Americans who protested against it. He said that four decades after the war’s end, most people have opinions about it but few truly know its history.
PBS is rebroadcasting Burns’ “The Civil War” next week to commemorate the 150th anniversary of the beginning of that conflict.
New film fits into civility discourse
Burns is bringing his new film to Philadelphia as part of a larger initiative to promote a more civil national discourse.
Burns’ film “Prohibition” will premiere this fall on public television. It’s being shown in Philadelphia this weekend to kick off a National Constitution Center forum called “Civility and Democracy in America.”
Burns said Friday that the Prohibition era has similarities to the current political climate. He says that it’s essential for Americans to confront difficult issues with civility, or else our democracy suffers.
About 50 people are joining in panel discussions on Saturday and Sunday at the Constitution Center, a museum dedicated to explaining the U.S. Constitution. Future events will be held around the country in the coming months.
Nickelodeon launches anti-bullying campaign
David Bauder, Television Writer
NEW YORK (AP) – The popular children’s television network Nickelodeon is the latest voice to raise awareness of digital bullying.
Nick, the most-watched TV network among kids ages 2 to 14, will begin an on-air public service campaign Monday featuring some of its stars offering advice on what young people should do when confronted with hostile texts, emails or Facebook posts.
The advice offered in one ad featuring Ashley Argota of “True Jackson, VP” and Gage Golightly of “The Troop”: Sign off the computer; don’t reply to a hostile messenger; block bullies from access; make a copy of the message to show to an adult you trust.
“It’s not tattle-telling,” Golightly says. “It’s standing up for yourself.”
The issue has received national attention after the suicides of teenagers who were cyberbullying victims. President Barack Obama held a White House conference on bullying earlier this month. Nick is collaborating with the advocacy group Common Sense Media, which has also worked with MTV and the Disney Channel on spreading the word about the issue.
The hope is that the anti-bullying effort can become as pervasive and successful as campaigns calling for a designated driver who has not consumed alcohol when friends are out drinking, said James Steyer, CEO and founder of Common Sense Media, which offers reviews and advice for parents.
Miranda Cosgrove and Nathan Kress of Nick’s “ICarly” are also participating in the campaign, which will last for two years, said Marva Smalls, Nick’s executive vice president for public affairs.
“We are happy that our talent agreed to be a part of it because that would make it resonate even more for kids,” Smalls said.
Half of young people ages 14-24 said they had been the victim of cyberbullying, according to a survey conducted in late 2009 for The Associated Press and MTV.
“We have to be laser-focused on finding solutions to the issue of cyberbullying,” Steyer said.
Nickelodeon is an important partner for its ability to reach kids as they’re just starting to use the Internet and cellphones, he said. Nick is also publicizing Common Sense’s “Rule of the Road” for online behavior, urging young users to guard their privacy and assume that everyone in the world can see whatever they are posting.
Nick will also host a discussion board and have information available on its web page devoted to parents who want to learn about the issue.
