Does Hollywood Need to "Win Back" its Audience?

Filed under: Box Office, Distribution, Exhibition, Movie Marketing, Movie News, UK Box Office, Cinematical, UK Box OfficeOn any slow news day, you can count on some major publication busting out a "death of Hollywood" story. This week, it's the Guardian, whose Jeremy Kay has a piece entitled "Hollywood Must Plot a New Course to Win Back its Audience." The gist: Hollywood is on the decline and has to come up with some game-changing plan to forestall its downfall.

Of course, this doomsaying comes at the end of the highest-revenue summer in movie history. Not discouraged, Kay nonetheless claims that the American movie industry is in trouble -- why? As best I can tell, a couple of reasons. First: the movies this summer were bad. Well, yeah, by and large they weren't great. (Curiously, he cites the exceedingly not-great Iron Man 2as a counter-example.) On the other hand, Inception, one of the summer's biggest hits, was maybe the most ambitious and challenging tentpole blockbuster ever. Toy Story 3 was a near-masterpiece that busted all demographic barriers. Was there more than the usual number of stinkers? Slightly, probably. Was there a glut of franchise flicks and sequels? Yes, as has been the case for years. Does this suggest a systemic problem, or a new one? I don't see how.

Second: attendance is down -- 552 million tickets sold, the lowest since 1997 (540 million). (Here is the source for this.) First, this is a blip; by way of comparison, 563 million tickets were sold in 2005. Nothing to write home about during a by-all-accounts weak movie summer, especially since revenues increased. Second, weekly movie attendance has been declining in this country since 1930. Let's not sound the alarms now. Continue Reading

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The Next Must-See Pot Comedy: 'We're the Millers'

Filed under: Comedy, Deals, New Line, Scripts, Newsstand, Movie News, CinematicalIs any pot comedy a must-see? I say yes. Not because I'm a pothead, although unlike Clinton, I have inhaled, but because potheads are hilarious! It's been a while since we've had a good stoner comedy. Smiley Face was actually kind of frustrating in the way that stoners occasionally are. There's Leaves of Grass, starring Edward Norton twins, but it will only be in theaters for a very limited run in September with a DVD release in October, and it's not really a pothead comedy per se, anyway. Hopefully, this dry spell will soon be over with New Line's We're the Millers (no relation).

The L.A. Times has the exclusive details about the plot, which is about "a veteran pot dealer [who] decides to create a fake family (the eponymous Millers) to move a large shipment of marijuana across the U.S. border from Mexico." Will wacky hijinks ensue? Will he forget where he put his keys? Will he start giggling at the border crossing? Who knows! I can't wait to find out.

So far, the directors in the running are Charlie St. Cloud's Burr Steers, or Sean Anders and John Morris, the guys who wrote Hot Tub Time Machine and Sex Drive. Anders also directed Sex Drive. You can guess who I'm rooting for to take the reins, right? Not the one who directed the Zac Efron weepy.

The script was originally written by the guys behind Wedding Crashers, Steve Faber and Bob Fisher, and is now getting a polish from Rich Rinaldi and Dan Fybel. Rinaldi and Fybel wrote a few eps of The Sarah Silverman Show, including "High, It's Sarah," which indicates that they're rather familiar with the topic. Watch a clip of "High, It's Sarah" on Amazon
and YouTube. Apparently, Steve Buscemi was originally going to star, but there's no more news on that front for now. Do it, Steve! Do it!

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Michael Caine Talks Inception?s Ending ? Spoiler Warning!

SPOILER WARNING – Inception is perhaps the best movie of 2010. Christopher Nolan’s masterpiece regarding dreams was both loved by critics and a box office hit. Going back to it, one of the elements that make Inception so awesome is it’s ending – which is open to interpretation. In an interview with the BBC?s Chris [...]

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