Posts tagged Hollywood
Hollywood takes some blame for box-office slump
Mar 30th
LAS VEGAS — With movie theater attendance in the U.S. and Canada down a whopping 20 percent so far this year compared with 2010, cinema operators and some studio chiefs surprisingly agree on at least one cause: The movies haven’t been very good.
“I think it all boils down to the quality of the movies,” said Gerry Lopez, chief executive of AMC Entertainment Inc., the nation’s second-largest theater chain. “This year we just haven’t had those kind of movies that cut across all quadrants of age, race and income.”
Michael Lynton, chief executive of Sony Pictures Entertainment, agreed: “So far there is just nothing terribly compelling about what we’re delivering as an industry.”
It’s an unexpected concurrence among two camps that have increasingly been at odds over changes in the business. But the current downturn in ticket sales — the worst in at least six years — is top of mind for more than 6,000 theater owners, studio executives and vendors gathered in Las Vegas this week for CinemaCon, the exhibition industry’s annual convention.
While audiences have outright rejected such recent movie offerings as “Mars Needs Moms,” “Sucker Punch” and “Take Me Home Tonight,” even hits like Justin Bieber’s “Never Say Never,” “The King’s Speech” and “Battle: Los Angeles” pale in comparison with the early 2010 blockbusters “Avatar” and “Alice in Wonderland.”
All of which has created an undercurrent of concern that changes in consumer behavior combined with the continued tough economic times, higher gasoline and movie ticket prices (driven in part by more premium-priced 3-D movies) could be drawing people away from theaters and toward less-expensive and readily available forms of entertainment such as Netflix streaming, video games and other digital media.
“For anyone in this business to not acknowledge the reality of the current forces at play would be doing the industry a disservice,” said Universal Pictures Chairman Adam Fogelson. “All of us are looking for ways to make sure this isn’t the time when theatrical moviegoing really does go away.”
The industry has gone through box-office slumps before but always has recovered. Many are hopeful that’s what will happen by May, when Johnny Depp sails into theaters with the latest “Pirates of the Caribbean” movie. At CinemaCon, studios are seeking to excite theater owners with previews of some of their highly anticipated summer sequels, including “Fast Five,” “The Hangover Part II” and “Cars 2″ as well as fresh event films like the comic book adaptations “Thor” and “Green Lantern.”
“As you look at the lineup of films this summer, there are some fantastic titles,” said Alan Stock, chief executive of theater circuit Cinemark Holdings Inc.
Even so, analyst Barton Crockett at Lazard Capital Markets predicted in recent research that a strong summer and holidays would still leave attendance down 2 percent for the full year.
Of course, the flip side of the optimism is that if the summer would-be blockbusters don’t deliver, attention on systemic problems will escalate.
“A weak summer is going to amp up everybody’s concerns,” Universal’s Fogelson said.
The decline in admissions is troubling Hollywood. The number of tickets sold per person annually in the U.S. and Canada has steadily fallen for most of the last decade to 4.1 last year, the lowest since 1993. In a recent presentation, Bob Pisano, president of the Motion Picture Assn. of America, attributed the trend in part to declining attendance among baby boomers.
Overseas, where Hollywood studios make most of their money and the largest U.S. theater chains have a growing presence, the news does not appear to be as bad. Although complete statistics are unavailable, Lynton estimated that international box-office receipts so far in 2011 are roughly flat with 2010.
The U.S. remains the largest movie market, however. To grow their business here and further differentiate it from the improving home experience, theater owners continue to pour millions of dollars into upgrading their auditoriums with new digital systems capable of projecting in 3-D.
Higher 3-D ticket prices have been a boon to theaters — generating some 20 percent of box-office revenues last year — but some in the industry believe it may be backfiring, especially at a time when families are cutting back on discretionary spending.
The average ticket price at theaters in the U.S. last year rose to an all-time high of $7.89, up 5 percent from 2009, according to the National Assn. of Theatre Owners. The increase is largely attributed to 3-D screenings, for which consumers pay surcharges of $2.50 to $4 per ticket. Most of this summer’s biggest films will be in 3-D.
“We believe that exhibitors’ core strategy of raising prices through 3-D premiums and pushing concession pricing as far as humanly possible is a dangerous strategy,” wrote Richard Greenfield, an analyst with BTIG Research in New York.
But others doubt cost is the problem.
“There’s nothing in the research that suggests rising prices are keeping moviegoers away,” Lynton said.
In a sign that the status quo may not be acceptable, theater chains have been taking steps to expand their businesses. Many now offer live events such as operas and sports. AMC and Regal Entertainment Group — the two largest chains — recently launched a joint venture to acquire and distribute movies in an effort to grow their supply at a time when the big Hollywood studios are cutting back on the number of films they make.
The move is also widely viewed as a response to the studios’ plans to start offering movies in the home as soon as eight weeks after they open in theaters — instead of the usual three-month wait — in a bid to stem declining DVD revenue. Exhibitors are outraged by the idea of “premium video-on-demand.” “Premium video-on-demand will definitely be a dagger in the business,” said Lyndon Golin, president of Regency Theatres in Calabasas, Calif.
Beyond the latest crop of high-profile flops, 2011 has also seen a number of movies come in on the low end of expectations based on pre-release polling. That has some worried that the habit of heading out to theaters may be slipping.
“When the audience is in a moviegoing mood, you pick up a head of steam,” Lynton said.
Still, exhibition executives express confidence that they know how to get that momentum back.
“I believe we have long-term systemic challenges that we must work to overcome,” AMC’s Lopez said. “But I like our chances as an entertainment option of the future.”
If there’s one thing nobody at CinemaCon will dispute, it’s that Lopez’s prediction must come true.
“I see no path to a healthy future for our business,” Fogelson said, “that doesn’t include vibrant, growing theatrical moviegoing attendance.”
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Richard Verrier reported from Las Vegas and Ben Fritz reported from Los Angeles.
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(c) 2011, Los Angeles Times.
Visit the Los Angeles Times on the Internet at http://www.latimes.com/.
Distributed by McClatchy-Tribune Information Services.
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From www.therepublic.com
Hollywood wants Red Riding Hood and Snow White to weave a box office spell
Mar 6th
Prepare for a fairytale invasion. Hollywood movie studios, in their constant quest for remakes and modern spins on old stories, are about to unleash a new wave of film versions of ancient European folktales.
The list includes an updated version of Little Red Riding Hood, two films based on the Snow White story, a movie of the old English fable Jack and the Beanstalk, a 3D Pinocchio, a version of Beauty and the Beast set in modern America called Beastly, and the unusually titled Hansel & Gretel: Witch Hunters.
The recent release of a new Disney cartoon version of the Rapunzel story called Tangled will be followed this weekend by the release of Beastly, whose monster is a high-school jock magically turned into an ugly freak due to his vanity and arrogance.
But the fairytale revolution will really get into top gear with the debut in the US of Little Red Riding Hood, starring the rising young actress Amanda Seyfried.
Like many of the coming rush of fairytale films, the movie takes the format of an ancient folktale, set in a village in a deep forest menaced by a predatory wolf, and gives it a contemporary feel.
In this case the project is clearly aimed at a teenage audience obsessed with awakening sexuality and the supernatural. Its director is Catherine Hardwicke of the hit vampire movie Twilight. “This Little Red Riding Hood looks completely made for the Twilight generation. It looks like it is teenage angst and very pale people,” said Professor Jonathan Gray, a popular culture expert at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.
The new films are attracting some of the biggest names in Hollywood. Jack the Giant Killer, which is to be directed by Bryan Singer, features Ewan McGregor, Stanley Tucci and Bill Nighy. The Hansel and Gretel film has signed up British actress Gemma Arterton. But perhaps the most anticipated are the twin Snow White films. Snow White and the Huntsman has Charlize Theron playing the villainous Queen, while Julia Roberts – still perhaps the biggest female star in Hollywood – has taken the same role in The Brothers Grimm: Snow White. “Julia was our first and only choice to play the Queen. She is an icon, and we know that she will make this role her own,” said producer Ryan Kavanaugh.
Nor is it just A-list actors who are being drawn to the genre. One of the main forces behind the new Pinocchio is the top Mexican director Guillermo del Toro, who is famed for his dark, fantastical visions. They may be a world away from the child-friendly film versions of the legend that most people are familiar with, but experts say his role in the new venture is no surprise.
Though previous Hollywood treatments of fairytales, such as the classic 1937 Snow White cartoon, have often been aimed squarely at family audiences, the ancient stories offer a wealth of opportunities to probe much darker themes. Beneath the magical surface of a fairytale, with its castles and princesses, often lurk ideas around sexuality, the dangers of growing up and leaving home, relationships between children and parents, and the threat that adult strangers can pose.
“Fairytales can be quite dark,” said Gray. He pointed out that the idea of locking up a pretty princess in a tower – as in the story of Rapunzel – or putting one to sleep with a poisoned apple because she is so beautiful, as in Snow White – can be seen as conservative morality fables about the dangers of young female sexual power.
“There is often a theme about the threat of female sexuality. They can be about imposing rules and limiting sexual power with acceptable boundaries. When Snow White hangs out with men, they turn out to be seven dwarves, and so they are not a sexual threat,” he said.
Such themes certainly seem to have helped attract Hardwicke to the Red Riding Hood story. In a recent interview with Newsweek, she said: “Why did she get in bed with the wolf … It represents a dark animal nature which is close to sexuality. In the traditional story, the wolf cross-dresses and lures her into bed. That’s pretty kinky right there!”
But there are other reasons behind Hollywood’s latest trend. Movie executives, faced with squeezed bottom lines and a US economy still struggling to recover from financial crisis, see fairytales as potential money-spinners. Hollywood history is littered with successful adaptations and the stories are already familiar to moviegoers, which means marketing a film becomes easier and cheaper.
“The entertainment industry’s appetite is voracious for content, plots and ideas and these fairytales work. They’ve been around for ever,” said Barry Brummett, a communications professor at the University of Texas, Austin.
From www.guardian.co.uk
How foreign movie heroes differ from Hollywood’s
Feb 27th
Los Angeles —
A big reason we love movies is because we love heroes. For most of the world’s moviegoers these days, at least those within the reach of Hollywood – which means, for better and for worse, just about everybody – heroism is scaled big and action-oriented, often in 3-D. You can be a darkly brooding Batman, Iron Man, or Spider-Man, you can be an avatar – you can, in other words, be an anti-heroic hero. But the template remains the same: comic-book-driven and larger than life.
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The film industries of Europe and Asia cannot compete with Hollywood’s hegemony, so they don’t even try. By default, Hollywood has dominated the realm of megacostly, special-effects-laden fantasias. Its 3-D extravaganzas are intended at least as much for the overseas market as for the domestic market.
How you portray heroism is often a function of movie-making economics. Rather than trying to beat Hollywood at its own game, film-makers outside America are more likely to favor moral heroism over physical heroism – for one thing, it’s less expensive to produce. Colin Firth’s stammering George VI in “The King’s Speech” embodies courage against fearful odds and you don’t have to wear 3-D glasses to enjoy his triumph.
It’s always useful to be reminded that there’s more to movies than Hollywood. The parochialism of my assumptions about movie heroism became glaringly obvious to me several years ago when I spent two weeks in Kolkata (Calcutta), India, as part of a government-sponsored cultural-outreach program, during which I lectured to college students about the films of the late, great director Satyajit Ray.
It was my first time in India, which also happens to have the world’s largest film industry. Bollywood movies – certainly not the lyrical, home-grown dramas of Ray’s realm – account for the overwhelming bulk of that country’s film fare. I had always believed that India’s vast poverty and illiteracy explained the success of the frankly escapist Bollywood movies, with their sudsy plots and deliriously spangly musical numbers. (I coined the term “Busby Beserkeley” to describe Bollywood musicals, and the phrase stuck.)
Imagine my surprise when I discovered, in speaking with the Kolkata college students, most of whom were highly educated and relatively well-to-do, that they, no less than the uneducated poor, were obsessed with Bollywood stars. All of Kolkata was obsessed with Bollywood. Posters of the latest Bollywood hits were bannered everywhere; the markets and shops were piled high with fanzines; the retail outlets and street vendors overflowed with DVDs. Shopkeepers and hotel workers would giddily reel off the plots of movies to me.
Bollywood stars, because they reign not only in India but throughout much of Asia, are, per capita, the biggest movie stars in the world. Brad Pitt is no match for Salman Khan. The dashing heroes and glamorous heroines of Bollywood may owe something to Hollywood, especially chaste Old Hollywood, but I think they owe much more to a far older tradition. The Bollywood movie stars are idols in a kind of ongoing pop-culture “Mahabharata.”
To watch a Bollywood movie in India, with an audience made up not only of college kids but of street urchins, loners, the natty and the shabby, and large, noisy multigenerational families, is to enter into a realm where movie stars are not merely admired, they are, literally, worshiped.
Hollywood stars still have the broadest global appeal, but, as the world economic landscape changes and American absolutism falters, the nature of that appeal may change.
Subverbal, highly exportable action stars such as Arnold Schwarzenegger and Sylvester Stallone are mostly part of Hollywood’s past, and they have not been replaced by younger counterparts.
Since the Hollywood movies that often sell best overseas are also the most cartoonish, does this mean that, in order to justify their salaries, stars like George Clooney, Johnny Depp, Tom Hanks, and Leonardo DiCaprio are going to have to muscle up and dumb down? Or does the potentially dwindling supply of globally popular hero-actors mean that a new species of star – perhaps with greater multicultural cred than the current Hollywood crop of white Western males – will arise to fill the vacuum?
Or will we be worshiping digital holograms instead? The movie heroes of tomorrow could well be the ones who look the best on your iPhone.
From www.csmonitor.com
Time’s ticking for Hollywood’s he-men
Feb 20th
This summer, 68-yearold Harrison Ford will be mixing it up with Old West-invading extraterrestrials in Cowboys & Aliens. Next month, 67-year-old Robert De Niro will star in the action thriller Limitless. When The Expendables II opens in 2012, the combined age of its top five prospective stars, God willing, will be 291 years.
The landscape of recent motion pictures, in particular Manly Movies, looks increasingly like the last days of the dinosaurs.
The performers are greying (never literally, of course), the shooting and editing are getting tighter (to suggest, rather than capture, physical exertion) and if one were to compare the future of Hollywood he-men to say, The Terminator, there would be few replacement parts in the warehouse. Who’s coming along to fill the shoes of Clint Eastwood, Sylvester Stallone, Arnold Schwarzenegger, Bruce Willis -or even Liam Neeson, who opens Friday in the highbrow espionage thriller Unknown? Orlando Bloom? Yikes.
“There’s Leonardo Di-Caprio, Tom Hardy is becoming a movie star, Christian Bale, a few others,” said Unknown director Jaume Collet-Serra, who may be obliged to be pro-Neeson but still has a point. “It’s hard to find an actor who has the physicality, the good looks, the charm all on top of being an amazing actor -that’s the most important thing, but not always what people pay attention to.”
It’s largely a question of gravity. And money: The older stars still draw crowds. “They do,” said Paul Dergarabedian, who tracks box office for the industry at Hollywood.com. “If the movie is cast properly, it doesn’t matter if the actors are younger or older, as long as they can sell it on screen.”
He said that while plausibility is important, acknowledging the age differential has become a tactic, too. “I think Red was a great example of a film that’s taking the concept of the aging action star and putting it front and centre,” he said, citing the recent comedy thriller starring Willis, Helen Mirren, Morgan Freeman and John Malkovich. “Sort of like The Expendables, which kind of said ‘if one older action star can’t bring people in, maybe five of them can.’ “
That film starred Stallone, Jason Statham, Jet Li, Dolph Lundgren, Steve Austin and Mickey Rourke (plus an uncredited Willis and Schwarzenegger), cost $80 million, and has thus far made $274 million worldwide.
Liam Neeson is not quite in that action-figureinspiring groove. He’s idiosyncratic -”an ‘edge case’ they call it in cyberworld,” said Tim Appelo of The Hollywood Reporter, who writes its Oscar blog, The Race. “He’s not typical. He got the Schindler part precisely because he had no firm persona,” Appelo said, referring to Steven Spielberg’s Schindler’s List.
“Spielberg wanted an actor who brought zero prior baggage to the part, so he could be completely mysterious and Schindler alone. There’s a kind of heroic remoteness to Neeson.”
That remote heroism certainly benefits Neeson’s performance as Unknown’s Dr. Martin Harris, who arrives in Berlin for a biotech conference, is saved from a watery car wreck by his plucky taxi driver (Diane Kruger) and, after a brief hospitalization, returns to a wife (January Jones) who doesn’t seem to know who he is. The plot is part Hitchcock, the action owes something to Bourne, and the star is 58 years old.
Which makes him younger than some of these guys (Schwarzenegger, Stallone and Robert De Niro are in their 60s; Eastwood, 80). But old enough to give pause when he’s cast -visa-vis the hallowed Hollywood tradition -opposite actresses as young as Jones, 33, or Kruger, 34.
“I find that very strange at times,” Kruger said with a laugh.
“And it was very important to Liam and myself -and I have to give credit to the studio -that there was no real romance between those characters. It’s more like Natalie Portman and Jean Reno (in The Professional), two people who come together at one point in their life.”
She agreed, however, that it would be tough to find younger actors who could play a character with as much psychic baggage as Martin Harris.
“They could play it,” she said, “but I think it would be a different movie, a lighter movie. Liam brings experience; he’s of a certain age, but he doesn’t even have to say anything -every line in his face gives a depth to the film. He’s not the 25-year-old punk-rock hot guy -not that I don’t like watching those boys. But with Liam, you know there’s always something underlying the story you’re about to watch.”
Who from the younger ranks is going to take over as the movie hero? “I used to think Jason Statham,” Dergarabedian said, “but he’s not that young anymore. Ben Foster? The actor has to be believable doing the things he’s doing on screen. Matt Damon has been very credible in the Bourne series and Daniel Craig as Bond, but they’re both a little older, too. Hard to think of someone in their 20s?
There might be that guy from G.I. Joe. What’s his name?”
Exactly.
From www.montrealgazette.com
Hollywood star urges state lawmakers to pass a movie tax credit and rebate bill
Feb 15th
Actor Cuba Gooding Jr. urged lawmakers to pass a bill that would provide tens of millions of dollars in tax credits for productions and movie infrastructure in the islands.
He said actors want to be here but studios have to make the numbers work. He recalled his time here shooting outbreak on Kauai.
“That experience for me was a dream come true,” Gooding said.
Years later he had a role in “Pearl Harbor” where he was asked to waive his fee.
“The producer said we’ll pay for you and your family because we don’t have money for the cast, we spent on all the other actors but we’ll let you stay there for extra time with our family as a vacation,” Gooding recalled. “I said, ‘I’m in.’”
Tthe companies that drafted the bill — Relativity Media and Shangri-La Industries — testified to a house committee last week adding a letter of support from Shangri-La advisor Bill Clinton. This week they defended the bill to the senate.
“How much are you putting in to all of this?” asked Sen. Rosalyn Baker. “Because I see a lot of stuff being asked of the state so I’m just curious what’s your investment?”
“I don’t know of any other studio that has come in here and said, ‘we’ll build stages and we’ll bring our movies here and we’ll bring our TV shows here,’” Relativity Media CEO Ryan Kavanaugh explained.
House and senate committee decision-making is yet to come.
Lawmakers meanwhile were sent an invitation to a downtown party with a separate email that says surprise movie star guests will be there. Whether star power will translate into tax benefits remains to be seen; putting his Jerry Maguire line in a new light.
“Show ME the money,” Gooding said to lawmakers.
From www.khon2.com
Arnold Schwarzenegger Seeks Return to Hollywood
Feb 12th
We all know the catchphrase that has been associated with Arnold Schwarzenegger since he starred in the 1984 movie “The Terminator.” He even committed it to concrete at Grauman’s Chinese Theater in Hollywood when his handprints and footprints were enshrined there as a major star of major motion pictures.
Now those words may apply to him again. Schwarzenegger may return to the big screen.
With the exception of some cameo roles like the one in the 2010 movie “The Expendables,” Schwarzenegger has not had parts in any movies since he was elected governor of California in October 2003. In recent years, the Republican has had his hands full as California and the rest of the United States have struggled through the recession.
When Schwarzenegger first took office as governor, his popularity was high and there was even chatter about the possibility of a run for the presidency. As President Barack Obama and his opponents known as “birthers” are well aware, a citizen must have been born in the United States to be eligible for the job.
Although Schwarzenegger, who was born in Austria, would be ineligible for the presidency, legislation has been introduced at various times to amend the Constitution to allow residents who have lived in the United States for at least 20 or 25 years to become commander in chief, assuming they win the election. One bill, introduced by Sen. Orrin Hatch of Utah, even became known as “the Schwarzenegger amendment.”
But talk of higher office has subsided. Although he had favorability ratings of 79 percent in 2003, according to the Gallup Poll, his approval rating fell to 25 percent in January, according to Public Policy Polling.
And Schwarzenegger has indicated that he would like to return to Hollywood. In a Twitter post on Thursday, he made a reference to the Creative Artists Agency, where his agents work, writing:
Exciting news. My friends at CAA have been asking me for 7 years when they can take offers seriously. Gave them the green light today. Funny, he didn’t think to use his catchphrase in the post.
From www.politicsdaily.com
Uncharted 3 created like a Hollywood movie – Naughty Dog
Feb 8th
Naughty Dog has likened the motion capture and voice acting procedure of Uncharted 3: Drake’s Deception to that of a Hollywood film.
The dev is currently hard at work on the third game in its trilogy, ahead of its release in November.
The Uncharted series has long been praised for its movie-like sections – something ND says it is keen to take to the next level in its new game.
“We have two motion capture spaces – a smaller one in the studio that lets us pick up smaller pieces, like idols, and then we have a dedicated stage at Sony Studios, and that’s where we get both the motion capture and the audio – because we do all of the dialogue at the same time – for both gameplay and cinematics,” Naughty Dog community strategist Arne Meyer told the PS Blog.
“It’s big enough for us to set up and perform everything from rehearsals to the final performances, and that approach, which is basically the same as producing a major motion picture, is what makes the performances so fluid and realistic in our games. When we’re in full swing, we’re doing new motion capture every week.”
Meyer also discussed the studio’s relationship with its main acting talent.
“We truly feel that they are part of the studio and they come down a lot on their own. Between working with them solidly for such a long period of time, and giving them input into what their characters are and should be, it’s collaborative and totally in the spirit of how Naughty Dog operates.
“They feel invested in Uncharted, and it’s really appreciated when they take the time out to come along with us to events. They’re popular around the studio and we generally just like having them around.”
An Uncharted movie is currently in the works. Scarlett Johansson is said to be favourite for the lead female role.
[ Source: EU PlayStation blog ]
From www.computerandvideogames.com
‘Angry Birds Rio’ Release Teams With Hollywood
Jan 29th
Take cover — a few well-known, dive-bombing birds will soon invade your local movie theater.
Angry Birds designer Rivio announced Friday it will release a special version of its popular app to tie into the release of the animated movie “Rio.”
In the game — called Angry Birds Rio — the Angry Birds characters are kidnapped and taken to Rio de Janeiro. It looks like gameplay will revolve around saving other captured birds, including two main characters from the upcoming movie, which is from the creators of “Ice Age.”
The partnership was announced at a press event on the Fox studio lot in Century City, according to the Los Angeles Times.
The deal seems to be a match made in heaven for both Rovio and Twentieth Century Fox. The game will benefit from being tied into marketing efforts — including TV spots, posters, and the film’s website. The movie will be able to piggyback on the pop-culture success of the game which has been downloaded tens of millions of times on Android, iOS, and other smartphone and console devices.
“It’s about taking that traditional entertainment experience — whether in theaters or on the TV screen — and creating a new level of engagement,” says Peter Levinsohn, president of new media and digital distribution for 20th Century Fox.
The plans work in well with Rovio, which has ambitious plans for Angry Birds — including television shows and even a movie based on the game.
“We are like birds of a feather,” said “Mighty Eagle” Peter Vesterbacka of Rovio. “This gets us massive global visibility, as if we had made our own movie.”
The game will be released in March while Rio, the movie, will open in theaters on April 15.
VentureBeat recently got a word in with “Mighty Eagle” about Angry Birds Rio.
Here’s the trailer for the film:
From www.pcworld.com
Doodle Jump game maker Lima Sky goes Hollywood with movie deal
Jan 29th
Doodle Jump, an enormously popular game on the iPhone, is going Hollywood in a marketing deal with Universal Pictures, which plans to cr0ss-promote the app in promotions for its upcoming live action and computer-animated comedy Hop.
Doodle Jump comes from humble indie roots. Igor Pusenjak and his brother Marko (their company is called Lima Sky) created the app 18 months ago and it has become a sensation with more than 8.5 million users on the iPhone. The deal is similar to another announced today in which Angry Birds creator Rovio will issue a new version of its game tied to the movie Rio coming from 20th Century Fox.
It’s eye-opening to see apps that were virtually unknown a little while ago, coming from unknown indie developers, can catch the attention of giant media companies and strike deals with them. It’s happening because platforms such as the iPhone are getting their hooks into the minds of consumers and becoming the brands of the 21st century.
Set for release in February, the free software update will allow Doodle Jump users to unlock a secret Easter level within the game and play as the film’s leading character. Hop is the second film from Universal Pictures and filmmaker Chris Meledandri, producer of Despicable Me, at Illumination Entertainment. The film Hop, which features Russell Brand as the Easter Bunny, will be released on April 1.
In Doodle Jump, players guide Doodle the Doodler on a journey up a sheet of graph paper, using the tilt controls of the iPhone, iPod Touch or iPad. Since its release, the game has risen into the cultural stratosphere, getting plenty of play and mentions from the likes of Jimmy Fallon, The Big Bang Theory, Rainn Wilson, the Jonas Brothers and others. Lima Sky was founded in July 2008. Calvin Lim, director of mobile for Universal Partnership and Licensing, said that Lima Sky’s game has captured the imagination of consumers and a partnership makes great sense.
In my panel at Digital Life Design, Igor Pusenjak said that although it’s a small company, it has hit No. 1 on Apple’s paid apps list in the U.S. The company has also licensed the game to GameHouse, which has published the game on Android phones. One of the ways that Doodle Jump has stayed popular is that the company frequently pushes out content updates, Igor Pusenjak said, much like a TV series.
“You have to keep adding new content to your apps to keep people coming back,” Igor Pusenjak said.
Previous Story: Egypt’s internet shutdown sparks a communications battle
Companies: Illumination Entertainment, Lima Sky
People: Chris Meledandri, Igor Pusenjak
From venturebeat.com
Classic Hollywood: The best golf movies
Jan 10th
It’s appropriate that the first major Pro-Am PGA golf tournament of the year, the Bob Hope Classic, which begins Jan. 17, was created by a comedian. Because let’s face it, the only really good movies about the sport are funny ones. The serious ones tend to be double bogeys with audiences, critics and golfers alike.
“When you are sending golf up, the stuff is great,” says golf journalist Jeff Silverman, who has written for such publications as Sports Illustrated and is working on a book about Pennsylvania’s famed Merion Golf Club. “But when you look at the serious attempts to do golf movies with messages about the importance of the game, they are absolutely weighed down by the pretense of the messages, which is why the funny movies work.”
Since Hollywood’s earliest days, golf has been a frequent movie subject (perhaps because so many studio execs and stars play; hence, the longtime tradition of the celebrity golf tournament). But turning that interest into popular films has been tricky.
Scoring a birdie in Silverman’s eyes is Ron Shelton’s 1996 romantic comedy “Tin Cup,” starring Kevin Costner as a washed-up golf pro working at a golf range who decides to qualify for the U.S. Open in hopes of winning the heart of a slick pro’s ( Don Johnson) girlfriend ( Rene Russo).
“Tin Cup” hits a hole in one, says Silverman, because Shelton “had the sensibility to understand that you don’t make movies about golf, you use golf as a window into the character. If the movie is just about golf, it’s absolutely dreadful.”
Early golf movies, such as W.C. Fields’ 1930 short “The Golf Specialist” and the 1930 musical comedy “Love in the Rough,” with Robert Montgomery, were all funny. “The whole idea of the clothes, the ball, the swing… The Three Stooges did a golf movie ['Three Little Beers'], and in the Our Gang comedy ['Divot Diggers'], Spanky used a monkey as a caddie.”
The first golf movie on most people’s minds is 1980′s “Caddyshack,” which scored below-par notices from the critics but became a cult favorite with audiences. Directed by Harold Ramis, the film starred Michael O’Keefe as a caddie at an upscale country club, Chevy Chase as the son of one of the club’s co-founders, Rodney Dangerfield as a nouveau-riche real estate tycoon and Bill Murray as a, well, Bill Murray-esque greens keeper trying to rid a gopher from the club.
Silverman, though, is far more enthusiastic about Adam Sandler’s 1996 “Happy Gilmore,” about an unsuccessful ice hockey player who discovers he has a talent for golf. The film is best known for a hilarious brawl between Sandler and “The Price Is Right” host Bob Barker.
As for the serious golf movies, don’t get Silverman started on the 1951 Ben Hogan biopic “Follow the Sun,” with Glenn Ford, which he feels is strictly miniature golf. “Ben Hogan is one of the great stories of all time, and ‘Follow the Sun’ may be the worse movie ever made.”
Not much better is the 2004 biopic disaster “Bobby Jones: Stroke of Genius,” starring Jim Caviezel (“The Passion of the Christ”) as the famed golfer. “He looks like he never saw a club in his life.” And Robert Redford’s 2000 golf parable “The Legend of Bagger Vance,” says Silverman, gets bogged down in its own pretension.
Ironically, the literature written about the game, from Ring Lardner to John Updike, he says, is “gorgeous.” Silverman was especially taken with Mark Frost’s book “The Greatest Game Ever Played,” about how working-class Francis Ouimet became the first amateur to win the U.S. Open in 1913.
But the 2005 film version, adapted by Frost, starring Shia LaBeouf as Ouimet, falls into one sand trap after another.
“Early on in the movie, you start getting all of these facts wrong,” he says. “You have a scene where young Francis Ouimet is studying a yardage book that are made to help you around the golf course. These books didn’t come until the 1970s, until Jack Nicklaus created them. The movie was over for me.”
This beloved comedian, known for playing the violin (badly), was a celebrity golfer in his day. Who is he?
Hint: He drove a Maxwell on his radio and TV series.
Answer: Jack Benny
susan.king@latimes.com
