The Hollywood Reporter: Risky Biz Blog

This Wire-Walking World

By Steven Zeitchik

Upon seeing "Man on Wire," -- James Marsh's gripping documentary about Philippe Petit's quixotic (but successful) attempt to stealthily rig a wire and walk between the Twin Towers in 1974 -- for the third time the other day, following Sundance and Tribeca viewings, we were struck by how well the movie plays in the summer.

That's not for the usually counterpogram-y reasons, the ones about how 'It's so different from anything else out there.' In fact, quite the opposite. "Wire" is not nearly as different from a summer tentpole as you might think. Like, say, "The Dark Knight," "Wire" also is a chronicle of one man's sweeping (and potentially overreaching) ambition, centers on the dominance but ultimate feebleness of city institutions and offers breathtaking aerial shots to boot.

Petit has been turning up at screenings, and saying things, as he did at Tribeca, about his madcap vision that somehow all makes sense in the end. "I was really hungry for beautiful places to put a wire," he told the TFF audience in May. "When I saw the towers they pulled me by the sleeve. It became my dream-slash-nightmare."

The movie's been chugging along nicely - after widening the last two weeks, Magolia has the pic to nearly $1 million, though its per-screens last weekend dropped  below $4000. Even if it ends up near $2 million, though, it will be a nice score for the Sundance pickup.

Speaking of Sundance, the next few weeks will be a huge test for a bigger Sundance pickup, "Hamlet 2" the Steve Coogan vehicle (and, given how much he's driving the thing, his plane, boat and hovercraft) about a comedically clueless drama teacher. The movie -- with its spoofs of celebrity, high-school dramas and theater taboos -- might be the world's first ever first kitchen-sink satire.

Focus has already sold off chunks of international, defraying much of its $10 million spend on the pickup. Still, we'll see if the heavy marketing campaign, centering on an ironic "Rock Me, Sexy Jesus" campaign hook, as well as its summer-vacation opening, pays off.

And speaking of summer vacation, we're taking a little one of our own these next few days. We'll be back next week. Until then, keep an eye out for the risky bizzers, and the wire-walkers.

Book of Lies, Video of Buzz

By Borys Kit

A neat little trailer is making the rounds today that has geek tongues wagging. The video, which you can play below, has a veritable who’s who of geeks -- from "Buffy the Vampire Slayer" creator Joss Whedon to "Lost" co-creator Damon Lindelof to Lost writer and comic creator Brian K. Vaughn to author Christopher Hitchens -- talking about the purported connection between the murder of the biblical figure Abel and the murder of the father of Superman co-creator Jerry Siegel, as well as a tome God is said to have given Adam called the Book of Lies. It's part of a viral marketing campaign for author and comic book writer Brad Meltzer’s new novel of the same name. The trailer wasn’t supposed to come out until September but leaked; we can imagine Hollywood producers are watching -- and reading -- with enthusiasm of their own.

What awaits on the other side of the Knight, and the Ledger

By Steven Zeitchik

Now that "The Dark Knight" has finally been knocked off its month-long perch, assuring that it will merely share the title of most durable summer hit with "Saving Private Ryan," it's back to business-as-usual for August movies -- here one week, next week the way of the Chinese track team. Tropic Thunder (aka the movie that  rode pseudo-offensiveness to real box office), scored $26m and pushed "Knight" down to a $17 million opening. Even in these soft late August days, it's going to be hard for the rubberized one to rebound.

Even assuming Knight can maintain or slightly grow its numbers in the coming weeks, the schedule won't be forgiving. Next week sees Knight squeezed from both the action side with Paul W.S. Anderson-Jason Statham chase-core remake "Death Race." (Universal moved it up from September, and look for a big weekend; Anderson's last three pics averaged $28m openings.) And Knight will feel heat on the comedy side, where Peter Cattaneo's mid-budget "The Rocker" should take a bite out of Knight's male repeat viewers.

The following week it doesn't get easier, as Lionsgate goes wide with "Disaster Movie." Arguably the only film that has ever spoofed monster movies and a former vice president (its tagline: "Al Gore was right") at the same time, the movie comes in with a surprisingly strong commercial pedigree: writer-director team Jason Friedberg and Aaron Seltzer have opened their two previous helming-scribbling collaborations at #1.

Of course there's no need to send condolences to Warners or Chris Nolan. It's been a good ride for Knight, and not just for the usual reasons. The Batman pic showed endurance in a summer so without legs it was practically a dwarf. Exhibit A on this point came this weekend, when all returning movies that had been out less than a month --four in total -- dropped by at least 40%. On the comparable weekend last year, only one in five did that.

But there are limits even to Knight's power to carry over. To wit: Given how much intrigue has surrounded Heath Ledger, you'd think distributors would be salivating over his final pic, Terry Gilliam's "The Imaginarium of Dr. Parnassus," the way NBC has drooled over Michael Phelps. But conversation with sources indicate the movie (whose footage has yet to be seen by buyers) could have a tough go in completing a desirable domestic sale.

On the one hand, after all, it's a chance for buyers to pick up an indie that will allow them to market not only Ledger but Johnny Depp, Colin Farrell and Jude Law, who of course stepped in to play Ledger's role. But on the other hand, you have the surrealness of Terry Gilliam -- the movie is, indeed, about parallel worlds, immortal doctors and traveling theater troupes -- and, well, Gilliam. His last three directorial efforts averaged $16 million in total domestic box office.

And you may not exactly be picking up the movie at an indie price either: The budget for "Parnassus" is said to be north of $20 million, which means financier Grosvenor Park and producer Sammy Hadida would possibly be looking for a tidy low-mid eight figures. Perhaps that's why one buyer said that "in this market, unless I have a reason to think a movie like this is going to be a slam dunk I'm not going to take a flyer on it, even with Heath Ledger."

But look for Lionsgate to make a play for domestic rights to the film. The minimajor already has international on the pic, so a U.S. buy could offer some welcome synergies on this marketing puzzle. And if Gilliam's effort is really that  kooky, Lionsgate could feature some of the scarier elements in "Disaster Movie 2."

Tropic Thunder, Or Just a Passing Shower

By Steven Zeitchik

Political incorrectness is a funny thing. Literally, sometimes. But it's also funny in a different way -- it alternately amuses and irks with no discernible pattern.

The Farrelly Brothers, Judd Apatow and Sacha Baron Cohen all put provocative jokes in their films, covering a pretty wide range of ethnic groups and populations. Those jabs doesn't elicit streams of protesters on morning-talk shows or Westwood streets. In fact, apart from certain religious groups, which, agree with them or not, tend to protest with consistency movies like Harry Potter, there are few pics in these four-quadrant days that engender any kind of broad controversy.

But "Tropic Thunder" has gone out and made a lot of people upset, or at least a lot of media outlets happy to cover the people who are upset. Which kind of has us wondering: in this post-Sarah Silverman era, when exactly does envelope-pushing become line-crossing?

We have about as much of an idea about the answer to this as we do the criteria of a good Olympic gymnastic routine. It seems like it has something to do with how much distance the audience has from the characters articulating the political incorrectness. The electronics-store buffoons in "The 40-Year-Old Virgin" say scabrous things. But that's okay, because they're supposed to be saying them; that's a part of their character and we're laughing at them for it. Ditto for "Borat," whose persona is founded on, and derives humor from, calculated inappropriateness. (See Ben Stiller and "Thunder" writer Etan Cohen in the video below, who basically makes that point here; characters are mocking those who mock the mentally handicapped.)

Of course, with "Thunder" as with everywhere else, there's no way to know how much of the laughter is aimed at the offender and how much comes from the joke itself.

We're not saying one necessarily should be offended by the other comedies. And we're not saying that one shouldn't be offended by "Thunder;" if that's the reaction, that's the reaction. We're just trying to understand the logic of equal-opportunity offensiveness. It seems to get trotted out unequally.

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Disunited Artists: Who wins, who loses

By Steven Zeitchik

It was supposed to be a 400-meter team relay. It's turning into more of a 50-meter individual event.

In a move somehow both surprising and logical, Paula Wagner is out as co-chief at UA, just 21 months after joining up with Tom Cruise at the rejigged, partly MGM-owned label --and almost two years to the day since Sumner Redstone fired Cruise and paved the way for the UA revival in the first place.

Who are the real winners and losers in the exit of the producer-turned-exec (turned-producer)? A quick rundown:

Wagner: Without the backing and cash of UA -- and, let's be candid, with a certain amount of egg sticking to her face - a segue to a producer job might be a little trickier than it would be for others. But she's still got some solid projects set up at UA, including the promising futuro-thriller "Champions" from Guillermo del Toro. And look at it this way -- would you rather try your hand shopping around new projects or spend another half-year coping with "Valkyrie" questions?

Cruise: Has there been a more tumultuous week for a Hollywood A-lister? Angelina Jolie replaces you on a tentpole, you contemplate a career trajectory shift with comedies about school-cafeterias, you get buzz for a cameo -- o heavenly irony -- for playing a histrionic studio exec and  your longtime producing partner leaves the company the two of you founded that was meant to give you more autonomy from the conglom suits. That would be a busy year for most stars. Ah, to be back in those Redstone catfight days of '06.

UA: By most accounts, there's still plenty of money from the $500 million film fund. But there's also an executive vacuum and major question marks. As Jay Fernandez and Leslie Simmons write in today's THR: "Given the underperformance of 'Lambs,' the recent resignation of marketing head Dennis Rice, the dearth of greenlights and the PR quagmire enveloping 'Valkyrie,' the studio has had a difficult time engendering confidence." Oh yes, those problems.

Valkyrie: Just when it looked like it had survived the worst of the Nazi-propganda associations, one of its biggest champions is out of a job, the marketing guru in charge of overseeing it has left, and the label behind it is in disarray. What to do about it now? Why, push up the release date so that it comes out in four months, of course. Of course.

MGM: The focus is on the money -- namely, will MGM get access to it now that UA is in a scaled-down, Wagner-less state? Harry Sloan denies that this is in the offing. And indeed, it may be tough to justify to investors (and to Cruise) that MGM needs UA's dough given how much the company is  spending under Mary Parent (and how conservatively UA has spent by comparison). But in other respects, MGM may not be as affected by the Wagner departure as much as it might seem, though if UA indeed makes fewer movies, MGM will have the benefit of not needing to share with its subsid resources and staff -- distribution president Clark Woods, new joint marketing hire Michael Vollman -- quite so much.

Minimajors: UA hasn't exactly been prolific since Wagner and Cruise took the reins, but the fact that one player is in retrenchment could could open up the door, in terms of development and releases, for older minimajors like Lionsgate and newer players like Summit and Overture.

Charlie Chaplin and Mary Pickford: Probably not smiling, wherever they are. "You know, we kind of liked the perception of the UA name better when it was moribund."

The joy of having Elvis (and Timothy) in the building

By Steven Zeitchik

Slash? From Guns 'n Roses? He's black. Well, half-black.

That's the first morsel one learns in the startlingly engaging new HBO doc "The Black List," which premiered Tuesday night at a star-dotted Time Warner Center event (pity that poor mortal in the back row, craning behind Kareem Abdul-Jabbar). But it's by no means the biggest one.

Some movies take the inherently dramatic and make it pedestrian or predictable -- we'd nominate Clint Eastwood's upcoming "Changeling." And then there are those films, like "The Black List," which pull off the trickier obverse: take the potentially prosaic and turn it into a work of thoughtfulness and humor. Through nearly two dozen interviews with a range of famous African-Americans -- Vernon Jordan to Chris Rock, Toni Morrison to Keenen Ivory Wayans (and of course Slash) -- intimate personal details and provocative social theories are dexterously laid out.

Directed by photographer-filmmaker Timothy Greenfield-Sanders (whose other art form pays off here in the form of painterly framings of his subjects) and featuring interviews by former NY Times film critic and "List" producer Elvis Mitchell (who we never hear, even off-camera, but who elicits the most from his subjects) and with an assist from Darren Aronofsky (who apparently came up with a nifty editing trick), "The Black List" is much more than a totem of ethnic pride, though it's that too -- it's an exploration of identity and ambition in contemporary and recent America. It may be the best thing, outside a good Obama speech, that one could watch to deepen and humanize their understanding of race.

Of course that makes it sound like the cinematic equivalent of eating broccoli, and the movie couldn't be further from that. At its heart, really, it's just a series of entertaining and informative conversations -- about the kinds of things many Americans don't normally converse about -- with some of the world's most famous African-Americans. It's not even a film about race per se; that theme is woven subtly through the talks, and some of the featured celebs, like Kareem, almost bypass it entirely.

(It's notable that among some of most famous African-American names in media and entertainment, there's no sign of Spike Lee. Asked why he decided not to include him, Mitchell told Risky Biz that "Spike Lee is kind of the go-to guy. And Spike Lee is very good at promoting Spike Lee. We wanted to show people you might not see as often.")

HBO, which picked up "List" at Sundance this year, is airing it on August 25, and will no doubt rerun it a number of times after that. It's the sort of instance where a TV-first release is actually a good thing -- the net's 30 million-some audience will get a taste of something that, given the earnest-sounding subject matter, they may not run out to see in theaters. And yet there's something about watching the  film on a big screen, as its successful fest plays at AFI Dallas and Sundance show, that trumps watching it on the one that sits above your cable box. (And yes, we may be dwelling in tough theatrical times for docs. But if Ben Stein's creationist propaganda  can earn almost $8 million...)

It remains to be seen what kind of theatrical release "The Black List" will get beyond a qualifying run, especially since HBO is largely out of the theatrical game now. Either way, there's reason to take heart from this movie, which offers yet more evidence among HBO's summer of docs of why we should be so encouraged that a division like Sheila Nevins' both exists and flourishes at the country's largest pay channel and conglom.

The film carries the subtitle "Volume One,"  and Greenfield-Sanders told us that he and Mitchell are meeting with HBO next week for a discussion on whether there will be a second. He's hopeful. So are we.

The Fox and the Hound

Every once in a while a studio critique comes along that's so fair and yet so sharp that there's not much commentary one could offer. You just have to bow, and link. Which is pretty much what we have to do for Patrick Goldstein's invigoratingly on-point assessment of Fox and its middling summer in his L.A. Times/Big Picture blog post today.

Wev'e been waiting for Goldstein to flash some more teeth since he started the blog earlier this summer. Now he has. Everything is stated as level-headedly as it could be.
And yet one comes away from it feeling -- no, knowing --  why it is that so many studio execs have been raising their eyebrows at Fox's summer.

More important, we know better what bothers us so much about the concept-driven, risk-free (or "risk-free") approach to filmmaking the studio has been practicicing these last few years.

The current Fox model may be the future of the studios. Or it may not even be the future of Fox. Either way, it's the present of blogs, and we kinda love it.

For Cruise, the recipe should consist of more sugar and less Salt

By Steven Zeitchik

Just when Tom Cruise's career seemed to be settling down to a post-couch normalcy -- even the Valkyrie eyepatch seemed to be losing some online currency -- Tuesday brought the double-barrel news that he was a) out of the title role of one of the most anticipated big political thriller/chase projects out there (along with his whole gender) and b)he was potentially in as a chef in a school-set comedy.

Cruise has been scotched from "Edwin A. Salt" -- the movie which changes attachments more often than John Edwards changes his story -- and could be headed in a potentially more lighthearted direction.  The actor is
eyeing a Working Title movie called "Food Fight," a fish (or maybe lobster?) out of water story about a gourmet chef forced to cook in a school caf.

It's hard to know the sequence of events when stars move in and out of projects like this, but taken together these two moves form a potentially significant shift in career direction -- away from the can-do swashbuckling action star he's been perfecting for the last decade in movies like "Mission Impossible" and "War of the Worlds" and back to the proud but vulnerable/comeuppance-ready parts of earlier movies like "Rain Man" and "Jerry Maguire."

Many of our compadres in blogland have been eager to pounce on this one-two punch -- Cruise's character is "turned into (a) female, and on the same day it is announced he will be a school cafeteria chef" -- and see it as part of a larger career slipslide. But after today's news one of the world's most recognizable faces may be in a better position than it might seem.

Part of the reason that Cruise has taken his lumps these last few years is not just his offscreen Matt Lauerish antics and weirdly third-person references to himself -- it's because he has become less human on the screen. (You have to go back six years to find him playing even something remotely resembling a victim, which he did in "Minority Report," though of course he became an action hero in the end there too.) We like our heroes larger than life, but when they get too large we like to bring them down. And if they're helping us in this pursuit, all the better. (Which, incidentally, is probably why he's being embraced for his studio-exec bit in "Tropic Thunder;" when it comes to lowering someone a peg, self-parody provides the ultimate assist.)

Cruise's arc speaks to the paradox A-listers face as their career moves along. With increased fame, they get more bankable, and with bankability comes bigger -- for men, that means more action -- roles, which in turn has them losing the relatability that made them famous in the first place. Cruise came to prominence as an underwear-prancing regular kid in "Risky Business." if he could do something that winning now -- admittedly not easy with twenty-five years of roles and baggage -- he'd restore at least some of his rep. But you won't find too many stars of his level playing that kind of normalcy.

In that context, today's news may be welcome. We don't imagine he'll go total rom-com and get away from the one-man hero parts completely; there's a lot of Valkyrie in him yet. But with a little more laughter, at him and with him, his image will be a lot better off. Even the Tropic Thunder part seems to be helping. It's not out of the realm that some of those Cruise Control headlines in not too distant future turn into Cruise Comeback ones.

The Dark Knight: Like Spielberg's Soldiers

By Steven Zeitchik

With "The Dark Knight" winning its fourth straight weekend and climbing the all-time box office charts-- this weekend's performance puts it at number seven with $442 million -- the talk continues about whether it can reach  the $600 million of all-time record-holder "Titanic." It probably won't -- you need teen heartthrobs and (repeat-viewing) teenage girls to land that prize.

But here's a record that is within its reach: most consecutive weeks at the top spot for a summer movie.

In the modern era of the one-and done summer pic (which we'll say roughly began with "Independence Day" in the mid-'90's), no movie has stayed on top for longer than four weeks. But with a win next week, "Dark Knight" would usurp the reigning record-holder, "Saving Private Ryan," which ruled the box office for four straight weeks when it came out a decade ago. (Incidentally, there are a lot of three-week-champions -- "Pirates 2," "Shrek 2," the first two Mission: Impossible movies, the Star Wars reboots" -- and a few monthlongers from the holidays, but no others equaling the feat from the summer crowd.)

Both the "Titanic" and "Ryan" records are notable, but for very different reasons.

"Titanic" represents  sheer G-force, a movie's ability to push out on to the public consciousness and dominate. That movie, after all, earned the bulk of its $600 million over the course of four months, but they were the four mostly uncluttered months of winter and early spring. What "Ryan" -- and now "Knight" -- have done is to keep an audience at a time when you're not supposed to do that. Despite the fact that there's something different being thrown at moviegoers each weekend, these pictures can outmaneuver them.

Put another way, "Titanic" may have captured more ticket-buyers. But by winning moviegoers over in a time of other summer blitzes, "Ryan," and "Knight" have captured more attention spans.

Next week will tell the tale of whether "Knight" can succeed in its Michael Phelps-like bid for summer stamina. (Our prediction: "Tropic Thunder" finally takes it down.)

If "Knight" fails in its drive for five, it will rep some poetic justice, and prove that the box-office gods do gave a black sense of humor. When "Saving Private Ryan" was knocked off the top spot after four weeks in 1998, it was by the vampire-action movie "Blade," which was written by..."Dark Knight" scribe David Goyer.

The Ingloriousness of it all

By Steven Zeitchik

A cheeky Brit who valiantly fought zombies, the actress who played one-third of a Polanski love triangle, a noted torture-porn director, the biggest star in Hollywood and Ryan from the Office -- Tarantino's description of Inglorious Bastards as constituting a rogue group was perhaps meant more literally than we first realized.

The news has come in in steady waves over the last few days that Simon Pegg, Nastassja Kinski, Eli Roth, Brad Pitt and B.J. Novak are all in talks or have been cast in the latest Q extravaganza, and outlets are pouncing. Tons of outlets -- entertainment press, fan sites -- are swarming because of...casting announcements? Of older German actresses? Of sitcom stars? Of non-actors?

Before the locations have even been set, Tarantino and the Weinstein juggernaut (they say they don't want press for castings until all is ready to be announced, but really) have managed to make the sundry business of Hollywood casting not just industry news but actual news. It's the first time outside a tentpole superhero movie that we can remember where casting bits are actually treated as developments worthy of Anderson Cooper.

What is it about this movie that has caused an insane amount of interest both inside and outside the industry? It's certainly not the source material; this is, after all, a sort-of remake of a 70's Italian war movie. It may be partly Tarantino, but we don't recall this frenzy, even in those pre-blog days, over "Kill Bill" or "Jackie Brown."

We suspect a lot of it has to do with timing. The de facto strike means there's not a whole lot of casting going on, elevating the interest level in the few movies that are casting. And the production is moving fast -- not three months will pass between when Tarantino first showed the script to producer Lawrence Bender and when production starts --that the usual trickle of casting news is coming on like a tidal wave. So many thesps are said to be meeting with Tarantino in Germany (while he location-scouts, mind you) that you wonder when he has time to eat or sleep. It's a good thing Berlin is a late-night kind of town.

Maybe the biggest stroke of genius is who he's chosing -- or, more precisely, how diversely he's choosing. The cast offers something for everyone. Even on this partial list, there's young and old, dramatic and comedic, quirky and hot, cult and mega-famous.  You want to tune in just to see how much of a non-sequitir the next casting choice will be.

But let's not forget the biggest benefit for us ink- and HTML-stained types: we get to use the "So-and-So is becoming a bastard" formula in a lede or headline. Never underestimate the media's interest in Tarantino. But really never underestimate the media's interest in an easy pun.

Woody Allen goes back to a place he never really left

By Steven Zeitchik

Vicky Cristina Barcelona -- the latest Woody Allen romantic comedy to engage not so much in love triangles but in love hexagons, octagons and other numerous-sided geometric shapes -- is the biggest return to form for the director since...well, the many other times he's done it.

If the only thing constant in this world is change, the only thing constant to Woody Allen is that he keeps returning to form.

The many critics who say Vicky C is "an achievement (that) is all the more impressive--a return to form" (Emanuel Levy) and "a nice return to form for Allen after Cassandra's Dream" (Ain't It Cool) are following in their own deep tradition.

Back in 2005, when Allen released the infidelity psychodrama "Match Point," EW's Owen Gleiberman noted that it's "the most vital return to form for any director since Robert Altman made the Player."

In 2003, when twentysomething romance "Anything Else" hit Venice, the Guardian said that "after 14 years and as many attempts to recapture his old magic, the New York director has finally made a film which holds up to his earlier work...a return to form."

When Allen came out with "Deconstructing Harry" ten years ago, his admittedly sharp and funny retort to the many who have wronged him, what it accomplished, as the Austin Chronicle told us, was "mark the writer/director/actor's return to top form."

Heck, even "Melinda and Melinda" got the RTF treatment, though, true, it was from the blog site JoBlo (the reviewer described it as "a return to form for the hard-working movie machine') which makes you kind of wonder if "form" is simply another word for "sort-of watchable."

Yes yes, we get the point -- he's not making heist movies, and that's a good thing. And clearly there's an element of faint praise in these compliments, a way for reviewers to take small knocks at previous output while still feeling like they're not too hard on the old workhorse (and establishing their old-school Allen bona fides to boot).

But it raises the question: If someone keeps returning to form, then have they ever left it? Or put differently, if you keep returning to form, is that just another way of saying you're making the same movie again and again?

Don't get us wrong; Vicky Cristina is perfectly enjoyable. The pic, which premiered on Monday in Los Angeles and in NY on Wednesday at a Peggy Siegel screening-and-dinner that made it feel like October in August (an event with all the trimmings, Harvey in black T-shirt in front of the theater, Javier Bardem jokingly yelling back from the middle of it), is a relatively light look at how several young women come of age in a cetain kind of European bohemia alien to them, and thus kind of exciting.

And sure, not everything is the same -- there's the girl-on-girl subplot (hey, even Woody's doing the Joe Francis), while Gaudi buildings and Barcelona in full bloom sub in for Olmstead and New York in full bloom. And the angry woman representing all of Allen's ex-wives is, well, Spanish-speaking in this one.

But still. This is a (slightly) contemporized version of the urbane romantic comedies he made in the late 70's through the mid '80's and on the updates he did on them later -- "Crimes and Misdemeanors" and "Husbands and Wives" and "Match Point" and "Hannah and Her Sisters" and many other movies in which a fixed group of men and women fall in love with each other, play musical chairs and fall in love with someone else, until by the end no one is happy but no one is ever really heartbroken or devastated either, the way they might be in, say, real life. There's even a shot here of two women and a man walking down the street discussing relationships in that hyperarticulate Allen-ish way that's pure Manhattan. Why this? Why not a political satire a la Bananas or genre spoof a la Sleepers?

Specialty execs have been coveting the Weinstein Company savvy's sumer strategy of brigning out a romantic comedy for a sophisticated adult audience, because fills a pretty big hole in theaters right now. Wouldn't it be nice, they say, to score plenty of review media, retail some Sca-Jo TV appearances and pick up some box office just for being a little different than what's out there? To not have to spend a ton or launch the most innovative marketing campaign in history, but sitll make a few dollars because people know what they're going to get? Now that would be the true return to form.

The road out of Specialtyville

By Steven Zeitchik

Just in time for fall, hotter than shirts with epaulets and belted swing coats, is the trend of specialty divisions becoming genre labels. First Vantage swapped out prestige exec Amy Israel for New Line genre king Guy Stodel. Now Sidney Kimmel is going from the quirky arthouse world of "Lars and the Real Girl" and "United 93" to thrillers, comedies and the gestalt of the old New Line.

In an interview with Risky Biz about the replacement of production president Bill Horberg with longtime indie figure Bingham Ray (who's taking the top creative spot as president of creative affairs),  SKE president Jim Tauber said that the company had to be savvy about doing only the occasional prestige movie. "This is a commercial enterprise, and we need to be making broader movies," he said. "As much as we like these art house and smart house movies, we can only make one or two of them. We can't afford to make a slate of them."

We get how attractive the move is. No knock against the genre business, but the specialty game is a riskiy one; each movie rises or falls based on a unique and often unpredictable alchemy of talent and  timing. Not that it's a cakewalk for horror pics and comedies, but there's a track record, a history. It's literary fiction vs mass-market potboilers. And a picture from a genre label could have a nice little afterlife without catching critics and awards-voters eyes, which specialty movies of course can't.

Still, the problem to us seems that so many genre movies worked because for years the companies putting them out have had their little place in that world without everyone around them rushing to get in or out. There's a delicate ecosystem there, one that a massive influx of companies cold test. In fact, the irony of specialty-type companies moving into the genre business may be that in their desire to leave one business because it's too crowded, they may be crowding up other.

Plus it's hard to gloss over the industry/cultural implications. One exec at a rival production banner that handles both specialty pics and genre titles said that the contraction of the specialty biz reflected by the shifts of SKE et al is more dangerous than the conventional wisdom (that it's shaking out less hardy companies and freeing up theaters) has it -- it's actually taking a knife to the heart of U.S. moviemaking. "I don't think this isn't a healthy shakeout at all," the exec said of the contraction of SKE, Vantage and WIP/Picturehouse. "These movies need to be a part of American cinema."

The irony is that the shift toward the genre come as the companies that have actually been doing those make an exit -- in some cases for the specialty business. New Line has been dramatically curtailed in its post-Lynne/Shea incarnation. And under Joe Drake, Lionsgate is heading away from some of its midrange horror pics toward more mainstream specialty plays. So specialty divisions are becoming genre labels and genre labels become specialty plays. Everyone's moving, but is anyone going anywhere...

What a man Thinks, he becomes

By Steven Zeitchik

Is David Bergstein one of the biggest headaches to hit the indie business in years? Its necessary lifeline in troubled times? Or a complicated entrepreneur - one-part bogeyman, one part misunderstood victim?

As is so often the case with the embattled -- especially the wealthy embattled -- it depends on who you ask. Fortunately, Alex Ben Block, in his excellent and penetrating profile of the Capitol Films/ThinkFilm mogul, asks a lot of people. Some of them aren't exactly candidates to win the Kofi Annan impersonation contest; former Nickelodeon president Albie Hecht, who produced the ThinkFilm doc pickup War/Dance, calls Bergstein "the biggest disgrace in the film business" and an exec who "looks like he has no intention of fulfilling his obligation to filmmakers and artists."

The man who's had almost as many metaphors attached to him as he's had lives also gets his say. Of course he's contrite and unapologetic, rational and bewildering.

Bergstein, who is scouring for dollars to keep assets like Think in business, will nobly admit thats "some of what is out there is true," referring to accusations made over unpaid bills and unfulfilled promises, which he's been accused of on subjects that range from the $30 million David O. Russell fiasco of the (unfortunately titled) "Nailed" to release malfeasance on Alex Gibney's Oscar winner "Taxi to the Dark Side."

But he also turns around and defiantly asks, "So what? So what if X, Y or Z might be owed money?' "

And then, sometimes, Bergstein just sounds like a guy who thinks he's playing the mogul (or the fiddle) even as everyone around him run in the other direction. "Our business plan is not so much about the movie business," he says, in a voice that could have come from Peter Chernin. "It's really to build a global digital distribution business."

The amazing thing is that ThinkFilm -- which, it should be said, Bergstein stepped in and bought back in 2006 when it was close to out of cash -- has managed to solider on despite the uncertainty at the top. "Then She Found Me," the Helen Hunt directorial debut that opened in the spring with barely a red cent in P&A and with a staff slashed to ribbons, has still managed to make nearly $4 million at the box office in these troubled times.

The movies and the movie campaigns continue. A figure like Bergstein just continues to perplex.

In Hollywood, do bad things come in threes?

By Steven Zeitchik

Conventional wisdom is that when it comes to franchises, Hollywood is right to think in threes but shouldn't go beyond it. But maybe even that's going too far.

Like other recent threequel examples, "The Mummy: Tomb of the Dragon Emperor," the hat-trick entry in the Fraserama franchise, endured a distinct fall-off from the series high of the second picture, as Carl DiOrio notes in his box-office report.

The tally this weekend showed a movie at the wrong end of a bell curve. "The Mummy" earned $43 million on the opening weekend its first time out (in 3200 theaters), spiked to $68 million for "The Mummy Returns" (adding just 200 theaters), but this weekend dipped to a franchise low $42 million (even though it upped theaters to nearly 3800).

Not that long ago, the third movie could be counted on to build on the momentum of the second, as the final installments of LOTR and the "Star Wars" reboot did. But like "Mummy," recent tentpole threequels have slid. Shrek and Spider Man, for instance, both yielded substantial drops in total b.o. -- in the latter case, by almost 30%.

The trend has been evident on a macro level too. This, the summer of the non-threequel  (reboots, sequels and new franchises have of course ruled) has performed better than last year's summer of the threequel. How, exactly? There are many numbers to consider, but the most telling one might be this: Collective box-office for this summer's top five, a list which contained  no threequels, is 4% higher than last summer's, when four of of the top five pictures were threequels.  And of course with "Dark Knight" still going strong, that 4% lead could yet widen.

There are plenty of theories that might explain this curse of the third. Blame it on franchise fatigue for the audience, a studio losing marketing motivation or a creative brain drain (many directors, like Mummy helmer Stephen Sommers, stick around for the second but not the third picture). Even a loss of ideas might be responsible (critics got on the third Mummy for moving locale to the non-mummyish precints of China). Whichever you embrace, the numbers leave plenty for studios to think about as they contemplate how far to extend franchises (see under: Bourne, Spidey and Shrek ).

We get how strong the temptation is, after a second installment outearns the first one, to push through a third movie. But that's an emotional reason, not a Moneyball one; the numbers simply don't bear out the logic. And so at the risk of sounding like the old joke about the accounting consultant who tells the struggling studio to stop making flops and just make hits, we have to wonder why Hollywood doesn't start thinking more in twos and lay off the threes.

When a Midnight Meat Train doesn't go local

By Steven Zeitchik

Hell hath no fury like a horror fan scorned. The grassroots movement opposing Lionsgate's dump of "Midnight Meat Train" has gone from general carping (like this Bloody-Disgusting entry here) to full-on activism (like these guys). Basically, fans are objecting to the contract-nod of a release (a hundred theaters, most of them bargain screens in outlying areas) and hoping that if enough tickets are bought up it will not only send a message to Lionsgate but possibly even force some mainstream openings.

Shocktillyoudrop.com has one of the most incisive takes on what's happening at Lionsgate with the Clive Barker creation -- it says that the studio picked up the Lakeshore production in a pre-Drake regime that was a lot more interested in creating new horror franchises -- and says that because of provisions in the deal, LG actually has many incentives for the movie to flop as to fly.

There's a certain decibel level to the outrage. But like fans at Comic-Con, it's hard to know just how large or influential this group is (a topic that we explore in a feature in Friday's THR).

Besides, Lionsgate may not be completely off base by deciding to make it a homevideo play here and save its P&A shekels. The fact is that for all the credibility Barker brings to the genre -- the lineage of modern Lionsgate properties like "Saw" and "Hostel" can, ironically, be traced back to his '80's creations like "Hellraiser" -- a movie based on one of his books/ characters hasn't come out theatrically in ten years. And even those releases were extensions of franchises that he had nothing to do with and has actually disavowed.

Yes, Barker's "Book of Blood" is currently being made by U.K. producers Matador, and a "Hellraiser" remake" is a project that, for a little while at least, had some momentum at Dimension. (Lakeshore also smartly chose up-and-coming Japanese director Ryuhei Kitamura to direct "Meat.") But as torture-porn gets long in the tooth and gives way to the revivals of Sam Raimi camp-horror like "Drag Me To Hell" or straight reboots like "Friday the 13th," the genre may be looking for something new, and a ride on vehicles like the "Meat" train may take us to stations we've stopped at before.

Tell No One has everyone telling someone

By Steven Zeitchik

One of the strange byproducts of an already strange summer at the box office is that the outsized success of a few tentpoles is ensuring the success of a...two-hour French film?

Guillaume Canet's "Tell No One," a densely layered thriller about a doctor wrongly accused of murdering his wife that stars a mostly unknown cast, has been hotter than an August afternoon on a Riviera beach, or the people who walk on it. With almost no advertising budget -- execs say they're considering pulling the already minimal print spots in some markets just to see if it makes any difference -- the movie has earned nearly $2 million in a very limited rollout. Its box office has grown by impressive percentages every week of its month-long release. And this before it even goes wide (arthouse wide, to about 100 theaters) later in August.

Most remarkable is that it seems to be the success of movies like "The Dark Knight" and "Iron Man" pushing "Tell No One" forward. While the quality upgrade brought by Downey, Nolan & Co. may have siphoned off some of the arthouse filmgoers, the ridiculous dominance of those movies also means that a small French thriller stands out more, offers a more sharply contrasting choice.

Toss in good reviews from the NY Times, LA Times and New Yorker, which are outlets the film's older target demo are particularly amenable to -- along with the fact that the specialty divisions are cutting their slates -- and you have a perfect window for a true indie to slip through.

And "Tell No One" is a true indie. Its distributor, Music Box Films, has only released two minuscule movies before this one, and as recently as last year existed not as a distributor but as just an arthouse exhibitor in Chicago. "Tell No One" was on the fest circuit for more than a year when Music Box first became interested last summer, and it still took seven months to get a deal done.

Miramax's Daniel Battsek, while admittedly slightly jealous of the breakout -- it is a movie Miramax could conceivably release, after all -- says this isn't just a nice coup for a few entrepeneurs. It shows that the indie market is alive and well.

"One's competitive spirit is slightly piqued when someone else does well with a movie and you think, 'Why didn't we have that?' " Battsek told Risky Biz. "However, when you stand back and look at it from a general point of view, 'Tell No One' shows that this idea that people have stopped going to a certain kind of movie is just not right."

Music Box's Ed Arentz is pointedly humble about how circumstances more than conscious strategy have given his company a hit. "I'd love to be able to take credit for it, but I don't think we've innovated too significantly," he said. "I think you might even call it a happy accident."

He also points out that the last three summers have brought a French-language sleeper from a small distributor -- Wellspring's "The Beat that My Heart Skipped" in 2005 ($1 million), Shadow Releasing's "Heading South" in 2006 ($1 million) and First Look's "Paris, je t'aime" in 2007 ($5 million).

Not that "Tell No One" is the only one -- Goldwyn has earned nearly $2 million itself this summer on "Roman de Gare," a thriller about the myserious disppearance of a novelist's ghostwriter that's also, of course, in French. The indie biz may be suffering through a slump, but it will always have Paris.

Is it time for superhero movies to come out of their Bat Cave?

By Steven Zeitchik

One day deep in the future, after Sasha Obama is sworn in to her second term and the AMPTP and SAG finally work out a new labor agreement, people will look back at this era of superhero movies and think of them the way we think of the Hollywood Western a half century ago. They'll say, what was going on in the industry -- no, what was going on in the world -- that made studios crank these out by the dozen. History will show some standouts, but many of them could bleed together.

At least that's our big fear. Right now there are a lot of high-concept pitches involving men with unconscious powers. No idea is too farfetched, no hook too obscure, to escape the come-hither look of  development execs. The last week alone has brought a hand more full of the things than Zod's hand is full of Kryptoinite.

First there was wordof the Bryan Singer-produced "Capeshooters," about slackers who go on the run after coming upon a superhero who turns out to have a nasty streak.

Over the weekend Disney showed the Con masses some footage of a superhero dog named "Bolt," saving the world from goons one animated panel at a time.

Today comes news that Spider Man studio Sony is trying to extend its Marvel mojo by renewing development vigor on "Venom," arguably the first spinoff in movie history centered on villainous goo.

And then there's the "Spider Man" director himself, Sam Raimi, who as Borys Kit reports now has a comedic superhero picture in "The Transplants" that Disney -- yes, that Disney -- is doing.

(This, incidentally, comes on top of other big-concept fan-driven projects like the one tapped as the first Shaye-Lynne co-prod, Isaac Asimov's "Foundation," an adaptation of the sci-fi political epic that involves the prophet and savior Hari Seldon, a kind of intellectual superhero.)

But how similar will all these films be? Let's hope not very. In this, the summer of "Iron Man" and "The Dark Knight" (Iron Knight?), there's already not just success but diversity. Despite their comic-book origins, the two films -- a cautionary tale about/ednorsement of technology and a civic crime drama -- are as different in subject matter as two movies in the same genre can be. And that doesn't even include the third leg in the summer's superhero tripod, Hancock, a character piece about redemption that with its p.r. hook and arthouse finish strays further from the parameters of the genre than perhaps any modern superhero film.

But the real determinant in these movies' legacy/longevity will be how far these movies can keep pushing. A little postmodernism is one thing. But is what's underneath that cape strong enough to really make movies that feel different? Can all these projects turn the superhero movie  from something that endlessly varies the same theme into more of a category, like comedy, than a genre, capable of containing the multitudes of a Disney family film, a biohazard thriller and a slacker comedy.

Or will we just get more Westerns?

George Bush: Not just for cable news anymore

After all the casting announcements, Drudge links and general Oliver Stone-ish handwringing, there's finally some footage to go along with the speculation about the upcoming "W." extravaganza. Lionsgate has released a trailer -- a mix of Bush behaving badly and quick shots of actors doing their best impersonations of administration figures -- and while it's hard to get a full read on the movie, there's certainly some tonal inferences about Stone's sardonic take on the commander-in-chief (and a bonus Kennedy joke!) Here's the trailer so you can be amused/closely study it yourself.

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Comic-Con: The dogs, the robots, the whimsy

By Steven Zeitchik

Of all the notable things at a whirlwind few days spent at Comic-Con-- even more notable than the Star Troopers giving out free hugs -- was just how widely divergent the film fare on offer was.

There was plenty of live-blogging and tidbits from the many THR staffers at Comic-con -- you can catch all of it here -- but the two biggest Con-ish hits of this summer came from Warners ("Dark Knight") and Pixar ("Wall-E"), so we thought we'd take a look at what the two studios unveiled this year down San Diego way. (A third '08 biggie, Marvel, which rang up cherries across with "Iron Man" last year, didn't present because it doesn't have an '09 movie.)

As it turns out, both Warners and Pixar sought to make big splashes, but we're going to have to call it a split decision -- Pixar's "Up" deserves a thumb in the same direction, while Warners' "Terminator Salvation" could have used a little help from someone, anyone, even Skynet cyborgs. If only someone from the future had visited the planning meeting.

The action pic, a prequel which looks at the robot wars circa 2018 instead of a decade later, has always seemed a bit like a chancy bet, a reboot on a franchise that has only barely begun to power down. Saturday's presentation didn't do enough to dispel the doubts. Director McG gave it his grating best, with a call to a Japanside Christian Bale and an attempt to stir the crowd into dueling chants (and the most interesting bit of the whole panel, a little hint that Arnold may make a cameo).

But he also spent a lot of time talking about the variances between the T600, the T800 and the model in this movie as though the suit was the atomic bomb and McG was Robert Oppenheimer. And the footage itself, while loud and slick, had few things to distinguish itself from so many other action movies. Basically it looked like explosions and men in robot suits. Of course it's hard to get the mythology and narrative surprises into a panel of screaming fans. But here's hoping a trip to see Mcg's movie in the theater doesn't make us want to go back in time to catch the original.

Next came "Up," which couldn't have had a more different feel -- a unique film and effective presentation that showed how Pixar increasingly is less an animated studio than a studio making sophisticated adult fare that just happens to be animated. "Ratatouille" may have elevated the creativity by taking on adult themes like the subjectivity of taste, and "Wall-E" may have delighted critics because of its sweeping social commentary. But "Up," Pete Docter's film about a septuagenarian widower who ties balloons to his home to float away to a lost Venezuelan city instead of heading meekly to an old-age home, looks even stronger because it doesn't rely on themes to provide its adult shape. It simply functions like a finely-textured, whimsical take on one man's life, layering on melancholy in a manner pretty atypical to a studio animated feature (it actually has more in common with indie darlings like "Triplets of Belleville" and this fall's "Waltz with Bashir").

Docter, who helmed previous Pixar entry "Monsters, Inc." said he wanted to move away from established animated conventions -- the film, after all, does have a geriatric main character. "Our hope is we keep you guessing...(so) you don't know where we going," he said.

Less critically beloved on the Disney side likely will be "Bolt"--the movie about a cartoon dog who has lived his whole life as the star of a superhero show and so now believes he has powers in real life.

The show-within-a-movie came off as terrifically convincing, action scenes as tense and lifelike as "The Incredibles." Beyond those early moments, though, was the actual movie, and it was conventional, uninspiring stuff: animals leaving the nest to discover who they really are, wisecracking hamster sidekicks who of course give the protagonist animal a reason _to really believe_ in himself. Woof.

The remake is out there...

By Steven Zeitchik

We'll admit right off the bat we were underwhelmed by the X-Files sequel/reboot (with apologies to the tagline, we wanted to believe) that Fox unspooled at the Chinese Wednesday night. The movie is faithful to the original, but that isn't necessarily a good thing -- despite some reveals about the Mulder-Scully relationship, it doesn't advance in a terribly exciting way the mythology of the show, nor does it feel like a fully-formed creation in its own right. Mostly, it had the feel of an episode, one with a lot of medical-thriller tropes. (Then again, given that the budget was said to be as low as $25-30 mil, it doesn't have to do "Dark Knight" numbers this weekend to earn its money back.)

But the movie is notable for another reason: it comes out the same exact day as the news breaks that the Twilight Zone could be getting a brand-spanking new treatment -- and courtesy of Leo DiCaprio, no less. It's still very early days ("the Time Element" to Serling's full-fledged "Twilight Zone" for the hopelessly hardcore out there). But basically, DiCaprio's production co Appian Way and Warners are putting out the word to top-level creators inviting their feature pitches based on the show. They're hoping for some top talent to come up with ideas based on one or more episodes that could be turned into a pic (it's only for the episodes written by Serling, which is what Warners owns, though that comprises the lion's share of the shows). It's not even in development.

Still, the idea of trying another turn at the ill-fated 1983 movie -- that of Vic Morrow's death and/or so-called curse - and this time with one arc instead of four discrete episodes, seems like a perfect idea. Movies from the 1980's are coming back (see under: Red Dawn and Fame). TV shows are coming to the bigscreen (see under: Sex and the City). Paranormal TV shows are coming back, assuming the X-files does at least sme business. So why not take another shot with the house that Rod built? The show has influenced hundreds of filmmakers already (Michael Brandt is
making the "Countdown" episode for Summit) and it's already one of the most highly-tested brands out there among a surprisingly wide age demo.

Or maybe we just want to believe.

Back to Tron, and other morsels from Comic-Con

By Borys Kit

Comic-Con -- The first full day of Comic-Con featured the usual: screaming fans, studio pushes and ... Tron? Pretty much right after Disney unveiled its "Escape to Witch Mountain sequel, the studio slipped in some footage of a potential reboot of the 80's fx title (only this time it's called Tr2n). After the Witch footage, the Disney castle logo came up and soon enough, a race on those light cycles was under way/ Essentially, it was a redone version of a well-known sequence from the 1982 pic. The scene, from director Joseph Kosinski, is actually test footage to see how feasible a remake. The topper was the reveal of one of the drivers: none other than Jeff Bridges, who could be to be reprising his role from the original. The footage blew many away. "That was a sweet surprise, said one industry exec. "It's not very often that you get to see something that you don't know about."

Wolverine, now beloved

By Borys Kit

Comic-Con -- Comic-Con had its first taste of pandemonium (though there were soon many others -- see our Comic-Con page here for full coverage) when Hugh Jackman showed up at the tail end of Fox's presentation. While there were whispers that some kind of "X-Men Origins: Wolverine" aspect would make an appearance, to the majority of the 6,500-person hall it was still a surprise, and they went berserk.

"I know what you're thinking," Jackman said. "This guy is way too tall to play Wolverine." a reference to fan reaction almost a decade ago when it was announced he would be playing the diminutive X-Men character.

Jackman said he wanted to be here "because without you guys I wouldn't have a career." and then he did something actors, and Hollywood types in general, don't do very often: He thanked a comic creator.

Jackman singled out "Wolverine" co-creator Len Wein, who stood up to cheers, and then waded into the crowd to shake the writer's hands. "From that hand came the character that gave me my career," he said.

Then he showed a made-for-Comic-Con trailer that killed. The crowd went wild when characters like Gambit and Deadpool were seen for a split second.

Jackman's appearance was brief but had Fox's desired effect: to win over skeptics and satiate fans.

"I am no longer suspect or angry about the movie," said one girl.

Breaking: Par lays off 60

The ax that began to swing last month now falls at Par and Par Vantage, as the company lays off 60 on Thursday. As THR's Jay A. Fernandez

reports, staffers come from the consolidated marketing, distribution and physical production departments, as those divisions from the spec unit have been rolled into the parent.

An internal memo says that  "we analyzed areas of redundancies and today, we announced we would be eliminating about 60 positions across the company," adding, "the goal is to be strategic and disciplined about how we manage the business for the long term, and to take into account the dynamic nature of the challenging marketplace."

There will be (Peter) blood

By Steven Zeitchik

"Captain Blood," the story of a doctor convicted of treason who escapes to become a pirate, is one of those movies we imagine studio execs look at each other every few years and say 'why has no one ever remade that?' The Errol Flynn classic has all the elements of a modern tentpole -- a wronged man, Jack Sparrow-esque adventure on the high seas, etc -- to make it a summer blockbuster, but plenty of prestige elements to give it a run among older and/or specialty filmgoers. (The 1935 version was actually nominated for Best Picture).

And yet in the more than seventy years since the latest rendition came out, no movie has ever gotten off the ground. That hasn't been for Warners' lack of trying. Frank Darabont was one of several to take a stab at it when wrote a script thirteen years ago, at the height of his "Shawshank" fame.

Now the project finally appears to have some momentum. Warners has attached a producer, Bill Gerber, and a director, Philip Noyce. We'll see how Noyce handles the swashbuckler; he's one of those directors who can go action, as he did with "Dead Calm" or "Catch a Fire," or arthouse, as he did with "The Quiet American." Casting remains a question -- do you take an action hero who could wave a sword with authority or make a more nuanced, Downey-esque choice? And it's worth noting that writers haven't been attached yet. But they will apparently be working off Darabont's scrip. It may not be long before there is some blood.

If loving Synecdoche is wrong, we don't want to be right

By Steven Zeitchik

Our early, eager, enthusiastic response in Cannes to "Synecdoche, NY," Charlie Kaufman's dementedly brilliant and heartbreaking directorial debut, is apparently shared by those arbiters of arthouse cool, Sony Pictures Classics.

The unit, which along with IFC has been the distribution savior at festivals this year, is close to picking up "Synecdoche" for U.S. distribution. The film's epic and surreal look at one man's life -- his artistic achievements and personal struggles -- offered some of the most moving scenes we've seen on a film-festival screen in a long time. It's a vexing movie in the third act, no doubt, as the film continuously packs reality into a larger fiction into a larger reality in a way that would make a Matrushka doll jealous. But that somehow doesn't detract from the payoff as, against a wrenchingly beautiful score,  a man slowly gives in to the end of his life while the suggestion of a global calamity is dangled mystically around him.

It's tempting to explain the delay in the acquisition -- the film screened two months ago -- as a sign of tough times in the finished-film market. But the truth is, this one's a commercial riddle that might have been a difficult sell in the best of times. For every astonishing artistic aspect there's a commercial challenge.  Even the title, a play on both the upstate New York town and a word describing parts of a whole contain this artistic/marketing contradiction-- it's ambitious and playful but seems to trip over the tongue of the most Ivy-educated.

How will "Synecdoche" play when the movie finally opens? It's hard to say. "Eternal Sunshine" was initially thought a tricky sell but went on to earn almost $50 million and become an oddball masterpiece. There are still certainly some who will embrace and flog for it. Then again this is weirder, longer and doesn't have Jim Carrey, who was pretty marketable back then . And times are different -- arthouse audiences these days (at least these summer days) are going to see "The Dark Knight" and "Iron Man" as much as the Spikes (Jonze and Lee).

SPC has been right before about a market potential for a difficult movie -- they've had a half dozen foreign-films in the last two years earn at least $5 million. Here's hoping they're successful with this one from the land of Kaufman.