KCRW's The Business Brief

The Iraq Movie Surge

webmaster@kcrw.org (KCRW.com) — Mon, 22 Mar 2010 19:44:00 EDT

The $100 million action thriller Green Zone opened the weekend before last, and so far it's brought in an unimpressive $24 million domestically. But perhaps even before executives at Universal green-lit Green Zone, they had to have known that it wasn't going to make a lot of money...

Trade Wars

webmaster@kcrw.org (KCRW.com) — Mon, 15 Mar 2010 19:44:00 EDT

For years and years, the business has been the happy battle ground of two trade papers ? Variety and the Hollywood Reporter. But in recent years, the fight has stopped being between the two rivals, and turned into a fight for survival...

Distribution Is Marketing

webmaster@kcrw.org (KCRW.com) — Mon, 08 Mar 2010 19:44:00 EDT

I'll spare you the Oscar talk; I?ll just report that it looks like ratings for the telecast are up and James Cameron got smacked down, so all is right in Hollywood. Instead I want to talk about movie distribution....

Water Cooler Talk

webmaster@kcrw.org (KCRW.com) — Mon, 01 Mar 2010 19:44:00 EDT

In 1994, 204 million Americans watched the winter Olympics in the picturesque Norwegian town of Lillehammer. The games that just ended in Vancouver had an 8% smaller audience. Which seems even worse considering that there are something like 20% more Americans now than there were in 1994.

Rating the Raters

webmaster@kcrw.org (KCRW.com) — Mon, 25 Jan 2010 19:44:00 EDT

Nielsen, by far the biggest of the media ratings companies, proudly announced last week that they will start counting on-line and DVR-TV watching this fall. To which I say to Nielsen, "Welcome to 2008..."

Black Blockbuster

webmaster@kcrw.org (KCRW.com) — Mon, 18 Jan 2010 19:44:00 EDT

As the nation celebrates the legacy of Dr. Martin Luther King, the name of President Obama is coming up an awful lot. But the folks in Hollywood are not talking much about the remarkable fact that their most bankable movie star these days is also black. They're just not sure what to do with that reality...

Everybody Hates Jay

webmaster@kcrw.org (KCRW.com) — Mon, 11 Jan 2010 19:44:00 EDT

If you've just woken from an extended bout of unconsciousness, you may not have heard that NBC moved Jay Leno to 10pm last fall, and that now that grand experiment in prime-time is over. Well, fear not. You'll have plenty of opportunity to catch up on the juicy details as the debacle is dissected with great glee over the next few weeks after all, this is not only a major story, but a delicious opportunity for schadenfreude. But I would say that schadenfreude could be as costly to the TV business as a whole as the grand experiment could be costly to NBC...

The New (Entertainment) World

webmaster@kcrw.org (KCRW.com) — Mon, 04 Jan 2010 19:44:00 EDT

"Nobody knows anything." That's the line lifted from William Goldman's 1983 Hollywood memoir adventures in the screen trade that has famously come to describe the entertainment industry. It's become a cliché, but it's a cliché, of course, because its true. And if it was true then and it was imagine how true it is now, as the entertainment industry does the herky jerky into a wildly uncertain future. I thought I'd outline some of the terrifying thoughts that are going through the heads of show biz bigwigs as they go back to work in the new year...

How Is $400 Million like $100,000?

webmaster@kcrw.org (KCRW.com) — Mon, 14 Dec 2009 19:44:00 EDT

Avatar is finally coming out this week. At a cost of $300 or $400 million, James Cameron's sci-fi action epic is one of the most expensive movies ever made. At the same time, a studio is talking about starting up a new division to make movies with budgets of less than $100,000. Kind of makes Hollywood look like a cartoon character running towards a fork in the road and trying to go both ways at once. And yet Avatar has more in common with a tiny movie like Paranormal Activity than you might think...

Tortoise and the Hare

webmaster@kcrw.org (KCRW.com) — Mon, 07 Dec 2009 19:44:00 EDT

Slow and steady wins the race is the moral of the famous fable about the tortoise and the hare, but the folks in Hollywood clearly aren't big on Aesop. A better analogy might actually be baseball. The studios like the home runs, even though a lot of singles are arguably a safer and surer way to score points...

Speak Up, Hollywood!

webmaster@kcrw.org (KCRW.com) — Mon, 30 Nov 2009 19:44:00 EDT

Before she came to Hollywood and before she became host of the business here on KCRW, Kim Masters covered politics for the Washington Post. She told me that it was easier to get people in government to speak frankly and on the record about substantive policy issues than it is to get a studio exec to say their latest action flick flopped ? even when the box office numbers are printed in the paper for everyone to see...

The Digital Revolution Will Be Televised...for $24.95

webmaster@kcrw.org (KCRW.com) — Mon, 16 Nov 2009 19:44:00 EDT

Yahoo has launched a nice new ad campaign with messages of digital empowerment like "now the Internet has a personality ? yours." But one of their slogans has got to be causing Hollywood severe angina...

Back from the Boondocks

webmaster@kcrw.org (KCRW.com) — Mon, 09 Nov 2009 19:44:00 EDT

The story of Troy Duffy's rocket-ride to success and equally dramatic plummet back to Earth is combination of Hollywood legend and Greek tragedy; call it Icarus meets Narcissus meets William Morris. But now, it appears that his saga is far from over...

Which Way, Emmys?

webmaster@kcrw.org (KCRW.com) — Mon, 21 Sep 2009 19:54:17 EDT

Last night was the 61st prime-time Emmy Awards, the television industry's biggest night, and the question has to be: who cares? I'm not trying be provocative, I'm asking the question the TV academy has got to be asking itself: who really cares about the Emmys? Who is our audience?

Tyler Perry's House of Payin'

webmaster@kcrw.org (KCRW.com) — Mon, 14 Sep 2009 19:44:00 EDT

In 2004, a guy from New Orleans named Tyler Perry showed up in Hollywood. He had the temerity to suggest that the studios might want to turn his wildly popular stage productions into movies. And they all said no. Perry then hooked up with indie studio Lions Gate, and five years later, he continues to beat the big boys at their own game. His low-budget, big profit movies have grossed something like $400 million so far, and that doesn't even include I Can Do Bad All by Myself. His seventh and latest came in first at the box office this past weekend with $24 million ? it probably cost half that...

What's So Glorious about 'Inglourious Basterds?'

webmaster@kcrw.org (KCRW.com) — Mon, 31 Aug 2009 19:44:00 EDT

Hollywood watched the opening weekend of Quentin Tarantino's Inglourious Basterds with baited breath. After all, this one movie could determine whether there's a future for one of Hollywood's most colorful and controversial figures: Harvey Weinstein, the hot-headed, plus-sized exec who bullied American independent film into a real business...

'District 9' Does Well, Can 'District 10' Be Far Behind?

webmaster@kcrw.org (KCRW.com) — Mon, 24 Aug 2009 19:44:00 EDT

My head is still spinning after seeing District 9 last weekend. Not just because of the relentless action, the complex plot, the uncomfortable political allegory and the cool aliens that look a bit like seafood and are disparagingly referred to as "prawns." The thing that really set me back was how clear it made it to me that it really is possible to make a great movie that also makes money; that indie-aspirations of art and meaning and studio desires for entertainment and big box office are not mutually exclusive. So why don't the studios crank out more movies like D-9?

It's Not the Pictures That Got Small, It's the A-List

webmaster@kcrw.org (KCRW.com) — Mon, 03 Aug 2009 19:44:00 EDT

This weekend I watched Sunset Boulevard for like the 1,000th time, and it occurred to me that a lot of modern A-list actors have retreated to their own literal and figurative mansions, trying to ignore the fact that their stars are fading...

The Nerds' Hollywood Takeover

webmaster@kcrw.org (KCRW.com) — Mon, 27 Jul 2009 19:44:00 EDT

The big comic book, science fiction and fantasy convention known as Comic-Con is to Hollywood what New Hampshire is to presidential politics: that is, it's simply the most important campaign stop of the year. Don't believe me? Just look at the directors who star trekked to San Diego this past weekend...

Race to the Bottom

webmaster@kcrw.org (KCRW.com) — Mon, 20 Jul 2009 19:44:00 EDT

It seems Michigan is a hot spot for show business folks this summer. But it isn't because of the wonderful beachfront property on Lake St. Clair. It's because Michigan is throwing money at Hollywood with a gigantic 40 percent production tax rebate...

Everybody's a Critic

webmaster@kcrw.org (KCRW.com) — Mon, 13 Jul 2009 19:44:00 EDT

Last March, stock analyst Richard Greenfield gave a thumbs down to Pixar?s newest film, Up. I went on the air condemning his prediction, and $300 million later, Greenfield has admitted he might have been wrong. Now, I'm getting all sorts of congratulations for calling him out, but I feel like everyone's missing my point?

The Pendulum Swings

webmaster@kcrw.org (KCRW.com) — Mon, 06 Jul 2009 19:44:00 EDT

Thereâs a power pendulum in Hollywood that swings between the studios and the people who actually make movies â directors, writers and actors. When the pendulum swings towards the creative people, you get The Godfather and One Flew over the Cuckoo's Nest and even Star Wars. When the pendulum swings to the studios, you get Youâve Got Mail. But, when the pendulum swings to either extreme, itâs bad for the business...

Mommas, Don't Let Your Babies Grow Up to Be in Show Biz

webmaster@kcrw.org (KCRW.com) — Mon, 29 Jun 2009 19:44:00 EDT

In 1939, California passed a law to keep unscrupulous adults from stealing the earnings of child actors. But no one ever got around to crafting legislation that would shield these kids from the psychic damage they?d suffer under the cruel lights of fame...

Below the Line and Under the Gun

webmaster@kcrw.org (KCRW.com) — Mon, 15 Jun 2009 19:44:00 EDT

After a year of working without a contract, the Screen Actors' Guild finally signed a deal with producers last week. Even so, SAG is a union deeply divided. But this isn't a commentary about Hollywood labor strife but the strife currently being felt by Hollywood laborers. I know, it's tough out there for working people everywhere, but if you're below the line in movie or television production, it's downright cataclysmic.

Do You Hulu?

webmaster@kcrw.org (KCRW.com) — Mon, 08 Jun 2009 19:58:52 EDT

At the end of April, Disney, which owns ABC, announced that it would become a partner in the television web site Hulu. So now, Hulu has three of the four major networks on board, and they have those great commercials with Alec Baldwin. But does Hulu have a future?