Like a videogame before it, the long-delayed remake of the '80s Cold War action flick Red Dawn (in which evil Russians invade the US and a group of American teens begin a guerrilla campaign against them) has decided to change the villains of their film from Chinese to North Korean. Only problem? The movie's already been filmed.
Recently, Netflix signed a deal with Epix to bring some new Paramount, MGM, and Lionsgate movies to the Instant Watch library. Today, September 1st, that deal goes live. So what's new?
MGM, once known for its roaring lion, Gone with the Wind and James Bond, is teetering on bankruptcy. Author Edward Jay Epstein explains how the studio's latest misadventure resulted from Hollywood's plan to separate Wall Street fools from their wallets.
• Oprah's interview with Sarah Palin aired today, as you know by now. [AP]
• The deal between GE and Comcast to give the cable giant control of NBC Universal could be finalized in the next few days/weeks, although approval from Washington could take some time. [DF, THR, WSJ]
• Lou Dobbs didn't walk away from $9 million when he departed CNN. He reportedly got paid $8 million in severance to walk out the door. [NYP]
• The largest gay newspaper publisher in the U.S. has shuttered. [NYT]
• Budget Travel may be the magazine to die. [Daily Intel]
• The cost-cutting McKinsey consultants have landed at Dow Jones. [Forbes]
• 2012 destroyed the box office this weekend, reeling in $65 million. [THR]
We hope 2012 is enjoying its 15 minutes. Sure the movie had a humongous weekend at the box office, but even a Mayan-prophesied can not withstand an assault by a certain group of of teenage vampires.
• Controversial right-wing columnist Robert Novak is dead at 78. [NYT]
• Sunday's hyped-up premiere of Mad Men attracted lots more viewers, as expected. Some 2.8 million people tuned in, up 33% from last year. [Reuters]
• Struggling studio MGM has dumped its CEO and hired a new one. [WSJ]
• Is Sam Zell going to walk away from Tribune? That's the rumor. [NYP]
• The president will speak at next month's Walter Cronkite memorial. [NYT]
• Steven Spielberg's new movie studio now has $825 million in the bank. The company says it plans to make 21 movies over the next four years. [WSJ]
• It looks like MySpace is buying the site iLike for "around $20 million." [DB]
• Newsday is under fire after rejecting an ad by the Tennis Channel that happened to be critical of the newspaper's parent company, Cablevision. [NYT]
• Irony alert: BusinessWeek, the struggling business mag desperately seeking a buyer, just launched a new website called "The Case for Optimism." [BW]
• Say it ain't so, Sue: WNBC may be planning to drop the 5 o'clock newscast, Live at Five, in favor of a "lifestyle show" of some sort. [NYO]
• Richard Branson does not want to buy Playboy. Sorry, Hugh. [Reuters]
• NBC ratings hit a new low last week. [AP/HuffPo]
• Naturally, NBC Universal chief Jeff Zucker painted a much rosier picture when he appeared on stage at the D7 conference yesterday. [ATD]
• Were you aware that some magazines Photoshop their pics? It's true! [NYT]
• If MGM doesn't come up with some cash quick, it could go bankrupt. [THR]
• Page Six's Paula Froelich took time from promoting her new novel, Mercury in Retrograde, to kick Michael Wolff's ass across the room. [BlackBook]
We knew Fox News gossip and mortal Tom Cruise enemy Roger Friedman was upset last week when MGM denied him an advance look at Valkyrie. Today, he exacted his mouthbreathing, error-packed and all-around vicious revenge.
It's been far too long since MGM was on the defensive over Valkyrie, the campaign for which uncomfortably started in its own office lobby but has since found decent enough traction in theaters and on TV. So! Right on cue, and apparently just for old time's sake, a high-ranking New York film critic has found something new to whine about.
♦ Keith Olbermann has signed a new, four-year contract with MSNBC. He'll earn $7.5 million a year, which is 25 percent less than what his arch-nemesis Bill O'Reilly is collecting from Fox News. [TVDecoder]
♦ MSNBC's new slogan—"Experience the power of change"—has absolutely nothing to do with Barack Obama's victory, naturally. [NYT]
♦ The job cuts at Time Inc. are underway. People is looking for 18 people to take buyout packages. Time is looking for 20 volunteers. [WWD]
♦ Jared Kushner says revenues at the Observer are up 40 percent, although the paper is still losing $2 million a year. [Guardian]
♦ Madagascar: Escape 2 Africa, from DreamWorks/Paramount, reeled in $63.5 million in its first weekend. [NYT]
The Farrelly Brothers' long-delayed dream of a Three Stooges revival may yet come true at MGM, which announced Monday it had green-lit the project for a 2009 release. It's a stunning milestone correcting the project's inertia at Warner Brothers, where execs were said to have balked at the introduction of the brothers' trademark scrotum-zippering sight gags to the more conventional eye-gouging hallmarks of Larry, Moe and Curly's '30s-era shorts. But that was then, and this — despite the lingering questions of cast (Crowe as Moe?), storyline and whether or not MGM remembers how to produce films — is now.The Hollywood Reporter notes that Russell Crowe and Mel Gibson were among the names once circling the project, a nifty batshit tandem we hope remains viable so many years on. (We share another writer's disappointment that newly retired Joaquin Phoenix won't be around to join them.) Peter Farrelly told Variety, meanwhile, that American Idol-style auditions will be held to discover the next Curly, "the most physically gifted member of the trio," and scuttled rumors that Farrelly alum Jim Carrey would add 150 pounds in an Oscar-chasing Method binge as the stoutest Stooge. The trades offer conflicting details about the film's "plot" as it were: either three vignettes of 25-30 minutes apiece or four vignettes of 20 minutes apiece, with THR citing another contest commissioning briefer comedy shorts that would precede the main feature. MGM has production chief Cale Boyter overseeing what would be his first actual production since fleeing New Line last spring; the tentative Nov. 20, 2009 release date places The Three Stooges in theaters directly opposite Guy Ritchie's Sherlock Holmes. And according to Farrelly, the male-skewing ad campaign is already on:
MGM has released the final trailer for Valkyrie, and really, nothing here indicates why United Artists would have sabotaged this film with one Harveyesque bump after another, all the way off the cliff into the dead zone of February '09. (It now opens Dec. 26.) They may not have the viable Oscar contender they wanted, either, but beyond the late, portentous introduction of Tom Cruise's eye-patched, would-be Hitler killer, this new clip has us marveling at the irony of a feel-bad Nazi drama potentially doubling as the feel-good comeback story of the year. It's almost enough to make us want to swap the old Superman Returns stand-up at Defamer HQ with the fancy new Valkyrie display occupying MGM's own lobby. Bryan Singer, you are a continued inspiration to one and all. [MGM]
Now we think we know where Tom Cruise was last night while Katie Holmes labored through her Broadway premiere all alone: Snapshots from a Defamer spy suggest he hit Century City after hours, sneaking the first of Valkyrie's oversize stand-ups into the lobby at MGM. We have it on good authority from the inside that such direct marketing of an MGM release in the faces of its employees and other building tenants is an unprecedented move for the buttoned-down distributor, but face it: You'd probably do the same thing if you had the chance cut your studio's holiday decoration budget by 95 percent. [Follow the jump for the enlarged detail.]
Click to viewBoomp3.com Leaving his Manhattan apartment, Tom Cruise claimed that his edgy and stylized haircut was not the result of months of focus group testing, but rather the result of sleeping on the wrong side of the bed last night. Cruise said, “The MGM research department did not meet with my hair squad to create a haircut to maintain popular internet buzz amongst gamers and bloggers. It’s windy and a bit cold this afternoon.” Cruise also mentioned that he might have used a bit too much hair gel before leaving his apartment. Photo Credit: Splash Pics] *A Call To The Bullpen is a work of fiction. Although the pictures we use are most certainly real, Defamer does not purport that any of the incidents or quotations you see in this piece actually happened. Lighten up, people ... it's a joke.
