Showbiz Sandbox 62: The Secret Behind Hollywood’s Accounting Practices

How is it the last Harry Potter film can gross $938 million but still lose $130 million? Journalist and author Edward Jay Epstein joins us to unravel some of Hollywood’s quirky accounting practices. He’s written two books on the subject; The Hollywood Economist: The Hidden Financial Reality Behind the Movies and The Big Picture: Money and Power in Hollywood.

“Despicable Me” topped the box office though the amount it took in from 3D screens was rather low. Could audiences be tiring of paying exorbitant 3D ticket prices? Meanwhile, Miramax finally seems to have found a buyer and Lions Gate is trying to make piece with activist investor Carl Icahn.

The Emmy nominations were announced last week and we’ll fill you in on whose up for the television’s big awards. Over in the world of music Pollstar announced that concert ticket sales are down 15% for the first half of the year.

During our Big Deal or Big Whoop segment we race through a number of top entertainment headlines, including Roman Polanski’s release, Lindsay Lohan’s jail time and Mel Gibson getting dumped by his agency. Maybe Gibson can find some work on YouTube, which plans to offer $5 million in grants to select content partners.

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Showbiz Sandbox 52: Recruiting Sandra Bullock’s Baby

Things could have gone better this past week for the hosts of Showbiz Sandbox.  J. Sperling Reich couldn’t connect to the Internet, Michael Giltz was almost washed away by a flood in Nashville, Tennessee and Karen Woodward showed up at her 20-year high school reunion only to find out that her high school crush was happily married. Thankfully there was plenty of entertainment news to discuss.

The remake of “A Nightmare On Elm Street” topped the box office, scooping up $32.2 million in North America, more than the first, second, fifth and seventh installments of the original franchise. “How To Train Your Dragon” continues to perform strongly and came in second. Oversees “Iron Man 2″ opened to just over $100 million in 53 territories. The only question now is how much money will it make in North America, and will poor advance reviews affect the gross. (Don’t bet on it).

Lots of big names broke their silence this week. Director Roman Polansky blogged about being arrested in Switzerland. NBC programming chief Jeff Gaspin, told the New York Times Conan O’Brien was no longer a problem or a threat to his late-night lineup since he’s moving to cable. O’Brien gave his first televised interview since departing “The Tonight Show” to “60 Minutes”. Actress Sandra Bullock gave an exclusive to People magazine about her personal life and the adoption of her son.  Read more

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Showbiz Sandbox 51: Ridley Scott Believes 3D Is An “Alien” Concept

Hollywood just won’t stop talking about 3D movies, so unfortunately we can’t either. It’s hard to argue against 3D when films like “How To Train Your Dragon” keep coming in first at the box office, even after five weeks in theaters. With the announcement that “The Green Hornet” and “The Last Airbender” will be converted to 3D the debate has turned to whether it’s better to shoot natively in 3D, or add it in post-production.

Filmmaker Ridley Scott won’t have to find out when he makes not one, but two prequels to his blockbuster “Alien” since he’ll be shooting them in 3D. Disney’s head honcho, Rich Ross, also announced a couple of upcoming releases when he finally met the press last week. We’ll be getting a sequel to “Monsters, Inc.” and a “Winnie the Pooh” movie, along with a few other family friendly flicks.

If 3D films don’t excite you, then the upcoming television season may not either. We review a number of pilots that are in the works, most of which seem derivative. In fact, some of them, like “Rockford Files” and “Hawaii 5-0″ are simply rehashes of previous hit shows.  Read more

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Showbiz Sandbox 49: Hollywood Experiences Premature Sequalization

Have you ever wondered why movie studios love to make sequels of hit films? Well, these studios don’t even wait for a film to be released before announcing its sequel. Steve Zeitchik of the Los Angeles Times fills us in on the sequel culture that has taken over Hollywood.

Meanwhile, the king and queen of television, Steve Carell and Tina Fey, nudged “Clash of the Titans” out of first place at the box office with their new release “Date Night”.

While Fey may be making a move to the silver screen, the big news of the week was happening in television – cable television no less. Oprah Winfrey announced five new shows that will air on her cable network starting next January, a lineup that left some industry-watchers befuddled. Another TV personality following Oprah onto a cable network is Conan O’Brien. He surprised just about everyone by announcing he would be starting his own late night talk show this fall on TBS.

While analyzing the week’s top entertainment news stories including how celebrities are using Twitter these days. We finish off with a little Inside Baseball in which we try and understand why anyone would want to buy Miramax or MGM.  Read more

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Showbiz Sandbox 46: Hollywood’s Latest Meme Is 3D

A “Wimpy Kid” couldn’t beat “Alice In Wonderland” at the box office this weekend. The higher price for 3D tickets has turned “Alice” into Tim Burton’s most successful film. And Hollywood studios have definitely noticed how well audiences are responding to 3D. The new format is so hot that, much to the annoyance of James Cameron, they have gone back to convert some upcoming releases to 3D, such as “Clash of the Titans”.

With thirty three 3D films presently slated for release in 2010 this has managed to create a bottle neck at movie theaters where there is usually only enough room to show one 3D film at a time.  It’s gotten so competitive that Paramount has told theater owners that if they don’t play “How to Train Your Dragon” on their 3D enabled screen, they won’t send them a 2D print. But that means “Alice’s” engagement will be cut short. Beginning to see the problem?

While movie theaters don’t have enough 3D screens and too much content, the exact opposite is true in the home. Television manufacturers are selling 3D enabled televisions but there is nothing to watch. Have no fear though, Major League Baseball, NCAA basketball and the PGA Masters all have plans for 3D broadcasts.   Read more

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Showbiz Sandbox 44: And The (Six) Oscars Go To… “Hurt Locker”

The ballots have been counted, the envelopes have been opened and the nominees have undoubtedly returned their ball gowns and tuxes. Finally, after all the news coverage and public speculation about who would this year’s Oscars, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences put us out of our misery on Sunday during their annual awards ceremony. The proceedings lasted more than three hours as usual and provided very few surprises.

Katheryn Bigelow made history by being the first woman to win the Best Director Oscar for “The Hurt Locker”, which won six awards in total including Best Screenplay and Best Picture. Jim Cameron’s “Avatar” won three technical awards for art direction, cinematography and visual effects. One of the night’s biggest surprises was when Geoffrey Fletcher walked off with the Best Adapted Screenplay Oscar for “Precious”, upsetting Jason Reitman’s “Up In The Air”.

As we predicted on last week’s episode, Jeff Bridges won Best Actor for “Crazy Heart”, Sandra Bullock won Best Actress for “The Blind Side”, Mo’Nique won Best Supporting Actress for “Precious” and Christolph Waltz won Best Supporting Actor for “Inglorious Basterds”. Damien Bona, co-author of the book Inside Oscar, stops by to help us analyze this year’s Oscar results. Read more

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Showbiz Sandbox 39: Chez Sundance

Co-host Karen Woodward puts a moratorium on any more talk of “Avatar”, James Cameron’s 3D sci-fi epic which continues to break box office records. So instead, we skip straight to Sundance, where the atmosphere has gone from recession (last year) to depression (this year). J. Sperling Reich is in the snowy, cold ski town and fills us in on the movies everyone in Park City is buzzing about.

If you can’t make it to Sundance this year, no worries, you’ll be able to catch a few of the festival’s selections on YouTube.

Also in movie news, anti-smoking activists are claiming that Sigourney Weaver’s line “Where’s my damn cigarette” in “Avatar” should have earned the film an R rating. What set of rules is the MPAA going by when they come up with some of their absurd ratings?

After a brief fly by of the SAG Awards, we head over to television land.  Things have calmed down in the Conan vs. Leno vs. NBC war, but Michael Giltz and Karen must not have gotten the memo. They argue over who was wronged more by the whole debacle. Meanwhile, Conan O’Brien hosted his last “Tonight Show” on Friday.  Read more

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Showbiz Sandbox 38: Gender Matters In Hollywood

The New Year may have started off slow, but 2010 is heating up! “Avatar” is on track to top “Titanic” as the highest grossing film of all time, The Golden Globes were handed out on Sunday and of course the late night talk show war has really taken some interesting turns.

Dylan Stableford who writes The Wrap’s Media Alley column joins us to talk about his post, “The Vilification of Leno: Loud, Nasty and Fleeting.” Will audiences warm up to Jay Leno again? Who was the bad guy in all this fracas? Leno, Conan O’Brien, or NBC?

In movie news, director Sam Raimi and star Tobey Maguire dropped out of “Spider-Man 4” and Sony now says it plans to reboot the franchise with a younger actor.

Finally, though she didn’t win a Golden Globe, director Kathryn Bigelow is earning critical praise for her film “The Hurt Locker.” Academy Award nominations have yet to be announced, but she appears to have a lock on one, and may be the first woman to win the best director Oscar in the history of the awards show. Women in Hollywood and the film industry is a topic we discuss frequently here on Showbiz Sandbox thanks in part to Karen Woodward. Joining us to discuss the issue today is Matthew Hammett Knott Read more

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Showbiz Sandbox 37: Conan and Leno’s Late Shift Shrift

It’s official: Simon Cowell will be leaving “American Idol” this season and NBC (finally!) admits that airing “The Jay Leno Show” in primetime five nights a week was a mistake. Cowell is headed off to start a new reality talent show, “X Factor”, while Jay Leno is headed back to his old late night time slot, at least for a half-hour. But where will Conan O’Brien’s tonight show end up? Right now NBC wants to push him back a half hour.

In theaters, “Avatar” just will not go away. It stays firm at the top of the box office again this week. “Daybreakers” staring Ethan Hawke, also did well in its debut, but the Amy Adams vehicle “Leap Year” didn’t leap anywhere.

Meanwhile, the Consumer Electronics Show (CES) tries to sell us on 3D television and video rental service Netflix reaches an important agreement with Warner Bros.

David Colker, a business reporter covering technology for the Los Angeles Times gives us the low down on CES, espcially all the 3D televisions announced at the show (which aren’t even available for sale yet). Do consumers even want 3D television? More importantly, how are we prepared to wear those funny 3D glasses at home? Read more

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Showbiz Sandbox 7: Talkin’ Tonys And Trailers

Michael Giltz of the New York Daily News, Huffington Post and The Advocate joins us to discuss all the winners (and losers) of this year’s Tony Awards. Stephen Garrett, the co-founder of Kinetic Trailerworks also shows up to talk about picking up a few trophies at this year’s Golden Trailer Awards. The Star Trek trailer wound up winning some of the big prizes.

Billy Elliot was a big winner at the Tony Awards picking up ten trophies including Best Musical. Gods of Carnage won Best Play, but overall Michael says the show was incredibly predictable. Pixar’s “Up” managed to fend off new comer “The Hangover” at the box office with $44.2 million, though just barely. The Will Ferrell starrer “Land of the Lost” wound up getting a distant third.

Actor and comedian Sacha Baron Cohen had a tough week. . . or did he? After making Eminem the butt of his jokes at the MTV Movie Awards he was sued by a woman who was injured during one of his promotional stunts. Read more

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