By Jason Apuzzo. • Google/YouTube has won the first round of its legal battle with Viacom over copyright protection. Based on what I’m reading, it’s looking very much like this won’t get decided until the case hits the Supreme Court. Rooting for Viacom here, because Google’s getting far too powerful – for all the wrong reasons.
• Are fanboys already rallying around Christopher Nolan’s Inception, in the wake of a so-so review from Rolling Stone? Fanboy reality check: Nolan’s never done much at the box office outside of the Batman series. I also just read about an iPhone/GPS app designed to help promote Inception, and somewhat like the film it’s almost impossible to tell what the damn thing’s supposed to do. Someone needs to implant in my brain a reason I should care about this film.
• Twilight fans are gearing up for the film’s opening. While insider-chic has Inception the summer’s hottest film (or maybe Toy Story 3?), this film is probably going to blow them all away. And it will still be reported as a ‘surprise’ as Hollywood slowly figures out that females go to the movies, too.
• Hollywood Reporter’s HeatVision blog runs through the Lessons to be Learned from the Jonah Hex Debacle. Here’s just one lesson I can think of: avoid lead characters with melted faces.
• New Hollywood genre: movies billed as ‘the next Avatar.’ The latest is called Ion, a sci-fi spectacle being produced by Tony & Ridley Scott. ‘Next Avatars‘ tend to be big sci-fi spectacles with a romantic subplot. Blue skin and Spock ears optional.
• With Tom Cruise’s Knight and Day tracking poorly, Paramount is apparently re-thinking Mission Impossible 4. MI3 had a nasty anti-American subtext that didn’t help matters, either. Maybe they should have Cruise do something useful in the next film like get Simon Cowell back on American Idol.
• Breck Eisner talks about his remake of Escape From New York today, and also about removing himself from the remake of Creature From the Black Lagoon, which is now being directed by the guy doing the Logan’s Run remake. These guys should save themselves the embarrassment and just retrofit the old films into the new 3D.
• AND IN TODAY’S MOST IMPORTANT NEWS … old Libertas favorite Jessica Simpson has given herself ‘the gift of thin’ for her 30th birthday. In Hollywood that’s truly the gift that keeps on giving.
And that’s what’s happening today in the wonderful world of Hollywood …
Posted on June 24th, 2010 at 12:28pm.
I love this news item: “AND IN TODAY’S MOST IMPORTANT NEWS … old Libertas favorite Jessica Simpson has given herself ‘the gift of thin’ for her 30th birthday. In Hollywood that’s truly the gift that keeps on giving.”
So funny, and yet so true! How many times has Jessica Simpson lost and regained weight, and how many times has this given her another excuse for a “comeback” in the media?
‘Next Avatars‘ tend to be big sci-fi spectacles with a romantic subplot.
And “Pearl Harbor” was supposed to be the next “Titanic”. It will only take one flop to get that meme out of the way.
MI4 will be a complete waste of money. Cruise has lost his audience through his bizarre behavior, and the MI franchise is overdone. There’s nothing that distinguishes it from the Bourne films or any other routine actioner. As for the studio’s apparent mulling over of Hunt having a “junior” agent to make the film more relevant to younger audiences, all I can say is: nobody goes to see the Indiana Jones films because of Shia Leboeuf.