studios Tagged Articles at Cinematical

The future of movies on the Internet -- and how you get to watch them -- may be largely determined by a new lawsuit filed in Swedish courts. Over a dozen production companies, including Columbia Pictures, Disney Enterprises and Universal Studios, have filed a suit against file-sharing site The Pirate Bay, demanding that the operators be fined and prevented from distributing movies and TV series, according to the Associated Press.

The original owners of Pirate Bay, Gottfrid Svartholm Warg, Peter Sunde, Fredrik Neij and Carl Lundstrom, were found guilty in a Swedish copyright trial earlier this year, and sentenced to a year in prison. They were also ordered to pay over $4 million in damages.

Today in the podcast: news on the tax incentive exodus, the weekend dominance of Scary Movie 4, and the end of Grind House. But, more importantly, we've narrowed down the options for our new name, and we want you to vote. Note that some of the submissions we received were great, but, unfortunately, were already in use by other sites. So let us know what you think, and we'll post your decisions later this week.

CNN: Cinematical News Network - Suggested by reader Proteus

Cinematicast - Suggested by reader Alex

Cinephilia - Suggested by reader James P.

CINE:TV - Suggested by Karina, writer/host of this podcast

Fill-in-the-Blank - Should we just keep the temp name? That's been thrown out by many including Randall, the producer/editor of this podcast.

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Hosts
Karina Longworth

Editor
Randall Bennett

Music
Love as Laughter - I'm a bee

Format
5:08, 29 MB, MPEG4 (iPod / PSP compatible)

Program
00:00 - Hollywood backlots no longer center of the film universe
03:00 - Robert Rodriguez rumor mill churning: Why did Grind House grind to a halt?
05:23 - Scary Movie 4 wins the box office, with fart jokes and Carmen Electra in tow

Why? Well, it's simple, really:  "The only people who read newspapers are older and elitist." While the statement (made by "a Hollywood source") initially offended the crap out of me (youngish, totally woman-of-the-people newspaper reader over here), I actually think it might be true. Think about it:  studios are paying about $100,000/ad to run full-color, full-page advertisements in the Los Angeles Times and The New York Times. And for what?  The Dukes of Hazzard and Duece freaking Bigalow. While I resist the "older and elitist" labels, the fact is that the source has a point:  no one reading The New York Times is going to be moved by an ad for The Wedding Crashers. That's not to say those people won't go see the movies we're talking about, but they're much more likely to be motivated by a positive review in the paper than by a big color photo of Vince Vaughn (oddly attractive though he may be).

With studios looking to cut spending during these lean times, the real victims of this realization are the newspapers. If The New York Times places only 50% of the ads they usually sell for their "Fall Movies" section, that's a massive, massive hole. Where are they going to find that million dollars? Of course, that's not for the studios to figure out-- they're pocketing the cash. Don't look now, but it looks like this might actually be a very smart move.

[via Editors Weblog]

Edward Jay Epstein has written a compelling piece for Slate which explains why showing nudity in movies these days can spell financial disaster for studios. He gives many reasons for this, such as the box office failure of the NC-17 rated Showgirls, but the most interesting is what Epstein describes as  the "Wal-Mart consideration." Studios rake in mega-cash through home video sales, and a majority of those come from Wal-Mart, which is strict about the movies it makes available, not wanting to sell anything offensive or inappropriate. This has many worried that Wal-Mart's clout far exceeds what it should.

Edward Jay Epstein has an interesting piece in Slate about the decline in movie attendance, and the new model employed by studios to fill seats. It seems that once entertainment became more home based, studios had to turn movies into heavily-advertised, word of mouth "events." In other words, instead of creating a movie, you create an audience. It's interesting to say the least, and it helps to explain why so many people go to the movies, and yet so few have anything to say about them.