viacom Tagged Articles at Cinematical

Here's a funny one for your Friday: Remember that MTV Movie Awards spoof featuring Ben Stiller, Robert Downey Jr. and Jack Black? If not, head here to refresh your memory. In said video, Stiller was using his two Tropic Thunder co-stars to shoot a "viral video" for the upcoming flick; one to impress his consistently bored nephew. It was a funny video, and arguably the best spoof of this year's awards show. Of course, kids everywhere wanted to share the viral video featuring three of their favorite actors making a viral video -- but the only problem is that Viacom has forced YouTube to not only remove all uploads, but also suspend the YouTube account of the person(s) who uploaded it.

They've pulled the viral video they made! Looking around, the video is still available over at sites like Funny or Die, so perhaps this has more to do with Viacom's lawsuit against Google (who own YouTube) than it does pulling the video from all similar sites so that folks can only watch it on MTV. Because that would be weird ... and sorta ironic, don't ya think? Ahem.

[via Matt Griswold]

If you've been following some of my posts recently -- and you should be -- I've been bringing you some of the latest bits of news regarding the trials and tribulations of would-be Internet content king YouTube. For the last couple years, the site has had huge numbers of users and generated millions of dollars of free publicity for Hollywood studios and their products. And even though the site has also had its share of troubles as well, it had still mostly managed to avoid anything really unpleasant -- that is, until now.

According to CNN, Viacom, parent company of MTV and Comedy Central, filed suit against YouTube and its parent company Google Tuesday. The suit alleges that YouTube has "almost 160,000 unauthorized clips of Viacom's programming have been available on YouTube and that these clips had been viewed more than 1.5 billion times." If that's true, what does Viacom want from Google and YouTube in the way of damages? How about a cool billion dollars. Yes, I said billion. In addition to money, Viacom also wants an injunction prohibiting Google and YouTube from further copyright infringement and to take down any and all Viacom-owned content from the site.

In a statement also released on Tuesday, Viacom said about Google and YouTube: "Their business model, which is based on building traffic and selling advertising off of unlicensed content, is clearly illegal and is in obvious conflict with copyright laws." Harsh words. At the moment, this doesn't look like something that'll be settled quickly but I think it will be settled eventually. Although, by the time it is, I'm sure the copyrighted content Viacom is so interested in protecting will have shown up on countless other sites all over the Internet. So, in the end, Viacom 's lawsuit will probably accomplish very little and the only people that will really benefit are the lawyers.

The Boston Herald has an interesting piece up speculating on whether Paramount execs had planned to end their spendy relationship with Cruise and his production partner, Paula Wagner, to make room for Steven Spielberg since Paramount's acquisition of Dreamworks SKG nine months ago. Brett Arends, writing for the Herald, points out that in a conversation with Par stockholders and Wall Street analysts last December, Viacom chair Sumner Redstone and other execs noted that the acquisition of Dreamworks meant that Dreamworks (and, presumably Spielberg) would be taking over 4-6 slots out of the 14-16 films Paramount puts out per year. Tom Feston, chief operating officer at the time, had emphasized that Dreamworks would be taking slots in Par's existing slate -- which, as Arends notes in his piece via a quote from a Wall Street analyst, indicated that Paramount had already decided then that they would have to get rid of some production relationships to make room.

It's an interesting take on the much ballyhooed C/W-Paramount split, especially in light of Spielberg saying that he was "shocked" to learn of Cruise's departure. Given that Cruise reportedly will make more off of Mission: Impossible: 3 than the prodco, though, one has wonder if the split was inevitable anyhow, regardless of Redstone's talk about Cruise's off-screen antics being to blame, and if the Dreamworks buy just accelerated the process. It will be interesting to see what Cruise and Wagner do on their own, and who ends up winning the long-term box office battle. ...

Though no one at Cruise/Wagner Productions was available for comment when Paramount announced they were dumping the duo -- at least in part because company partner Tom Cruise's "recent conduct has not been acceptable" -- they're talking now. And, not surprisingly, no one at C/W is very happy with how things went down. Paula Wagner herself characterized the above comment by Viacom chairman Sumner Redstone as "outrageous and disrespectful," while Cruise's agent (and Wagner's husband) Rick Nicita described Redstone's words as "shockingly offensive and graceless." Not only did she denounce Redstone's behavior, but Wagner went on the say that Cruise was in fact the one who broke off negotiations with Paramount last week. According to Wagner, she and Cruise have already "raised a revolving fund of $100 million from two hedge funds" to financing future projects. Also, his agents told the press that Cruise has already decided on his next starring role (What? Why has no one told us about this?), and is currently in negotiations with a studio home for the film.

Take that, Sumner.

Last time I reported on the confusing family known as Viacom, I mentioned that MTV Films and Nickelodeon Films were being adopted (consolidated) by Paramount Pictures. Well, I was sorta wrong. In continuing my allegory, let me just say that MTV and Nickelodeon are not being sheltered so much as they are growing up -- although like many young grown-ups these days, they will continue to live with their parents.

In case you ever paid attention to the corporate logos preceding an MTV or Nickelodeon movie, you likely noticed that in addition to the MTV or Nickelodeon logos, the Paramount Pictures logo also flashed on the screen. This is because Paramount distributed the films. But now MTV and Nickelodeon are adults and can distribute themselves, just like Paramount Vantage, Paramount Classics and Dreamworks. They're still part of the Paramount/Viacom family, of course, but they are trusted more than they were as children (er, production companies). Best of all, like the adultalescents they are, MTV and Nickelodeon get to retain their cool status as brands for teens and kids, respectively.

Producer Scott Aversano has been hired as president of both labels.

Last month, we shared with you the saga of Stacey Snider leaving Universal (Sort of - she has to see out her contract before she leaves. Awkward!) for a major leadership position at DreamWorks. And now, if there were any questions about how great at her job Snider really is, they've been answered: when she finally leaves, she'll be replaced by not one, but two men. As expected, Marc Shmuger and David Linde (also co-president of Focus Features) have been named Universal's co-chairs. Actually, the more senior Shmuger is "chair" and Linde is "co-chair," but the two are supposedly equal when it comes to power and decision-making.

In other industry news, Viacom (Paramount's parent company) has finally off-loaded the rights to their newly-acquired DreamWorks film library. And, as rumored back in January, the buyer was billionaire investor/financier/philanthropist George Soros, along with his partner Steven Mnuchin. According to the most recent reports, the duo paid about $900 million for the rights - not including distribution, which Viacom kept - to 59 films. Holy mother of God.

A couple days ago, I posted about the supposed controversy around the South Park episode "Trapped in the Closet" being pulled by parent company Viacom, ostensibly in response to Tom Cruise threatening to pull ads for Mission: Impossible: 3 if the episode was aired. Daily Variety reported yesterday that an anonymous Cruise spokesman denied the allegations, but an interesting statement from South Park creators Trey Parker and Matt Stone  - signed "Trey Parker and Matt Stone, servants of the dark lord Xenu" - seems to indicate otherwise. Parker and Stone were reportedly told not to discuss the reasons behind the episode being pulled, but did anyone really expect those boys to stay muzzled for long? I think not.

Now the heavies are getting into the game. Jim Emerson, writing on the Scanners blog on Roger Ebert's website, wrote earlier this week about the brouhaha around Isaac Hayes' abrupt departure from South Park, and yesterday posted another lengthy piece about the issue of Scientology and the First Amendment. Now even Andrew Sullivan is getting on the bandwagon, urging his readers to demand the airing of "Trapped in the Closet" and, while they're at it, to boycott Mission: Impossible: 3. Rolling Stone has a really good in-depth article on Scientology in general, as well - one of the few pieces with which the Scientology bigwigs actually cooperated. It's long, but an engrossing read.

It'll be interesting to see on which horn of this little dilemma the folks at Viacom will choose to impale themselves. Piss off mega-movie-star and high-level Scientologist Cruise and run the episode again, to prove to everyone they weren't lying out their asses when they claimed they only pulled the episode in order to run episodes featuring Hayes, in a farewell tribute? Or piss off their viewers, South Park fans, Parker and Stone, and defenders of the First Amendment in general by keeping the episode, well, in the closet?