HOLLYWOOD LIBERATION ARMY

HOLLYWOOD BOX OFFICE HEADED FOR DISASTER

Numerous stories are beginning to appear on the sad state of this year's box office.  This comes as no surprise for the simple reason that the Hollywood system is broken.  At a certain point several years ago, Hollywood made the strategic decision to abandon original concepts and concentrate solely on remakes, sequels, and pre-sold properties taken from other media -- books, comics, games.  This strategy worked well initially with A-list franchises like "Lord Of The Rings", "Harry Potter", and "SpiderMan", resulting in record box office grosses; but now that Hollywood has burned through many of the A-list titles, it is being forced to rely more and more on less popular B and C-list properties that cannot possibly perform as well.  At the same time, it has become institutionally incapable of creating original movies and cannot go back to that point, and as such, faces the inevitable prospect of a long and slow erosion at the box office.

That's not to say that Star Wars won't be huge this summer, but Hollywood gets none of that money, and sure, they're trying to resurrect Batman and Superman again, but how many times you can that work?  War of the Worlds, King Kong, how many titles like these are there?  Not enough, and they are running out of them.

Hollywood Worries As Decline Continues -- NY Times

Hollywood's Box Office FlameOut -- CNN

ADMISSIONS SLIP, BUT HOLLYWOOD'S NOT WORRIED

...Total grosses were on track to rise about 1 percent from 2003, when revenues fell for the first time in 12 years.

Yet factoring in higher prices, the number of tickets sold was expected to be off about 2.5 percent from 2003's 1.54 billion admissions. That would be the second consecutive year that ticket sales slipped, after a decade in which admissions climbed steadily...

Miami Herald

HLA:  Studio bosses say they are not worried, but the truth is they will never attain the record levels of the previous two or three years.  Given that Hollywood no longer makes movie based on original ideas, it is reliant on pre-sold concepts, and it has already burned though most of the A level ones like Harry Potter and Lord Of The Rings.  It's all downhill from now.

US SENATE PASSES SCALED BACK COPYRIGHT MEASURE

The U.S. Senate has voted to outlaw several favorite techniques of people who illegally copy and distribute movies, but has dropped other measures that could have led to jail time for Internet song-swappers.

Reuters

HLA: Apparently, there is some sanity left in Washington, though probably not much.

AOL MOVIES AND MOVIEPHONE TO PREMIERE NEW STAR WARS TRAILER

AOL Movies and Moviefone.com today announced that they will offer an online premiere of the highly anticipated teaser trailer for Star Wars: Episode III Revenge of the Sith on November 4, one day before it appears in theaters. The trailer will be released in theaters on November 5, and will be available online only on AOL and StarWars.com Hyperspace, the subscription-only Official Star Wars Fan Club.

HLA: What's interesting is the attemp to essentially place a premium on 'first-access'. This seems to be a rising trend in relation to internet content.

DISNEY/PIXAR 'THE INCREDIBLES' GOES MOBILE

Disney Mobile today announced an incredible offering with its broadest, richest lineup of motion picture-based content to date. As the highly anticipated Walt Disney Pictures presentation of A Pixar Animation Studios film "The Incredibles" nears its November release, fans in the U.S. and abroad can take their enthusiasm to the small screen through an array of wireless fare inspired by the film.

DisneyMobile.com

VARIETY BOWS CAREER SITE

Variety and three of its sister publications today launched the entertainment industry online job site VarietyCareers.com.

The site will allow job seekers to post their resumes and apply for industry and media jobs throughout the world.

Variety.com

VARIETY.COM OFFERS STREAMING SERVICE

Variety.com has launched Variety Vision, a high-quality broadband streaming initiative that will focus on everything about the business of entertainment, from the upcoming Oscar season to the ongoing Miramax-Disney saga.

Variety.com

OVITZ CASE TO PLAY OUT ON NET

The shareholder lawsuit over the $140 million severance package that the Walt Disney Co. paid to Michael S. Ovitz, its former president, is sure to be one of the most watched trials in recent Hollywood history.

For those who cannot afford to spend a month in Georgetown, Del., where the trial is set to begin Oct. 18, Chancellor William B. Chandler III of Delaware Chancery Court has agreed that the proceedings can be shown live on the Internet at CourtroomConnect.

Mickey News

HOLLYWOOD BYTES [AS IN SUCKS] ROUNDUP

Aging Media Giants Glamour Fades -- USA Today

...a growing army of disillusioned Wall Streeters hoping to force media giants, including Time Warner (TWX), Viacom (VIA) and Comcast (CMCSA), to scale back the extravagant ambitions that for more than a decade made them so intriguing — but not lucrative for shareholders.

These investors say the big media companies are largely mature, like utilities, so it doesn't make sense for them to keep using their cash to build even grander empires.

Modern Cinema Is Rubbish -- Hanks -- Ireland Online

Movie star Tom Hanks is frustrated with Hollywood, because there are not enough honestly cynical movies being made.

VIDEO GAMES HAVE A GRIP ON HOLLYWOOD

When it comes to fodder for the next big hit, Hollywood is increasingly turning to video games for inspiration.

Motivated by huge interest internationally for video game movies, studios are adapting for the big screen at least six popular video titles, starting Friday with Resident Evil: Apocalypse. It's the sequel to the 2002 video game adaptation Resident Evil, which stunned studio executives by raking in $39.6 million in the USA and $102.4 million worldwide.

HLA: This comes as no surprise. Having burned through most potential pre-sold literary blockbusters like "Lord Of The Rings" and "Harry Potter", as well as most A-level comic book titles, Hollywood is turning to pre-sold video game titles. But there are two important issues to note here. The video game industry itself is experiencing a transformation into a more blockbuster-title, risk-averse, sequalitis approach to development. This change will lead to a smaller and smaller pool of titles from which to choose from for Hollywood. In addition, Hollywood has been rather unsuccessful in properly adapting video game titles into movies -- witness Lara Croft for example, which was nothing short of an embarassment and a stunning abdication of a potential windfall. Ultimately, the movie and video game industries will most probably merge and produce a small handful of supercostly uberblockbusters with the movie and games being developed in an even more coordinated and concurrent fashion than is presently done.