In Contention

Tag: Paramount Pictures

  • Paramount takes on Reitman’s latest

    Jason Reitman will be off to New York once again shortly to start production on “Labor Day,” after spending months out that way filming this fall’s “Young Adult.” And it looks like both he and Paramount are happy with the relationship so far. The press release, in part:

    Paramount Pictures and Indian Paintbrush jointly announced today they will co-produce, and Paramount will distribute, Academy Award®-nominated writer / director Jason Reitman’s LABOR DAY starring Academy Award®-winner Kate Winslet and Academy Award® nominee Josh Brolin. Indian Paintbrush will co-finance the project, with the company’s Steven Rales and Mark Roybal executive producing.

    The movie will be produced by Academy Award®-nominated producers Lianne Halfon and Russell Smith of Mr. Mudd Productions, along with Reitman and Helen Estabrook of Right of Way Films.

    Adapted by Reitman and based on the novel by Joyce Maynard, LABOR DAY tells the story of an escaped convict (Brolin) who seeks shelter with a single mom (Winslet) and her young son over a long Labor Day weekend.

    [Photo: Paramount Pictures]

  • COMIC-CON: Paramount brings Spielberg, Jackson and a taste of ‘Tintin’

    Before I ducked out of town for the day yesterday, I hit up Paramount Pictures’ panel for Steven Spielberg’s “The Adventures of Tintin: The Secret of the Unicorn.” The Beard was on hand to discuss the film (and pick up this year’s Inkpot Award), and a surprise appearance by Peter Jackson got the crowd buttered up nicely for the footage.

    So let’s start with that. We were first shown test footage from six years ago featuring Jackson as Captain Haddock and an animated Snowy. This was back when Spielberg was still trying to decide what the best filmmaking technique on the film would be. After that, it was a collage of scenes from the film (which Spielberg noted represented some of the earliest renderings out of Weta).

    My immediate reaction was that the film is Spielberg through and through. In other words, it has the energy, the cinematic thumbprint of a Spielberg film, the in-scene pacing and editorial signature of so much of his work. I wasn’t fully expecting that, but the truth is, they wanted a system of performance capture that would allow the director to be right in the middle of things.

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  • Beatty got back

    Usually, the news that someone is about to write, direct, produce and star in some film of no clear description for Paramount wouldn’t seem particularly worthy of notice until the parties involved release a few more details.

    But when the “someone” in question is 74 year-old Warren Beatty, the one-time Hollywood monarch whose name hasn’t appeared on screen since 2001 (as an ensemble member of all-star embarrassment “Town and Country”), it’s hard not to get curious.

    With Beatty not having steered a film of his own since 1998’s “Bulworth” — the fascinating but frustratingly scattershot political satire that never found a place in the popular imagination, despite netting him a writing Oscar nod and arguably featuring Halle Berry’s strongest performance — there’s likely a generation or two with little concept of what an industry force the man was across four decades. (Perhaps more enduring, on the pop-culture scale, is his reputation as Hollywood’s most storied lothario, though Annette Bening put a stop that 20 years ago.)

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  • On Paramount’s dueling ponies

    There’s some fuzzy Oscar reasoning in this Guardian piece on Paramount’s two-pronged stab at the Best Picture race, but the essential point it makes is an interesting one: with “True Grit” having been produced in-house and “The Fighter” something of an adopted son for the studio, does Paramount have a favorite child in this race?

    Writer Jeremy Kay believes they do, and in the light of the precursors thus far, isn’t sure they picked the right one:

    While [The Fighter’s] $12.2m gross is nothing to write home about from 2,503 theatres, it’s no disgrace either – especially when you consider Paramount hasn’t thrown as many marketing dollars behind The Fighter as it has invested in True Grit. That’s because the studio’s top brass made an early bet that True Grit, a Paramount movie, would ultimately be more successful than The Fighter, which the studio is distributing for a fee on behalf of the movie’s backers Relativity Media.

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  • THE LISTS: Top 10 movie-related moments of 2009

    UpAs the year (and decade) slowly winds down, I thought it would be a pretty good time to revive our long-slumbering Lists feature here at In Contention. And what better way to do so and salute the year at hand than to lay out the most significant movie-related moments of 2009?

    The American Film Institute kind of tried its hand at this yesterday. I was already considering a list along these lines, but the AFI thing definitely got my the ole’ gears turning once again. Suffice it to say, I think they missed a few spots.

    It was an intriguing year. For me, as mentioned many times, it was the best year of filmmaking the decade has seen. But it was also a pivotal year for the film industry, as everything from standardized digital projection to 3D technology, experimental distribution schemes to economic effects on the business seemed to be on the table as points of consideration along the way.

    It was the first year of the Obama administration, something that found its way into the arts discussion as well. Whether it was the consideration of “Slumdog Millionaire” (which ultimately won the Best Picture Oscar this year) as the “first film of the Obama era” or the desire to include films like “Precious” (a stretch) and “Invictus” (not such a stretch) in that conversation, the political environment, as ever, was in the cinema air.

    It was a year of many things, so obviously, a list like this could be filled with any number of instances. But these 10 stuck out to me as the most significant ticks on the clock of 2009. Agree, disagree, whatever the case, don’t look too hard for a “Twilight” mention (though I suppose one may have been warranted).

    My picks…

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  • Only connect

    Jason ReitmanThe team behind “Up in the Air” have done a very sly job of making the film alternately ubiquitous and invisible this season, as paradoxical as that sounds.

    For us bloggers, the film seems to have been around for ages — indeed, it’s nearly three months since its Telluride premiere, an eternity in awards-campaign terms. Yet, conscious of the dangers of overhype, the film has been held back after that initial buzz-burst, garnering goodwill at select subsequent screenings, but largely ceding the publicity spotlight to the likes of “Precious.”

    Now, with the film finally opening to the public this Friday, the media assault begins afresh, with two extensive profiles of writer-director Jason Reitman appearing yesterday in the flagship papers of both coasts. David Carr’s NYT interview and Rachel Abramowitz’s LA Times piece overlap a fair amount, though Carr’s takes the cute route of meeting Reitman in an airport, allowing for a more pointed reflection on the film’s themes of physical and personal statelessness.

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  • 11/19 Oscarweb Round-up

    (from left) Maggie Gyllenhaal and Jeff Bridges Crazy Heart• Michael Cieply writes up “Crazy Heart” from the angle that Paramount has “embarrassed” itself for passing on the film once upon a time, but apparently that early cut was “unwatchable,” so, you know, cut some slack. [New York Times]

    • Clint Eastwood — set to grace one of five GQ covers next month — says the country is in a morbid mood.  [CNN]

    • The Gurus o’ Gold weigh in on the directors and animated features. [Movie City News]

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  • ‘Star Trek’ under the stars

    Griffith ObservatoryThe swank, spare-no-expense shin-dig last night at the historic Griffith Observatory was officially a DVD release party for one of the summer’s biggest critical and fiscal hits.  But with nearly the entire Hollywood Foreign Press Association’s membership on hand, the general vibe of awards season in the air and the obvious implications of a fall DVD release for an early-year hopeful, it’s fair to say it was ostensibly a call to Oscar arms for a film that has a pretty good shot at one of this year’s 10 Best Picture slots.

    Most of the “Star Trek” cast was on hand — Zachary Quinto, Bruce Greenwood, Karl Urban, John Cho, Clifton Collins Jr. — but Leonard Nimoy and Walter Koenig were the ones causing the biggest stir, as of course they would.  A specialty drink menu (Spock’s Mind Meld Mojito, Red Matter, Romulan Ale), little red matter balls in giant flower vases, telescopes trained on Jupiter, bright in the Southwest sky (including one of the big ones in the Observatory), the Observatory itself lit up by projected galactic imagery, the whole thing had a nifty, novel, interstellar vibe.

    And it might pay off.  After all, it only takes a little wining and dining to get the HFPA on your side, right?  But seriously speaking, there are a couple of Best Picture slots that, to my mind, are up for grabs.  Should the big anticipated films miss with the awards constituencies, then it’s just as well for a film like “Star Trek,” still one of the year’s best films.

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  • How ‘Up in the Air’ factored in the ‘Shutter’ bump

    George Clooney in Up in the AirVariety’s Pamela McClintock was written a detailed piece examining the financial ins and outs of the recent postponing of “Shutter Island,” coming to the conclusion — as did Kris following the announcement — that the move is purely a practical one on the part of Paramount chief Brad Grey. Quite simply, she explains, the film stands to make more of a profit in February, free from the expense of awards-season marketing.

    But while everyone has picked up on how the move potentially improves the fortunes of Paramount awards hopeful “The Lovely Bones,” McClintock suggests that it is Jason Reitman’s increasingly buzzy “Up in the Air” that is a more significant factor in this conversation. In picking Reitman’s far smaller film over Scorsese’s as a 2009 Oscar pony, the studio has pragmatically opted for the title that is cheaper to market — and to campaign:

    Unofficially, Par has decided to throw its support behind George Clooney dark comedy and awards hopeful “Up in the Air,” directed by Jason Reitman. That film isn’t yet dated. Rumors are that it will be released in early December, but Par says a date won’t be decided upon until after the film makes its world premiere at the Toronto Film Festival.

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  • Paramount moves ‘Shutter Island’ to 2010

    (from left) Mark Ruffalo and Leonardo DiCaprio in Shutter IslandThis is a stunning development.  It seems Paramount has decided to move the release date of Martin Scrosese’s “Shutter Island” from October 2009, a mere two months away, to February 2010.  The move reflects a similar last minute decision to move “The Soloist” out of last year’s fall slate to the Spring 2009 frame.  Nikki Finke has the scoop.

    The obvious answer here is money.  An awards campaign was certainly in the cards for “Shutter Island,” and those aren’t cheap.  But while “The Soloist” ultimately opened and was revealed as less than Oscar-caliber, Scorsese’s film has been testing really well and was expected to be a big 2009 awards player.

    Still, these are tough times.  Everyone’s looking for ways to cut back and deal with the here and now and obviously, an Oscar campaign just didn’t seem fiscally responsible for a studio that will already have two major hopefuls in Jason Reitman’s “Up in the Air” and Peter Jackson’s “The Lovely Bones.”

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  • Quote of the day

    Good work Paramount, not screening G.I. Joe got everyone to talk about it (some twice) and you don’t even have to deal with the reviews.

    Twittered by Brad Brevet of Rope of Silicon.

  • 6/22 Web Round-up

    Last Year at Marienbad• Steve Appleford taps into Spinal Tap, 25 years later. [Los Angeles Times]

    • Dennis Lim, meanwhile, revisits the “last gasp of an old-fashioned modernism” that is “Last Year at Marienbad.” [Los Angeles Times]

    • A few of the cinema’s most inspiring, moving and emotional dad moments. [Empire]

    • John Hiscock talks “Year One” with Jack Black. [Daily Telegraph]

    • Popcorn as a sexual aid? [The Guardian]

    • Lou Lumenick, spinning his wheels, wonders whether the top brass shakeup at Paramount this week is prelude to a merger with Universal Pictures. [Lumenick on Film]

    • Sam Mendes beat Martin Scorsese to the “Middlemarch” punch. [The Independent]

    • Speaking of which, Brad Brevet accuses Sam Mendes of attacking the state of American marriage.  If the shoe fits… [Rope of Silicon]

  • SonyMount? Universal Mount?

    ParamountThis Reuters item, via Forbes, could be the biggest case of leaping before looking in film journo world this week.  And it’s only Monday!

    Viacom Inc’s Paramount Pictures could merge with Sony Pictures, Universal Studios or another movie studio amid a wave of consolidation in the industry over the next few months, veteran investor Mario Gabelli said in the latest issue of Barron’s.

    The chief executive of Gamco Investors Inc, who owns shares of Viacom, said he expects dealmaking among movie studios as they seek to cut costs…

    ‘Today there are seven or eight motion-picture studios. A round of consolidation will occur in the next six to 12 months because of the costs of financing, prints and advertising, the benefits of globalization and such,’ Gabelli said. ‘We hear talk of something going on.’

  • Paramount marketers getting a bit lazy?

    Oh, I kid the good folks over on Melrose.  But tell me these two layouts weren’t switched at birth:

    (from left) Iron Man poster and Star Trek poster

  • 11/22 Oscarweb Round-up

    Tilda Swinton• Jeffrey Wells hangs with the “Revolutionary Road” crew in the Big Apple. [Hollywood Elsewhere]

    • Ditto Glenn Kenny, who moderated the post-screening Q&A. [Some Came Running]

    • David Poland waxes on about how much he thinks “Revolutionary Road” fails, and judging by his charts, clearly hasn’t seen “Australia” yet. [Movie City News]

    • Steve Gaydos reports on a Rod Lurie event at UCLA for “Nothing But the Truth.” [Thompson on Hollywood]

    • Peter Sciretta talks to Pixar honcho John Lasseter. [/Film]

    • Pete Hammond thinks there’s a hex on Paramount screenings because of a couple of snafus of late, reports from a “Doubt” reception. [Notes on a Season]

    • Which songs will get the ole’ Oscar shove for “High School Musical 3?” [Gold Derby]

    • Simon Hattenstone meets with the “contradictory” Tilda Swinton. [The Guardian]

    • Eugene Hernandez and Peter Knegt debate the documentary shortlist. [indieWIRE]

  • 11/12 Oscarweb Round-up

    Ben Stiller• David Chen junkets Danny Boyle on the director’s inspirations. [/Film]

    • David Poland is being pissy about when Paramount wants to screen their Oscar contender this year. [The Hot Blog]

    • Lou Lumenick rounds up the infinitely boring denials and foreplay coming from the “Australia” camp.  Can we just get to the movie already and stop with the lame “news” bytes? [Lumeick on Film]

    • Noah Forrest is kind of over James Bond. [Movie City News]

    • Steven Zeitchik gives “Slumdog Millionaire” another look and still loves what he sees. [Risky Biz Blog]

    • Logan Hill, meanwhile, talks to the film’s standout Dev Patel. [Vulture]

    • Sasha Stone pegs the season as the year of the showcase perf. [Awards Daily]

    • Chris Lee corners “Changeling” star Angelina Jolie about life and stuff. [The Envelope]

    • As the Buzzmeter rumbles to life, slowly, a few more pundits chime in with Tom O’Neil. [Gold Derby]

    • “Gomorrah” producer Domenico Procacci and IFC Films won’t be content with a mere Best Foreign Language Film mention. [Variety]

    • Museum of the Moving Image honoree Ben Stiller talks his feting to Daniel Frankel. [Variety]

    • Dave Karger puts Frank Langella’s likely Oscar clip out there for all to see. [Entertainment Weekly]

  • 10/21 Oscarweb Round-up

    Daniel Craig in Quantum of Solace• Kim Voynar sets up Film Essent at MCN. [Movie City News]

    • Tom O’Neil collects some more guesses from Oscar prognosticators. [Gold Derby]

    • And he reports that “Slumdog Millionaire”‘s Dev Patel will be campaigned as a supporting actor. [Gold Derby]

    • John Campea explores the reasons why “The Dark Knight” will land a Best Picture nomination in the wake of delayed and underwhelming competition. [The Movie Blog]

    • Eugene Hernandez and Peter Knegt discuss the Gotham nods. [indieWIRE]

    • Brooks Barnes looks into Wall Street’s creative affect on Hollywood. [New York Times]

    • Brad Brevet sits down with “Happy-Go-Lucky” helmer Mike Leigh. [Rope of Silicon]

    • Lauren Schuker looks at Paramount’s two release date retreats as a sign of the economic crisis. [Wall Street Journal]

    • The meteoric downfall of Roberto Benigni. [Spout Blog]

    • Anne Thompson had a good time watching “Quantum of Solace.” [Thompson on Hollywood]

  • OFF THE CARPET: Holding back

    Meryl Streep in SoubtEvery Oscar season is about managing expectations. Studios, of course, want to keep the murmurs to a minimum whether they have the goods or not because the peril of peaking too early is just as bad as the sting of negative word-of-mouth. Similarly, being “the one to beat” sets a film up to rise to an unfair occasion rather than coming to the table fresh.

    Holding back is a tradition and is even one of two philosophies on the awards season sell. There are those who’ll tell you that, if you have a great movie, you should show it and show it proudly. The other side of the equation believes in the manipulation of when and where opinion will trickle out. It seems every year a train wreck of sorts occurs, and this year, that train wreck was obviously “Frost/Nixon.”

    After landing in London to some mediocre reviews (no one at this site, by the way, ever said the film was bombing with critics across the board), should Universal Pictures have been particularly surprised? Ron Howard, America’s white-bread filmmaking standard exhibiting to the chilly British disposition? It wasn’t going to be a rapturous reception, and with the film having been completed for months on end, holding back until the London festival to give anyone a sanctioned peek raised eyebrows long ago.

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