For Your Consideration: 'The Hangover'?!

June, 24, 2009 11:46 am | On #Movies, Oscar

When I was six, I played soccer. My team stunk, but we always got a trophy just for participating.

That's where the Academy is headed now that it has announced that 10 movies will be in competition for best picture.

Don't like that analogy? OK, how's this -- the Academy is officially going the way of the Golden Globes. And that used to be blasphemy, heresy, whatever.

But by inviting more people to the party, AMPAS has diluted the value of getting a nomination, which is everything in Hollywood.

Ten movies? Are there really 10 movies every year that should get a best picture nomination?

Think about it ... For Your Consideration: "The Hangover."

Let's take 2008. The overall consensus is that "The Dark Knight" and "Wall-E" were reasonable contenders that missed the cut. So that takes the total to seven, along with...

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When Nobody Wanted to Reboot 'Star Trek'

May, 31, 2009 3:42 pm | On #David Lonner, JJ Abrams, Movies, Sam Raimi, Star Trek

As "Star Trek" becomes the first 2009 film to cross the $200 million mark at the domestic box office, it's worth remembering that just a few years ago, nobody wanted anything to do with the franchise.

And that Sam Raimi was once offered the gig to become its potential savior.

The film with the best summer legs so far -- it's now the top release of 2009 and only dropped 46 percent percent in its third week -- offers up a good ol' Hollywood lesson in patience, worry ... and corporate luck.

In 2005, Sumner Redstone announced his plans to split his conglomerate into two parts: Viacom, where Paramount would still reside, and CBS, to be run by Les Moonves and a unit that would eventually have its own film division.

The lawyers then came in and had to divvy up the assets. As expected, "Star Trek" landed at CBS, which had fathered the...

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NBC: That Old Familiar Feeling

May, 04, 2009 1:39 pm | On #Ben Silverman, Jeff Zucker, NBC, Television

NBC had a chance to knock it out of the park.

 

But instead, we got ... "Parenthood."

 

At Monday's "infront,"* the network unveiled its fall shows -- a list that would hopefully make us forget about last year's "hot prospects," mainly "Knight Rider" And "My Own Worst Enemy." A list that would hopefully make up for the horrendous "Kings."

 

No such luck.

 

Talk about the same ol' same ol'. "Parenthood" has great people in it (Peter Krause, Craig T. Nelson) and behind it (Imagine's Ron Howard and Brian Grazer) but is a total retread. Did we mention the movie came out in 1989? 

 

As "ER" fades into the sunset, there will be "Trauma," a medical drama about emergency-response teams from producer Peter...

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Merger Will Be a Case Study In Ego Management

April, 27, 2009 6:39 pm | On #Deal Central, endeavor, William Morris

Now comes the hard part.

 

William Morris and Endeavor exchanged rings on Monday, and the honeymoon is sure to be wonderful.

 

And why wouldn't it be? With a client list like that -- Denzel Washington, Russell Crowe, Tina Fey -- and massive amounts of Hollywood mojo, people on both sides will be going through a transition that will take the newly formed WME Entertainment to the top of the agency heap, both revenue-wise and volume-wise.

 

But remember, marriage is really hard.

 

To say there's a culture difference -- in leadership style and history -- is an understatement. Simply, William Morris is still making money from "The Dick Van Dyke Show," while Endeavor is younger than, say, Shia LaBeouf -- one of WME's shared clients, by the way.

 

And that's not an easy thing to...

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