In this morning’s roundup of movie news ‘n’ notes from around the web, Bill Condon woos the Twihards, summer movies arrive, and the AP forgets where Jeff Katzenberg works.
“Dear ‘Twilight’ fans: I’m not going to screw it up. Yours truly, Bill Condon.” That’s the gist of a letter that director Condon posted on Facebook over the weekend, assuring fans of the franchise that he loves the books, he loves Kristen Stewart and Robert Pattinson and Taylor Lautner, he loves vampires, and he’s been wanting to make another movie “with Gothic overtones” since he made “Gods and Monsters” in 1998. If I thought “Breaking Dawn” could be anywhere near as wonderful and moving as “Gods and Monsters,” I might even be excited. But I don’t, so I'm not. On the other hand, more than 3,000 people have responded to his note as of early Monday morning, so Condon is clearly engaging the target audience. Which, of course, is the whole idea. Anne Thompson calls Condon "a smart cookie" for the letter, which was first noted by Slashfilm. (Facebook)
Here’s a story that has absolutely nothing to do with the movie business, but I couldn’t let it pass without mention: in the Associated Press’ account of the Los Angeles Lakers’ victory over the Utah Jazz in the first game of their second-round NBA playoff series, the last line of Greg Beacham’s story was, “Courtside fans included Sylvester Stallone, director Michael Bay and former Walt Disney Co. CEO Jeffrey Katzenberg, who also attended Floyd Mayweather Jr.’s victory over Sugar Shane Mosley in Las Vegas on Saturday night.” Yikes! How do you think Jeff Katzenberg feels, 16 years after leaving Disney and co-founding DreamWorks SKG, at being identified with the company where he worked for 10 years (and left in some acrimony) rather than the one he’s run ever since? (The AP via Yahoo! Sports)
(Left: DreamWorks Animation CEO Jeffrey Katzenberg, right, with Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa at the Lakers game, May 2, 2010; photo by Noel Vasquez/Getty Images.)
It’s the first week in May, and that means an action-packed, big-budget, major-studio movie with a number in its title is being released at the end of the week. (In this case, it’s “Iron Man 2.”) And that can only mean one thing: Summer Movie Previews! The New York Times observes the ritual with four different roundups, one for each month: May, June, July and August.
The L.A. Times, not to be outdone, has one big roundup of everything, from “Babies” (May 7) to “Resident Evil: Afterlife” (September 10). Plus a page that links to stories about every imaginable aspect of summer films.
Antagony & Ecstasy only lists the May movies, but then predicts the 10 biggest movies of the summer: “The Twilight Saga: Eclipse” at number one, followed by “Iron Man 2,” “Toy Story 3,” “Shrek Forever After” and “Robin Hood.”
