A few more Tuesday Odds-n-Ends
EDITOR'S NOTE: SINCE THE QOTD HAS JURY DUTY TOMORROW (EVERYONE SALUTE, CIVIC PRIDE, ETC), LET'S SCATTER SOME MORE DWEEBING INTO THE ETHER ON THE OFF-CHANCE WE WON'T GET THE OPPORTUNITY MANANA.
OR SOMETHING LIKE THAT.....
FIRST UP, CHECK OUT THIS CUTE TRAILER FOR AN UPCOMING FLICK!
Nanny McPhee trailer:
http://www.workingtitlefilms.com/trailers/nanny_trailer_large.htm
EDITOR’S NOTE: WHEDON’ITES REJOICE. AFTER A DRY SPELL, WE HAVE TO TALK ABOUT JOSS AGAIN. WOOHOO.
Whedon flock ready for 'Firefly' resurrection
Now that "Star Wars," "Star Trek" and "The Matrix" are fading into the sunset, what will take their place in the hearts of sci-fi fantasy fans?TV auteur Joss Whedon and Universal Pictures are hoping that it's "Serenity," his movie version of 2002's aborted Fox space Western TV series "Firefly," which opens Sept. 30.
Universal launched its grass-roots awareness campaign for Whedon's directing debut in April, recruiting Whedon's loyal fans to help sell "Serenity," which features the original "Firefly" cast.
The studio previewed the rough cut nationwide in markets where "Firefly" performed best, culminating with a rousing screening at Comic-Con International, where Whedon and his cast conducted a panel for fans.
Back in 2001, when Whedon sat down to write his follow-up to the two hit Fox series "Buffy the Vampire Slayer" and "Angel," he wanted to try his hand at a space Western.
"I thought, 'Wagon Train' in space," he says on the phone from Cape Cod, where he is conceiving his upcoming "Wonder Woman" script. He didn't know that Gene Roddenberry had set out to do the same thing back in the 1960s, when he created "Star Trek," a smart TV show that was saved by its fans.History is repeating itself.
The Sci Fi Channel is currently showing all 13 episodes of "Firefly" -- in the correct order.
"Fox never got the show," Whedon says. "It was a bad match."
After premiering the series late after a World Series game and running 11 episodes out of order, Fox dropped it.
"I told the cast the day the show was canceled that I would not rest until I found another home," Whedon says. "I felt like I had let them down." Not wanting to admit failure was part of it, too, Whedon admits. "I didn't want people thinking that the show didn't work. Nothing I've ever done has ever emerged so instantly. Even the pilot was the way it should be. There was never an awkward growing phase. It felt right. Every actor felt so right, they worked so well together. I couldn't bear to let the universe go, or let the actors out of my sight."
When overseas markets demanded a DVD release, Fox Home Entertainment complied. The "Firefly" DVD sold more than 200,000 copies. Whedon felt vindicated. Having soldiered in the feature screenwriting realm on "Toy Story," "Titan A.E." and an unproduced "X-Men" script, Whedon told Universal executive Mary Parent that he wanted to make his directing debut on the movie version of "Firefly."
She checked out the DVDs. "Write it," she told him.
Renamed "Serenity," after the Firefly-class ship that scours outer space, the $40 million alien-free movie will register with "Firefly" fans without confusing people, Whedon says. And the movie retains the show's homemade feel.
"It's like the ship Serenity herself," he says. "Crappy but scrappy."
"Serenity" reunites the original TV cast of nine shipmates in a dysfunctional family. That was the deal. There was never a question of upgrading the cast, though Universal did consider hiring a name villain -- and then dropped it.
Added to the youthful ensemble headed by Canadian actor Nathan Fillion, who plays a jocular Kirk-like captain on the mercenary freighter, are archvillain Chiwetel Ejiofor ("Dirty Pretty Things") and David Krumholtz ("Numbers") as a hacker hermit.
At Comic-Con, dancer-actress Summer Glau's martial arts scene drew thunderous applause and an Ain't It Cool News rave. EDITOR’S NOTE: OH, WELL. THERE YOU ARE. FAT HARRY LIKES IT, SO IT MUST BE GOOD.
What generates this powerful response? "What captivates the fans is an entire world they can go to," Whedon says, "that feels complete, thought-out, genuine, that they can live in for a long time. From the first show, we made sure every character had their own patch of ground. Conflicts become the story. Everybody plays off everybody."
Says Anna Kaufman, arts editor of the Daily Californian in Berkeley, Calif.: "You feel for the family of nine characters and their well-being. They all have interesting dynamics, pasts and secrets. They're thrumming with life."
Kaufman checks the many Web sites devoted to Whedon, "Firefly" and "Serenity" (including cantstopthesignal.com) for updates on the movie. "I'm greedy. I want more," she adds.
In October, when Universal's co-president of marketing, Eddie Egan, booked a routine rough-cut preview in L.A.'s San Fernando Valley, he was amazed by the explosive response from the research-screening recruits who were clearly rabid "Firefly" fans. He wanted to know just how they had learned about the screening.It turned out that one fan had identified the movie and tipped off her entire "Firefly" community (known as "browncoats") with one Internet post. Some of them had driven from Arizona and Seattle, Egan says.
Universal, deciding that they had something bigger than they thought, pushed the action adventure off of its spring lineup and into the fall.
The studio staged three waves of word-of-mouth sneak preview screenings (which do not advertise the name of the film) in 35 cities where "Firefly" had earned the best ratings, including Toronto and San Francisco.
Each time, Whedon posted fan screenings on his blog: once, with a link to a Fandango site where they could order tickets. Each time, all the tickets were sold within five minutes.
Fans return for repeat viewings, Egan says, bringing new people with them. "As the industry struggles to redefine the paradigm of the movie business," Egan says, "and what makes people go to movies or avoid them, a piece of text on a Web page sold out theaters." EDITOR’S NOTE: IF YOU FILM IT, THEY WILL COME? (ANDREW: WHEN YOU GET BACK IN TOWN, HOW ABOUT LOANING ME YOUR DVDS?)
EDITOR'S NOTE: A FEW ITEMS FROM 'DA BIZ' SECTION OF THE DWEEBING NEWS ---
TV Guide Gets More Stories, Fewer Listings
By SETH SUTELAP Business WriterJuly 26, 2005, 1:57 PM EDTNEW YORK --
TV Guide, an iconic magazine for two generations of Americans, is radically remaking itself into a title with a much smaller circulation, a larger, full-color format, fewer listings and more stories about TV shows and stars.
The magazine has struggled to stay relevant in an era where more people look up TV listings online or through on-screen programming guides from their cable and satellite TV providers.
TV Guide's parent company, Gemstar-TV Guide International Inc., is also a major provider of those guides and the technology they use.
The revamp, which the company announced early Tuesday, calls for the magazine to slash the circulation it guarantees advertisers by nearly two-thirds, from 9 million to 3.2 million.
The magazine will also ditch its digest-sized format in favor of a full-size, full-color format with more stories about TV shows than listings.
The new magazine will have 75 percent stories and 25 percent listings, the reverse of the ratio it has now. TV Guide also said it would cut jobs as part of the revamp, but it declined say how many.
The changes will go into effect with the magazine's Oct. 17 issue. EDITOR’S NOTE: WONDER WHEN THEY PLAN ON TELLING THE SUBSCRIBERS. NOT SURE I WANT THE THING IF THEY’RE DOING AWAY WITH THE LISTINGS.
The revamp represents a complete overhaul of the magazine's business model, one that some advertisers felt was long overdue.
Eric Blankfein, senior vice president Horizon Media Inc., a media and advertising buying company, said TV Guide had been considered "old, staid and stodgy" among advertisers. EDITOR’S NOTE: I’VE BEEN CALLED WORSE….."The magazine was an aging property that didn't have the freshness that a lot of the competition has,EDITOR’S NOTE: YEAH…THIS HITS KINDA CLOSE TO HOME TOO. and I think this move addresses that concern," Blankfein said.
Gemstar's CEO Rich Battista said in an interview that the company's research found its readers would be more interested in a magazine with fewer listings and more stories about TV shows and their stars. EDITOR’S NOTE: THEY DIDN’T ASK ME.
Battista acknowledged that the digest-size magazine was losing money, but he declined to say how much. The company does not break out profit figures for TV Guide magazine.
"We didn't believe in its old form that the digest-size magazine was sustainable," Battista said. "Any brand has to evolve in a dynamic marketplace where consumer tastes are changing rapidly."
On a conference call with investors and analysts, Gemstar Chief Financial Officer Brian Urban said the magazine's revenues have been declining over the past decade as other forms of TV listings have proliferated and as the magazine's newsstand and advertising sales have declined.
John Loughlin, the president of TV Guide's publishing group, said in an interview the higher per-unit costs of producing the larger-format magazine would make it uneconomical to distribute in some of the ways it had in the past. The magazine will be eliminating 3 million copies in "sponsored" sales, such as those distributed in hotels.
In another cost-cutting move, TV Guide will also streamline how it produces the magazine, eliminating its 140 localized editions in favor of a national edition, with either an Eastern or Pacific time zone designation. EDITOR’S NOTE: LIKE IT ISN’T CONFUSING ENOUGH TO FIGURE OUT WHEN THINGS ARE ON?!
TV Guide said it expected to incur losses of up to $110 million over its 2005 and 2006 fiscal years, which exclude losses from its recently launched title Inside TV, a celebrity magazine for younger readers which the company said is not performing as well as expected so far due to delays in building up distribution.
The news depressed Gemstar's already weak stock, sending its shares down 29 cents or 8.2 percent to $3.24 in afternoon trading on the Nasdaq Stock Market, toward the lower end of its 52-week range of $2.93 to $6.39.
Gary McDaniel, an equity analyst with Standard & Poor's, said the company would be better off trimming costs instead of investing more in a magazine with printed TV listings when so many people find TV programs through digital guides.
"There are simply far too many channels and listings for a printed guide," said McDaniel. "It's really not a business I would be investing in."
By focusing more on entertainment and stars, the magazine is also entering an extremely competitive arena already dominated by powerful magazines like US Weekly, People and Entertainment Weekly, McDaniel said. EDITOR’S NOTE: YEP. IN OTHER WORDS JUNKY MAGS WITH NO FUNCTIONAL VALUE. DO WE REALLY NEED ANOTHER ONE OF THESE?
April Horace, an analyst who follows the company for Hoefer & Arnett Inc., an institutional brokerage based in San Francisco, called the revamp a "positive and necessary" move. "Gemstar is very much in a stage of reinventing itself," she said.
The changes come as Gemstar-TV Guide is trying to put a tumultuous period behind it. Gemstar's former CEO Henry Yuen and former Chief Financial Officer Elsie Leung left the company in 2002 and have been charged with inflating the company's revenues, and in June of last year the company agreed to pay a $10 million penalty to settle charges of revenue fraud from the Securities and Exchange Commission.
Gemstar's struggles have been a sore point for media tycoon Rupert Murdoch, whose far-reaching media conglomerate News Corp. owns about 40 percent of the company. EDITOR'S NOTE: SO THERE'S A GOOD SIDE TO THIS....IT CAUSES PAIN TO EVIL COUSIN RUPE! News Corp. took billions in write-downs in 2002 due related to its investment in Gemstar.
Loughlin said the magazine would also lower its cover price to $1.99 from $2.49 as part of an effort to build up newsstand sales, which are more profitable than subscription sales. The magazine will also triple its lowest introductory price of 25 cents an issue for subscribers.
The company said it expects the relaunched TV Guide magazine to become profitable in about three years. EDITOR'S NOTE: LIKELY WITHOUT ME AS A SUBSCRIBER. HARUMPH.
TV Guide also said it would explore the sale of SkyMall, its in-flight catalog magazine business.
WB Waxes the Frog by Bridget Byrne
Jul 24, 2005, 1:35 PM PT
The Frog's frog has croaked. EDITOR'S NOTE: APOLOGIES TO FROG-FAN (AND DWEEBPAL) MARGARET.
The WB has fired Michigan J. Frog, the nattily attired singing-dancing 'toon that's served as mascot since the network's inception in 1995.
"In my opinion the frog is dead and buried," network chairman Garth Ancier told the Television Critics Association Friday, in response to a question from a critic who had observed that the grinning green amphibian was MIA from the WB's newly designed logo, an acid-toned graffiti-splashed graphic.
"And buried, yeah," echoed WB Entertainment President David Janollari, who knows from dead and buried as one of the execs behind HBO's undertaker series Six Feet Under.)
The TCA members, usually a hard-boiled bunch, uttered a collective sad sigh.
Reacting to the dismay, Janollari decided to explain the network's motivation for offing the tuxedo-clad cartoon. "[The frog] was a symbol that was--especially in the extensive testing that we did--that perpetuated the young teen feel of the network, and that is not the image we want to put to our audience."
He went on to say that the execution is part of a concerted effort to prove that the network isn't just for young teens, but is also "a destination for the segment that's 25-34." The network will roll out its frog-free logo in the coming weeks.
Michigan J. Frog, who was due to turn 50 later this year, apparently didn't suit any desirable demographic. Created by the late legendary animator Chuck Jones, the critter made his debut in the 1955 short One Froggy Evening, taking his name from the song The Michigan Rag, which he sang. Mr. Frog was essentially a one-hit, minor-league wonder, never in the same constellation as Bugs or Daffy, until he was coopted by the WB, which instantly became nicknamed the Frog.
The critics weren't mollified by Janollari's reasoning. The follow-up question was: "Do you know what day the frog died?"
"The frog was on life support for a long time and then we got permission from a federal court to remove the feeding tube," Ancier joked hard-heartedly.
That prompted the question: "Would you have killed the peacock at NBC?" To which Ancier, who served as NBC's entertainment president for about 18 months, said, "No." The frog, he suggested, wasn't in the same class as the bird, "a true American icon based on the advent of color television…one of the most recognizable symbols, like the Apple logo, in corporate America."
Despite a few non-frog queries, it quickly became apparent the critics weren't going to let Michigan's passing go unremarked. EDITOR'S NOTE: SLOW NEWS DAY, GUYS? SHEESH. LET IT GO.
"Is that the remains of the frog?" one journalist cracked, referring to the splotchy new logo, which adorned the dais at the Beverly Hills Hotel ballroom, where the two executives were presenting their new schedule.
"I'd say, 'Yes,' " quipped Ancier. "Yeah. Why not?" concurred Janollari.
But before the interview session came to an end, WB spokesman Brad Turell hopped up to the microphone to give better news. "I just got off the phone with Sander Schwartz at Warner Animation, who said that Michigan J. Frog is actually alive and well. He's living in Bolivia under the witness protection plan."
And with that the slightly relieved critics adjourned to lunch. And, we are happy to report, frog legs were not on the menu. EDITOR'S NOTE: HOWEVER, THE TURTLE BISQUE HAD A SUSPICIOUS....UMMMM...'HOPPED UP' FLAVOR TO IT. (SORRY SORRY SORRY)
Bringing movie magic to Net marketing
By John Borland
The camera focusing on the rock climbers pans into the sky at the rumble of a jet engine. A distant speck becomes a predatory-looking fighter jet unlike anything else in the skies.
"Hey Mike, did you see that?" comes a voice off-screen. "That was crazy, dude."
You can watch this video, a faux-homemade teaser for Sony Pictures' upcoming movie "Stealth," in an ordinary business-card size window at Sony's Web site, with sound that is thin at best. But the studio has a better alternative.
What's new:Hollywood studios are adopting technology that turns online promotions into a DVD-like experience.
Bottom line:Like other marketers, studios are desperately seeking ways to reach viewers who are turning away from prime-time television--and their effort has become more urgent as sales of box-office tickets and DVDs have dropped.
Sony is joining 20th Century Fox, which used the same technology to promote three films earlier this year, in a new broadband experiment aimed at promoting movies with full-screen, near-DVD-quality video viewed straight off a viewer's hard drive. Executives at Fox say the technique has helped drive interest in their films, including "Kingdom of Heaven" and "Mr. and Mrs. Smith."
"We're always looking at what is the best place to reach the various audiences who are not watching TV, and thinking whether we have the right message to reach them online," said Liz Jones, vice president for digital marketing at 20th Century Fox. "I've been extremely happy with the way this is going. I'm a big believer in showcasing video in the best quality possible."
Like other marketers, Hollywood studios are desperately seeking ways to reach viewers who are turning away from prime-time television. They're following these audiences to the Net, and in the process are finding ways to create online advertising that's as seductive as TV advertising.
The studios' appeal to online audiences is made more urgent by sobering trends in the movie business, including declining box-office ticket sales and a sharp slowdown in the growth of DVD sales.
Sony and Fox are early customers of a small company called Maven Networks, which takes much of the content that studios are already creating for their promotional Web sites and blends it with the old automatic-download "push" models of PointCast Networks and other early Net companies.
Maven is trying to make a business of persuading Net surfers to seek out promotional material, whether from the studios or from other companies such as PepsiCo or General Motors which have also licensed its video technology.
The tools created by Maven, a 3-year-old Cambridge, Mass., company, turn the online experience into something akin to a constantly updated DVD. Once a viewer downloads a piece of software to a computer, high-quality video and other content trickles down in the background, allowing viewing of trailers, movie clips and other features within minutes.
The software runs continuously in the background unless shut down, taking up about as much memory as a Web browser when the movie player is not open, or double that much if the movie trailers are being watched.
As the date for a movie approaches, additional videos can be sent automatically, keeping a potential fan's interest alive. When the curtains finally go up on a film, links to Web sites that provide show times and tickets appear inside the application. Studios can also let viewers choose to receive automatic downloads of content for other films.
"You don't see this quality every day, so it grabs people's attention," said Maven Chief Executive Officer Hilmi Ozguc, a former Lotus Development executive who also founded Narrative Communications, an early streaming media ad company. "The studios can build interest in one movie, and then parlay that into interest in the next one."
Bringing video up to speedOnline marketing is nothing new, of course. A solid Web presence has been a critical part of a movie release at least since "The Blair Witch Project" jumped to prominence on the back of an underground Net buzz in 1999.
Indeed, movie trailers have long been one of the most popular multimedia features online, with 49 percent of all people who use online video watching some movie trailers, according to research firm RHK.
What's changing is the underlying technology. More than half of American households with Internet access now have broadband connections, which means that better quality video and audio can now be sent to computers.
To the studio executives, that quality matters. High-quality sound and pictures are better at seducing viewers into movie seats (or at least into the DVD store), and Hollywood marketing executives have long complained about the grainy, stuttering video still often found online.
Maven isn't the only company aiming to boost this quality. Apple Computer, whose QuickTime video site has long served as one of the biggest online hubs for movie trailers, recently added a high-definition video section as a way to showcase its new software.
Although few consumers have both high-definition monitors and the patience to download 100 megabyte-plus files, studios are eagerly providing content, Apple said.
"When they look at the quality that's produced by high-definition, they want to be part of that experience," said Frank Casanova, Apple's director of QuickTime marketing.
Ozguc sees these Net promotions as a natural step to more ambitious plans. With his company's ability to trickle high-quality video to a hard drive, it's ultimately a logical move to begin selling the movies themselves, he said.
"The two major studios are using technology to promote films, but I think they're also testing the waters as to what it will take to build a major retail presence down the road," Ozguc said. "All the functionality for billing and content management is there. It gives (the studios) a way to flip the switch from promotion to sales overnight."
That may be a long shot, since studios are still struggling with a business calculus that favors physical DVD sales over Internet distribution. However, several movie studios are toying with the idea of selling digital versions of movies with limited portability on the Net by the end of this year.
Analysts say it is increasingly important to reach consumers on the Net, where people are spending more and more of their time. The high quality of Maven or Apple high-definition video may also help increase the effectiveness of the studios' marketing message, they say.
The downside is that the number of messages and applications competing for people's attention online is rising fast. That cacophony ultimately may make consumers ignore even the highest-quality video as easily as they do today's banner ads.
"Anything that gets to people at their computer, where they're spending a lot more of their time, is important," said Michael McGuire, research director at analyst firm GartnerG2. "But the risk is that consumers will run into icon fatigue." EDITOR'S NOTE: AND UNTIL YOU HAVE THAT ENVISIONED (AND SO FAR UNREALIZED) MERGING OF ALL OUR ENTERTAINMENT INTO ONE MEDIA CENTER, THERE'S ONLY SO MUCH TIME WE WANT TO SPEND IN AN OFFICE CHAIR, WHEN A COMFY COUCH HAS THE TV.
AND LAST...BUT NEVER LEAST....A COMPLETELY RANDOM COUPLE OF ITEMS
'Housewives' may soon dazzle desperate Chinese
SHANGHAI -- Chinese viewers desperate to escape their staid TV world of party apparatchiks and tales of heroic policewomen could soon have reason to cheer.
The tribulations of Susan, Bree, Lynette and Gabrielle in hit U.S. show "Desperate Housewives" may be dubbed into Mandarin later this year and shown on Chinese television, the Shanghai Daily said on Thursday.
U.S. network ABC is now negotiating with government controlled China Central Television to show the first season of "Desperate Housewives", the state newspaper said, citing an unnamed Chinese television executive.
Dr. Doom Premium Format 1/4 Scale Figure
Toy NewsDoom Figure Arrives in Fall
This fall Sideshow will release 1/4 Scale Premium Format Doctor Doom figure. Doom is seated in a stunningly elaborate throne, adorned with all the trappings of a dictator with designs on world domination.
The figure is constructed of hand-painted high-quality polystone, and clothed in a fabric cloak, tunic and hood, completed with a leather belt and pistol holster. The base of the throne is complete with the edition size information and print of the sculptor's signature.
The sculpture is by Pablo Viggiano.
The figure will retail for $300.
EDITOR’S NOTE: SO RUSH OUT AND BUY ONE FOR THE KIDS!
OR SOMETHING LIKE THAT.....
FIRST UP, CHECK OUT THIS CUTE TRAILER FOR AN UPCOMING FLICK!
Nanny McPhee trailer:
http://www.workingtitlefilms.com/trailers/nanny_trailer_large.htm
EDITOR’S NOTE: WHEDON’ITES REJOICE. AFTER A DRY SPELL, WE HAVE TO TALK ABOUT JOSS AGAIN. WOOHOO.
Whedon flock ready for 'Firefly' resurrection
Now that "Star Wars," "Star Trek" and "The Matrix" are fading into the sunset, what will take their place in the hearts of sci-fi fantasy fans?TV auteur Joss Whedon and Universal Pictures are hoping that it's "Serenity," his movie version of 2002's aborted Fox space Western TV series "Firefly," which opens Sept. 30.
Universal launched its grass-roots awareness campaign for Whedon's directing debut in April, recruiting Whedon's loyal fans to help sell "Serenity," which features the original "Firefly" cast.
The studio previewed the rough cut nationwide in markets where "Firefly" performed best, culminating with a rousing screening at Comic-Con International, where Whedon and his cast conducted a panel for fans.
Back in 2001, when Whedon sat down to write his follow-up to the two hit Fox series "Buffy the Vampire Slayer" and "Angel," he wanted to try his hand at a space Western.
"I thought, 'Wagon Train' in space," he says on the phone from Cape Cod, where he is conceiving his upcoming "Wonder Woman" script. He didn't know that Gene Roddenberry had set out to do the same thing back in the 1960s, when he created "Star Trek," a smart TV show that was saved by its fans.History is repeating itself.
The Sci Fi Channel is currently showing all 13 episodes of "Firefly" -- in the correct order.
"Fox never got the show," Whedon says. "It was a bad match."
After premiering the series late after a World Series game and running 11 episodes out of order, Fox dropped it.
"I told the cast the day the show was canceled that I would not rest until I found another home," Whedon says. "I felt like I had let them down." Not wanting to admit failure was part of it, too, Whedon admits. "I didn't want people thinking that the show didn't work. Nothing I've ever done has ever emerged so instantly. Even the pilot was the way it should be. There was never an awkward growing phase. It felt right. Every actor felt so right, they worked so well together. I couldn't bear to let the universe go, or let the actors out of my sight."
When overseas markets demanded a DVD release, Fox Home Entertainment complied. The "Firefly" DVD sold more than 200,000 copies. Whedon felt vindicated. Having soldiered in the feature screenwriting realm on "Toy Story," "Titan A.E." and an unproduced "X-Men" script, Whedon told Universal executive Mary Parent that he wanted to make his directing debut on the movie version of "Firefly."
She checked out the DVDs. "Write it," she told him.
Renamed "Serenity," after the Firefly-class ship that scours outer space, the $40 million alien-free movie will register with "Firefly" fans without confusing people, Whedon says. And the movie retains the show's homemade feel.
"It's like the ship Serenity herself," he says. "Crappy but scrappy."
"Serenity" reunites the original TV cast of nine shipmates in a dysfunctional family. That was the deal. There was never a question of upgrading the cast, though Universal did consider hiring a name villain -- and then dropped it.
Added to the youthful ensemble headed by Canadian actor Nathan Fillion, who plays a jocular Kirk-like captain on the mercenary freighter, are archvillain Chiwetel Ejiofor ("Dirty Pretty Things") and David Krumholtz ("Numbers") as a hacker hermit.
At Comic-Con, dancer-actress Summer Glau's martial arts scene drew thunderous applause and an Ain't It Cool News rave. EDITOR’S NOTE: OH, WELL. THERE YOU ARE. FAT HARRY LIKES IT, SO IT MUST BE GOOD.
What generates this powerful response? "What captivates the fans is an entire world they can go to," Whedon says, "that feels complete, thought-out, genuine, that they can live in for a long time. From the first show, we made sure every character had their own patch of ground. Conflicts become the story. Everybody plays off everybody."
Says Anna Kaufman, arts editor of the Daily Californian in Berkeley, Calif.: "You feel for the family of nine characters and their well-being. They all have interesting dynamics, pasts and secrets. They're thrumming with life."
Kaufman checks the many Web sites devoted to Whedon, "Firefly" and "Serenity" (including cantstopthesignal.com) for updates on the movie. "I'm greedy. I want more," she adds.
In October, when Universal's co-president of marketing, Eddie Egan, booked a routine rough-cut preview in L.A.'s San Fernando Valley, he was amazed by the explosive response from the research-screening recruits who were clearly rabid "Firefly" fans. He wanted to know just how they had learned about the screening.It turned out that one fan had identified the movie and tipped off her entire "Firefly" community (known as "browncoats") with one Internet post. Some of them had driven from Arizona and Seattle, Egan says.
Universal, deciding that they had something bigger than they thought, pushed the action adventure off of its spring lineup and into the fall.
The studio staged three waves of word-of-mouth sneak preview screenings (which do not advertise the name of the film) in 35 cities where "Firefly" had earned the best ratings, including Toronto and San Francisco.
Each time, Whedon posted fan screenings on his blog: once, with a link to a Fandango site where they could order tickets. Each time, all the tickets were sold within five minutes.
Fans return for repeat viewings, Egan says, bringing new people with them. "As the industry struggles to redefine the paradigm of the movie business," Egan says, "and what makes people go to movies or avoid them, a piece of text on a Web page sold out theaters." EDITOR’S NOTE: IF YOU FILM IT, THEY WILL COME? (ANDREW: WHEN YOU GET BACK IN TOWN, HOW ABOUT LOANING ME YOUR DVDS?)
EDITOR'S NOTE: A FEW ITEMS FROM 'DA BIZ' SECTION OF THE DWEEBING NEWS ---
TV Guide Gets More Stories, Fewer Listings
By SETH SUTELAP Business WriterJuly 26, 2005, 1:57 PM EDTNEW YORK --
TV Guide, an iconic magazine for two generations of Americans, is radically remaking itself into a title with a much smaller circulation, a larger, full-color format, fewer listings and more stories about TV shows and stars.
The magazine has struggled to stay relevant in an era where more people look up TV listings online or through on-screen programming guides from their cable and satellite TV providers.
TV Guide's parent company, Gemstar-TV Guide International Inc., is also a major provider of those guides and the technology they use.
The revamp, which the company announced early Tuesday, calls for the magazine to slash the circulation it guarantees advertisers by nearly two-thirds, from 9 million to 3.2 million.
The magazine will also ditch its digest-sized format in favor of a full-size, full-color format with more stories about TV shows than listings.
The new magazine will have 75 percent stories and 25 percent listings, the reverse of the ratio it has now. TV Guide also said it would cut jobs as part of the revamp, but it declined say how many.
The changes will go into effect with the magazine's Oct. 17 issue. EDITOR’S NOTE: WONDER WHEN THEY PLAN ON TELLING THE SUBSCRIBERS. NOT SURE I WANT THE THING IF THEY’RE DOING AWAY WITH THE LISTINGS.
The revamp represents a complete overhaul of the magazine's business model, one that some advertisers felt was long overdue.
Eric Blankfein, senior vice president Horizon Media Inc., a media and advertising buying company, said TV Guide had been considered "old, staid and stodgy" among advertisers. EDITOR’S NOTE: I’VE BEEN CALLED WORSE….."The magazine was an aging property that didn't have the freshness that a lot of the competition has,EDITOR’S NOTE: YEAH…THIS HITS KINDA CLOSE TO HOME TOO. and I think this move addresses that concern," Blankfein said.
Gemstar's CEO Rich Battista said in an interview that the company's research found its readers would be more interested in a magazine with fewer listings and more stories about TV shows and their stars. EDITOR’S NOTE: THEY DIDN’T ASK ME.
Battista acknowledged that the digest-size magazine was losing money, but he declined to say how much. The company does not break out profit figures for TV Guide magazine.
"We didn't believe in its old form that the digest-size magazine was sustainable," Battista said. "Any brand has to evolve in a dynamic marketplace where consumer tastes are changing rapidly."
On a conference call with investors and analysts, Gemstar Chief Financial Officer Brian Urban said the magazine's revenues have been declining over the past decade as other forms of TV listings have proliferated and as the magazine's newsstand and advertising sales have declined.
John Loughlin, the president of TV Guide's publishing group, said in an interview the higher per-unit costs of producing the larger-format magazine would make it uneconomical to distribute in some of the ways it had in the past. The magazine will be eliminating 3 million copies in "sponsored" sales, such as those distributed in hotels.
In another cost-cutting move, TV Guide will also streamline how it produces the magazine, eliminating its 140 localized editions in favor of a national edition, with either an Eastern or Pacific time zone designation. EDITOR’S NOTE: LIKE IT ISN’T CONFUSING ENOUGH TO FIGURE OUT WHEN THINGS ARE ON?!
TV Guide said it expected to incur losses of up to $110 million over its 2005 and 2006 fiscal years, which exclude losses from its recently launched title Inside TV, a celebrity magazine for younger readers which the company said is not performing as well as expected so far due to delays in building up distribution.
The news depressed Gemstar's already weak stock, sending its shares down 29 cents or 8.2 percent to $3.24 in afternoon trading on the Nasdaq Stock Market, toward the lower end of its 52-week range of $2.93 to $6.39.
Gary McDaniel, an equity analyst with Standard & Poor's, said the company would be better off trimming costs instead of investing more in a magazine with printed TV listings when so many people find TV programs through digital guides.
"There are simply far too many channels and listings for a printed guide," said McDaniel. "It's really not a business I would be investing in."
By focusing more on entertainment and stars, the magazine is also entering an extremely competitive arena already dominated by powerful magazines like US Weekly, People and Entertainment Weekly, McDaniel said. EDITOR’S NOTE: YEP. IN OTHER WORDS JUNKY MAGS WITH NO FUNCTIONAL VALUE. DO WE REALLY NEED ANOTHER ONE OF THESE?
April Horace, an analyst who follows the company for Hoefer & Arnett Inc., an institutional brokerage based in San Francisco, called the revamp a "positive and necessary" move. "Gemstar is very much in a stage of reinventing itself," she said.
The changes come as Gemstar-TV Guide is trying to put a tumultuous period behind it. Gemstar's former CEO Henry Yuen and former Chief Financial Officer Elsie Leung left the company in 2002 and have been charged with inflating the company's revenues, and in June of last year the company agreed to pay a $10 million penalty to settle charges of revenue fraud from the Securities and Exchange Commission.
Gemstar's struggles have been a sore point for media tycoon Rupert Murdoch, whose far-reaching media conglomerate News Corp. owns about 40 percent of the company. EDITOR'S NOTE: SO THERE'S A GOOD SIDE TO THIS....IT CAUSES PAIN TO EVIL COUSIN RUPE! News Corp. took billions in write-downs in 2002 due related to its investment in Gemstar.
Loughlin said the magazine would also lower its cover price to $1.99 from $2.49 as part of an effort to build up newsstand sales, which are more profitable than subscription sales. The magazine will also triple its lowest introductory price of 25 cents an issue for subscribers.
The company said it expects the relaunched TV Guide magazine to become profitable in about three years. EDITOR'S NOTE: LIKELY WITHOUT ME AS A SUBSCRIBER. HARUMPH.
TV Guide also said it would explore the sale of SkyMall, its in-flight catalog magazine business.
WB Waxes the Frog by Bridget Byrne
Jul 24, 2005, 1:35 PM PT
The Frog's frog has croaked. EDITOR'S NOTE: APOLOGIES TO FROG-FAN (AND DWEEBPAL) MARGARET.
The WB has fired Michigan J. Frog, the nattily attired singing-dancing 'toon that's served as mascot since the network's inception in 1995.
"In my opinion the frog is dead and buried," network chairman Garth Ancier told the Television Critics Association Friday, in response to a question from a critic who had observed that the grinning green amphibian was MIA from the WB's newly designed logo, an acid-toned graffiti-splashed graphic.
"And buried, yeah," echoed WB Entertainment President David Janollari, who knows from dead and buried as one of the execs behind HBO's undertaker series Six Feet Under.)
The TCA members, usually a hard-boiled bunch, uttered a collective sad sigh.
Reacting to the dismay, Janollari decided to explain the network's motivation for offing the tuxedo-clad cartoon. "[The frog] was a symbol that was--especially in the extensive testing that we did--that perpetuated the young teen feel of the network, and that is not the image we want to put to our audience."
He went on to say that the execution is part of a concerted effort to prove that the network isn't just for young teens, but is also "a destination for the segment that's 25-34." The network will roll out its frog-free logo in the coming weeks.
Michigan J. Frog, who was due to turn 50 later this year, apparently didn't suit any desirable demographic. Created by the late legendary animator Chuck Jones, the critter made his debut in the 1955 short One Froggy Evening, taking his name from the song The Michigan Rag, which he sang. Mr. Frog was essentially a one-hit, minor-league wonder, never in the same constellation as Bugs or Daffy, until he was coopted by the WB, which instantly became nicknamed the Frog.
The critics weren't mollified by Janollari's reasoning. The follow-up question was: "Do you know what day the frog died?"
"The frog was on life support for a long time and then we got permission from a federal court to remove the feeding tube," Ancier joked hard-heartedly.
That prompted the question: "Would you have killed the peacock at NBC?" To which Ancier, who served as NBC's entertainment president for about 18 months, said, "No." The frog, he suggested, wasn't in the same class as the bird, "a true American icon based on the advent of color television…one of the most recognizable symbols, like the Apple logo, in corporate America."
Despite a few non-frog queries, it quickly became apparent the critics weren't going to let Michigan's passing go unremarked. EDITOR'S NOTE: SLOW NEWS DAY, GUYS? SHEESH. LET IT GO.
"Is that the remains of the frog?" one journalist cracked, referring to the splotchy new logo, which adorned the dais at the Beverly Hills Hotel ballroom, where the two executives were presenting their new schedule.
"I'd say, 'Yes,' " quipped Ancier. "Yeah. Why not?" concurred Janollari.
But before the interview session came to an end, WB spokesman Brad Turell hopped up to the microphone to give better news. "I just got off the phone with Sander Schwartz at Warner Animation, who said that Michigan J. Frog is actually alive and well. He's living in Bolivia under the witness protection plan."
And with that the slightly relieved critics adjourned to lunch. And, we are happy to report, frog legs were not on the menu. EDITOR'S NOTE: HOWEVER, THE TURTLE BISQUE HAD A SUSPICIOUS....UMMMM...'HOPPED UP' FLAVOR TO IT. (SORRY SORRY SORRY)
Bringing movie magic to Net marketing
By John Borland
The camera focusing on the rock climbers pans into the sky at the rumble of a jet engine. A distant speck becomes a predatory-looking fighter jet unlike anything else in the skies.
"Hey Mike, did you see that?" comes a voice off-screen. "That was crazy, dude."
You can watch this video, a faux-homemade teaser for Sony Pictures' upcoming movie "Stealth," in an ordinary business-card size window at Sony's Web site, with sound that is thin at best. But the studio has a better alternative.
What's new:Hollywood studios are adopting technology that turns online promotions into a DVD-like experience.
Bottom line:Like other marketers, studios are desperately seeking ways to reach viewers who are turning away from prime-time television--and their effort has become more urgent as sales of box-office tickets and DVDs have dropped.
Sony is joining 20th Century Fox, which used the same technology to promote three films earlier this year, in a new broadband experiment aimed at promoting movies with full-screen, near-DVD-quality video viewed straight off a viewer's hard drive. Executives at Fox say the technique has helped drive interest in their films, including "Kingdom of Heaven" and "Mr. and Mrs. Smith."
"We're always looking at what is the best place to reach the various audiences who are not watching TV, and thinking whether we have the right message to reach them online," said Liz Jones, vice president for digital marketing at 20th Century Fox. "I've been extremely happy with the way this is going. I'm a big believer in showcasing video in the best quality possible."
Like other marketers, Hollywood studios are desperately seeking ways to reach viewers who are turning away from prime-time television. They're following these audiences to the Net, and in the process are finding ways to create online advertising that's as seductive as TV advertising.
The studios' appeal to online audiences is made more urgent by sobering trends in the movie business, including declining box-office ticket sales and a sharp slowdown in the growth of DVD sales.
Sony and Fox are early customers of a small company called Maven Networks, which takes much of the content that studios are already creating for their promotional Web sites and blends it with the old automatic-download "push" models of PointCast Networks and other early Net companies.
Maven is trying to make a business of persuading Net surfers to seek out promotional material, whether from the studios or from other companies such as PepsiCo or General Motors which have also licensed its video technology.
The tools created by Maven, a 3-year-old Cambridge, Mass., company, turn the online experience into something akin to a constantly updated DVD. Once a viewer downloads a piece of software to a computer, high-quality video and other content trickles down in the background, allowing viewing of trailers, movie clips and other features within minutes.
The software runs continuously in the background unless shut down, taking up about as much memory as a Web browser when the movie player is not open, or double that much if the movie trailers are being watched.
As the date for a movie approaches, additional videos can be sent automatically, keeping a potential fan's interest alive. When the curtains finally go up on a film, links to Web sites that provide show times and tickets appear inside the application. Studios can also let viewers choose to receive automatic downloads of content for other films.
"You don't see this quality every day, so it grabs people's attention," said Maven Chief Executive Officer Hilmi Ozguc, a former Lotus Development executive who also founded Narrative Communications, an early streaming media ad company. "The studios can build interest in one movie, and then parlay that into interest in the next one."
Bringing video up to speedOnline marketing is nothing new, of course. A solid Web presence has been a critical part of a movie release at least since "The Blair Witch Project" jumped to prominence on the back of an underground Net buzz in 1999.
Indeed, movie trailers have long been one of the most popular multimedia features online, with 49 percent of all people who use online video watching some movie trailers, according to research firm RHK.
What's changing is the underlying technology. More than half of American households with Internet access now have broadband connections, which means that better quality video and audio can now be sent to computers.
To the studio executives, that quality matters. High-quality sound and pictures are better at seducing viewers into movie seats (or at least into the DVD store), and Hollywood marketing executives have long complained about the grainy, stuttering video still often found online.
Maven isn't the only company aiming to boost this quality. Apple Computer, whose QuickTime video site has long served as one of the biggest online hubs for movie trailers, recently added a high-definition video section as a way to showcase its new software.
Although few consumers have both high-definition monitors and the patience to download 100 megabyte-plus files, studios are eagerly providing content, Apple said.
"When they look at the quality that's produced by high-definition, they want to be part of that experience," said Frank Casanova, Apple's director of QuickTime marketing.
Ozguc sees these Net promotions as a natural step to more ambitious plans. With his company's ability to trickle high-quality video to a hard drive, it's ultimately a logical move to begin selling the movies themselves, he said.
"The two major studios are using technology to promote films, but I think they're also testing the waters as to what it will take to build a major retail presence down the road," Ozguc said. "All the functionality for billing and content management is there. It gives (the studios) a way to flip the switch from promotion to sales overnight."
That may be a long shot, since studios are still struggling with a business calculus that favors physical DVD sales over Internet distribution. However, several movie studios are toying with the idea of selling digital versions of movies with limited portability on the Net by the end of this year.
Analysts say it is increasingly important to reach consumers on the Net, where people are spending more and more of their time. The high quality of Maven or Apple high-definition video may also help increase the effectiveness of the studios' marketing message, they say.
The downside is that the number of messages and applications competing for people's attention online is rising fast. That cacophony ultimately may make consumers ignore even the highest-quality video as easily as they do today's banner ads.
"Anything that gets to people at their computer, where they're spending a lot more of their time, is important," said Michael McGuire, research director at analyst firm GartnerG2. "But the risk is that consumers will run into icon fatigue." EDITOR'S NOTE: AND UNTIL YOU HAVE THAT ENVISIONED (AND SO FAR UNREALIZED) MERGING OF ALL OUR ENTERTAINMENT INTO ONE MEDIA CENTER, THERE'S ONLY SO MUCH TIME WE WANT TO SPEND IN AN OFFICE CHAIR, WHEN A COMFY COUCH HAS THE TV.
AND LAST...BUT NEVER LEAST....A COMPLETELY RANDOM COUPLE OF ITEMS
'Housewives' may soon dazzle desperate Chinese
SHANGHAI -- Chinese viewers desperate to escape their staid TV world of party apparatchiks and tales of heroic policewomen could soon have reason to cheer.
The tribulations of Susan, Bree, Lynette and Gabrielle in hit U.S. show "Desperate Housewives" may be dubbed into Mandarin later this year and shown on Chinese television, the Shanghai Daily said on Thursday.
U.S. network ABC is now negotiating with government controlled China Central Television to show the first season of "Desperate Housewives", the state newspaper said, citing an unnamed Chinese television executive.
Dr. Doom Premium Format 1/4 Scale Figure
Toy NewsDoom Figure Arrives in Fall
This fall Sideshow will release 1/4 Scale Premium Format Doctor Doom figure. Doom is seated in a stunningly elaborate throne, adorned with all the trappings of a dictator with designs on world domination.
The figure is constructed of hand-painted high-quality polystone, and clothed in a fabric cloak, tunic and hood, completed with a leather belt and pistol holster. The base of the throne is complete with the edition size information and print of the sculptor's signature.
The sculpture is by Pablo Viggiano.
The figure will retail for $300.
EDITOR’S NOTE: SO RUSH OUT AND BUY ONE FOR THE KIDS!
posted by QOTD (the Queen of the Dweebs) at 4:56 PM
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