Variety :: Film News The Hollywood Reporter :: Risky Biz Blog The Hollywood Reporter :: Top Stories“… Per-screen average is simply math: a given film’s box office divided by the number of screens it plays on. As a pure number, it tells you nothing about the size of theater, the percentage of seats sold, or what would be typical for that theater on that night.
Bringing in $2,300 over a weekend might be a great haul at a tiny theater in Des Moines, but would be a disaster at Grauman’s Chinese….”
Scott Myers deconstructed big agency coverage in a series of posts last month.
“… The main thing that separates people I know who actually make a living writing from those who don’t is that the ones who do are finishers. And the way they finish is by focusing on small, realistic signpost goals, and chipping away….”
Update — Looks like they put the writers back up at the top late yesterday.
The Internet Movie Database (IMDb) has bumped listings for feature writers down “below the fold” into the “Additional Details” area on its Web pages.
The snail mail address, for possible polite comment, is:
IMDb.com, Inc.
P.O. Box 81226
Seattle, WA 98108-1226
(h/t — Bill Martell)
(h/t — Craig Mazin)
“I got a good question the other day while talking to some film school students. They asked what they’d be expected to know about the business in order to work in it. I’m going to apply this more specifically to TV writers. When you’re networking or interviewing with potential employers, do you really need to know everything about every show on the air, past and present?”
ProSeries 22 just finished and they are joining the PS Alumni today. We are happy to welcome PS 22 to our amazing group and look forward to all the exciting successes that are coming up for all of us.
Please welcome them with open arms.
Mark Kratter completed talks with Radar Pictures (The Amityville Horror, The Chronicles of Riddick, The Last Samurai, The Texas Chainsaw Massacre) to produce his latest screenplay. Congratulations Mark!
The Matt Chapman Company, LLC, has optioned Lee Tidball’s screenplay, “Princess Reborn.” Congratulations Lee!
“… At the heart of that beat is the hero not only being ‘worse off than when this movie started’ — and very often in jail, evicted, fired, abandoned, or left alone by the death of a mentor — but forced to face an ugly truth about himself that he’s been resisting….”
“Do the economic headlines of today make you feel discouraged and fearful? Do you worry about economic gloom and doom and tend to feel anxious or paralyzed by external events, or do you see possibility and opportunity for daily action based on strong personal beliefs and a bold yet pragmatic plan that focuses on rich opportunities, your talents and the value of what you have to offer?”
James D. Stern (Endgame Entertainment) recently delivered the keynote speech to the 2009 Film Financing Conference at the Los Angeles Film Festival.
“… Rule One: Make Smarter Movies!
“That’s not the same as making better movies. Everyone says make better movies, and everyone wants to. But that’s like a director telling an actor to act better. Sounds good, but what does it mean?
“I do know what it means to make smarter movies, though. And that’s what we should be doing….”
(h/t — Victoria Wu)
“… Having previously pontificated on the necessity of plowing through a first draft, no matter how awful it may be, it seems only fair to look at how a good draft gets written …”
“… I’ve made a couple of adjustments to the Scorecard this month that I think will help shed additional light on spec script market trends. First, since the Scorecard will be published mid-month on an on-going basis, and because the data has a short shelf life, I’m now including numbers through the middle of the month….”
Denis Faye interviews Harold Ramis at the WGA West site.
“… (A)ll the best comedy work – the only work – I’ve ever done is collaborative. And I’ve worked in every type of collaboration, like the old-style three guys in a room together for three months at a time. One paces, one types, and one lies on the sofa, then you switch. Then I’ve done serial collaboration where I write and send it off to someone, and they write and send it off to me. If I have a good idea, and I choose the right collaborators, it could always be better. It’s a synergistic effect; multiple brains working on the same problem….”