All posts containing the tag: "paramount"
Posted Sep 6th 2006 11:30AM by TMZ Staff
Christine Vachon, the inimitable indie film producer, has a rule about how to handle "Variety": 'Read the stories backwards to find out what's really going on.'
Her thinking? The real news is buried at the bottom, where it won't hurt the delicate sensibilities and out-sized egos of the executives it covers.
So, what's the second-to-last paragraph of "Daily Variety's" Viacom fallout story?
"Meanwhile, on the Par lot Monday, senior executives were busy working the phones, calling producers, filmmakers and other execs hoping to quash any speculation or uncertainty over implications Freston's departure has for future changes at the studio."
In Vachon's worldview, that ought to have been the lead, and she's probably right: Grey's days are probably numbered at Paramount.
A top New York-based talent agent put it to me this way: "Now is the time to say nice things about Brad Grey in the press, while continuing to do disgusting things behind closed doors. He's been the teflon executive so far, but there've been too many runs to the men's room: He's stalling."
Ironically, the very thing that saved his job thus far - the acquisition of DreamWorks - may be the one that catapults him out of a gig. By most talent agent's estimations, former Universal Pictures chairwoman and current DreamWorks president Stacey Snider is the Grey heir apparent at Paramount.
"You can quickly become fond of that job after being away from it," says one agent, "And she's been away from it long enough."
True, newly appointed CEO Phillipe Dauman tells Daily Variety, "I am very supportive of Brad Grey. I've spent a relatively large amount of time talking to him. We've had great conversations."
But that's in the fifth paragraph of the story - and using Vachon's formula, way too high up to possibly be true.
Filed under: City Of Industry
Tags: Brad Grey, BradGrey, Paramount, Sumner Redstone, SumnerRedstone, Viacom
Posted Aug 25th 2006 11:58AM by TMZ Staff
TMZ found an interesting listing on EntertainmentCareers.net, for a part-time job at the Dr. Phil show. The kicker is what the job entails, and how much he is willing to pay this employee. The ad offers positions available for weekends (Saturday and Sunday), or the graveyard shift (11PM - 7AM).
The job is for a transcriber and requirements to gain employment are: previous experience and typing speed of 60 words per minute. The best part is the starting salary, a whopping $8.00 an hour, or roughly $16,000 dollars a year.
Now we can't help but compare these numbers to those that Dr. Phil just spent on his son's wedding. Let's assume that the good doctor spent $400,000 on the reception (which is pretty low by celebrity standards) and he had 400 people attend. That is $1000 a head. His new employee would have to work over 3 weeks just to sit down at the table! Plus, if this person tried to throw the same kind of fab wedding soiree, they would have to work for 25 YEARS! That means the average 22 year-old applicant would be 47 before they could cover the cost of the wedding.
All interested applicants should contact Todd Klotz at CBS/Paramount.
Filed under: Dr. Phil
Tags: Dr. Phil, Dr.Phil, Paramount
Posted Aug 24th 2006 5:01PM by TMZ Staff
Tom Cruise and Katie Holmes (sans Suri of course) had a nice, relaxing six-hour dinner Wednesday night with a group of unidentified movers and shakers at the Italian restaurant Orso in Beverly Hills. The couple looked chipper as ever as they entered the restaurant, with no evidence of stress stemming from Tom's firing from Paramount.
As the couple left after their marathon meal, the awaiting photogs wished them well and reminded them to write.
We're sure they will.
Filed under: Tom & Katie, Celebrity Feuds
Tags: katie holmes, KatieHolmes, paramount, tom cruise, TomCruise
Posted Jun 14th 2006 2:36PM by TMZ Staff
The other day, standing at the checkstand at the supermarket, I was accosted by a blaring flat screen monitor that touted the supposed winners and losers of the weekend box office.
As the kid in front of me sneered with disdain at the hindmost in the "Top Ten" list of films, a thought occurred to me. It's easy to make the mistake of thinking "Poseidon" is a bomb because its No. 10. 
It is a disaster, but not because it's No. 10 here at home. It's what it's not doing overseas that's the problem. Domestic box office rank means less and less; it's the worldwide gross that means success or failure on a big Hollywood movie.
Last summer, the Orlando Bloom movie "Kingdom of Heaven" had all the markings of a 100-megaton bomb: Despite being the first big release of the summer, it made less that $20 million in its opening weekend. And after four months in theaters, "Kingdom of Heaven's" theatrical release was shut down by 20th Century Fox. With a purported budget of at least $130 million, its $47.4 million domestic gross would normally spell major trouble for the suits in Fox's cushy production offices.
Except for one thing: "Kingdom of Heaven" made another $163 million overseas -- more than three times what it did in the States. Fox studio president Hutch Parker and his crew could heave a huge sigh of relief: Their reserved parking spaces were safe. Not so at Warner Bros.-based Virtual Studios, which produced "Poseidon." It's done $55 million at home, and $56 million abroad. Needless to say, Virtual's CEO Benjamin Waisbren doesn't work there anymore.
The ultimate expression of the studios lust for foreign lucre is, of course, China. The challenge is that the average Chinese urbanite made just about $1,000 last year (peasants in the countryside make about 70% less).
But the potential is massive. Even if Hollywood has to sell its movies at deeply discounted prices, the sheer size of the Chinese market is astonishing.
That's why the Chinese government's move last week to kick Sony's "The Da Vinci Code" out of theaters and take the scissors to Paramount's "Mission: Impossible 3" is so alarming for Hollywood. It's not what they did, it's the reasons, or the apparent lack of reasons, that has Hollywood studio chieftains' nerves rattled.
Howard French's column in the New York Times today is perhaps the best explanation of what's wrong with the world's most coveted and least understood marketplace. He wrote, "The government recently recalled the latest installment of "Mission: Impossible," offended, it is said, by depictions of the Shanghai police as slow to respond to a crime, and by images of this city, the new Asian Oz, that showed laundry hanging out to dry...The film is now being shown in a sanitized version, free of the kinds of scenes that are among the most normal sights of everyday life here. For "The Da Vinci Code," the contortions grew even more absurd. For reasons that have still not been convincingly explained, the government suddenly withdrew a film that was well on its way to becoming one of the highest grossing ever here."
And that has Hollywood worried. "The Da Vinci Code" is a monster hit with or without China, and at any rate, had run its course there. But Paramount, and for that matter, Hollywood, needs the world to step up and love "Mission: Impossible 3" and all its subsequent action films. When markets as big as China start acting irrationally, it makes an already risky business that much riskier.
As French explains, "In a society that is growing freer by the day, China's leadership remains obsessed with control. Control doesn't merely mean keeping a tight grip on politics or affairs of state. Here, the ideology of control is itself out of control."
Filed under: Movies, City Of Industry
Tags: mission: impossible, Mission:Impossible, movie studios, MovieStudios, paramount, poseidon, warner bros., WarnerBros.
