This awards season is back to normal with no Hollywood labor strikes and no Covid, but it also is lacking consensus frontrunners for Oscars Best Picture. “So far, 2024 has been a down year at the box office [off 12% year-to-date] and a confusing year on the film festival circuit,” writes Steve Pond in Hollywood trade newspaper TheWrap. “There’s no big commercial movie out … [Read more...] about Oscars Forecast: No Frontrunners
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Film Awards Juggernaut Suffers Dings
The movie awards industry, whose apex will be the Oscars telecast coming March 10, is buffeted by isolated storms though the promotional juggernaut keeps cruising along. It’s estimated that several hundred million dollars are spent each year on awards marketing. A film critic organization is fighting allegations of vote tampering, the bellwether Golden Globes is in rehab, … [Read more...] about Film Awards Juggernaut Suffers Dings
Ranking Films by Cost Vs. Boxoffice
The original “Avatar” from 2009 is the all-time boxoffice champ with nearly $3 billion in global boxoffice, but data website Information Is Beautiful (IIB) identifies other cinema high achievers using other metrics. The IIB post “What is the Most Successful Hollywood Movie of All Time?” provides hard-to-get business data on the 500 most significant theatrical films going back … [Read more...] about Ranking Films by Cost Vs. Boxoffice
Over-the-top Oscar Awards Campaigns
Over the years, campaigns seeking Oscar awards aimed at Hollywood insiders have prayed to the Academy Award gods from the Alamo fortress and hosted a pop-up street stand in Hollywood hosted by a celebrated filmmaker who chatted up passers-by. And an actress personally wrote letters to every Academy Awards voter that she could find. A Hollywood Reporter feature story by Scott … [Read more...] about Over-the-top Oscar Awards Campaigns
Oscars Endured Rough Road to Fame
The Hollywood organization that confers the Oscars was founded in 1927 with strikingly different ambitions than the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences (AMPAS) that the world knows today. “The Academy and the Awards” book by Bruce Davis details Oscar’s little-known history going back nearly a century. The Academy Awards — Oscar honors — were not a high priority and … [Read more...] about Oscars Endured Rough Road to Fame
Celebrating Hollywood’s Snarky Side
Hollywood today wrestles with the same rough-and-tumble corporate culture and marketing riddles that are illuminated in the1952 drama/satire “The Bad and the Beautiful.” It’s a movie about movies spotlighting every corner of Hollywood including marketing matters that are still relevant today: agonizing over crafting promotional messages to turn heads; the behind-the-scenes … [Read more...] about Celebrating Hollywood’s Snarky Side
Agent 007 Anchors Pinball Machine
The James Bond spy-thriller property and its most famous Agent 007, Sean Connery, anchor a mechanical pinball machine in limited quantities. Chicago-based Stern Pinball launches its James Bond 007 series of hardware priced at three tiers for $6,999 to $12,999. “Stern’s James Bond 007 cornerstone pinball machine,” says a press release, “highlights film footage and iconic … [Read more...] about Agent 007 Anchors Pinball Machine
‘Lord of Rings’ Merchandise Bonanza
A Swedish video game company has bought film/TV and merchandising rights to the “Lord of the Rings” franchise for a large though undisclosed sum, as movie-related intellectual property has exploded in value since “Star Wars” in 1977. The rights package covers all the works of the late R.R. Tolkien’s fantasy-world literary works including the “The Hobbit.” The purchase price … [Read more...] about ‘Lord of Rings’ Merchandise Bonanza
A Hollywood Life ‘Flirting With Fame’
After decades as a Hollywood press agent, Dan Harary finds publicity an unpredictable art and he also observes a changing nature of “celebrity.” In his memoir book “Flirting With Fame,” Harary recounts doing publicity for a behind-the-scenes special effects craft worker Bob Short connected to a strange horror/comedy film with uncertain prospects. Surprisingly, Short generate … [Read more...] about A Hollywood Life ‘Flirting With Fame’
Booking Classics in Cinemas
Focused on their new release slates, movie companies generally offload the cinema bookings of their older films. United Kingdom-based Park Circus the leader in distributing classics and retrospectives as a sales agency and distribution company. "Sales agent” means has deals to book screenings of back-catalog movies of Hollywood’s major studios plus others. Park Circus gets … [Read more...] about Booking Classics in Cinemas