latimes.com
How do you sell audiences on a three-hour black-and-white movie with no major American stars that is about the Holocaust? Get Steven Spielberg to direct it. Carefully position it in the marketplace as an important “experience” rather than a movie. And pray that positive word of mouth will ignite the public’s passion for a subject that is historically a tough sell on the big screen. Amblin Entertainment and Universal Pictures are using this low-key approach to lure moviegoers to next month’s rele…
over 30 years ago
latimes.com
Marty Adelstein, a partner in the 6-year-old talent agency Endeavor, is leaving to become a manager and set up his own entertainment company. His clients, who include TV series creators David E. Kelley (“Ally McBeal”) and Bonnie and Terry Turner (“That ’70s Show”) and wrestling-star-turned-actor The Rock, will remain at Endeavor and be co-represented by Adelstein. Adelstein, 43, said he is trying to put together a business plan and raise financing for a multi-faceted entertainment company. He be…
about 22 years ago
latimes.com
One group of Hollywood power agents got a glimpse last summer, up close and personal, of the sway Maria Shriver holds over the career of her husband, Arnold Schwarzenegger. In a professional slump, the actor had made clear his intention to leave the William Morris Agency. Among the many competitors who quickly began courting him, these agents were summoned to make their case in the kitchen of the Schwarzenegger-Shriver family’s Pacific Palisades compound. According to one who attended, Shriver,…
almost 21 years ago
latimes.com
Sherry Lansing, a Hollywood pioneer who for three decades has been one of the most powerful figures in the movie business will step down as chairwoman of Paramount Pictures when her contract expires at the end of next year. Lansing will stay long enough to help choose her successor and to aid in the transition. But after 12 years in one of the most high-pressure jobs in the business, Lansing announced today that she does not plan to seek another entertainment industry job. Lansing’s decision com…
over 19 years ago
latimes.com
Even before Mel Gibson’s drunken, anti-Semitic tirade this summer, his upcoming film “Apocalypto” was a tough sell. Graphically violent, subtitled and cast with relatively unknown actors who speak their lines in an obscure dialect, Gibson’s tale of a collapsing Mayan civilization was already outside Hollywood’s mainstream fare. Then came Gibson’s humiliating drunken driving arrest on a Malibu highway in July, which overnight threatened to turn the Oscar-winning director from the film’s biggest a…
over 17 years ago
latimes.com
Welcome to Hollywood’s new movie math. Thanks to the nose dive in the economy and, even more troubling to the movie industry, declining DVD sales that have propped up the business for years, the studios are hammering down the generous financial deals long enjoyed by the most established stars and filmmakers. The financial scrutiny once reserved for big-budget movies is now getting applied to the studios’ chief staple -- the mid-size picture -- which constitutes the bulk of the films made in Holl…
over 15 years ago
latimes.com
When it comes to marketing movies to kids, fast food wasn’t to Disney’s taste. But 20th Century Fox sees nothing wrong with a Big Mac. The News Corp. studio has struck a partnership with McDonald’s for five of its major movie releases through 2010, beginning with the summer sequels “Night at the Museum: Battle of the Smithsonian” and “Ice Age: Dawn of the Dinosaurs.” Such movie tie-in deals, which encompass advertising commitments, in-store promotions and online campaigns, have become increasing…
almost 15 years ago
Search by beat, location, outlet & position to find the right journalists for your story.
Sign up for freelatimes.com
After nine months of tumult over the future of Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, the storied movie studio’s fate now rests in the hands of debt holders with little experience in the entertainment business. Hedge funds that control large chunks of MGM’s $3.7-billion debt, including Anchorage Advisors and Highland Capital Management, are ignoring a 2-month-old acquisition offer from Time Warner Inc. and a restructuring plan backed by Chief Executive Stephen Cooper, a turnaround expert brought in last year, to…
almost 14 years ago
