Showbiz Sandbox 189: Contentious CinemaCon; Corporate Coachella
April 29, 2013
At this year’s CinemaCon movie studios showed up in full force to pitch the world’s largest gathering of cinema operators on a bounty of upcoming blockbusters. Behind the scenes however, some of the larger theater chains were haggling with studios over how to divide ticket sales for tentpole releases such as “Iron Man 3”.
Meanwhile, for the second year in a row, the promoters of the Coachella Music Festival tried to replicate the event over two weekends. They held the same festival, with the same musical acts, on back-to-back weekends. While at times it couldn’t help but seem like a greedy attempt to extract more money from attendees, there were moments of sheer magic that only happen at Coachella.
Then there is Netflix, which after being ridiculed publicly for a series of ill-advised strategic moves in 2011, has managed to turn its ship around. After successfully producing its own hit-content with “House of Cards”, subscribers have returned, profits are increasing and the stock price is on the rise. Netflix CEO is feeling so good he wrote a manifesto on the future of televsion.
Of course we also cover the week’s top entertainment news including Zach Braff’s successful Kickstarter campaign, how Bittorent is helping market a movie and whether “Django Unchained” will ever be released in China.
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Movie Ticket Prices In U.S. Drop in the First Quarter – A Little
http://www.latimes.com/entertainment/envelope/cotown/la-et-ct-movie-ticket-prices-20130422,0,1424352.story
CinemaCon: AMC’s Gerry Lopez Speaks Out On ‘Iron Man 3’ Dispute
http://www.latimes.com/entertainment/envelope/cotown/la-et-ct-lopez-ironman-fight-20130417,0,1546232.story
AMC Settles ‘Iron Man 3’ Dispute with Disney
http://www.latimes.com/entertainment/envelope/cotown/la-et-ct-amc-iron-man-20130425,0,2762804.story
Iron Man Gets 4-D Launch In Japan
http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/iron-man-3-become-first-440359
Major Film Studios Prosper On The Margins
http://variety.com/2013/biz/news/major-film-studios-prosper-on-the-margins-1200376494/
CEO Pay Reaches Versailles Levels; Let Employees Eat Cake
http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/cbs-leslie-moonves-pay-2012-438682
Jeffrey Katzenberg Enjoys Big Pay Raise
http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/dreamworks-animation-ceo-jeffrey-katzenbergs-442945
The Best of Coachella
http://blogs.villagevoice.com/music/2013/04/best_of_coachel.php
How Netflix CEO Reed Hastings Sees the Future
http://allthingsd.com/20130424/how-netflix-ceo-reed-hastings-sees-the-future-netflix-wins-apps-win-and-so-do-hbo-espn-and-the-cable-guys/
Netflix Push Iinto Original Fare May Be Bad News For Hollywood
http://www.latimes.com/entertainment/envelope/cotown/la-et-ct-netflix-revenue-hemlock-grove-house-cards-viacom-media-earnings-nomura–20130423,0,2075697.story
Fox Threatens To Go Cable Over Aereo
http://www.engadget.com/2013/04/08/fox-threatens-cable-channel-aereo-court-battle/
Billboard Top 200
http://www.billboard.com/biz/charts/the-billboard-200
Mad Men Slips In Ratings
http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/live-feed/tv-ratings-ryan-lochte-premiere-443970
Ex-Hollywood Pariah BitTorrent To Promote Independent Film Release
http://www.latimes.com/entertainment/envelope/cotown/la-et-ct-bittorrent-cinedigm-20130420,0,4065370.story
Hollywood Studios Fuming Over BitTorrent, Cinedigm ‘Deal With the Devil’
http://www.thewrap.com/movies/article/bittorrent-cinedigm-promotion-leaves-movie-studios-fuming-87636
David Mamet And Other Big Authors Choose To Self-Publish
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/04/17/business/media/david-mamet-and-other-big-authors-choose-to-self-publish.htm
‘Matilda’ Quartet Ruled Ineligible for Best Actress Tony
http://artsbeat.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/04/26/matilda-quartet-will-get-special-tony-but-wont-be-eligible-for-best-actress/
Olivier Winners Announced
http://www.theatermania.com/london-theater/news/04-2013/2013-olivier-award-winners-have-been-announced_65030.html
Actress Suing IMDB Loses Lawsuit
http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/thr-esq/imdb-wins-lawsuit-actress-suing-437828
Zach Braff launches Kickstarter Campaign
http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/zach-braffs-kickstarter-project-hits-445893
Zach Braff Kickstarter
http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1869987317/wish-i-was-here-1
Django Pulled From Chinese Cinemas
http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/django-unchained-pulled-chinese-cinemas-437733
Chinese Fans Turn To Pirate Copies
http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/chinese-moviegoers-turn-piracy-django-437802
‘Django Unchained’ Will Return To Chinese Theaters – With Changes
http://www.latimes.com/entertainment/movies/moviesnow/la-et-mn-django-unchained-china-20130426,0,3397214.story
China: Is Hollywood Fed Up?
http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/chinese-american-movie-productions-is-444814
The new Iron Man in 4-D (vibrating seats, strobe lights, fog and more inside the theater). Why? Because 3-D wasn’t dumb enough. Check out other pithy comments like this in the latest edition of our free, world-spanning podcast!