Showbiz Sandbox 189: Contentious CinemaCon; Corporate Coachella

April 29, 2013

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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.

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

Comments

One Response to “Showbiz Sandbox 189: Contentious CinemaCon; Corporate Coachella”

  1. Michael Giltz on May 2nd, 2013 12:36 pm
     

    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!