This is a follow-up on yesterday’s piece/review of September 5.

I got some insight from sources who have much better insight than I into the story of how September 5 became a Paramount award season release.

To start with, the project started in 2021 with the ambition of covering 4 different stories about the terrorist attack at the Munich Olympics, Remnants of at least one of the other perspectives - a woman who negotiates directly with the terrorists - remains in the film. But the project got too big for its britches/budget and was deemed unproducable. So the directing/producing team narrowed it down to the ABC Sports story, which had been deeply researched, and got the project back on track.

It turns out that September 5 was not made by "two German production companies," as I wrote yesterday. The film was developed and made by BerghausWöbke Filmproduktion, which has produced every film from Tim Fehlbaum so far. It is a co-production with Constantin, the biggest German production hou…

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Daniel Day Lewis retired from acting, Microsoft dumped what was a cutting edge platform for a new one they could try to make more money on, lots of crappy movies being sold, Universal was releasing a Twister ride, Eisner was having a board fight at Disney because he didn’t have a clear succession plan, a battle for inclusion at a Hollywood union… and more…

NEWS BY THE NUMBERS

By David Poland - Saturday, February 28th, 1998

10. Heading For The Hills: Daniel Day Lewis doesn’t feel like playing the movie star game anymore. The New York Daily News is reporting that he’s going to give up show business for the quiet hills of Ireland. My question: Hasn’t he already been gone for a few years?
9. New Woo For You: Tom Cruise is preparing once again to do double duty as producer/star in Mission: …

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The clear part of it is that there will be segments from classic scores, played by the LA Film Orchestra, with the visual accompaniment of original artwork by Bob Peak, a famed movie poster artist.

The odder part is that there will be 10 pieces of music performed that were inspired by images created by Bob Peak, all composed by major film composers.

It sounds super cool… and super odd. But I can’t wait to experience it.

Tickets are still available here, prices randing from $94 to $244.

Below, the press release and the 10 inspiring images….

LOS ANGELES (June 4, 2024) – Abu Dhabi Festival and Robert Townson Productions present Pictures at an Exhibition: The Paintings of Bob Peak, A World Premiere Orchestra Concert Event at The Music Center’s Walt Disney Concert Hall on June 14 at 8pm PT. The Los Angeles Film Orchestra, under the direction of Maestro Leonard Slatkin, will pe…

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It was a lovely ballroom event in the room where the Broadcast Film Critics used to do the show before the show was televised. Winners were invited. Speeches were considered before people took the stage. And pretty much all the heroes of the award season in television and film were once again unsurprisingly feted for their contribution to television and film. A nice low-key afternoon of love and statues.

In the midst of this were celebrity appearances that are Oscar related, from Jeffrey Wright to Cillian Murphy. And Paul Giamatti is competing with those guys. But when it comes to Oscar night, the Directors Branch didn’t include Alexander Payne. (Feel free to argue amongst yourselves.) There is a lot of homage being paid to directors by actors this week… but this one had nothing to hope for but to express an intimate admiration.

AIS gave Alexander their Harold Lloyd Award, an annual award named for the great silent star, who like Alexander hails from Nebraska.

But Paul’s 7 minute homage to Alexander hit me in all the right ways. Paul has evolved in many ways since the days of Sideways and the inexcusable lack of a nomination for him, which followed hard on the heels of another nomination he was supposed to be a shoo-in for, American Splendor, that didn’t happen. This award season, he has been one of the most relaxed and charming storytellers… like a man who knows he has already won in life.

And so he was here… please take a look. (video courtesy of AIS)

The complete list of winners:
Best Feature Film - Live Action: Oppenheimer
Best Feature Film – Animated: Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse
Best Feature Film - International: Godzilla Minus One
Best Documentary: 32 Sounds
Best Motion Picture - Musical: Color Purple
Best Audio – Theatrical: The Creator
Best Audio – Episodic: The Last of Us
Best Original Song: “I’m Just Ken” from Barbie
Best Use of High Dynamic Range – Feature Film: Barbie
Best Use of High Dynamic Range – Episodic: The Last of Us
Best 2D to 3D Conversion: Guardians of the Galaxy: Vol. 3  
Best Musical Scene or Sequence: “I’m Here” from Color Purple
Best Theatrical Scene or Sequence: Mission: Impossible - Dead Reckoning Part One
Best Episodic – Animated: Star Wars: Visions Volume 2
Best Episodic – Live Action: The Last of Us
Best Achievement in 8K Production: Satayama Niigata: Living with Snow; NHK/NHK Enterprises Inc.
Distinguished Artist Award: Jeffrey Wright, American Fiction

Until tomorrow…

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So… see you sometime this weekend with a list of reviews and comments.

In the meanwhile, here are the festival award winners…

Until tomorrow…

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I don’t know when Oscar nominations morning got sad for me.

I think, maybe, it’s because I have more perspective on it that I used to have. It isn’t really the start of anything, aside of a load of work for those who work for those who get nominations and think they have a shot at winning.

But for those who are not nominated, it’s the end of a journey of hope. The pride of work well done continues. But that extra pat of the back… that sense of work that becomes inscribed in the book of movie history… it dies a little for many on that morning.

As we journey through each season, there are dozens of little deaths (and I don’t mean orgasms). This movie that just didn’t catch. That performance that couldn’t find its way into the small group that knows in their heart that tomorrow morning might bring an ecstasy that will last at least 7 weeks long. The instant of doubt about whether you are really as good at what you do as you think.

It sucks.

It’s one of the reasons I hate “snubs” as the wo…

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That is when we would discuss the chicken and the egg. Moving forward, only 1 Oscar show (2014) would be as high (.1m higher, actually) as that 2004 rating. Meanwhile, The Globes cracked the 20 million viewer mark only 1 more time in the same period, like Oscar, in 2014.

Then, the competition between the shows got worse for The Academy. Since 2015, The Globes have generated more than half the viewers that Oscar generated, which was a change. Oscar fell under 40 million viewers, never to return, in 2015. It dropped under 30 million in 2018, bounced back to 30 million in 2019, and has been under 20 million in the last 3 years.

Then in 2021, The Golden Globes got cancelled by the LA Times. But not before COVID canc…

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The theory they have is that this Linear package generates $1.25 billion in operating income annually and the offer is 8x that, potentially adjustable depending on more concrete figures.

So what does that mean about the rest of Disney Linear? ESPN, Freeform, the Disney nets, Lifetime and A&E would generate about $5.7 billion in operating income annually and be valued in a similar offer at $45.6 billion… the vast majority of the value being embodied by ESPN.

Parks, by this standard, would be valued at $27 billion.

Disney DTC/Streaming can’t be valued this way because it isn’t profitable. But it generates gross revenues of about 2/3 as much as Linear at this point. If it becomes half as profitable as Linear is now, that would put the value - under the structure of Allen’s offer - at about $10 billion. Obviously, Disney hope it becomes more profitable than that and worth at lea…

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I am responsible. But in my previous Oscar piece, I attributed it to Neon… but then I checked IMBdPro, which has Mubi as the distributor.

Next mistake…

Somehow, I completely left The Flash out of my “flop” story yesterday.

Yes… The Flash is a flop.

Should have been the second true flop of the summer analysis.

But also… a flop of a very different shade than Indiana Jones. It was a film from the previous administration at Warner Bros Discovery, where they had the choice to either take a humongous write-off, burying the SnyderVerse once and for all time… or getting behind their very expensive movie with 2 Batmans and a sexy, female Superman and ride out the very public problems with Ezra Miller and try to score.

People are still screaming about the murder of Batgirl, which was at least $80 million from being completed - maybe more - and was meant for HBO Max when it was launched and, …

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I have been paying $20 a month for the Disney Bundle with no ads on D+ or Hulu since D+ launched. My pricing will remain $20 a month… but I will be letting ESPN+ out of the mix… which is okay, since even as a legit sports fan, I don’t use it.

I have been paying $19.99 for Netflix for years now.

My MAX is via my AT&T plans, which would be covered by either my wireless or homne internet plans. If I were paying, the price would have gone up $5 a month last January, for the top tier with 4k and Dolby Atmos.

I pay for Paramount+ and Peacock annually… my pricing went up last year, but hasn’t changed this year and will not rise until my renewals next year.

Amazon Prime went up a bit this year (months ago), but we are not paying exclusively for Prime streaming.

AppleTV+ is part of my Apple One subscription, which went up $2.95 a month, to $32.95, which still keeps it slightly cheaper than buying each of the 4 segments of AppleOne we use in our hous…

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The Conference of Studio Unions was then an international union, led by the United Painters organizer Herbert Sorrell. It represented the Carpenters, United Painters 644, Screen Cartoonists Guild, Electricians [IBEW 40], Laborers, Set Decorators Guild, and several other crafts working for the studios in Hollywood.

An estimated 10,500 CSU workers went on strike in March 1945 and began picketing all the studios resulting in delays of several films. Unfortunately for CSU, the studios had some 130 films on the shelves and so comfortably sat out a strike for the time being. Regardless, Disney, Monogram, and several independents bargained with CSU, but Columbia, Fox, MGM, Paramount, RKO, Universal, and Warner did not.

Despite orders from their leadership and threats of fines and revocation of their cards, many members of IATSE refused to cross the picket lines or to do work that was normally fill…

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I was about 90 minutes from pushing the “publish” button yesterday when the Trump indictment news landed. Couldn’t focus on anything after that.

Today, I can only blame my dentist. (It was kind of fascinating, as a little tiny camera was used to do a deep cleaning and analysis of a section of my gums. But 2 hours with my mouth open, not talking… a big exhausting.)

I’ll likely publish a couple over the weekend… sorry for the light week.

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If I am your ideal Oscar viewer, who is not currently likely to watch the show or see all the movies, how can The Academy and the Oscar participants best inspire me to do either or both?

What is the purpose of Awards Shows… and more specifically, The Oscars?

If you were building an film/television award show from scratch in 2023, what would you build?

If you were (or are) a marketer and you were handed a package of 10 quality films with a major award about to be given to one of them, how would you sell the overall package to maximize gross revenue?

Is the highest value found in a single show dominating or is the idea of building to a crescendo the most valuable way of presenting awards?

Is there are reason to have the Oscar event in March, more than 2 months after the opening of all of the nominees?

Is Oscar a theatrical award or a streaming award or both and does this matter?

By putting so much of the onus - and financial benefit - on the media to market the Oscar movies, is The Acade…

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The problem is that if you are creating a show that creates a habit, the habit wants to be fed. Your relationship to that show, to those characters, to the concept, may be like crack when you get that first season… but when you have a deeper well, the relationship becomes more like pot… a mellow… a part of your family.

Not very poetic. But this is what is really the top of the agenda at every major content company in town. How do you keep your paying audience paying for their subscriptions while spending the least amount of money on content?

As Netflix KangTheConquerered its way into original production, it set standards for itself that were never really relevant to other emerging Streamers, But Netflix succeeded so well (especially on Wall St), almost everyone followed without much/enough thought. “You have to spend over $10 billion… probably over $15 billion… a year on original content for your streamer to compete.”

False paradigm.

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If you are now interested in discussing the details of award season marketing, here is the rule on events, as found in The Academy’s Campaign Regulations…

7. Receptions, Parties and Other Non-Screening Events

a. Prior to nominations: Members may not be invited to, and members may not attend, any dinners, lunches or other such events that are intended to promote an eligible film for awards consideration. However, this does not prohibit:

i. Providing non-excessive food and beverage at the time and place of a
screening.

ii. Inviting members to an event that is unrelated to promoting an
eligible film for awards consideration (e.g., a company party or DVD
release event).

b. After nominations: After nominations are announced, and until the final polls close, film companies are not permitted to invite members to attend any parties, dinners, lunches, or other non-screening events that promote nominated films.

So… based on this… how is Deadline’s Contenders in any way legal?

It is non-screening event th…

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Cable continues to show shrinkage… 18.2 million households down to 16.1 million over the course of the last year. Still, the drop was “only” 3.5% for the year and the division contributed a gross amount of $5.1 billion to the company. What the net is in the cable video business is protected by lumping their cable video revenues in with a wide range of other products Comcast offers at home, especially internet service, which is the single biggest revenue segment for the company. Interestingly, the cost of Comcast cable went $6.23 up per customer per month over the last year.

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