Time Warner cable has rejected a demand by a group of Washington D.C. lawyers to provide information about more than 2,000 BitTorrent users who may have illegally downloaded director Ube Boll's movie Far Cry.. The recently formed U.S. Copyright Group has said that it intends to sue the downloaders of the movie and plans to file additional suits against thousands of others who have downloaded independent films. While not discussing the merits of Uscg's tactic, Time Warner Cable said it would take the efforts of its employees at least three months to accede to Uscg's demands — and then only if it set aside its hunt for rapists, terrorists, child abductors, and suicidal individuals.

Source: Studio Briefing

Shia Labeouf is no Indiana Jones. He said so himself in an interview with the Los Angeles Times at the Cannes Film Festival on Saturday. "I feel like I dropped the ball on the legacy that people loved and cherished," he said, referring to his performance in Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull. He went on to amplify his self criticism, saying "The actor's job is to make it come alive and make it work, and I couldn't do it. So that's my fault. Simple." He indicated that he and Harrison Ford were aware that the film wasn't working while it was in production "We had major discussions. He wasn't happy with it either. Look, the movie could have been updated. There was a reason it wasn't universally accepted." When the 23-year-old actor was asked whether he expected to be reprimanded by producer-director Steven Spielberg for his public criticism of the film, he replied, "I'll probably get a call. But he needs to hear this. … He's done so much great work that there's no need for him to feel vulnerable about one film. But when you drop the ball you drop the ball."

Source: Studio Briefing

Woody Allen, generally regarded as the quintessential New York movie director, told a news conference at the Cannes Film Festival on Saturday why he now prefers to make his movies in London. "The films I do in London, I could make in New York," he said. "It's just less expensive to do them there." Allen also seemed to suggest that the settings of his films were far less consequential than the actors appearing in them. "The trick in making these films is to be a good hirer," he said. Bring together a talented cast, he said, "and you can't go that wrong." His policy: "Hire the right people, give them the responsibility and then keep your mouth shut — and pick up your paycheck." He also revealed why he now rarely appears in his films: age. In his earlier films, he observed, he was able to play the romantic lead, something he can no longer do at the age of 74. "It's no fun not playing the guy who gets the girl," he said. Nowadays, he quipped, he's just "the old guy over there in the corner [who's] the director." Asked whether the title of his new movie, You Will Meet a Tall Dark Stranger, referred to "the grim reaper," Allen said that it was intentionally "ambiguous" but had both a literal and a figurative meaning — And yes, the figurative meaning was death. "How's your relationship with death?" a reporter bluntly asked. Allen parried, "My relationship with death remains the same. I'm strongly against it" (bringing a roar of laughter from the assembled reporters). The same for old age, he indicated. "I find it a lousy deal," he said "There is no advantage in getting older. You don't get smarter you don't get wiser. … It's a bad business getting old, and I would advise you to avoid it." In fact, Allen didn't have many good things to say about living, either. "I have a very grim, pessimistic view of it," he said. "I do feel it's a grim, nightmarish, meaningless experience."

Source: Studio Briefing

Roger Ebert, in his review of Just Wright, credits its star, Queen Latifah, for holding the movie together. "Few people," he writes, "and certainly no one in this film, can hold the screen against her. As with many other stars, when she's in a shot, it's about her." But Elizabeth Weitzman in the New York Daily News, along with several other critics, says that's a mixed blessing "As it turns out, director Sanaa Hamri depends a little too much on her charismatic star in the hopes that Latifah can elevate average material. And to an impressive degree, she does. But ultimately, this one-of-a-kind woman deserves more than a one-size-fits-all romance," Weitzman writes. But Lou Lumenick in the New York Post argues that the movie makes a terrific vehicle for Latifah's talents, calling it "a very rare contemporary romantic comedy that doesn't succumb to terminal stupidity." Jason Anderson in the Toronto Star also notes that it "breaks with the current conventions of Hollywood movies targeted at African-American audiences. There's little of the broad comedy, mawkish melodrama or lessons on living a moral life that fill the hugely popular films of Tyler Perry. Instead, Just Wright is more like the kind of proficiently made and unrepentantly escapist romantic fluff that the Hollywood studios used to shill to love-starved moviegoers in the 1940s and '50s but have little aptitude for these days." Actually, writes Ty Burr in the Boston Globe, Just Write is one of the better Perry movies Perry hasn't made yet."

Source: Studio Briefing

With the testosterone-heavy Iron Man 2 and Robin Hood vying against one another this weekend, several critics, especially those of the female persuasion, are welcoming the arrival of Letters from Juliet. "There are worse ways to spend a couple of hours, writes Claudia Puig in USA Today. "Set in some stunning locales in Italy, Letters is a guilty pleasure that's lighter on the guilt and heavier on the pleasure." Joy Tipping in the Dallas Morning News writes that the star of the movie may be its locale. "If you can't afford a European trip this summer, just go see Letters to Juliet, a charming romantic comedy set amid gorgeous Verona, Italy, and the northern Italian hills and valleys surrounding it. Cinematographer Marco Pontecorvo's sun-drenched palette would be a perfectly sound reason to see this film, but happily it's not the only one." And Stephen Cole sums up in the Toronto Globe & Mail: "If nothing else, the film is inspired travelogue with a welcome, oddball sense of humor." A.O. Scott offers this peculiar judgment: "It is a movie that is very nearly perfect without being especially good." The problem, he explains, is that while it fulfills its ambitions, those ambitions are modest at best. "No hard feelings are risked, no feathers of audience sensitivity are ruffled, and as a result no memorable lines are uttered, no startling scenes unfold, and no character emerges toward whom you feel anything more than tepid good will."

Source: Studio Briefing

Oliver Stone is having difficulty scoring tickets for his own film at the Cannes Film Festival. Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps is due to premiere at the festival tonight (Friday), well in advance of its scheduled release in September. Buttonholed by New York magazine on Thursday, Stone said that he was spending his time "trying to get tickets for people — ‘friends.'" The director said that he was astonished that it was proving so difficult for him to do so. "It's insane here. You know what a ticket's going for here on this film, on the black market? 8,000 Euros! That's about $10,000, I think … which is approximate, but still, amazing for a movie ticket." When the New York reporter noted that it was ironic that such a black market had materialized around Stone's movie about corporate greed, Stone replied: "It's a scalping thing. I heard we were the highest ticket at the festival. I had 25 ‘friends' call on the last day [before the film screened] to get in. That's a dilemma you can't get out of."

Source: Studio Briefing

The 63rd edition of the Cannes Film Festival got underway Wednesday night with a screening of Ridley Scott's Robin Hood, starring Cate Blanchett and Russell Crowe. The film is not entered in the competition for the festival's Palme d'Or. At a news conference prior to the screening producer Brian Grazer remarked that the screening at Cannes gives the film a prestigious launch before the world's press. (Some 3,000 journalists are covering the festival.) "It's very important. You have an opportunity to capture the whole world's attention at a single moment," he said. But it's a risky proposition, particularly if the critical reaction is poor, as it has been. (See the separate synopsis of reviews.) Most reviewers have commented that the Robin Hood in this movie bears little resemblance to the one of lore. The film's star, Russell Crowe, seemed only to hand them additional ammunition when he told the news conference, "Whatever you think you've been told about Robin Hood is a previously understandable mistake." Later, in an apparent effort to make the film sound more relevant, he commented, "In my view, if Robin was alive today, he'd be looking at the monopolizations of the media."

Source: Studio Briefing

The German broadband provider that currently hosts the notorious ThePirateBay.com has been hit with a preliminary injunction requested by the major U.S. movie studios. The injunction bars the company, CB3ROB, from connecting ThePirateBay to the Internet. According to the website TorrentFreak, if it does, it could face fines of up to 250,000 euros for each case of infringement. CB3ROB, which told TorrentFreak that it has received "no information" about the injunction, says on its website that it is a member of the Pirate Party. Its motto is "We go forward to defend freedom and all that is good and just in the world. The total solution provider in a hostile world!"

Source: Studio Briefing

Ridley Scott's Robin Hood opened the Cannes Film Festival Wednesday night, and there were arrows flying everywhere — most of them let loose by critics. They are disappointed that there is no dashing, romantic hero here, no swashbuckler in tights, no band of merry men stealing from the rich and giving to the poor. What we have instead, writes Roger Ebert in the Chicago Sun-Times "is a high-tech and well made violent action picture using the name of Robin Hood for no better reason than that it's an established brand not protected by copyright. I cannot discover any sincere interest on the part of Scott, [star Russell] Crowe or the writer Brian Helgeland in any previous version of Robin Hood." Indeed, writes Claudia Puig in USA Today, "The latest Robin Hood might as well be called John Doe in Chain Mail for all the resemblance it bears to the legendary character. That might not be so bad if the alternative portrait was intriguing. But Robin Hood … is an unnecessary and wrong-headed reboot." Virtually all of the critics agree that the film has an impressive look, especially the violent battle scenes, but, they also agree, the complicated plot leaves the audience yearning for what Kenneth Turan in the Los Angeles Times describes as the "traditional Robin Hood satisfactions" and having to put up with a plot that, he says, is "simultaneously simplistic and over-plotted, revisionist and predictable." Todd McCarthy, the former Variety critic now writing for the website IndieWire.com, acknowledges that the filmmakers serve up "a fashionably gritty period drama, conceived by intelligent minds and handsomely decked out" but, he remarks, it is one that lacks any "beating heart or compelling raison d'etre." Noting that the film ends with the words, "And so the legend begins," intended presumably to set up a sequel, McCarthy observes that the words make "you want to see something other than the movie you've just seen." The film does receive a handful of fine notices. Michael Phillips in the Chicago Tribune writes: "I liked it. It's … a satisfying, large-scale genre movie, toned up by its cast." Roger Moore in the Orlando Sentinel concludes that it's mostly "fun and rousing entertainment." That exact description — "rousing entertainment" — is also employed by Lou Lumenick in the New York Post, who, while not offering a formal review, comments on his blog that it is "far better than I expected … an interesting choice to open the Cannes Film Festival, and an entirely respectable one."

Source: Studio Briefing

DreamWorks Animation chief Jeffrey Katzenberg says that he expects the downturn in sales of DVDs and Blu-ray discs is likely to continue. Speaking at the Jefferies & Co. Global Internet, Media and Telecom Conference in New York, Katzenberg said that the falloff in DVD sales represents a "systemic" change in the film industry, although, he said, DreamWorks Animation is not as vulnerable to it as most others. His company's DVDs, he said, "are much more analogous to a toy purchase" But while kids may play Dwa's discs until they're virtually worn out, adults do not. Given the current economy, he observed, "$20 is something you think about. Twenty dollars for a DVD you will watch once or twice? … The overall movie world is having to deal with the change in consumer habits." Separately, in an interview with Reuters, Katzenberg said that there has been no indication that moviegoers are beginning to balk at ticket prices at theaters for 3D movies. "It's been just the opposite," he said. "People have been very excited about the 3-D experience," he added.

Source: Studio Briefing

Predictions that sales of the DVD and Blu-ray version of James Cameron's Avatar would be weakened by the current lack of 3D home-video systems have not only not come about but, it would seem, sales of the discs are likely to set new records. On Tuesday, 20th Century Fox Home Entertainment said that sales of the Avatar discs had already reached 19.7 million units after three weeks. That compares to The Dark Knight's total after three weeks of 16 million units. Of the total, 6.2 million represent sales of Avatar Blu-ray discs, making it far and away the biggest Blu-ray debut in history.

Source: Studio Briefing

Demonstrating how a single blockbuster film can turn a movie studio around, the Walt Disney Co. said Tuesday that its operating income increased during the second quarter to $223 million from just $13 million for the same quarter a year ago. The company credited sales of tickets for Tim Burton's Alice in Wonderland for the increase, a movie that has earned $331 million domestically and $962 million worldwide. In a conference call, Disney chief Robert Iger also noted that Alice will be coming to DVD and Blu-ray in just a few weeks (June 1). Persuading theater owners to go along with the early home video release represented a "hard-fought victory," Iger said.

Source: Studio Briefing

Studio estimates for Sunday's ticket sales were significantly off the mark for each of the two movies that opened over the weekend. Iron Man 2, which some forecasters had figured would set a new record, failed even to take in the $133.6 million the studio reckoned it would. With some families apparently concluding that it was not the kind of movie moms would be interested in seeing on Mother's Day, Iron Man 2 actually wound up with $128.1 million. Box office estimates are based on actual sales for Friday and Saturday and an educated guess for Sunday. As it turned out, the movie, which earned $51.2 million on Friday and $45.8 million on Saturday, dropped to $31.1 million on Sunday. Nevertheless, the total represented the fifth-best opening of all time and the biggest in the history of Paramount, Hollywood's first studio. Screenings in IMAX theaters generated $9.8 million, 8 percent of the gross, a new IMAX record for a 2D movie. But if Iron Man's total was overestimated because of Mother's Day, the documentary Babies' total was underestimated because of it. Playing in only 534 theaters, the film earned more money on a per-theater basis than any other film in wide release with the exception of IM2. Total ticket sales for Babies came to $2.15 million, 37 percent higher than the $1.57 million that had been estimated. Overall, the top 12 films together took in $170.8 million, up 19.7 percent from $142.8 million for the same weekend a year ago.

Source: Studio Briefing

Ordinarily the actual production budget of a Hollywood blockbuster is kept as hush-hush as the on-location dalliances of its stars, but TheWrap.com's Sharon Waxman claims to have got her hands on the actual budget outline for Robin Hood, which indicates that original plans called for spending $237 million on the movie. Waxman noted that tax rebates were expected to bring that figure down to $200 million. On Monday, she posted a copy of the rough budget — it includes broad estimates for above- and below-the-line expenses — which was apparently submitted to Universal by the producers when the movie was still titled Nottingham. The movie is due to open the Cannes Film Festival on Wednesday, playing out of competition.

Source: Studio Briefing

As expected, shareholders in Lions Gate Entertainment on Monday rejected the $7.00-per-share offer that activist shareholder Carl Icahn submitted most recently to buy all of the studio. In a prepared statement that virtually duplicated its remarks after it turned down Icahn's earlier offer of $6.00 per share, the company said that the shareholders believe his "offer is inadequate and does not reflect the value of their investment." Lions Gate's stock closed Monday at $6.89, just a few cents shy of Icahn's offer.

Source: Studio Briefing

A 19th film has been added to the list of competitors for the Cannes Film Festival's Palme d'Or this year. The festival announced Monday that it is adding British director Ken Loach's Route Irish, about a couple of soldiers-turned-independent-contractors who fall in love with the same woman in Iraq. Although it is rare for a film to be appended to the competition list at the last moment — the festival opens on Wednesday — Loach would appear to be something of a darling to the festival crowd who merits special consideration. Route Irish is his third film selected by the festival directors to screen at Cannes. Loach won the Palme d'Or in 2006 for The Wind that Shakes the Barley. He returned last year with the critically acclaimed Looking for Eric. Meanwhile, festival director Thierry Fremaux has indirectly criticized Hollywood producers for their reluctance to submit films for the competition. Only one American film is competing this year, Doug Liman's Fair Game, starring Sean Penn and Naomi Watts. "The Cannes Film Festival must show more American films," Fremaux told the Associated Press. "That's part of our tradition and part of what we want for the future."

Source: Studio Briefing

The Stark fact is this: Iron Man 2 had the fifth-largest opening weekend on record, not the first- or second-largest, as some box-office gurus had confidently forecast last week. The movie, produced by Marvel Entertainment and distributed by Paramount, took in $133.6 million, a massive figure by anyone's reckoning but nowhere near the $158 million that Warner Bros.' Batman movie The Dark Knight earned when it opened in 2008. (No doubt not a few studio executives were appraising the possibility of bringing together Batman's Bruce Wayne and Iron Man's Tony Stark in a superhero sequel to end all superhero sequels.) Overseas, Iron Man 2 brought in $57.2 million in its second week, to bring its foreign total to $194 million. Together with its domestic total of $133.6 million, the movie has now earned $327.6 million worldwide. No other film opening domestically managed to break into double digits. Second place went to A Nightmare on Elm Street, which took in $9.1 million. How to Train Your Dragon placed third with $6.7 million, pushing it past the $200-million mark at the box office in its seventh week. Other top finishers were 4. Date Night, $5.3 million; 5. The Back-up Plan, $4.3 million; 6. Furry Vengeance, $4 million; 7. Clash of the Titans, $2.3 million; 8. Death at a Funeral, $2.1 million; 9. The Losers, $1.8 million; 10. Babies, $1.6 million.

Source: Studio Briefing

The FCC on Friday approved an application from the Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA) that would allow movies to be sent by cable and satellite to homes while they are still playing in theaters. The hitch: to prevent piracy, the industry would be permitted to use a system to disable any recording device while the movie is being viewed. The system, called Selectable Output Control (Soc), had been criticized by several consumer organizations. In a statement, Gigi Sohn, president of Public Knowledge, said that the FCC decision will allow studios "for the first time to take control of a consumer's TV set." The MPAA petition had also been opposed by theater owners who saw the system as a threat to their business. "We disagree," the FCC wrote. "This offering will allow the homebound, parents with young children, and others who simply want to stay in for the night to choose a new entertainment option that they may value highly." Besides, the commission observed, its function is not "to protect industry sectors from competition, which generally benefits the public." The commission's action was praised by Bob Pisano, the interim head of the MPAA, who expressed appreciation for the FCC's recognition "that recently released movies need special protection against content theft when they are distributed to home televisions."

Source: Studio Briefing

Iceland's Eyjafjallajokull volcano was threatening to turn Cannes into "can't" on Sunday as new eruptions sent clouds of ash into the atmosphere causing some airlines to curtail or call off hundreds of flights in the vicinity. About 20 flights into Nice, the nearest airport, were canceled on Sunday and some flights were simply delayed. But continued disruptions (and eruptions) later in the week could play havoc with the Cannes Film Festival's tight schedule of press conferences, photo shoots, red-carpet appearances, and late-night parties. As the Los Angeles Times observed, "Canceled flights could mean that participants in the world's largest film festival would arrive days late, or scrap their plans altogether, leading to a potential dearth of media and stars in a festival typically littered with them." The festival officially opens on Wednesday with a screening of Ridley Scott's Robin Hood, preceded by the usual red-carpet ceremonies attended by hundreds of fans seeking to get a glimpse of the movie's stars, Russell Crowe and Cate Blanchett. "Everyone wants to get an invitation to Cannes," the city's deputy mayor, David Lisnard, told the French wire service Agence France-Presse. "Even the ash cloud."

Source: Studio Briefing

Lena Horne, the movies' first black screen siren — and a hit jazz recording artist and nightclub performer as well — died Sunday in New York at the age of 92. The cause of death was not disclosed. Although she performed memorably in such films as Cabin in the Sky and Stormy Weather, she learned early on that her race would bar her from many other productions. She once told the Los Angeles Times, "After I realized I would only go so far, I went on the stage."

Source: Studio Briefing