Word: shmuger
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Universal, the studio that produced Green Zone, had smelled something bad for more than a year. Greengrass and Damon shot their picture during the last few months of the Bush Administration. Then, writes Anne Thompson on her IndieWire blog, the studio's co-chairmen, Marc Shmuger and David Linde, "pushed back the Green Zone postproduction and release to allow Greengrass to find the film - and an ending - in the editing room." The movie's budget was at least $130 million, plus another $100 million or so to bring to market, and is unlikely to return even half that...
This was to be the summer of threequels, with franchises like Pirates, Spider-Man 3 and Shrek the Third stoking the audience's addiction to familiar stories writ large. But those films came out in May. Then what? "The summer began under a cloud of tentpoles," says Marc Shmuger, chairman of Universal Pictures, which has bet heavily on comedies, including Knocked Up and Evan Almighty. "We felt there would be demand for an entertaining alternative. And the success of Knocked Up shows how large the thirst for a great, funny movie really is. I think by September we will...
...more expensive films intended as counterprogramming must compete with blockbusters for a wider audience. Universal plans to keep About a Boy on select screens throughout the summer and pull it up to a $40 million gross by "constantly monitoring the marketplace and conditions," says Universal's vice chairman Mark Shmuger. With movies like About a Boy, this summer's marketplace has become a lot richer, especially for the ones buying tickets...
...success (see last weekend's grosses for "Almost Famous"). When the marketing minds at Universal tested the concept with teenagers earlier this year, they discovered that the kids were less than interested in a cheerleading movie. "They thought cheerleading was kind of death," says Universal's marketing president Marc Shmuger, who thus veered the campaign away from cheerleading, played up the rivalry between the black and white squads and changed the title from "Cheer Fever" to the more combative "Bring It On." When the trailer made its debut in front of "Big Momma's House" in June, its response from...
...Wait Until Dark still knows how to slap a scene to life. In the triple role of a dead woman, her scheming sister and the plucky gal who must literally act to save her own life, Steenburgen finds a few shadings in each caricature. But the script (by Marc Shmuger and Mark Malone) begins with intrigue, caroms into implausibility and finally sinks the film. Dead of Winter is like an all-frills flight: good service and a smooth ride, but at the end you find you've gone nowhere...
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