Word: studio
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
Smith concurs. He tells a story he has told before about when Willis, a producer on the film, had Smith rewrite a scene he was in to remove some of the exposition. The studio wanted to discuss their objections to the rewrite. "I was there when he made that call," says Smith. "He was talking to some higher-up muckity-muck at the studio. He kept saying, 'Uh-huh, uh-huh.' And then he said, 'Let me ask you this: Who is your second choice to play John McClane? Thought so.' And then he hung up. It was just...
...million a picture, but that could be nearly half of a comedy film's budget; everything else (script and director, supporting cast, production cost) is cut-rate. "You can make three comedies for every action movie," says an industry power broker. "It's such an easy 'yes' for a studio exec." For one such pooh-bah, Matt Tolmach, co-president of production at Sony Pictures, the guidelines are simple: "It is critical that you not overthink comedies," he says. "Did this script make me laugh out loud sitting alone on my couch? If it did, I should consider...
...Smith wants to graze freely among genres and rarely makes action pictures. Cruise has made more than a dozen films that grossed at least $100 million in North America, and usually much more worldwide, but his high price tag and off-putting offscreen antics led Paramount, his home studio, to sever relations last year. In addition to the dearth of action stars, there's the zeitgeist to contend with: in internationally edgy times, intimate comedy gives an audience more comfort than blow-up-the-world melodrama. So it's out with the musclemen, in with the funnymen...
What Iger lacks in personal pizazz, however, he has made up for in strategic smarts. He's charting an ambitious course to recast the 84-year-old former cartoon studio as a creatively nimble, technologically savvy global-entertainment company. The results so far have won over even jaded money managers and analysts. Disney's stock has soared 42% since Iger took over, and its profits in the first half of fiscal 2007 jumped 79% over last year, to $2.63 billion. More important, "He has succeeded in persuading the Street to think of him as a technologist," says David Miller, media...
Looking ahead, investors want to see the fruits of Iger's fresh direction: new revenue streams from Disney's maturing broadcasting business, higher profit margins at the consumer-products unit, another year of box-office winners from the movie studio and signs that Disney's revamped online operation can contribute significantly to the bottom line. "The $64,000 question is: Where does Disney go from here?" says Miller, of SMH Capital. The Internet Group is working on YouTube-style user-generated content, MySpace-style personal Web pages and online social networking on Disney.com that is safe and family-oriented...