Word: studio
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...story of how Jackson wished and willed Snakes aloft is already a legendary bit of movie lore. After production began, the studio, New Line, tried to change the title from the so-stupid-it's-brilliant Snakes on a Plane to the hopelessly generic Pacific Air 121 while also cutting out the geysers of scripted violence to get a PG-13 rating. Jackson summoned his "Am I the only sane man on earth?" streak of indignation to encourage like-minded moviegoers--who want to see snakes bite people in painful places while they try to join the mile-high club...
...mention more locally--on Wall Street. Marvel stock has leaped to $20 a share, from $1 in 2000. The films it produces with studio partners have grossed $3.6 billion. Licensing deals for its 5,000 characters, including Spider-Man and the X-Men, are worth $5 billion in retail sales. Next year could be even better, with Sony's release of Ghost Rider and Spider...
Marvel management still sensed it was leaving money on the table. For years it watched studio partners reap billions while the company took home only a small percentage of movie profits, especially on DVDs. "If we wanted to control our own destiny, we'd have to make our own movies," says Michael Helfant, president of Marvel Studios. That was a leap Marvel's risk-averse board was loath to make on its own dime...
Instead, Marvel secured a $525 million nonrecourse credit facility--other people's money--from Merrill Lynch to make 10 films by 2012. Production is under way for the first, Iron Man, to be released in May 2008. Marvel's new studio can spend up to $165 million a flick--still relatively low for the production of an action film with sophisticated special effects, warns media analyst Harold Vogel. "And they've got to create excellent stories to stick out in the oversaturated superhero genre," Vogel says. If the studio goes over budget on a film, Marvel could be forced...
...Arad's exit as a sure sign that Marvel will soon change hands. Perlmutter is a candidate to buy some 20% of the company that he doesn't own; so is a private equity firm. Another logical buyer is Paramount, which will distribute Marvel's film slate. The studio is revamping, having recently bought rival DreamWorks SKG. Other names thrown out include Disney, which owns a large chunk of the Marvel library, and even TIME's parent, Time Warner, which owns Marvel rival DC Comics...