Archive for February 12th, 2008

A casual Jessica Alba, browsing magazines with fiancé Cash Warren at a Whole Foods Market in Beverly Hills. The actress, who is expecting, stocked up on Newman’s Own Old Fashioned Lemonade and Odwalla juices and even sampled one while waiting to check out.

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THE NEARLY FOUR-MONTH WRITERS’ STRIKE appears to be coming to an end, and not a minute too soon. The union leadership has given its consent, with membership set to vote on the deal in the coming week. As negotiations come to a close, I wonder: Who won, and most importantly, where do we go from here? The initial indication is the writers ended up with the deal, or at least nearly the deal, they were hoping for. The writers are now in position to garner a larger share of the digital revenue generated from the content they create. If iTunes and like systems continue to grow as we all expect, the writers are in a good position to ride the wave of digital expansion.

The impact on broadcasters is certainly less clear. The last strike occurred in 1988 and led to an erosion of network viewership that never rebounded. So while many feel like this is another nail in the coffin for the broadcasters, we may look back and find this is exactly what they needed. The whole model on how shows are created is incredibly expensive and inefficient, according to many sources at the networks. This strike might just be the opportunity these companies needed to cut down this expense and realign the process, especially as television viewership continues to decline.

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After four months of striking, what exactly has Writers Guild Association of America won? The Wall Street Journal (link: http://online.wsj.com/article/SB120256914656156471.html?mod=e-commerce_primary_hs) says the ordeal cost writers more than $270 million in up-front compensation, while Silicon Alley Insider (link: http://www.alleyinsider.com/2008/2/writers_make_modest_gains_on_digital) claims the dollar gap between the writers and studios was only worth an extra $7.2 million per year.

The most important thing the writers won was a stake in the future: Web revenues. “By gaining jurisdiction over any original material Hollywood produces for the Internet, the Writers Guild of America has ensured its survival,” says report author Lacey Rose. She adds that the deal benefits both sides, too.

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He was a fixture on the picket lines and at strike rallies, often with his bike in tow.

Then on Saturday night, “Lost” executive producer/co-showrunner Carlton Cuse was onstage at the Shrine Auditorium in Los Angeles as a member of the team briefing fellow writers on the tentative agreement struck with the producers. That is the same stage where 2 1/2 years ago, Cuse stood up to accept a best series Emmy as a member of the producing team of the hit drama “Lost.”

“It was incredible,” Cuse said of his experience Saturday night. “It was so gratifying to see that at the end of the strike, we were still united as a guild despite all the talk that writers are hellbent ideologues who can’t understand a complex deal.”

What is even more incredible is that unity was preserved by the very issue that divided the writers and studios and led to the strike — new media — through sites like UnitedHollywood.com.

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“CW Now” — the painfully low-rated product placement platform dressed in newsmagazine clothing — is off the network’s schedule at the end of February.

The program on the CW network has an innovative sponsorship arrangement: instead of showing commercials, “CW Now” embeds messages from its sponsor, the media buying agency Mediavest, in the show’s magazine-style content.

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WGA leaders seemed inclined to declare victory and move on, but figuring winners and losers in the aftermath of the writers’ tentative contract deal is a complex calculation.

Writers themselves fall in both categories.

Having missed paychecks for more than three months means many scribes will see their pay raises and residual gains as mere means of playing catch-up in their household income. But those who found themselves between projects when the strike began Nov. 5 are sitting pretty going forward, as first-time residual gains in new media will put them on a better track to compensate for any loss of income caused by diminishing revenue from TV reruns and DVD.

Similarly, though management seems to have avoided giving away the store, the studios clearly have taken a hit. Many strike-halted TV shows were money losers anyway, but the cancellation of pilot production is a huge headache for studio producers and broadcast networks.

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BERLOIN — Aya Pro bought all Japanese rights from Spanish sales consortium Latido Films has licensed all Japanese rights on prostitution drama “Justine, a Woman for Sale.”   The six-figure deal inked by Latido on Franco de Pena’s Polish sexual slavery story continues an increasingly close relationship with Japan buyers, which includes the sale of six film titles since last Christmas, Latido’s partner Massimo Saidel said at the Berlin fest.

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Yes, Virginia, there will be a seventh Star Wars movie in theaters this summer. Call it Star Wars: Episode 2 1/2. Actually, it’s called Star Wars: The Clone Wars (opens Aug. 15), and it’s a feature length animated prologue to the all-CGI series coming this fall on Cartoon Network and TNT. USA Today has some first-look photos and info, and starwars.com has a promotional video with lots of footage. Most interesting addition to the saga, which fills in the plot gaps between Attack of the Clones and Revenge of the Sith, is that Anakin Skywalker has his own padawan, a young apprentice Jedi named Ahsoka who’s a girl. (A girl who wields a mean, green lightsaber, not a “Hold me like you did by the lake on Naboo” girl.) Alas, Anakin himself still seems kinda two-dimensional, though this time he’s got a really good excuse. And the animation looks pretty cool.

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Well, I guess this means General Hawk won’t die in the first film. While making the press junket rounds for his latest film Vantage Point, Dennis Quaid spoke a bit about his role as General Hawk in the upcoming live-action G.I. Joe flick to Collider. Not surprisingly, Paramount is hoping to turn G.I. Joe into the next big action franchise, and Quaid confirmed that he had signed on for three films. Did you ever think, at this point in his career, that Dennis Quaid would sign on for three G.I. Joe films? Apparently the dude is looking to get dirty, and more power to him. On the film and his character, Quaid says, “We grew up with G.I. Joe and it’s kind of a cartoon thing…it’s a big popcorn type of tent pole action movie that…it’s not deep. The character of General Hawk that I’m playing is kind of a cross between Chuck Yeager and Sgt. Rock and maybe a naïve Hugh Hefner thrown in there. General Hawk’s aide to camp is a Victoria Secret supermodel so how serious can it be?”

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Branded entertainment is projected to grow 14% in 2008 to $25.4 billion despite the sluggish overall economy, according to new research by PQ Media.

The firm’s “Branded Entertainment Marketing Forecast: 2008-2012″ projects a strong shift away from traditional TV placements to alternate channels like events, Webisodes and advergames.

PQ defines branded entertainment as “marketing strategies that integrate products into entertainment venues that typically provide high engagement and interactivity.”

The alternative media research provider focuses on three categories: event sponsorship and marketing; product placement; and advergaming and Webisodes. It surveyed nearly 1,000 branded entertainment and related companies.

PQ found that branded entertainment marketing represented approximately 8 cents of every marketing-services dollar spent in 2007.

* Spending on events (the largest segment of branded entertainment) rose 12.2% to $19.2 billion in 2007.

*Spending on advergames and Webisodes increased nearly 35% to $217 million last year.

*Webisodes will enjoy the highest growth rate (45%) as the networks seek to produce full-length online programming to capture the youth demographic.

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