Archive for April, 2008

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Maxwell Smart may be fighting Kaos for world domination, but it’s Hollywood studios that will be locked in a battle for moviegoers’ attention during the upcoming summer season.

Warner Bros. will be squarely in the middle of the fray, releasing the film version of the cheeky ’60s hit TV show Get Smart on June 20. The promotions team has enlisted PepsiCo’s Sierra Mist, Subway, Swiss Army, Vespa, QVC and Anheuser-Busch to help the comedy win the box office war.

“We went for quality as opposed to quantity,” said Gene Garlock, the studio’s new svp-worldwide promotions. “The object is to build buzz and use other people’s money to help supplement and boost our own marketing budget.”

The action comedy, starring Steve Carell and Anne Hathaway, launches into a season packed with tentpoles and event films like Iron Man, Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull and The Incredible Hulk, which, collectively, have dozens of corporate partners like Burger King, Mars, 7-Eleven, Audi and LG Mobile. Warner Bros.’ own Speed Racer has McDonald’s, General Mills, Target, Esurance and Mattel, among others.

Opening opposite Get Smart is the buzzed about Mike Myers comedy, The Love Guru. But unlike an earlier Myers franchise, Austin Powers, Get Smart is not a parody, but is intended to be an homage to the Cold War-set TV show, with Bill Murray playing Agent 13, the spy from the series who pops up in the most unlikely places. Hathaway has said in interviews that filmmakers were shooting for a Bourne Identity with some goofball elements.

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By iTVX staff

Bon Jovi guitarist Richie Sambora, who recently split from Denise Richards and Heather Locklear, will reportedly replaced Poison lead singer Bret Michaels in the next season of VH1’s Rock of Love. The second season of the show saw Michaels choosing actress Ambre Lake as his new main squeeze. Sambora,48, recently pled guilty to DWI charges. Next season, he hopes to plead guilty to love - whatever that means. Anyone want to take a guess what product will see heavy placement on this show? Lord knows Bret Michaels helped some cosmetics company with all the eyeliner he wore during his tenure on the show.

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NEW YORK (AdAge.com) — The upfront market hasn’t started officially, but that hasn’t stopped NBC from forming plans with ad buyers and marketers.

“A number of the agencies and advertisers have started to connect with us about specific business, and we’ve begun a number of discussions,” Ben Silverman, co-chairman of NBC Entertainment and Universal Media Studios, told Advertising Age in a brief interview yesterday.

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ERLIN — Senator Entertainment is set to produce “Clock Tower,” based on Capcom’s bestselling survival horror video game series, for the Weinstein Co.Senator’s Marco Weber will produce with Martin Weisz (“The Hills Have Eyes 2”) directing from a script by Eric Poppen (“Borderland”).

Unlike first-person shooter games, which allow gamers to hunt and kill monsters, the protagonist in “Clock Tower” has no weapons and must use her surroundings to hide and escape while solving puzzles and following the twisting storyline.

The game has attracted high-profile talent, such as the late Japanese helmer Kinji Fukasaku (“Battle Royale”), who directed the third version of the game, “Clock Tower 3.”

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It’s hard to find a phone booth these days in New York City. But for Gwyneth Paltrow, the greenroom of David Letterman’s studio will do.

On Monday, the star of “Iron Man” ducked into the Ed Sullivan Theater in a pair of Nikes, Spandex and a ponytail and - faster than a speeding bullet - emerged glam in a barely there sleeveless dress and sky-high Louboutins (with a razor-sharp heel) ready for the film’s New York premiere.

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What product did the blonde bombshell promote in a 1953 commercial?
Coca-Cola!

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David Verklin once gave a speech in which he coined the phrase “the crackle of change” as a way to get at the digital transformation sweeping the ad business. The crackle caught up with the loquacious media thinker last week, when he announced that he’s leaving Carat, the platform from which he became one of the industry’s most visible figures during the past 10 years.

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24 is ridiculous, repetitive, and morally suspect — and I love it with all my heart. I’m a card-carrying liberal, but I’ve offered to surrender my card if it means that I can jump up and down with glee as Jack Bauer yells “There’s no time!” and shoots another terrorist in the kneecap. Close friend of Rush Limbaugh or not, then, co-creator Joel Surnow is one of my favorite people in Hollywood (he left the show earlier this year). And that means I’m excited about this announcement that Surnow and 24 co-producer Michael Loceff are collaborating to write and produce a new “contemporary spy thriller” for United Artists.

Surnow and UA have enlisted Casino Royale’s Martin Campbell to direct the movie after he finishes the newly announced Mel Gibson thriller Edge of Darkness. The Hollywood Reporter speculates that this project might constitute an attempt by UA to find a viable franchise for part-owner Tom Cruise, though there’s no official word that Cruise is going to star in the film.

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Expanding into the mobile arena, local online advertising company Marchex will provide call-tracking services to mobile ad networks AdMob and 4INFO.

For pay-per-call campaigns running on the mobile networks, Marchex will report which ads generated calls, as well as tracking the location, time of day, and duration of calls.

We believe that the mobile advertising opportunity is significant and is poised to realize tremendous growth over the next five years,” said John Keister, president and chief operating officer of Marchex, in a prepared statement.

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