Page 1 of 8
March 8, 2012
Da
y
il
Inside:
sundance sets
london lineup
PAge 3
RUSSELL landS
FX PILOT LEAD
PAge 5
limbaugh lashes
at abc news
PAge 6
cherry cites
sheridan’s
‘rude’ behavior
PAge 7
movie review:
john carter
PAge 8
Hollywood Eyes
Apple’s New iPad 3
By Carolyn Giardina
Among the features unveiled on
Wednesday for Apple’s thirdgeneration iPad is a “retina”
display with 2048 x 1536 pixel
resolution (3.1 million pixels),
which the company pointed
out represents more pixels
that 1080p HDTVs.
“Resolution goes up with
every type of technology
whether handheld or for the
big screen. … This takes it to
a whole new level,” said Ted
Schilowitz, spokesperson for
camera maker Red.
In addition to giving consumers a higher-resolution
display for viewing content,
the new iPad could also have
advantages for filmmakers.
“The higher resolution screen
and 4G capability make it
a great solution for on-set
review/approval and remote
collaboration,” suggested Jay
In addition to giving consumers a higher-resolution display for viewing
content, Apple’s new iPad could also have advantages for filmmakers.
Brooks, CTO and co-founder
of software developer Simian.
For Bryan Gonzalez, director of social & digital media
technology labs at USC’s
Entertainment Technology
Center, the question becomes
how big are the files that will
be played on this wireless
device. “16GB is is not a lot
when you are thinking about
[higher resolution] files,” he
pointed out.
“Every new high-end offering in the handheld category
ups the ante; consumers are
becoming accustomed to
higher quality and great
content availability — so the
theaters need to also continue
to improve their experience
for moviegoers beyond what
even current film and digital
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Page 2 of 8
March 8, 2012
business news
FROM page 1
can offer,” observed Bob
Lambert, CEO of The Digital Firm, an L.A.-based technology investment firm, who
was previously head of technology strategy for Disney.
When studio consortium
Digital Cinema Initiatives
(DCI) unveiled the first
version of its digital cinema
specification in 2005, it included flavors of both 2K
and 4K resolution. At that
time, the digital cinema
projectors were offering 2K,
but DCI included the 4K
option with an eye toward
the future.
Today every major digital cinema projector maker
— Sony, Barco, NEC and
Christie — offer 4K systems.
Red has said that it is developing a 4K projector, for use
from cinema to the home.
Camera makers from
Red, the maker of the Epic,
and Sony with its new F65
are also bullish about 4K
and higher resolutions.
Other areas of production, including remastering
and restoration, have gone
even higher. James Cameron
has famously remastered
Titanic in 8K, which is 16
times the resolution of today’s
high definition. That is being
used as the basis for a 2D to
3D conversion of the film,
which will open in theaters
next month.
Meanwhile Japan’s NHK
is developing an 8K television system dubbed Ultra
High Definition Television.
UHDTV will be tested by
NHK and the BBC at the
upcoming London Olympics.
1080p HD is popular
today in the television market, though the seeds of
higher resolution are also
evident. For instance, Sharp
previewed a jaw-dropping
8K display technology, using
NHK imagery, at the Consumer Electronics Show in
January.
TV Panel: Twitter,
Facebook boost
Online Auds, rev
By Georg Szalai
NEW YORK — Social media
can these days drive TV networks’ online audience and
revenue, Marc DeBevoise,
senior vp and G.M., entertainment, CBS Interactive,
said here at a conference on
Wednesday. During a
panel at the
2012 Media
Summit New
York, produced
DeBevoise
by Digital Hollywood, he said
that 15 percent-20 percent
of online traffic to CBS.com
is typically generated from
social-media mentions that
the network and its shows
post along with links back
to the site. This makes Twitter and Facebook a key new
source of traffic behind
direct Web visitors.
On one recent day, a little more than 40 percent of
CBS.com’s more than 1 million visitors came back from
social-media posts, including
one that included a link to an
episode of How I Met Your
Mother that showed protagonist Ted telling Robin that
he loves her, DeBevoise said.
This proves that social
media can help content
companies boost their reach
rather than drive away audience attention, he argued.
“It’s driving revenue now,”
he explained. Asked about advertising
rates online, DeBevoise said
that on a per-viewer basis,
they are in the same ballpark as broadcast rates these
days, but absolute figures
are still much smaller.
ABC News senior vp,
digital media Joe Ruffolo
said on the panel that Twitter helps news and media
organizations to keep their
name in play, but there is
also “a lot of storytelling to
be done based on trending”
for news operations. “We
want to integrate that more
into our coverage,” he said,
suggesting that social-media
posts from viewers could be
used as the basis for followup questions in political
debates, for example.
Asked about the outlook
for tablet computers and
TV apps on mobile devices,
DeBevoise said: “It’s by no
way mature. It’s not about
number of apps, but audience. ... There’s plenty of
growth.”
Ruffolo said brands are
key in determining the success of apps and tablet use
of media brands.
Echoed
DeBevoise: “Brand is going
to matter, talent is going
to matter, what you put in
there is going to matter.”
But panelists agreed that
not all apps work. On a panel
later in the day, Daniel Tibbets, senior vp, digital media,
Bunim/Murray Productions,
echoed that sentiment.
He
argued that the Oscar companion app worked, but a
Pirates of the Caribbean 4 app
offers too much complex
content. “Trying to do too
much at once doesn’t work,”
he said. “It has [more of] an
after-DVD, extras [feel].”
report: Netflix
seeking cable
partnership
By Georg Szalai
NEW YORK — Netflix CEO
Reed Hastings has already
quietly met with some major
U.S. cable operators in recent
weeks to discuss making
the online streaming service
available to cable subscribers, Reuters reported, citing
people familiar with matter.
Reuters
didn’t specify which cable
companies
Netflix has
talked to.
Hastings
Hastings at
a recent investor conference hinted at the
possibility of being offered
a cable network as a longerterm option. A cable deal
would increase Netflix’s
competition with Time Warner’s HBO, but could allay
fears among TV distributors that Netflix will lead to
consumers cutting the pay
TV cord.
At least one cable company could end up experimenting with offering Netflix by the end of the year,
even though the company
would have to modify its content licensing deals, which
currently typically don’t allow
Netflix to bring programming to cable set-top boxes,
according to Reuters.
A Netflix rep declined
comment, Reuters said. thr
Page 3 of 8
March 8, 2012
movie news
Sundance London
Announces 14-Pic Slate
By Stuart Kemp
LONDON — Robert Redford
is serious about bringing
the Sundance Film Festival
independent movie ethos
to a global audiences and
sees Sundance London as
a major move.
The inaugural British
event, held at the sprawling
O2 leisure complex over four
days in April, will play host
to 14 hand-picked titles from
Sundance’s lineup in January
2012 in Park City.
The titles selected to
unspool in London include
Julie Delpy’s Two Days In
New York, starring Delpy and
Chris Rock; glacier-melting
documentary Chasing Ice,
directed by Jeff Orlowski;
and Liberal Arts, starring
writer-director Josh Radnor
and Elizabeth Olsen.
Sundance Film Festival
director John Cooper and the
Utah-set event’s director of
programming Trevor Groth
told The Hollwyood Reporter
Redford’s aim is “to create
more opportunity for independent films and filmmakers” at Sundance London.
Despite the daunting
prospect of making noise
with a start-up event in a
city gearing up to host the
summer Olympic games,
Cooper and Groth have
assembled the eclectic program of 14 titles to play
alongside various music
events under the banner.
“We definitely wanted
to strike an equal balance
Liberal Arts, starring writer-director Josh Radnor and Elizabeth Olsen, is
among the titles set to unspool at the inaugural Sundance London event.
between documentary filmmaking and fiction titles, as
we do in Sundance, and we
also wanted to bring representative films from our
sections, such as the New
Frontier strand we have,”
Cooper said.
The fest programmers
have also included Sundance’s Waldo Salt Screenwriting award winner Safety
Not Guaranteed, penned by
Derek Connolly and directed
by Colin Trevorrow, which
revolves around a trio of magazine employees who investigate a classified ad seeking a
partner for time travel.
Youssef Delara and
Michael D. Olmos’ Filly
Brown, a hip-hop drama
about a Mexican girl whose
mother winds up in jail, starring Lou Diamond Phillips
and Gina Rodriguez, is on
the screening list alongside
Kristi Jacobson and Lori Silverbush’s hunger in America crisis doc Finding North,
featuring original music by
T Bone Burnett; The House
I Live In, the Sundance 2012
U.S. documentary grand
jury prize winner about
drugs in America; and Luv,
a drama about an 11-yearold boy on the streets of Baltimore, directed by Sheldon
Candis and written by Candis and Justin Wilson.
But it’s not all about film
— Sundance London also
will feature musical events
with performances by musician, producer and actor
Tricky and band Placebo
jostling for attention alongside the event’s openingnight bill, which will include an on-stage discussion between Redford and
Burnett on the relationship
between film and music.
Redford, wearing his official hat as president and
founder of Sundance Institute, said: “Sundance London also is the perfect opportunity to continue our long-
time commitment to growing a broader international
community around new
voices and new perspectives.”
Other films arriving in
London from Sundance
will be Ry Russo-Young’s
John Krasinski- and Olivia
Thirlby-starring drama
Nobody Walks; Terence
Nance’s live-action and
animation mix An Oversimplification of Her Beauty;
Sundance directing awardwinner Lauren Greenfield’s
The Queen of Versailles; Shut
Up and Play the Hits, a film
which follows LCD Soundsystem frontman James
Murphy over a 48-hour
period and Joe Berlinger’s
Paul Simon music documentary Under African
Skies, an exploration of the
musician’s journey back to
South Africa where he made
and recorded Graceland.
The last film added to the
14-strong lineup is So Yong
Kim’s For Ellen, a drama
about a struggling musician
who takes to the road overnight to track down his
estranged wife and fight for
the custody of his young
daughter.
Redford is scheduled
to attend the entire event,
set to run April 26-29.
Sierra/Affinity
Unveils Pic sales
By Pamela McClintock
Sierra/Affinity has announced
a raft of territory deals closed
at the recent European Film
Market in Berlin, where the
company presented four new
titles, including Kate Hudson action pic Everly.
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March 8, 2012
movie news
FROM page 3
“This year’s EFM proved
a strong market for Sierra/
Affinity as well as the industry as a whole,” Sierra CEO
Nick Meyer said. “Buyers
have raised their level of expectations on the quality and
types of films they want and
we, as well as other sales entities, were fortunate enough
to bring productions with the
quality talent that allowed us
to meet those expectations.”
Everly sold to Alliance in
Canada and the U.K., Splendid in Germany, Switzerland
and Benelux, Transmission in
Australia, Tanweer in India,
Swen in Latin America and
Korea Screen in South Korea,
among other territory deals.
WER, from The Devil
Inside filmmaking duo William Brent Bell and Matthew
Peterman, also generated
good business. Sony Pictures Worldwide Acquisitions bought up rights in
Australia, New Zealand,
South Africa, Scandinavia,
Eastern Europe and Latin
America, while Entertainment One bought U.K. and
Canada rights. The movie
scored deals in a number of
other territories as well.
Jason Statham starrer
Heat, directed by Brian De
Palma, scored distribution
deals with Universum in
Germany, SPI in Eastern
Europe, Sun Distribution
in Latin America, Tanweer
in India, Cathay-Keris in
Singapore and Studio Solutions Group in Taiwan,
among others.
Sundance Film Festival
entry Celeste and Jesse Forever, starring Rashida Jones,
Andy Samberg, Elijah Wood
and Emma Roberts, secured
distribution deals with
DCM in Germany, Tanweer
in India, Pioneer in the Philippines and Cathay-Keris in
Singapore, among others.
Anderson’s
Master Eyes
fall Release
By Todd Gilchrist
Annapurna Pictures head
Megan Ellison revealed
Tuesday that Paul Thomas
Anderson’s upcoming film,
tentatively titled The Master,
may arrive in theaters as soon
as October. Responding to
Anderson fan site Cigarettes
and Red Vines via Twitter,
Ellison said “I know you
guys are waiting on a release
date for ‘the
Master,’ and
it’s still a bit
early, but I’d
keep my eyes
on October.”
Anderson
The Weinstein Company
is releasing the film, but the
studio hasn’t offered an official release date.
If Ellison’s tweet is accurate, it positions Master for
prime placement at fall film
festivals, where Anderson
has premiered films in the
past. He screened PunchDrunk Love for the first time
at Cannes before taking it to
the New York Film Festival,
and staged the world premiere of There Will Be Blood
in 2007 at Fantastic Fest in
Austin.
Despite scoring eight
Academy Award nominations for Blood, including
for best director and best
picture, Anderson faced
numerous challenges securing financing for Master.
After initial reports surfaced
in 2009 that he was working on the project, it took
until February 2011 for him
to find backers to fund the
film, when Ellison agreed to
fund it.
Anderson released a
teaser poster last May at
Cannes, and since shooting
began in June, the production has moved quickly. Anderson subsequently debuted
a promotional poster for the
pic in November at the American Film Market.
british columbia
gives PG-Rating
to Bullying doc
By Etan Vlessing
TORONTO — Lee Hirsch
documentary Bully, given
an R-rating stateside by the
MPAA, has received an allclear from British Columbia
film censors.
Local distributor Alliance
Films on Tuesday received
a PG-rating for the controversial film about bullying
among school-age kids from
Consumer Protection B.C.
“Last night, I learned of
the B.C. board’s decision to
grant Bully a PG-rating. I
am thrilled that kids of all
ages can now join their parents, teachers, social work
advocates and leaders to
bring about change for this
deeply important cause,”
Hirsch said Wednesday in
a statement.
Parental guidance is
advised for the documentary in the western Canadian province, and the film
comes with a warning of
“coarse language; theme of
bullying.”
But local authorities
slapped no age restriction
on Bully ahead of the film’s
April 6 theatrical release
nationwide.
The first rating for Bully
came in British Columbia
because Canadian film censoring is done by individual
provinces.
Alliance Films in its
own statement said the
parental guidance rating
in British Columbia, following the U.S. R-rating from
the MPAA, “reinforces the
movie’s message that bullying must be urgently
addressed with great care
thr
and consideration.”
Local authorities in British Columbia put no age restriction on documentary Bully ahead of its April 6 theatrical release nationwide in Canada.
Page 5 of 8
March 8, 2012
television news
Russell Joins
FX Spy Pilot
Americans
By Lacey Rose
Keri Russell is going undercover.
The Felicity star has been
tapped to play a KGB spy in
FX’s drama pilot The Americans. The 1980s-set project,
ordered to pilot in December, centers on the arranged
marriage of Phillip and Elizabeth (Russell), who have
two children
who know
nothing about
their parents’
true identity.
Their relationship grows Russell
more passionate and genuine by the day
but is constantly tested by
the escalation of the Cold
War and the intimate, dangerous and darkly funny
relationships they must
maintain with a network of
informants and spies under
their control. Complicating
it further is Phillip’s growing sense of affinity for the
American way of life.
Creator Joe Weisberg
(Falling Skies, Damages),
who once worked for the
CIA, will serve as an executive producer on the project, alongside Justified showrunner Graham Yost. DreamWorks Television and its
co-presidents Justin Falvey
and Darryl Frank also will
act as executive producers
on the drama, which is
being jointly produced by
Fox Television Studios and
FX Productions.
Americans joins fellow
drama Powers in FX’s development coffers. Both will vie
for contention on a schedule
that includes such shows as
Justified, Sons of Anarchy
and Wilfred. The network
will add Charlie Sheen’s
Anger Management and a
Russell Brand late-night
comedy series this spring.
Russell broke out with
her late-’90s star vehicle
Felicity on The WB. In the
years since, she has headlined such projects as Fox’s
short-lived comedy Running Wilde and 2007 indie
darling The Waitress. Russell
joins former Felicity stars
Scott Foley (Fox’s The Goodwin Games) and Scott Speedman (ABC’s Last Resorts)
with pilots this development season.
The actress is repped by
WME, Burstein Co. and
Sloane Offer.
Idol Producer
to try New Tune
By Lesley Goldberg
Iconic game show Name That
Tune could be returning to
television.
American Idol and The
X Factor production company FremantleMedia has
secured worldwide rights
to the property from Prestige Entertainment Group,
The Hollywood Reporter has
confirmed.
As first reported by Vulture, the music-themed game
show that first ran from
1953-1959 on NBC and CBS
is being rebooted for a modern audience, with Fremantle becoming the latest to
attempt a Tune revival.
The series, which also
ran in syndication from
1974-1981 and again in 1984
with host Jim Lange, featured contestants competing for cash prizes as they
attempted to properly identify music performed by a
live singer and/or orchestra.
VH1 attempted to revive
the franchise in 2001-02
with a video take on the
series featuring contestants
identifying the song titles
after screening the music
video. The Family Channel most recently aired
syndicated episodes from
1993-1996.
MTV and CBS also
attempted Tune reboots,
neither of which got off the
ground.
While plans for the Fremantle revival remain unclear, Vulture notes the
company is mulling whether
to develop Tune for cable,
broadcast, syndication or a
combination of the three.
Tune becomes the latest property in Fremantle’s
stable; the company also
has a stake in competitive
fare including America’s Got
Talent, The Price Is Right,
Let’s Make a Deal and Family Feud in syndication with
Syfy’s Total Blackout due in
April.
Wahlberg, A&E
team on Boston
Teamsters Pilot
By Michael O’Connell
Mark Wahlberg is returning
to familiar territory for his
latest TV venture.
The actor, alongside
Stephen Levinson, Kevin
Harrison and Bill Thompson, has partnered with
A&E for an
unscripted
pilot set in his
native Boston.
Wahlberg
Currently
titled Teamsters, the project will follow
members of the city’s Local
25 union.
“A&E strives to remain
ahead of the curve while
delivering first class auspices to our audience,”
said A&E and BIO Channel president and G.M.
Bob DeBitetto. “We’re so
proud to collaborate with
this group of producers and
offer an authentic point of
view from the unique characters this world provides.”
The project comes from
Wahlberg’s Closest to the
Hole production shingle,
known best for scripted
ventures Entourage and
Boardwalk Empire; Levinson’s Leverage Management; and Thompson’s
Transition Productions.
Touting the Whalberg’s
familiarity with the world
of the series, a release said
Teamsters will be set in the
real-life world that served
as the backdrop for films
such as The Fighter and The
thr
Departed.
Page 6 of 8
March 8, 2012
limbaugh news
Limbaugh Plays Down
Loss of Advertisers
Think a mass exodus of advertisers is putting a dent in
Rush Limbaugh’s business?
Not hardly.
The conservative radio
host on Wednesday compared the number of sponsors he has lost to “losing a
couple of French fries in the
container when it’s delivered
to you at the drive-thru.”
Limbaugh, speaking on
his show Wednesday in what
probably amounts to his
most spirited counterattack
against his detractors since
controversy erupted a week
ago, explained that he has
roughly 18,000 sponsors,
mostly at local affiliates, and
just 28 have ditched him.
The tally was actually
up to 43 on Wednesday,
but Limbaugh said there’s
no way even to know the
exact number, because
some companies are making proclamations — hoping
for free publicity — that they
won’t advertise on Limbaugh’s
show even though they never
have to begin with.
With some companies,
it’s hard to tell if they know
themselves where all their
radio ads appear. Polycom,
for example, posted on its
Facebook page a statement
reading, in part, “we had no
intention to run ads on the
Rush Limbaugh Show.” It
later stated: “We have taken
action to discontinue advertising on this program.”
That sort of ambiguity
David Cannon/Getty Images
By Paul Bond
Rush Limbaugh said reporters
are running with the story of
him losing advertisers because
it fits their liberal agenda.
isn’t unusual, as some companies buy ad spots on local
stations and they end up
running on a variety of
shows. If they run ads on
a different show than Limbaugh’s but on the same
channel, no revenue is lost at
the station, and Limbaugh
and his partners Clear
Channel Communications
and Premiere Radio Networks weren’t sharing in
that revenue to begin with.
In another example,
a spokesman said “Netflix
doesn’t purchase advertising
on the Rush Limbaugh Show,”
but activists are counting
Netflix as one of the 43
companies that have abandoned Limbaugh. Sears
also announced it was not
an advertiser, but it’s also
counted as among the 43.
The number 43 that most
reporters are using comes
from liberal organizations
like Think Progress and
Media Matters for America,
which are monitoring the
situation, as well as the Daily
Kos blog, which is credited
for initiating the advertising
boycott against Limbaugh.
Limbaugh, of course, has
been losing advertisers since
calling Georgetown University student Sandra Fluke a
“slut” and a “prostitute” over
her opinion — expressed to
members of Congress — that
she shouldn’t have to pay for
her own contraception.
Limbaugh said reporters
are running with the story
of him losing advertisers
because it fits their liberal
agenda. He specifically
called out journalists at
ABC News, “who understand
how this works and are purposely misrepresenting it.”
Other reporters “lie,” he
said, because “they don’t
understand how it works.”
“Advertising agencies
order advertising buys on
a series of local stations
from market to market,”
Limbaugh explained to his
audience. “A controversy
like this erupts, they put out
a notice to the stations, ‘By
the way, for the time being
we don’t want our commercials to run when Limbaugh
is on.’ But they are not canceling their advertising on
the station. They’re just saying they don’t want it running on my program during
the local affiliate’s commercial time, not ours.”
Limbaugh said at least
three new sponsors will
begin running ads in the
next few weeks and others
who have dropped the show
want back in. “One of them
is practically begging,” he
said.
That’s because the effort
to harm him is “backfiring,”
Limbaugh said. “You can
look at the stock price of
some of these companies.
I’m not gonna say anymore.”
Most companies that
yanked ads are privately held.
But here’s a sample of the
stock performance of the
publicly held companies
since they made their antiLimbaugh pronouncements:
Carbonite (down 9 percent),
Netflix (down 5 percent),
Deere & Co. (down 4 percent), AOL (down 3 percent)
and Sears (down 2 percent)
Whether there’s a correlation between dropping Limbaugh and dropping stock
prices is debatable, though
it was difficult to find a
stock of a public company
that rose after executives
made their ditch-Limbaugh
announcements.
Liberally biased media
coverage of the controversy
and his fleeing sponsors,
Limbaugh said Wednesday,
is designed to “dispirit” his
audience.
“They thought I would be
off the air by now,” he said.
“They can’t understand why
I still am on the air. There
is also another rumor going
around that I am going to
be suspended for a week. It
is utter BS. They have not
taken me out. They’re the
ones who are frustrated.
They’re the ones who are
thr
angry.”
Page 7 of 8
March 8, 2012
legal news
Housewives Trial:
More Cherry Testimony
While maintaining his decision to kill off the character
of Edie Britt was the best
creative choice for Desperate
Housewives in season five of
the show, creator and executive producer Marc Cherry
testified Wednesday that he
also did it because he had
observed unprofessional behavior by Nicollette Sheridan
and for budgetary reasons.
Under questioning from
his attorney Adam Levin,
Cherry said that Sheridan
had a history of being late,
not knowing the lines for her
character that were in the
script and at times caused
friction with other lead
actresses on the ABC series.
He recalled one scene
where Sheridan only had
one scene in that episode
but still struggled with her
dialogue, as he observed
when he watched the dailies
after the scene was shot.
“She only had five or six
lines, and she had come to
the set and didn’t know any
of them,” said Cherry. “This
wasn’t the only time this had
happened.”
Cherry also recalled
being asked to come to the
set during the shooting of a
scene between Sheridan and
another actress during the
first season of the show.
“There was a problem
going on between Nicollette
Sheridan and Teri Hatcher,”
recalled Cherry, adding “they
were furious with each other.”
Frederick M. Brown/Getty Images
By Alex Ben Block
Desperate Houswives creator
Marc Cherry testified Wednesday he saw examples of actress
Nicollette Sheridan’s unprofessionalism during script readings.
“Nicollette pulled me
aside,” added Cherry, “and
told me that Teri Hatcher
was the meanest woman in
the world because of how
she was acting.”
At that point, Sheridan’s
lawyer objected, and the
judge ruled Cherry could
not continue his narrative
about that occasion.
Cherry also
said he saw
examples of
Sheridan’s unprofessionalism
during script
Sheridan
readings. He
said “she made
insulting comments about
her dialogue.”
He added that what she
did was “hugely rude and
highly upsetting to the
writers present.”
Cherry said that beginning in season three of the
show, there was pressure to
reduce costs. At that time,
Cherry explained, NBC was
airing Sunday Night Football,
and the blockbuster ratings
for Desperate Housewives
began to fall.
He said that was when he
first had the idea to kill off
Sheridan’s character, Edie
Britt. “It occurred to me if
I killed off a major character
like Edie Britt,” said Cherry,
“the next season I could get
three or four actors for that
budget [amount].”
Did he expect to save
money in season five by
killing her off, Cherry was
asked. “No,” he responded.
Much of Wednesday
morning was spent with
Levin establishing in various
ways that Cherry decided to
kill off the Britt character
long before the Sept. 24,
2008, incident in which he
struck Sheridan in the head.
Levin walked Cherry
through visuals of cards prepared by writers’ assistants
as they worked through
story ideas. For instance, on
May 14, 2008, a card read,
“Husband kills Edie.” On
May 19 of that year, another
card said, “Steve [then the
name of the character that
became Britt’s husband]
misses his medication and
kills Edie.” On May 22, a
card said, “In fallout from
Edie’s death, several episodes about blame.”
The defense also presented
writers’ cards from a writers’
retreat at the end of May 2008
that referred to the coming
death of the character.
Many of these, explained
Cherry, were ideas that did
not eventually get used.
Part of that was pressure
from the network to push
back when the character
was killed so it could get as
much use out of Sheridan
as possible since she would
be paid for the entire season
five in any case. As Cherry
put it, ABC wanted to “get
more bang for their buck.”
Cherry said that after
thinking about killing off
Britt from the third season
on, he felt it would provide
a “tentpole” moment —
a big important plot point
that would be part of the
mystery they wanted in season five. He said that was
why he felt it was worth it to
get rid of such a well-known
character. He called it a
“risky but potentially effective change to the series.”
“I thought it would be a
great way to shock the audience,” said Cherry, “because
she was such a major character in the story.”
Still, he later said he did
not consider her “a major
character” on par with the
other housewives. “I just
considered her a series regular,” said Cherry.
Cherry said he is always
looking to shake things up
in that way. “Shock and surprise are in my tool belt and
what I do to get people to
watch my show,” he said.
Under repeated questioning, Cherry said he never
wavered in his decision to
kill off Edit Britt from the
time it was approved by the
studio and network in May.
It was only a question of
when and how.
Click here for more trial
thr
coverage.
Page 8 of 8
March 8, 2012
movie review
John Carter
By Todd McCarthy
Given that it’s based on a
pioneering work of science
fiction, there can be little
surprise that John Carter
feels like a hodgepodge of
any number of familiar elements, some of which were
no doubt borrowed by others
from Edgar Rice Burroughs
and brought full circle here.
This Disney extravaganza is
a rather charming pastiche,
if perhaps not one with sufficient excitement and razzledazzle to justify the reported
$250 million production budget. Neither classic nor fiasco,
the pic will likely delight scifi geeks, but there’s enough
here for general Disney audiences as well to generate
solid box office worldwide.
If Avatar had never
existed, it’s possible that
John Carter would have
seemed like more of a genre
breakthrough, given the
premise of a distant planet
penetrated by an Earthling
who begins an interplanetary
romance and is ultimately
accepted into the alien culture (Mars here even has a
huge arboreal structure at
the heart of things). But
echoes resonate from many
other sources as well: What
came first, the Jedi of Star
Wars or the Jeddak leaders
here? Was Taylor Kitsch’s
buff loincloth look inspired
by how good Charlton Heston looked similarly attired
in Planet of the Apes? Doesn’t
John Carter’s background
consist of one part Outlaw
Josey Wales and one part
Indiana Jones? And doesn’t
the specter of the ancient
Greeks noticeably hover
The worlds of Lynn Collins and
Taylor Kitsch collide in John Carter.
over the everlasting battles
being fought among the various neighbors?
A Princess of Mars, the
first work by Burroughs ever
published, began being serialized in 1912 and was issued
as a novel six years later.
Neatly, the author has been
brought onstage here in an
1881 framing device, as the
young nephew of the justdeceased adventurer John
Carter who has been called
to New York to be shown a
journal the dead man has intended for Edgar’s eyes only.
Carter is a Confederate
soldier drawn west after the
Civil War by the lure of gold.
But no sooner does he find
it than he happens upon a
cave massively feared by the
Indians, one which serves as
a portal to a place that looks
very much like the American
West but is, in fact, the desertlike Barsoom, that fourth
planet in the solar system
that has often been fantasized about as a possible
home to some form of life.
The first species Carter
encounters when he awakens are just-hatching critters
that grow up to become
Tharks: thin, tusked, sixlimbed, greenish-skinned
creatures that are quite
jumpy about being in year
1,000 of their struggle with
the nasties from Zodanga,
whose arrogant prince, Sab
Than (Dominic West), has
just acquired a new, lethal
amulet. The Zodangans hover
about aboard giant airborne
craft that look like Star Wars
by way of Baron von Munchausen and are accompanied
by three holy men, most
notably the all-knowing and
shape-shifting Matai Shang
(Mark Strong).
Even though they’re allied
with the aristocrats of Helium
— whose elite, including the
Jeddak (Ciaran Hinds) and
his daughter Princess Dejah
Thoris (Lynn Collins), are
kitted out with Brit accents,
chintzy costumes and the
occasional bad wig reminiscent of a Ray Harry­hausen
adventure — the poor Tharks
desperately need more help
if they hope to survive. When
they see how Carter can leap
tall rocks in a single bound,
by virtue of the thin atmospheric conditions, they
decide he’s their man.
It would take repeated
viewings to determine how
many times Carter is captured and then escapes in
the story line. More a series
of incidents than a gracefully composed drama of
rhythmic arcs and elegantly
defined acts, the film finally
settles its principal attention
on the dilemma of Princess
Dejah, whose high-minded
scientific orientation contributes to her disinclination
to play obedient daughter
and marry the venal Sab
Than for political reasons,
as her father requests. With
Kitsch and Collins having
shared a previous life
together in X-Men Origins:
Wolverine, their characters
here bask in the sight of two
moons as they compare notes
on the structure of the solar
system and, in an appealingly
unconventional, unsentimental way, get together.
Stanton, who directed
Finding Nemo and WALL-E,
co-directed A Bug’s Life and
had a hand in writing all
three Toy Story features,
here follows Brad Bird by
three months in moving from
Pixar animated eminence
to live-action fare. Although
the result is quite a mishmash, dramatic coherence
prevails over visual flair; the
colors, skin tones, image
sharpness and cohesion of
diverse pictorial elements
are less than stellar, although
the 3D is effective, with comparatively little brightness
sacrificed by donning glasses.
(The film was reviewed in
Imax 3D.) For a Pixar graduate piece, humor is notably
lacking.
Opens: Friday (Disney).
Production: Walt Disney
Pictures.
Cast: Taylor Kitsch, Lynn Collins,
Samantha Morton, Willem Dafoe,
Thomas Haden Church, Mark
Strong, Ciaran Hinds, Dominic
West, James Purefoy, Bryan Cranston, Polly Walker, Daryl Sabara.
Director: Andrew Stanton.
Rated PG-13, 132 minutes. thr