Hoping to put CompletelyImmaterialGate behind them and soothe the concerns of certain underappreciated national treasures who may feel that their parent studio has been selfishly claiming credit for his successes, Paramount has announced that it will start reporting the box office generated by Steven Spielberg's company under a newly created "DreamWorks-Paramount" label.
The emotional feud touched off when Viacom CEO Phillippe Dauman tried to preemptively break Steven Spielberg's heart by telling the world that the national treasure's possible departure from Paramount would not send the executive into a Valium-overdosing tailspin of despair (and which incited outraged DreamWorks partner Jeffrey Katzenberg to publicly attempt to claw out Dauman's eyes) spills into the pages of today's LAT, where studio emperor Brad Grey was induced to comment on HolyShitWhatIfSpielbergLeavesUsGate. For his part, Grey—who convinced boss Sumner Redstone to buy DreamWorks in late 2005 so that his studio might actually have some movies to release the following year—seems to be toeing the company line:
We're nothing if not suckers for a nice feel-good story, especially when it's accompanied by a fun chart where Spider-Man scales a pillar representing the obscene amounts of money some of our favorite movie studios are making: With four different films crossing the $300 million mark, Hollywood is enjoying its Best Summer Ever, a period of prosperity that is erasing all memory of that nasty, alleged "Slump" of 2005, when executives were forced to answer all kinds of rude questions about why their shitty product wasn't selling. During this new Golden Age of Very Profitable Threequels, they instead get to crow about how smart they are in the pages of Variety:
On a conference call about how much richer Shrek the Third is making him, DreamWorks Animation's Jeffrey Katzenberg passes up a perfectly good opportunity to throw Paramount emperor Brad Grey under the bus: "'We feel they have done an outstanding job of marketing and distributing our products to date,' Katzenberg said. 'We continue to have very, very good relationships over there with all of the management from Brad on down.'" [Variety]
Following Thursday's controversy-kickstarting BusinessWeek story "Paramount and DreamWorks: Splitsville?," in which it was suggested that a strained relationship between Steven Spielberg and Paramount might cause the director and his partners to jilt Brad Grey's DreamWorks-dependent studio empire when Spielberg's contract expires late next year, has seemingly induced much pants-soiling from within the walls of the Melrose lot. Hoping to halt the spread of further bowel failures over the rumored state of the DW/Paramount union, votes of confidence have been issued by Spielberg and David Geffen, who took breaks from their filmmaking and shuffleboard-playing duties, respectively, to (at least temporarily) envelop Grey in a warm, reassuring hug. In a story about the alleged looming split, Var's Peter Bart passes along Geffen's regards for the Paramount team:
· Paramount Vantage just can't win with A Mighty Heart: They curl Angelina Jolie's hair and slather her in bronzer so she seems less Caucasian-y, and they catch shit. They invite the Council on American-Islamic Relations to co-sponsor a panel discussion on religious tolerance, and a Jewish activist likens it to "David Duke co-sponsoring 'Schindler's List.'" At least Jolie isn't pissing off reporters by asking them to sign waivers demanding they don't ask questions about her personal life, because they hardly need another headache. [Variety]
· On the bright side, Jolie's performance in the movie is already generating Oscar buzz. [THR]
· Exec VP of corporate communications Janet Hill is leaving Paramount after two eventful years of throwing herself upon the steady stream of hand-grenades lobbed at frequently embattled Paramount emperor Brad Grey. [Variety]
· TBS buys the rerun rights to My Name is Earl and The Office, reportedly paying $600k-$700k per episode of each series. [Variety]
· Fox hires former NUTS executive Laura Lancaster as head of drama development, giving her the mandate, "Please, for the love of fucking God—and we don't care how you do it—find us a show that will last longer than Drive." [Variety]
While the Grazers opted for the somewhat noisier method of announcing the end of their marriage in Page Six last Thursday, today Paramount emperor Brad Grey and his wife of 25 years whispered news of a trial separation to gossip dowager Liz Smith, perhaps hoping that the superannuated columnist would become distracted by filling various dishes placed around her home with hard candy and forget to publish the item. Unfortunately for the Greys, professionalism prevailed, and now all the industry mourns the loss of yet another high-profile relationship:
All around town, producers whose often-fuzzy roles in bringing together the various elements necessary to get prestige projects before rolling cameras are throwing open their windows and offering up an exultant "Huzzah! to the Hollywood heavens, as the Academy has ever so slightly loosened its Draconian rules about the number of people allowed to storm the Kodak Theatre stage in the unlikely event of a Best Picture win. Reports the NY Times:
Let it never be said that Paramount emperor Brad Grey is not a beneficent ruler: To celebrate the success of partner DreamWorks Animation's Shrek the Third, he's setting his subjects free a day early for the Memorial Day weekend, an act of generosity that should remind everyone on the Melrose lot that the Paramount Pictures logo can be found somewhere on the one-sheet of the latest. record-breaking installment of the previously established DW mega-franchise. Grey's e-mail to the company follows, which stops just short of promising all of his underlings an all-expenses-paid week in Cancun should the opening weekend performance of upcoming co-production Transformers bring still more glory to the Paramount name:
Thumbing his or her nose at a Draconian tidiness initiative announced earlier today at Paramount, a Defamer operative sends along this memo declaring March Clean Up Your Fucking Mess, What, Were You Born In A Barn Or Something? Month over on the Melrose lot:
· With a successful Dreamgirls and World Trade Center DVD release in the year's fourth quarter, Viacom has Paramount and DreamWorks to thank for coming out $86 million in the black. To celebrate, Sumner Redstone ordered Brad Grey to follow the trail of rose petals leading down the hall and into his candle-lit office, where, inside, the scantily clad Viacom overlord lay splayed over his desk for the taking. [Variety]
· The Weinstein Co. renewed its first-look deal with Sydney Pollack and Anthony Minghella's Mirage for three years. That includes the remake rights to foreign language Oscar-winner The Lives of Others, which they plan an making more accessible to domestic audiences by transferring the story from Cold War East Germany to the gripping milieu of an African American university, where students are preparing for a fierce national step show competition. [Variety]
· This season of American Idol continues to pop the competition into its mouth like a fearsome giant terrorizing the countryside, only to later poop out the Friday Night Lights-flecked remains all over the village windmill. [Variety]
· A new study by the Los Angeles County Economic Development Corp. shows that show business is the single largest contributor to the local economy, followed by hooking, and frozen yogurt franchises. [THR]
· It's pilot season! Draft those test options faster, you business and legal peons! Already cast: Donald Sutherland and Jill Clayburgh in ABC drama Dirty Sexy Money, Shawnee Smith in ABC's comedy Traveling in Packs, and Horatio Sanz in something that will likely not get a pick-up.
Blogging from the press room at the Academy Awards, Variety's On the Town asked Officially Oscar-Recognized The Departed producer Graham King the uncomfortable, inevitable question about Paramount emperor Brad Grey's losing appeal to have the opportunity to hop onstage and clutch the Best Picture statuette he helped win for a rival studio:
Maybe we've just succumbed to the Hallmark-backed brainwashing that reduces the populace to a bunch of joylessly romantic zombies drooling the brown juice of half-chewed chocolate down their slackened jaws each February 14, but we find ourselves completely unable to resist a good love story this morning. Over in Berlin, semi-mummified Viacom overlord Sumner Redstone briefly paused from describing his corporate empire's plans for an immediate takeover of all German media to once again share the depth of his feelings for his kept Paramount man, Brad Grey, in whose warm embrace Redstone plans to spend the rest of his (neverending) days. From an interview in THR:
When we earlier pointed out today's NY Times story on Hollywood's field trip to Washington, we were so stricken with concern for the plight of the Oscar-nominated working man that we completely missed the illustrating photo of Paramount emperor Brad Grey demonstrating the table-hopping skills that recently have won him so many fans back in Los Angeles. While we obviously can't know what Grey was discussing with Patrick Leahy as he subtly boxed out Warner Bros. chairman Barry Meyer, we imagine that he assuring the senator that wouldn't be disappointed if his peers in Washington choose not to recognize the studios' anti-piracy agenda, as Grey expects to receive a producing credit on the runaway production issue that's the frontrunner to win Congress's approval.
While the tense relationship between Paramount and DreamWorks has recently been compared to that of the Trojans and the treacherous, studio-hijacking Greeks waiting to be wheeled inside the Melrose lot's fortified walls to slit emperor Brad Grey's throat, in carping to the NY Times about Paramount's annoying tendency to take credit for his studio's hard work, director Steven Spielberg offered a different analogy to describe the dynamic:
Because each flagstone on the Path to Oscar™ is such an important part of the journey to Hollywood's Biggest Night that it requires its own media event, the press was invited over to the Hollywood and Highland Grand Ballroom yesterday for a preview of the Governor's Ball, the post-telecast soiree where the Academy attempts to revive Oscar VIPs utterly exhausted from the four hours of congratulatory buggering they've just endured with a free meal. Var's The Knife blog made the trip, reporting that obscure local caterer Wolfgang Puck will be handling the food, and that the gala's organizers have decided to save the industry's most conspicuous awards-season table-hopper from his worst instincts:
Just in case you haven't yet had your fill of stories about the backbiting between Paramount emperor Brad Grey and the sneaky studio usurpers crouching not-so-quietly inside the DreamWorks Trojan Horse he bought a year ago, the LA Weekly's Nikki Finke reports that skeletal Viacom executive presence Sumner Redstone may have signed Grey's death certificate by letting slip at a cozy power-player dinner party a rather impolitic comment about why Dreamgirls found itself without a Best Picture nomination. Clasping your hand to your mouth while trying to suppress an outraged "Oh. No. He. Did. Int!" is completely optional as you read on:
Today's LAT examines the tensions that have been festering between Paramount emperor Brad Grey and the invading "dream team" that came along inside the $1.6 billion DreamWorks "Trojan Horse" he bought a year ago, whose superior moviemaking experience might enable them to "eventually topple management and grab control." The Times relates Grey's recent upsetting of DreamWorks colleagues team by making unwanted speeches at Dreamgirls' bicoastal premieres, behind-the-scenes efforts made by David Geffen to inject miniaturized DW operative Jeffrey Katzenberg into corporate parent Viacom's executive bloodstream, and a snit that developed over the way the Paramount chief handled the reorganization of the studio after the firing of Gail Berman:
According to a press release that just landed in our inbox (which confirms this earlier Slate story), it seems that the Academy's Executive Committee on Whether Or Not To Ignore All These Annoying Recommendation Letters About Why Brad Grey Deserves To Get A Producing Credit On The Departed has finally ruled on the Paramount emperor's appeal to get a piece of the Warner Bros.' film's Oscar glory, deciding to crush Grey's "uncouth and distasteful" double-nomination dreams. Even though he's now freed from the embarrassing possibility of having to brush by his own defeated Babel crew on his way to deliver a potential victory speech for a competitor's movie, he should still spend some time practicing suppressing the politically ill-advised urge to point to himself and mouth, "That's my movie, assholes," should the camera pan to him following the annoucement of a Departed Best Picture win.
When the ominous words "nominees to be determined" accompanied the announcement of The Departed's nomination for Best Picture, industry tongues reflexively clicked, heads were gravely shaken in disapproval, and the eyes of vulnerable children were shielded as if in the presence of a well-endowed drifter who unexpectedly exposed himself near a grade-school crosswalk, for it seemed clear that Paramount emperor Brad Grey had appealed the Academy for a producer credit on the film of rival studio Warner Bros (a credit recently denied by the Producers Guild), a prideful sin compounded by the fact that his own studio's Babel is also in the race for the shiniest Oscar of them all. Today's LAT reports that Academy officials are keeping quiet on the matter of Grey's presumed petition, unconvincingly asserting that they have no idea why their fax machine has recently been clogged with missives from esteemed members of the Hollywood community noting that, "For like an entire year, Brad just wouldn't shut up about how much time he spent producing this Departed thing":
