MEMO - To: ALL. RE: "Gays in There"

I’m sure I don’t have to tell you because you already know the movie by heart because it’s your favorite, but one of the crucial plot points in Jerry Maguire is Jerry’s decision to write and disseminate a heartfelt memo about getting back to the company’s roots and focusing on personal relationships. The memo wins him a slow-clap from his agency’s staff, but eventually leads to him getting fired, just like that asshole Jay Mohr predicted. What many people might NOT know is that that fictional memo in Cameron Crowe’s movie was inspired by a real memo Jeffrey Katzenberg (then head of Disney, current CEO of Dreamworks) sent around to his fellow Disney executives in 1991.

LettersofNote have gotten their hands on the original memo, and above all else, it’s super long. 28 freakin’ pages worth. Based on every exec speech or communique I’ve ever heard, it seems like the key to success in business is being able to stretch a two-word thought into ten and repeat it at least six times. Nonetheless, it’s interesting, and I’ve tried to excerpt some of the more poignant/relevant/ironic parts.

Back in 1984, our initial success at Disney was based on the ability to tell good stories well. Big stars, special effects and name directors were of little importance. Of course, we started this way out of necessity. We had small budgets and not much respect. So we substituted dollars with creativity and big stars with talent we believed in. Success ensued.

With success came bigger budgets and bigger names. We found ourselves attracting the calibre of talent with which “event” movies could be made. And, more and more, we began making them. The result: costs have escalated, profitability has slipped and our level of risk has compounded. The time has come to get back to our roots.

It used to be that there was a reliable criterion for a film’s success — whether or not it had “legs.” Studios would toy with different strategies for opening a film, all with the goal of helping it develop “legs” through positive word of mouth. Now the term “legs” has all but disappeared from the Hollywood vocabulary. Thanks to the dictates of the blockbuster mentality, the shelf life of many movies has come to be somewhat shorter than a supermarket tomato.

Sadly, relying on big opening weekends has only gotten worse since then. Though to Katzenberg’s credit, Dreamworks’ Puss in Boots only dropped 3% from its opening weekend this weekend, one of the smallest second-weekend drops anyone can remember. Yet somehow I doubt that’s a result of seeking out creativity at the expense of special effects…

On ticket prices:

Read the rest of this entry »

_{Is that Forrest Whitaker?}

Because Jeffrey Katzenberg is Bank of America’s former Vice Chairman and CFO, somehow the bailout money is going towards paying people to see Monsters vs. Aliens.

It took respected media analyst Rich Greenfield of Pali Research to uncover this staggering scheme (registration required). He found out that Bank of America [who received $45 billion in bailout money] was helping families to see Monsters vs Aliens in 3-D rather than 2-D at no additional cost when it starts playing in theaters on Friday, March 27th. (The promotion is here.)

Greenfield found a .pdf for next weekend’s Bank of America offer which says it is limited to its customers (credit card, banking, etc). But he also discovered that the online system allows anybody to participate as long as they have an e-mail address. Consumers can receive up to 4 certificates per e-mail address to upgrade from 2-D to 3-D via the online registration form. However, Imax and AMC theaters are excluded from the promo. [NikkiFinke]

I’m not going to pretend I’m an economist or understand any of this.  I don’t understand why we give the banks money to cover all their defaulted mortgages and then still make people keeping paying off those mortgages.  The money ends up in the same place anyway.  Sure, people probably don’t deserve it, but at this point, deserve’s got nothing to do with it. The short version of this story is, Bank of America got bailout money.  Now Bank of America is doing a lame, wasteful promotion for a 3-D movie, when 3-D movies are a lame waste of money in the first place.  We’re basically giving big, failing business a bunch of money and then getting mad when they throw their money away in stupid ways like they’ve always done.  GRR, LET’S ALL TAKE TO THE STREETS IN AN ANGRY MOB!  You know, either that or keep sitting here on the floor eating Handi-Snaks.

There was a 3D Entertainment Summit this weekend in Century City, which for the most part was a big circle jerk about how awesome 3-D is.  Some of the more substantive info was that making a 3-D picture costs the studio about $15 million extra, and that, according to CEO Jeffrey Katzenberg, Dreamworks plans to charge about $5 extra for tickets to 3-D features, beginning with Monsters vs. Aliens in 2009.

When reached for comment, one of the thugs in Back to the Future just chuckled to himself, muttering “Suckers.”  In related news, Gary Busey announced plans begin screening 4-D movies in his basement.  He says he’ll be charging $10 more for 4-D, but only until he pays off the tickle chair.

This is the buttcam version of the trailer for Monsters vs. Aliens, Dreamworks’ upcoming 3-D cartoonstravaganza. Hopefully a legit version will be up soon.

The DreamsWorks sci-fi spoof, landing March 27, 2009, also transforms a once-tacky Ike-era gimmick into an eye-popping 21st-century experience as the first computer-animated feature to be shot in 3-D.
Studios such as Disney have dimensionalized CGI films, but only after a non-3-D version was made.
"This isn’t our father’s 3-D," says the studio’s animation chief, Jeffrey Katzenberg. Though it still relies on funny glasses, "the digital projection puts a perfect image on the screen. There is no ghosting, no eye strain or nausea."
To avoid confusion, since computer animation is already called 3-D, Katzenberg calls it "the Ultimate 3-D."
Monsters tickets will cost more because the process adds about $15 million to a film’s budget, but Katzenberg believes audiences will pay for "a premium experience."  [USA Today]

The film is based on the horror comicbook "Rex Havoc," about a monster hunter called upon to battle aliens who disrupt cable TV service.  The characters are voiced by Reese Witherspoon, Rainn Wilson, Hugh Laurie, Seth Rogen, Will Arnett and Kiefer Sutherland.  [RopeofSilicon]

I imagine I won’t mind spending the extra cash on this when it comes out.  Not because I agree with the concept of charging more for certain movies, but because I’ll probably be really high when I see it and the concept of currency is confusing as hell when you’re stoned.  I also think Jeffrey Catzenberg, the powerful Jewish tabby, would be a great cartoon character.