(Meet Retard Pig, Chief of Board Game Property Acquisitions at Sony)
Amazing. After View-Master, Battleship, Candyland, and Monopoly were bought as movie properties, you’d think the people involved would be tarred, feathered, and exiled to Dr. Moreau’s Island O’ Dipsh-ts. But this is Hollywood, so instead everyone copied them. Like Sony, who just bought Risk, the game of world domination.
Property, which pits players against one another in a quest to annex all of the world’s territories, has become desirable thanks to the box office success of the Paramount adaptations of Hasbro’s Transformers and G.I. Joe.
Risk is like Transformers because…. uh… they’re both toys? Kids play with them both? By that logic, my penis is a video game.
“The strategic thinking and the tactical gambles that players must take in the game are what make Risk a classic, thoroughly engaging game,” said Columbia prexy Doug Belgrad. “Those elements translated into an action-packed, thrilling story are what will make this a uniquely exciting movie.” [Variety]
Here, I’ve got something for you to option. It’s the word “adventure.” This is a proven property that’s sure to be a great movie, all you have to do is write it.
Optioning board games as movie properties is the most idiotic trend since the Easter Island natives cut down all their trees to make giant head statues and had to eat each other.
(The premiere was truly a tard-studded affair.)
Did you really believe Sony all those times they promised This is It would only run in theaters for two-weeks? Aw, that’s cute. You probably believed the doorman outside the nearly-empty club when he said he was making you wait outside because of “fire codes.” And if his place looks a little more popular because of you that’s just a coincidence, right? Look, just don’t buy coke off the bathroom attendant, okay? Trust me. I’ll tell you about all these scams and more if you’ll just step inside my windowless van.
Now the film will play through Thanksgiving weekend in the United States. Canada and most international territories will be announcing extensions of various lengths soon. In a press statement, Jeff Blake, the chairman of Sony Pictures Entertainment Worldwide Marketing & Distribution, explained: “In just 5 days, Michael Jackson’s THIS IS IT has become the highest grossing concert film of all time and we are elated by the response to this special film by fans, critics and moviegoers from all over the world. With this kind of global response, it’s clear that the motion picture deserves an extended run and we are going to do everything we can to make the film available to everyone who wants to see Michael Jackson’s THIS IS IT on the big screen.” [DHD]
“Because of the overwhelmingly sub-par opening of the film we tried to artificially stimulate advanced ticket sales for, we’re breaking all our promises in the hopes of making more money off a dead guy. No one expects us to tell the truth anyway. It’s because we have no integrity, you see.”
The people behind the Michael Jackson movie This is It have always maintained that the movie would only have an oh-so-classy limited run of two weeks. And if you believed that, punch yourself in the face for being a dipsh-t. Turns out, before he died they re-recorded videos for “Thriller”, “Man in the Mirror”, and “Earth Song”, and of course you’ll be able to see those. IN 3-D! And possibly… 4-D! That’s a lot of D!
The intention was to use the new videos as transitions into the performed versions of the songs, transitions that are a long way from the original. Choreographer/associate producer Travis Payne promises that the new “Thriller” is nothing like the boy on the date with the girl, while at the same time, “We didn’t touch what we considered the sacred inside of it.”
And while the new version of “Thriller” and the other songs will be screened with This Is It in plain old 3D next week, that’s not how they were intended to be seen, and that might not be the last we see of them either.
Ortega also revealed that there may be a 3D re-release of Michael Jackson’s This Is it later on, including the revamped music videos that were originally to be broadcast during the concerts in 3D. But that’s not nearly as elaborate as how the videos were originally intended to be shown. The plan was to have the audience members don 3D glasses in the middle of the concert, but it was going to be much more than just 3D screens in the corner. As Payne explained it to me, “We had 3D and also frontal elements and overhead elements that actually created a 4D environment that the audience was sitting in.” [CinemaBlend]
That’s right, they were sitting IN A TIME MACHINE! We could watch the extinction of the dinosaurs, the Big Bang, or the Kennedy assassination, BUT F-CK IT, LET’S GO TO A MICHAEL JACKSON CONCERT. Looks like I won’t be needing this anymore! (*lights Intro to Physics book on fire*)
The producers of This is It, the movie hastily slapped together in order to profit off Michael Jackson’s death, have decided to officially dedicate their corpse rape to Michael’s children. Aw, how sweet. It’s just like when my stepdad would bang strippers and say, “I’m doing this because of you.” (See? Because the stripper was my mom.) From slug person Roger Friedman:
When audiences finally see “This Is It” next week, they will also have a lump in the throat moment at the end: a dedication of the movie to Michael’s kids, Prince, Paris, and Blanket. I’m told the decision was made to dedicate the film that way by Jackson’s executors, John Branca and John McClain. They are also the film’s executive producers.
(*sniff*) I always cry at manipulative, shamelessly contrived cash grabs.
Sony is also releasing a companion album to the movie next Tuesday. But it won’t contain any of the live music played during rehearsals in the film. Instead, it’s an album “inspired by the film.” In other words: it will contain the known studio recordings of songs included in the movie like “Human Nature” and “Billie Jean.” Fans who expected a true “live” album from Jackson may be a tad disappointed. The album does include the title song, however. That’s something!
Do you like the songs of Michael Jackson? Own all his albums? Well now you can own those same songs… on a new album! Do it for Blanket!
I’ve been getting emails saying This Is It, the Michael Jackson concert movie, has been number one in online ticket sales on Fandango for like two weeks now, and now Nikki Finke reports that the concert company is predicting an opening bigger than Spider-Man and Harry Potter.
Execs with the concert promoter AEG also capitalizing on the singer’s death are now openly predicting that This Is It will make a staggering “$250 million in its first 5 days”. And they claim the pic is already $5 million in the black even after Sony Pictures paid $60 million for the movie rights.
But this may be my favorite AEG revelation: that the rehearsal footage including meetings and auditions and other behind-the-scenes was only shot in the first place because Michael Jackson wanted it for his personal archive. And that when the whole pre-concert production began running wildly over its $25M budget, AEG almost stopped the HD crews from filming the rehearsals to cut costs. “Michael had no concept of budget,” an AEG insider reveals. “So the thought was we might as well fire the HD crew because there was no real plan to use the footage.” As soon as AEG executives involved in organizing Michael Jackson’s 50-night schedule of shows at London’s O2 arena learned of his death, they met at Staples Center in Los Angeles and secured all of the 100 hours of rehearsal footage which Michael Jackson had done there with the intent to turn it into live albums, a movie, and TV special. As Randy Phillips, president and CEO of AEG Live, has ghoulishly boasted to the media, ”He was our partner in life and now he’s our partner in death.”
I’m not sure what’s worse, these shameless death-profiteer whores who can’t go more than a second of the trailer without tacky Michael-Jackson-as-Jesus imagery, or that there are still so many people out there who still haven’t seen enough Michael Jackson death coverage that they’re willing to spend $12 on a hastily slapped-together, two-hour love letter to profit written by an illiterate. Hey, I have an idea! They should take his body bag on 50-city tour! The Shroud of Tourin’, they could call it.
