In this morning’s roundup of movie news ‘n’ notes from around the web, marketing “Flipped” gets tricky, and “Yogi Bear” gets creepy.
Target audience number one: pre-adolescents. Target audience number two: AARP members. What’s a studio to do? Steven Zeitchik asks the question about Warner Bros.’ marketing campaign for Rob Reiner’s “Flipped,” a gentle tale of young love in the early 1960s. Complicating matters: while the film’s nostalgic air might play well with the church-based groups that were so supportive of Warners’ “The Blind Side” last year, Reiner is such a classic Hollywood liberal that he might scare off groups on the right of the political spectrum. Zeitchik seems skeptical that the company can pull it off, but Warners swears they’re confident. (The Los Angeles Times)
Russ Fischer looks at a new image for “Yogi Bear” (right) and wonders if it’s not a bit creepy and suggestive. “Someone is having a good time making this, no doubt,” he says. “But they’re a long way away from hitting the gold standard for ridiculously, gratuitously entendre-laden children’s programming.” But what is the gold standard? The title “Cats & Dogs: The Revenge of Kitty Galore,” maybe? (Slashfilm)
The first “Ghost Rider” movie, I say without hesitation, was terrible. But issues of quality never stand in the way of studios seeing dollar signs, so Sony will start production on a sequel to the supernatural Nicolas Cage thriller this fall. Claude Brodesser-Akner has an explanation: contractually, he says, the rights to the franchise revert to Marvel, which is now owned by Disney, unless Sony is in production by November 14. He calls this “the perfect confluence of a studio desperately needing to do something to retain a franchise, and a star urgently needing a payday to recharge his sagging fortunes and reliability.” But is “Ghost Rider” really going to recharge anything for Cage, and does this franchise really warrant desperation? (Vulture)
The Independent Feature Project has some new initiatives and programs on tap for this year’s Independent Film Week, and Bryce J. Renninger supplies some details. The week-long New York City conference of indie filmmakers and industry pros, he says, will now include the IFP Labs (designed for filmmakers outside of New York and L.A.) and the IFP Showcase Screening Series, as well as the first Festival Forum, “a gathering of festival programmers.” Independent Film Week will take place from September 19 through September 23, and is expected to draw on the high side of 2,000 indie folks. (indieWIRE)
S.T. VanAirsdale offers a quick, blunt comment about why “A Film Unfinished,” the Holocaust documentary from independent distributor Oscilloscope Laboratories, lost its MPAA appeal to have its rating reduced from ‘R to PG-13, while the 1998 film “The Last Days” was just as graphic and received a PG-13: the latter movie, he says, “was also produced by Steven Spielberg, so you do that math.” And yes, he’s right that when it comes to the MPAA – which is a lobbying organization founded and funded by the major studios – indies have traditionally had a tough go of it. (Movieline)
