'Spider-Man 4' abandons one web for another

By Sarah Sluis

After preliminary reports that Spider-Man 4 was falling apart, Variety announced today that director Sam Raimi and star Tobey Maguire are exiting the project. The kicker? Columbia Pictures already has another script in place that will relaunch Spider-Man as a teenager, leaving them with little to do but find new cast and crew.

In a world where sequels are often dragged out past their due date, becoming more expensive to make even as interest in the original concept wanes, I was impressed by this business decision. Not only did Columbia walk away from a project that had millions of dollars of sunk development costs, the studio had already hedged their bets by developing a script that wouldn't require their expensive director or star. I suspect that this alternative script might have been used as a bargaining chip to keep the demands of the cast and crew down (or it might have come from plots for Spider-Man 5 or 6, since the screenwriter was tasked with those scripts), but then was recognized as a viable project in its own right. The choice also seemed to be a perfect example of a management style that is now becoming part of business school curricula that emphasizes critical thinking over following through on pre-planned strategies.

The key to management success may be "thinking through

clashing priorities and potential options, rather than hewing to any

pre-planned strategy." A college dean happened upon the success of this approach when he interviewed his son's retiring principal. The principal made effective use of this kind of critical thinking, one the dean supposed had its only natural environment in the occupation of "a hotshot, investment bank-oriented star lawyer."

In the case of Spider-Man, in one corner you have proven talent that is more expensive but can be trusted to bring in a quality project with large returns. The talent is also your problem, because they have a lot of power, which was delaying the project--in the last report before the talent's exit, the project was at a standstill because no one could agree on a villain. In the other corner with the teenage Spider-Man project, you move up a re-launch that probably would have happened anyway, have more control over the project than the talent, and a smaller budget that will be easier to recoup. There's more risk, but you're still dealing with a franchise. That's a lot of high-octane decision-making going on, and Columbia ultimately chose the second option. Though both sides claimed an amicable parting, I can only wish I knew what happened behind closed doors. I'll have to settle for a rewatching of Vince Chase's attempt to land the role of superhero Aquaman in "Entourage," a worthy dramatization of the deal-making process.

Golden Globe nominations a mixed bag for female directors

By Sarah Sluis

Today the Golden Globe Nominations were announced, and, as usual, there weren't quite enough nominations to cover all the great performances (in particular, Nicolas Cage's crazy-amazing performance in Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call New Orleans). Inspired by New York Times critic Manohla Dargis' recentdocumentation of the lack of female directors in Hollywood, particularly for studio films, I also decided to tally up the nominations for female-directed movies. Results and analysis follow.

The Takeaways

* Golden Globes reward more female directors, but this is because its picture and acting nominations are genre-specific: "Best Drama" and "Best Comedy/Musical." More females direct in the latter category, allowing them to rack up more nominations. When it comes to the Oscars, however, the majority of the nominees usually come from the more prestigious "Drama" category.

*Of the twenty films nominated for a form of Best Picture (Drama, Comedy/Musical, Animated, Foreign Language), three were directed by a female. Kathryn Bigelow recieved a nomination in the Drama category, and Nora Ephron and Nancy Meyers were nominated in the Comedy/Musical category. This is slightly higher than the 60 females out of 600 directors (10%) that Dargis figured for 2009, but given the small sample size, this isn't significant.

*Zero of the ten "Best Actor" nominees were directed by females. Four of the ten "Best Actor" nominees were directed by females, including two directors not nominated in the "Best Picture" categories. Sandra Bullock was nominated for her performance in Anne Fletcher's The Proposal and Carey Mulligan for Lone Scherfig's An Education. This correlation is difficult to judge, but it could reflect a well-known Hollywood bias that female directors are only offered women's films.

*One female, Kathryn Bigelow, was nominated for "Best Director." She's running against her ex-husband, James Cameron (Avatar).

Bigelow, the sole director to receive a nomination for "Best Director," was highlighted by Dargis as an example of Hollywood's unequal treatment of female directors. Before Hurt Locker, she hadn't directed a film since 2002.

Dargis compares her to director Michael Mann, who was in a similar

standing to her at the time. Both directed films (Ali and K19: The Widowmaker, respectively) in the early aughts that underperformed.

Dargis writes, "What

did a $22 million difference in box office mean for the directors

of "Ali" and "K-19"? Well, Ms. Bigelow didn't direct another feature

until 2007, when she began "The Hurt Locker," a thriller about a bomb

squad in Iraq that was bankrolled by a French company and is said to

cost under $20 million." Mann, by comparison,

directed three big-budget movies, and produced several more--all a mix

of hits (Collateral) and misses (Miami Vice). She goes on to say,

"I

imagine there are a host of reasons why Mr. Mann has been able to

persuade executives to keep writing such large checks. He's a dazzling

innovator, and big stars keep flocking to his side, despite his

reputation for difficulty. But Ms. Bigelow is one of the greatest

action directors working today, and it's hard not to wonder why failure

at the box office doesn't translate the same for the two sexes."

Dargis seems to have drawn the conclusion that women are held to higher standards than men, and have to be that much better in this position in order to succeed.

The other key to equality in film direction is making projects open to both

male and female directors. Lee Daniels directed a great film (Precious) with a female cast, just as Kathryn Bigelow has distinguished herself for her "testosterone" action film. Besides Bigelow, Scherfig (An Education) and Jane Campion (Bright Star) have been mentioned as the standout directors of the year, but their films' lack of nominations could push them out of the running. Bigelow's nomination for The Hurt Locker makes her chance of being nominated for Best Director at the Oscars that much more likely.

How will Barack rock Hollywood?

By Sarah Sluis

So America has voted, electing Barack Obama as its next president.  What kind of changes can Hollywood expect?

The Risky Business blog looked at the past seven elections and noted that two out of two times a Democrat
was elected, the box office rose, whereas the box office rose three out of five times a Republican was elected, and to a lesser degree.  The evidence looks a little shaky, but the optimism is real: "Dem administrations historically tend to be more favorable to creative expression, which creates a more robust filmmaking and moviegoing climate."  However, let's not forget that a Republican administration let W. be released without a peep, and was a good sport about the Tina Fey/Sarah Palin impressions.

Along with the election, the recession also bodes well for Hollywood.  Martin Grove uses his column to address those who see a single bad weekend as part of a trend.  He notes that fluctuations from week to week and year over year do not signal a downwardly spiralling box office but changes in the quality of films.  A bad week at the box office could simply indicate a lack of films worth seeing.  It makes sense that the weekend with High School Musical 3 would outperform the same weekend from the year before , whose top draw was Saw IV.  Grove feels that audiences will go out and see a movie as long as there is one to see--preferably with an escapist plot (Hello, Beverly Hills Chihuahua). 

One item I haven't seem much journalism or speculation about is substitution: in the face of a lingering recession, will families that normally frequent the cinema opt to rent, and will renters cancel their Netflix subscriptions, or take a recent guest on Oprah's advice and rent DVDs from the library?  People still want to be entertained, so I am curious to see if a drop in the box office will lead to a growth in less expensive forms of movie-watching.  So far, the box office is down .3% from last year, although the Holiday season will change that number.  Conversely, aren't movies inexpensive forms of entertainment themselves, compared to seeing a play or taking the family on other types of excursions?