Look Who’s Talking

This
Friday, exhibition history is being recorded at Prestonwood Creek in North Dallas, Texas. Universal Studios’ Oblivion
will be presented at Look Cinemas in the first auditorium built from the ground up with the revolutionary audio format in mind. The opening also marks the premiere of the very first film that was natively
rendered – or mixed and conceived from the start – in Dolby Atmos.

“We wanted
this to be the finest presentation house in the country,” explains Tom
Stephenson, founder and chief executive of Look Cinemas. “Simply put, it offers the best possible way in which to watch a movie. Everybody
gets that the theatrical experience is about the screen, digital projection,”
he adds, “but to Look Cinemas, the audio side was terribly important as well. For
us, Dolby Atmos is the best immersive, multi-dimensional sound experience ever created.”

Since
Stephenson and his team were building their state-of-the-new-art, 11-screen,
1,900-seat complex, co-located with two top-chef restaurants that also serve
three dine-in auditoriums, from the ground up, they saw and seized upon an additional
opportunity. “We asked the Dolby tech guys how could we build the most perfect
auditorium for them. They really helped us out. The auditorium became a little
bit shorter and a little bit fatter, more of square shape,” if you will. “Everything,
including speakers on the sides and ceiling, was designed to show off Dolby
Atmos to its greatest advantage. It wasn’t just a matter of re-adapting another
room,” though this is something that Dolby has been doing with much success around
the globe, “but
to be purposely building an auditorium for this technology.”

The process
resulted in a wider 70-foot wall-to-wall and 50-foot floor-to ceiling screen (21
by 15 m). “I literally mean that,” Stephenson keeps his finger less than 8 inches
(20 cm) apart. “Obviously one of the great things about Dolby Atmos is how pure
and great the audio is. While this is terrific in the actual auditorium,” he
laughs, “you don’t want it to end up in the next auditorium. We spent a lot
more time and money and worked with sound engineers to make sure that sound didn’t
bleed through.”

“We call
it ‘Evolution,’ and the tagline is ‘It’s Not Just a Theory,'” Stephenson
concludes his observations. “Sight, sound and screen technology have evolved
and we believe that our cinema is literally the next stage in great presention
and the next step in a long, great history of theatrical exhibition creating
better and better spaces to enjoy movies in.”

Here’s looking
at you, Tom.

 

Universal and Warner Bros. celebrate record box office at CinemaCon

On day 2 of CinemaCon in
Las Vegas, Universal Pictures and Warner Bros. both touted their box-office
performances in 2012, and each had bragging rights to a record. Adam Fogeleson,
chairman of Universal Pictures, reported the biggest year in the studio’s 100-year
history, with eight films surpassing $200 million at the worldwide box office.
This, despite the very expensive summer flop Battleship, a miscalculation from
which the studio “learned a lot,” Fogelson admitted, while taking pains to
point out that Universal is sticking with director Peter Berg for his next
movie.

Fogelson also revealed
that there would be sequels to the 2012 releases Snow White and the Huntsman
and Pitch Perfect, the latter a modest sleeper hit which Fogelson said has
become the fourth-biggest domestically downloaded movie.

At the morning
presentation, Fogelson chose to highlight Universal’s five summer releases,
with four of them seemingly competing for loudest trailer of the week.
R.I.P.D. and Kick-Ass 2 each combine comedy and frenetic action, while 2 Guns
is a variation on the mismatched-cops genre, teaming up Denzel Washington and
Mark Wahlberg, the respective stars of Universal 2012 hits Safe House and Ted. Sequences from Despicable Me 2, with those irresistible yellow minions, got a warm response from the audience; the sequel to the Illumination Entertainment animated hit adds the voices of Kristen Wiig as Steve Carell's potential love interest and Al Pacino as a villain called El Macho.

The finale paid homage to the success of the Fast & Furious franchise, which has earned $1.5 billion
for Universal and has grown exponentially with each film (due in large part to its massive social-media following). Stars Vin Diesel, Paul Walker, Tyrese Gibson, Jordana Brewster, Michelle Rodriguez, Sung Kang and Gina Carano took to the stage. Fan favorite Rodriguez returns to the series after an absence and has a major fight scene with Carano, the mixed-martial-arts pro turned Haywire star, and Rodriguez volunteered that in real life Carano would "kick my ass." Gibson teased the handsome Walker about certain hygiene issues, while Diesel lavishly praised the studio and producers for the ethnic mix of the cast. He also revealed that there will be a Fast & Furious 7 in 2014.

Warner Bros. had even more to celebrate: a $4 billion worldwide gross in each of the past four years, and 12 consecutive years of $1 billion domestic box office. Warner Bros. Pictures president Jeff Robinov offered advance looks at a lot of the upcoming slate, with a taped introduction by Baz Luhrmann for his riotously lavish 3D The Great Gatsby and live appearances by directors Todd Phllips (The Hangover Part III), Zack Snyder (Man of Steel) and Guillermo del Toro (Pacific Rim).

Phillips got laughs joking about him mother's complete lack of interest in movies, before declaring that "comedies need to be seen in a theatre with groups of people who can laugh together." As for any fears of going up against Fast & Furious 6 on May 24, Phillips shrugged off the competition: "It's f---ing Vin Diesel."

Snyder presented the world premiere of the trailer for Man of Steel, and emphasized that his impressive-looking reboot of the Superman franchise was shot on film; for him, celluloid was crucial to his goal to make "a big giant movie movie."

Del Toro testified that making Pacific Rim "has changed my life," giving him the opportunity to
utilize "a scope and a palette I haven't tried before." The film, he said, came "from the deepest part of my being...the ten-year-old kid who is in love with giant monsters." The ever-enthusiastic del Toro said he never grew tired of watching his footage during the long production process: "Every week I was smiling like a goddamn moron."

Some brief 3D footage from Alfonso Cuarón's outer space thriller Gravity intrigued, and two other surprises emerged: The trailer for We're the Millers, starring Jennifer Aniston and Jason Sudeikis, got big laughs and could be a hit comedy raunch-fest. And footage from the missing-child drama Prisoners looked very promising; acclaimed Quebec director Denis Villeneuve makes his Hollywood debut with a cast including Oscar nominees Hugh Jackman, Jake Gyllenhaal and Viola Davis.

Tomorow: CinemaCon's 2012 Filmmakers Panel, with Guillermo del Toro, Sam Raimi and Oliver Stone.

Roundup of Tweets and news coming out of CinemaCon

Film Journal is blogging straight from the CinemaCon convention, but news about the industry meetup is also making waves around the web. Here's a roundup of the news coming out of CinemaCon.

The MPAA plans to revise movie ratings to give more detailed information, and urged more family-friendly films. Obviously, this horror film enthusiast was not pleased:

(via @PNemiroff)

Distribution could go all-digital by the end of 2013, which is much faster than originally planned.

Instagram photos with minions are this year's CinemaCon souvenier. Twitter user and LA Times reporter Amy Kinla likes the minions at CinemaCon:

(via @AmyKinLA )

And she wasn't the only one who had thoughts on Despicable Me 2:

(via @slashfilm)

Universal announced that Fast & Furious 7 is coming out next July. Dwayne Johnson is in Fast & Furious 6, which is coming out this summer, and will likely be on board for the sequel too.

(via @TheRock)

Regal Cinemas caught some blurry footage of the stars of Star Trek Into Darkness, Chris Pine and Alice Eve.

(via @RegMovies)

There's also plenty of new technology and updates coming out of CinemaCon. Our roundup of new products has everything anyone equipment-shopping would need to know, and here are a few announcements coming out of our newsroom:

Christie launches Superior Performance Xenolite lamp series

RealD introduces precision white screen technology

IMAX and Paramount Pictures strengthen partnership with five-pic pact

Follow this link for even more news coming out of CinemaCon.

Paramount previews 'Star Trek,' 'World War Z' and 'Pain & Gain' at CinemaCon

Paramount Pictures gave movie exhibitors a more than generous sampling of their next three films at the Monday opening-night event at CinemaCon in Las Vegas. Star Trek Into Darkness co-writer
Damon Lindelof filled in for director J.J. Abrams, who sent word that he's so immersed in post-production chores he couldn't make the trip to Vegas. (Abrams also took full credit for "Lost" in a jokey letter read by Lindelof, his collaborator on the hit ABC TV series.)

Lindelof then brought out four cast members of Into Darkness: Chris Pine (Captain Kirk), Zachary Quinto (Mr. Spock), Alice Eve (new character Dr. Carol Marcus) and John Cho (Sulu). Pine promised that Kirk would show "a lot more vulnerability" in this chapter of the rebooted series, while Quinto talked about his quest to reveal the "interior life" of his famously undemonstrative character. Eve goodnaturedly complained about on-set teasing from her more seasoned Star Trek co-stars, while Cho admitted to being pranked into believing that a laser research facility where the movie shot had made him radioactive.

Lindelof confessed that he and Abrams had been skeptical about the decision to release the movie in 3D, but called himself a convert to the immersive qualities of the technology. The proof was there onscreen, as the studio showed two exciting sequences totaling 18 minutes: a chase scene on a wild red planet that climaxes with Spock about to be toasted alive by an erupting volcano; and a marvelously nail-biting set-piece in which Kirk and new villain Benedict Cumberbatch are propelled at high speed from one spacecraft to another, not always dodging space debris along the way. Watching these clips, I was reminded how astute the casting of the reboot is, with very likeable actors capturing the spirit of the iconic 196os performers.

None other than Brad Pitt made an appearance onstage to promote three harrowing sequences from his ambitious zombie movie World War Z. Zombies are hotter than ever thanks to the cable hit "The Walking Dead," but this movie's zombies are different: They move very fast and gather in massive clusters like an army of cockroaches or soldier ants. The result is some of the most disturbing horror imagery this writer has seen for quite a while; it's definitely scary, but is it too intense for a general audience? As for Pitt, he said that he sought to make a movie his sons would want to see "before they turn 18."

Finally, Transformers director Michael Bay introduced a full screening of Pain & Gain, his $25 million change of pace from his usual action blockbusters. It's one of those movies you'd never believe if it weren't based on a true story, with both Mark Wahlberg and Dwayne Johnson in distinctly unheroic roles as bodybuilders who get caught up in half-baked kidnapping and extortion schemes. Mixing comedy and nasty violence, this kinetic "small film" may actually have some critics re-evaluating the profitable Mr, Bay.

Tomorrow at CinemaCon: product presentations from Universal Pictures and Warner Bros., and a screening of the buzzed-about Sandra Bullock-Melissa McCarthy comedy The Heat.

'42' should hit a triple while 'Scary Movie 5' may not even get on base

Finally, an adult-leaning picture that doesn't involve car chases, mobsters, or kidnapping. 42 (3,003  theatres) is one of the first dramas to release this year that aims to connect with audiences in search of quality. Baseball fans, history buffs, and African-Americans (or any

combination of the three) should also be among the viewers turning out this weekend. The question is whether the idea of seeing Jackie Robinson on the big screen will outweigh the poor box office precedents for this picture. Recent baseball pictures (including Moneyball and Benchwarmers ) just haven't opened above $20 million. Of course, if you look way back, you have both A League of Their Own, which earned over $100 million back in 1992, and Field of Dreams, which earned $64 million in 1989. In spirit, those are closer to 42. However, the most recent story of triumph in a predominantly white space, the flying movie Red Tails, didn't even cross $50 million. It's a mixed bag out there. Many predict an opening of $20 million, but I could see the movie going even higher. 42 gives a saintly portrait of Robinson, which doesn't necessarily make for high drama, but the inspiring, feel-good story could have audiences coming back due to positive word-of-mouth. Despite its flaws, it's one of the best wide releases to come out this year, and I'm rooting for Robinson and 42.

Scary Movie 5 (3,402 theatres) is back from the dead, and this time Lindsay Lohan, Charlie
Sheen, and Ashley Tisdale are among the stars in this horror parody franchise. Scary Movie 4 came out a good six years ago, and such a long lag between sequels is dicey. It's most likely that the release will fall flat, opening under $20 million.

Two specialty releases are scaling up. After debuting last week to a $32,000 per-screen average, Trance will expand into 438 locations. The Place Beyond the Pines will go from 30 to 514 locations in its third
week. Pines will likely earn at least $1 million in the expanded release, while Trance should be somewhere in the mid-six figures.

Writer/director Terence Malick, who is famous for taking years to edit films, has a surprise: another film just two years after his last, The Tree of Life. Ben Affleck, Olga Kurylenko and Rachel McAdams star in To the Wonder (5 locations), which FJI critic Chris Barsanti describes as "a
floating beauty of a philosophical love story that can’t yank its
head out of the wispy clouds of meaning long enough to consider the
humans mucking about on terra firma." That about sums up the artistic work, which has beautiful visuals but not much of a plot.

On Monday, we'll see if 42 scored and if Scary Movie 5 revived the aging franchise.

 

China now has the biggest foreign box office--but they just pulled 'Django Unchained' from theatres

Last year, China became the biggest foreign market at the box office, surpassing Japan. With a huge, upwardly mobile population, it will likely remain at number one, and widen the gap between first and second place at the global box office. But China does not have a free press, and two stories in THR highlight the challenges of working in the Chinese marketplace.

Christian Johnston and Darren Mann, the directors of State of Control, a documentary that will be

shown at the HotDocs festival in Toronto, wrote a piece about how they were tailed during the Beijing Olympics in 2008 while trying to make their film about tensions between Tibetans and the Chinese government. They were followed, harassed, and eventually left the country after being constantly blocked from achieving their goals at every turn. In the meantime, the people they corresponded with had their computers hacked. IP addresses traced the viruses back to China. It's worth pointing out, as the filmmakers don't, that the Chinese government was on extreme high alert during the Beijing Olympics, and very cautious about the image they presented. I wonder if the reaction to their filming would be as intense now. Last year at the Tribeca Film Festival, the documentary High Tech, Low Life explored how citizen journalists have been taking on the government in small ways, exposing instances where the government has angered peasants with issues of imminent domain. Another wrote about  a case where the rape of a girl was covered up because the perpetrator was the son of a local official. The officials would have tea with the journalists, finding out what they were doing and marking out the invisible boundaries that they could not cross. There is leeway, but not for all. A political dissident like Ai Wei Wei (who has his own doc, Ai Weiwei: Never Sorry) is seen as more dangerous because he targets high-level political officials. You don't want to mess with those people.

As difficult as it can be to exercise free speech or bring injustices to light within China, it's also difficult to exhibit objectionable content. Director Quentin Tarantino's latest, Django Unchained, was pulled from theatres just as it released, because of "technical difficulties." By appearing to change its mind after approving the release, the Chinese government looks bad, and many citizens took to their version of Twitter, Weibo, to complain. My guess is that "technical difficulties" may be a euphemism for further cuts that need to be made, or mistakenly weren't made. Tarantino already noted that he de-saturated the color of blood in the movie in order to comply with Chinese standards. Perhaps the government decided it needs more of these types of cuts before they bring the film back. In the days and weeks to come, Hollywood as a whole will be watching closely to see if the release makes its way back into theatres. TheWeinstein Co. is known stateside for turning controversy into box-office dollars (like its campaign over the R rating of The Bully Project), so if Django Unchained returns to theatres, they just may be able to pique viewers' interests. Who wouldn't want to see a movie so controversial, it was temporarily pulled from theatres?

AMC employee films Milk Duds mischief on YouTube

In a video that made its way onto Reddit and then Gawker this morning, an AMC employee working the concession stand films a prank. His manager told him to throw away some Milk Duds, but he has some other ideas about how to actually accomplish the task. As far as pranks go, this one is pretty harmless. But what can it tell us about teen employees and managing them in a movie theatre environment?

The video brings to mind concerns that Keith Wiedenkeller (an executive of AMC) often talks about in his "People Factor" columns. How do you inspire and motivate workers? And how do you deal with a teen workforce?

I think this kind of goofing off could mean a few things:

1) The teen loves his job and his workplace, and has a good boss that appreciates humor now and then.
2) His boss has no control over his employees, but goes along with the behavior because at least that way he feels like he has control.
3) The supervisor would hate the prank, but the teen likes to irritate him (in which case he was very stupid to put the video on the Internet).

The best-case scenario would be #1. In an interview with a Cinebarre manager Victoria Karol last year, she emphasized to me the importance of a fun workplace where people enjoy clocking in. Pranks can build a group identity and a sense of being part of a team. When the concessions are sold and everyone is tucked away into their theatres to enjoy the show, there just may be time to do something else besides sweep the floors. What do you think? Did the employee exercise poor judgment by putting the video on the Internet? Is the prank itself harmless or a sign of an employee who goofs off too much?