Universal finds 'Where's Waldo?' and Javier Bardem joins 'Wall Street II'

By Sarah Sluis

As a kid, I could never find Waldo in the Where's Waldo? books, but it looks like I'll have a much easier time seeing him on the big screen. Universal and Illumination Entertainment won the bidding war to turn the books series into a movie. There's no plot or characterization in the books, which usually feature Waldo hiding among a chaotic mass of people, many of them misbehaving, but I imagine him as a wide-eyed observer, lost in his own world. In my mind, there's a bit of Mr. Magoo, Buster Keaton, or Inspector Clouseau (The Pink Panther) in Waldo--that certain kind of charming obliviousness. The other appealing part of this project would be the possibility for elaborate visuals: sight gags, crowd scenes, and humor only visible to the audience. Because Where's Waldo? is more of a game than a book, the acquisition bears the most resemblance to the Hasbro properties that have been picked up--like Monopoly, Transformers, and Clue. With a fairly blank slate, it will be up to the (as-yet-unnamed) team of screenwriters to come up with a suitable character and adventure for the striped, bespectacled chameleon.

Oliver Stone's Wall Street II added Javier Bardem to its cast in the role of an evil hedge funder. I couldn't take my eyes off Bardem in No Country for Old Men (the role for which he won an Oscar), so I'm excited to see him reprise the role of a villain. Nikki Finke also fleshed out additional details of the plot: Bardem will play an unscrupulous manager of a hedge fund who has been shorting stocks. Gordon Gekko (Michael Douglas) will be wrapped up in his attempts to patch up his relationship with his estranged daughter, when his daughter's fiance, LaBeouf, approaches him for help after his mentor commits a mysterious suicide. Douglas agrees to offer his input, since he sees Wall Street's impending crisis, but only if LaBeouf can help him reunite with his daughter. This sequel seems to tie in family and romantic relationships much more heavily than the original, but these could, of course, be de-emphasized in the film. As someone who loved Wall Street, I'm thrilled to see Gekko on the big screen again, in what seems to be a promising launch of the sequel, fast-tracked for an August production start date.

DreamWorks delays financing talks with Wall Street

By Sarah Sluis

While Hollywood likes to tout its immunity to recession via The Great Depression, during which the
industry not only made money, but also lifted the spirits of America with its leggy musicals, it looks as though the credit crunch has already affected Hollywood financing.

DreamWorks chose to delay its Wall Street pitch for additional financing, planning to wait a month for the crisis to settle down before proceeding.  Right now this makes sense--DreamWorks says it has enough money from its Reliance deal, and Wall Street has more important things on its hands right now than to lend more money.  More news stories like this might indicate trouble.  However, with the Dow dropping 40% from last year, the question is not if we will see more stories like these, but "when?" and "how many?" 

As I wrote yesterday, major studios have already secured financing for most of their projects going into production now, giving them some safety and lead time.  In fact, many of them had delayed their projects for another one of capitalism's favorite concerns--unions, and the expiration of the Screen Actors Guild contracts.  Hollywood has stated its confidence that people will still go to movies in an economic crisis, since they are a relatively cheap source of entertainment, but what if it lacks the money to make its films?

Reprising my "Money, Politics, Hollywood" post from last month, I thought I would throw in a Hollywood political update.  Today, THR's Risky Business blog ruminated about the timing of the release of Oliver Stone's W.  Releasing a film about our president before his term has finished surprises me as well, although from what I understand it's more of an "origin" film than an analysis of the Bush presidency.  Unlike other politically minded films like Farenheit 9/11, which looked for someone to blame, W's trailer surprised viewers, including myself, with its frat boy lampoon of Bush.  The trailer shows Bush's partying antics and his sheepish reception of a lecture from his father--no one nefarious, just criminally clueless.  With the popularity of Tina Fey's Sarah Palin imitation fresh on the minds of viewers, I think W's greatest angle for success will come from viewers trying to chase laughs similar to SNL's political caricatures.