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LOSER: Tom Hardy: Find somebody who loves you the way this man loves a Star Waggon. The actor’s alleged behavior on the MobLand set — refusing to come out of his portable abode for hours at a time, holding up production — is doubly damaging PR because it’s the same thing he was previously called out for on the Mad Max: Fury Road set more than a decade ago (after an hours-long wait, Charlize Theron reportedly yelled at Hardy, “Fine the fucking [c-word] a hundred thousand dollars for every minute that he’s held up this crew. How disrespectful you are!”).
But here’s a telling quote from a source close to the MobLand production: “Keeping PierceBrosnan, Helen Mirren and others waiting is career suicide.” This is such an industry thing to say that many will miss what’s wrong with it. It should be career suicide to keep any cast and crew waiting for hours while you do … whatever… in your trailer. The “Brosnan and Mirren are royalty, how dare he!” stance is another way of saying the more famous you are, the more your feelings matter — which just keeps this whole entitlement thing rolling.
LOSER: Miles Teller: You know what gives entertainment news readers joy? A new example of the Streisand effect (where an attempt to remove information from public view inadvertently causes it to become much more widely known). In this case, Teller griping to IndieWire about a 2015 Esquire profile where the journalist repeatedly suggested he was “a dick.” Naturally, this led to the profile being recirculated and many readers concluding that the Top Gun: Maverick actor was, indeed, probably being a bit of a dick (back then, at least).
Ironically, Teller made his recent comment while doing the sort of press he says he’s largely avoided since the 2015 experience, so who knows how long it will take before the actor sticks his head out again. “It’s unfortunate that being a good person, that doesn’t sell,” Teller added. “If you go to bed and put your head on your pillow and how you treat people truly, that’s what matters.” He’s right, of course, and let’s also point out he’s earning raves for his performance in James Gray’s Cannes hit Paper Tiger.
WINNER: Kane Parsons/Backrooms/A24 and Curry Barker/Obsession/Focus Features (again): Social media is having a lot of fun with Disney’s Star Wars: The Mandalorian and Grogu getting beaten up by The Rise of the YouTubers, which ironically feels like a group of underfunded scrappy rebels bringing down the Galactic Empire’s biggest IP.
First, Parsons’ A24 horror film Backrooms expected to break the studio’s Civil War record with a weekend-topping $40-$50 million opening (Mandalorian and Grogu is predicted to decline a perfectly acceptable 50 percent for weekend two — despite theater ushers having to wake sleeping parents in their seats after each screening). Based on Parsons’ viral YouTube series and costing less than $10 million, Backrooms has an 87 percent critics score on Rotten Tomatoes and follows a therapist (Renate Reinsve) who enters an alternate dimension after her patient disappears.
Meanwhile, that other YouTuber-turned-horror-sensation, Curry Barker, just saw Obsession top Mandalorian and Grogu on Wednesday amid its gravity-defying third week. Barker is so coveted right now that a certain studio threw him a $10 million offer for a movie he hasn’t even pitched yet. Barker’s already under a right-of-first-negotiations deal with Universal’s Blumhouse-Atomic Monster, but now he knows he can get at least $10 mil for literally whatever he thinks of next.
WINNER: Steven Spielberg: Have you ever seen a final trailer for a major studio’s event movie that’s narrated by its director? That’s the case for the new trailer for Disclosure Day (don’t watch if you want to avoid spoilers), which has enjoyed one of the weirdest and most freakishly fortuitous marketing campaigns in Hollywood history as the real-life disclosure movement involving government officials claiming a UFO coverup is coinciding with Universal’s promotional push for their movie about the same thing. Universal has used a muddy blend of traditional marketing, clips highlighting the director’s own belief that aliens have likely visited our planet and footage in the latest trailer that looks nearly identical to videos the Pentagon just declassified just last week (for some snark about this, here’s my take on those UFOs videos).
This has been confusing for many, particularly those who are conspiratorial minded, even as writer David Koepp has taken pains to say there was no coordination between the movie and the government (of course, that’s what they want you to think, right?). Meanwhile, film critics in the usual “first reaction” crowd (“HiS BeSt MoViE iN 20 yEaRs!”) are over the moon about the film (others I trust say Disclosure Day is definitely good — and has that ‘ol Spielberg magic — though aren’t as effusive as those early social media reviews).
WINNER: AI Movies/Ash Koosha: Industry resistance and ethical concerns were never going to box AI filmmaking out of mainstream pipelines. This week’s example: An entirely AI-generated film will open the Tribeca Film Festival next month. Dreams of Violets (trailer below) is a savvy use of the medium — dramatizing the Iranian regime’s horrific crackdown on protesters last January. The technology allowed filmmaker Ash Koosha to make a 75-minute movie in just three months for $2,000. It’s a compelling example of how AI can be used by a creative who lacks studio resources to tell an important story while the subject is still in the headlines (nobody is going say, “Why didn’t he just hire a cast and crew and shoot in Iran?”). Thankfully, AI filmmaking is not all Spencer Pratt Batman ads and angry cat barista videos (though this one is a personal favorite).
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