George Lucas Proves (Again) He Knows Nothing About Movies

Big budget Hollywood movies are dead, insists George Lucas. He says spending $100 million on a movie and another $100 million on marketing is crazy. For the same amount of money, Lucas says he could make 50-60 movies (and apparently not market them). Volume, volume, volume, he insists.

That's great. He could indeed make 50 low-budget movies for $4 million each and surely some of them would click. He'd probably end up like France, where the government bankrolls lots of tiny movies that nobody wants to see. Invariably, a FEW of them would gain a wider audience. But that has nothing to do with making blockbusters. Any good studio should include a mix of smaller films with big stars (called "independent" films) and another label for releasing truly small, independent films (called "award winners"). Some of them will invariably break out. But they won't fill the role of blockbusters like "Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest" or "Spiderman 2" or even "Superman Returns," which -- good or bad -- pack people in.

And how does Lucas conceivably justify the ludicrous claim that Americans are abandoning the movie-going habit for good. No, movies don't dominate the landscape the way they did in the Thirties, but by every conceivable measure, movies are FAR bigger than they have been for at least 70 years. Tons of people go to the movies. And in the last 10 years, everyone has learned the joys of owning a library of movies the same way they've always had a library of music and books. More people own movies than ever in history. More people have access to more movies than ever in history. More movies are watched than ever in history. FAR more money is spent on movies than ever before in history.

Just from 1980 to today, you can see movies exploding from a roughly $10 billion industry to easily a $50 billion industry. In the US alone. And we still don't have enough screens in China and India and Russia. Meaning there's a lot of room to grow. He says TV is the way to go? Guess what? A season of a major network TV show now costs $65 million and counting -- the pilot for "Lost" cost $14 million and many fall pilots cost $6 million. In other words, the same extraordinary costs are present in TV -- not to mention the same wild successes and failures. But TV is exploding too. It's all good and Lucas is way off base. But then, he has been since "Return of the Jedi" came out.

Billboard's Top Ten Singles -- Sexy Really Is Back

Justin Timberlake remains on top of the Hot 100 while his new single leaps into the Top 30. And Akon (with the help of sorta retiring Eminem) makes the biggest leap in pop history from #95 to #7. The Top 10:

1. Justin Timberlake -- SexyBack
2. Ludacrisd featuring Pharrell -- Money Maker
3. Hinder -- Lips of an Angel
4. The Fray -- How To Save A Life
5. Snow Patrol -- Chasing Cars
6. Fergie -- London Bridge
7. Akon featuring Eminem -- Smack That
8. Jibbs -- Chain Hang Low
9. Nickelback -- Far Away
10. Chingy featuring Tyrese -- Pullin' Me Back

"Flags Of Our Fathers" Oscar Hype Builds

My friends who have seen it think Clint Eastwood's "Flags Of Our Fathers" is effective and will certainly be competing for Oscars. The NY Post pounds the drums for it, taking the political angle that Hollywood will like its focus on how Washington DC distorted the truth about the raising of the flag at Iwo Jima to prop up support for the war. At the end, however, they make the odd claim that "Million Dollar Baby" snuck in a pro-choice message. Surely it was a pro right-to-die message or am I forgetting some major plot point?

Jack Sparrow Kills Tom Sawyer

Yes, word is that Disneyland may be turning the timid, low-key Tom Sawyer's Island attraction into a ribald pirate's hangout just in time for next summer's "Pirates 3" movie. Aaargghhh! I remember the Disney World version being pretty darn tame even when I was a 10 year old, so this mayn't be such a crime.

Sleeping With a 15 Year Old Boy -- Not So Scandalous If You're A Woman

A new British film stars Judi Dench as a schoolteacher who finds out her colleague Cate Blanchett is sleeping with a 15 year old male student...and uses that info to try and steam up THEIR friendship. Actually, this is quite a nice portrait of the tart, amusing Dench.

Streisand Concert Tour Begins

I'll never see Barbra Streisand in concert because I would never be willing to spend $250 for really bad seats. Ah well. I mention it only because lately I've been catching lazy media outlets that repeat crazy, over-the-top record sale claims without any justification. But now the BBC has gone in the opposite direction. In a piece describing her current tour, they say Streisand has sold some 70 million "records" worldwide. Now, "records" is the term music pr people use when they want to conflate album sales and single sales, when obviously selling a $15 CD is much more significant than selling a $1 single at iTunes. But Streisand has done much better than that. She's sold 70 million albums...IN THE US ALONE. She's also had 44 singles chart on the Hot 100, selling at LEAST 10 million copies of them (she's been a much bigger force on the Adult Contemporary Chart for the past 25 years). Worldwide, I'd have to assume she's sold at least 100 million albums. Include singles sales and you can safely guess Streisand has sold 140 million "records" -- and perhaps a lot more.

Evangelicals Hate "Gilmore Girls?"

A story in the NYT talks about the panic (or faked panic) among evangelical leaders over the loss of teenagers. Their source for this panic? A 10 year old poll that claims soon only 4% of teens will be "Bible-believing Christians." (Another poll-taker insists that today only 5% of teens are "Bible-believing Christians" right now and since this depends on how you define "Bible-believing Christians" it may well be true and indicative of nothing since it doesn't mean teens are flocking to worship Satan, just not necessarily embracing a far-right fundamentalist vision of Christianity. I find it equally impossible to take seriously a Salon.com editor who insists that "lots" of teens tell her that in their high school if you're not Christian you're not cool and that there's tons of peer-pressure to be Christians. And why is all this on my blog? Because at a huge Acquire The Fire concert, teens listed the various temptations they were going to turn their backs on when devoting themselves to Jesus. Among the temptations? Harry Potter, Louis Vuitton, "my perfect teeth obsession," (get behind me, whitening strips!), "Gilmore Girls" and Ryan Seacrest. Ryan Seacrest? "American Idol" is an evil temptation? And the girls of Gilmore, characters on a show created specifically to re-create family hour? If you think those are evil, you better wrap yourself in bubble plastic and just wait for the Rapture, because then everything is evil.

Off To The Yankee Game...Again

Rain delays mean a day game and no popsurfing today. From the game I head to a screening of the Robin Williams' movie Man of the Year at 6 p.m. Let's hope we don't go into extra innings -- I have to see the movie for an interview I'm doing.

Off To The Yankee Game

And here's one more reason to be jealous of Spike Lee. The NY Daily News reports Lee was on the field during batting practice with a movie camera shooting footage. Not for a movie, he says, just for his "personal archives." The guy gets to go on the field and film everyone? I hate him. And when is he gonna apologize for starting the terrible trend of red and black and any other color you can think of Yankee caps?

Martin Scorsese: Foolishly Raising Expectations

Martin Scorsese's fun-looking gangster drama "The Departed" opens Friday. A smart producer or studio executive would always downplay expectations. But what does Marty's producer Graham King tell the Daily News? That he expects the movie to open at $30 million, that more than $40 million would make him very happy and that he'd cry if it made $25 million or less. How stupid is he? Scorsese's top-grossing movie of all time is "The Aviator," which made $102 million. The weekend it went wide, the movie grossed $8.6 million. His other relatively big openings -- "Gangs of New York," "Casino," and "Cape Fear" -- all made between $9 million and $10 million. King has set the bar so high, he wants this movie to make more money on its opening weekend than 12 of his movies have made in their entire run. If he was smart, King would have said he hopes the movie makes more on its opening weekend than Scorsese's last few movies made when they went wide; in other words, looking for a personal best of $12-15 million. Then, when "The Departed" made more, everyone could crow about how much better it did. At it's very best, "The Departed" will only (barely) reach the level King has announced as the measure of success. Dumb, dumb, dumb.

NOTE: The Departed opened at $26.8 mil -- easily a career-best for Scorsese -- and went on to gross $133 million in the US, $290 million worldwide (incl US) and $140 million on DVD in the US alone, all records for Scorsese.

EDITOR'S NOTE: I have changed the figures in my article about the opening weekend gross of The Aviator and hence the references to Scorsese's personal best opening weekend. I based my original figures on Variety but failed to note they were giving me the grosses for the entire week rather than the opening weekend. Thus my figures were wrong as pointed out to me by someone who left a comment. This makes the point of the article even greater: King idiotically called for an opening weekend gross 3 to 4 times bigger than any other Scorsese film.

People Love Barbara Walters -- And Her Big Bag Of Money

Barbara Walters was drolly ironic when she landed the big "get" interview with Steve Irwin's widow -- a story that every media outlet in the world wanted. I guess they'd heard of me, Walters joked with mock modesty when asked how she did it. Now we know the real truth: ABC also paid anywhere from $500,000 (the amount they admit to) up to $1 million for the right to use footage of Steve Irwin in their story. It's an old trick: no network would (gasp) ever pay an interview subject to land a scoop but they will of course offer six figure amounts for the right to use personal photographs and any other odds and ends that can cloak what they're really doing: checkbook journalism. Sad.

Overnight TV Ratings -- "Friday Night Lights" Limps On

In what has to be the stupidest programming move of the year, NBC debuted its critically acclaimed "Friday Night Lights" opposite Game One of the post-season baseball matchup between the New York Yankees and Detroit. Gee, think maybe sports fans might be caught up in the race for the World Series? If ever a show should have been held for mid-season, when it could have premiered in January amidst the hype of the Super Bowl but without tons of sports competition, "Friday Night Lights" was it. Having watched the pilot, I'm especially upset because it's so good. This could be a great series but NBC may have blown it. Watch the rerun of the pilot on NBC tonight if you can. The book was great, the feature film (I thought) was exceptional and this series could have dug deeper. And how nice to see people praying on TV who aren't polygamists or hypocrites. (And if the show is really accurate, we'd soon see the Coach with his family at Sunday service.) Now I think NBC should take "Friday Night Lights" and "Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip" and put them on Saturday and LEAVE THEM THERE. They are too good to throw away and Saturday night is too much real estate (ie air time) to ignore. I haven't seen "30 Rock" but one more very good pilot airs tonight on ABC at 10 p.m.: "The Nine." It and "Friday Night Lights" are my two favorite new shows. Here are the ratings per MediaWeek's Marc Berman:

8 p.m.
1. Dancing With The Stars (ABC -- 90 minute) -- 18.28 million
2. NCIS (CBS) -- 15.52 million
3. Friday Night Lights (NBC) -- 7.18 million
4. Yankees Vs Detroit (FOX) -- 7.88 million for the night (ratings increase during evening so FNL ranks higher in the 8 p.m. hour)
5. Gilmore Girls (CW) -- 4.71 million

9 p.m.
1. Dancing With The Stars (ABC -- last half hour) -- 20.09 million
2. The Unit (CBS) -- 13.17 million
3. Law & Order: Criminal Intent (NBC) -- 12.04 million
4. Help Me Help You (ABC 9:30) -- 10.4 million
5. Veronica Mars (CW) -- 3.27 million

10 p.m.
1. Law & Order: SVU (NBC) -- 14.18 million
2. Boston Legal (ABC) -- 10.6 million
3. Smith (CBS) -- 8.43 million

Dylan Musical A-Changin'

The New York Post's Michael Riedel reports on the wholesale changes being made to the new Twyla Tharp musical "The Times They Are A-Changin." Is it creative chaos or just chaos? Since I wasn't a fan of her Billy Joel musical and this one seemed much less likely to work, I'm gonna go with chaos.

Billboard's Top 10 CDs

Here's the Top 10 per Billboard:

1. Ludacris -- Release Therapy
2. Janet Jackson -- 20 Y.O.
3. Tony Bennett -- Duets: An American Classic
4. Alan Jackson -- Like Red On A Rose
5. Justin Timberlake -- FutureSex/LoveSounds
6. John Mayer -- Continuum
7. Hinder -- Extreme Behavior
8. Clay Aiken -- A Thousand Different Ways
9. Fergie -- The Dutchess
10. Weird Al Yankovich -- Straight Outta Lynwood

PBS's "NewsHour" Too CONSERVATIVE?

That's what one study says. Go figure.

Sirius Breathing Down XM's Neck

There's no question Sirius has the momentum, as their sign-up rate increases and XM keeps lowering its estimated number of subscribers they hope to have by the end of the year. But with XM at 7.1 mil and Sirius at 5.1, it's gonna take Sirius more than three years to catch up at this rate. Now if only they would merge.

Harry Potter Must Be Stopped!

A Georgia mother warns that the Harry Potter books are an evil attempt to indoctrinate kids into the Wicca religion and must be stopped. You might wonder why she doesn't simply look after her own children rather than trying to decide what everyone else's children should read as well. And of course the Harry Potter books have nothing whatsoever to do with the Wicca religion. But what if they did? Aren't bookshelves filled with stories that mention people of different faiths in a positive light? Wicca is not a Satanic cult, for heaven's sake. Does this mom think the words of the Dalai Lama should be removed from bookshelves because they might indoctrinate kids into Tibetan Buddhism? What about any books that mention Hinduism? Should all references to all religions (other than the one she supports -- which I'm gonna go out on a limb and guess is a conservative Christian sect) be removed as well?

Creators Of "Babel" Feuding

The creative team behind "Amores Perros," "21 Grams" and "Babel" are apparently feuding. Director Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu banned writer Guillermo Arriaga from attending the world debut of "Babel" at Cannes because he wanted to get more glory. (It worked, since Inarritu won Best Director.) On the other hand, Arriaga won Best Screenplay at Cannes the year before when Tommy Lee Jones debuted "The Three Burials of Melqiades Estrada" while inarritu has never done a film without the writer. And wil it hurt the movie's Oscar chances? Well, I don't think it's ultimate Oscar chances are so great since "Babel" uses all their tricks -- again -- and seems a lesser movie for it. Yeah, they'll probably still give it writing and supporting acting nods (for Brad Pitt) but I think that's as far as it goes.

Sportswriters Admit They Blew Steroids Scandal Story

Duh. Apparently the sight of Mark McGwire and other baseball players the size of Mack trucks breaking countless records with ludicrous ease didn't set off warning bells with them.

Utah's Favorite Poet

Coming home from the Yankee game last night, I got trapped in subway hell when the 7 train sat in a tunnel for half an hour then turned around and headed back to Grand Central. That meant transferring to the E train. A dad with two kids pleaded for help since they were from Utah and hadn't a clue, so I let them follow me and guided them as best I could towards their destination. When the dad found out I was a writer, he immediately mentioned the poet Leslie Norris, whom I'd never heard of. It's unclear to me now whether Norris is a friend or just the only writer that people from Utah can sort of claim as their own (though his Welsh) or simply the only one they'd heard about. In any case, this sweet portrait of Norris has certainly intrigued me enough to want to check him out.

More Foolishness On Computer-Animated Films

The NYT has a lengthy story on how people are tired of computer-animated films like "Cars." Two years ago, everyone reported how NO ONE would ever again watch a hand-drawn animated film because they were so passe. Now everyone is sick of computer animation? Hardly. People are just tired of the crush of anonymous, cookie-cutter animated movies that have flooded out of Hollywood in the last two years. "Over The Hedge," "Open Season," "Barnyard," "The Wild" -- who can tell them apart? Still, when the NYT runs down the flop animated films of the year, they conveniently don't list "Over The Hedge," which grossed a terrific $155 million. I guess inconvenient facts are better ignored. And of course the idea that it's COMPUTER animation rather than bad movies that are the culprit is just silly. Finally, they insist that "Cars," which grossed $243 million, failed to meet expectations. Really? It's the number two grossing movie of the year (behind "Pirates") and is right in line with "Toy Story 2" ($245 mil)and "Monsters Inc" ($255 mil) and "The Incredibles" ($261 mil). Only "Finding Nemo" at $339 mil is significantly higher but only an idiot would expect "Cars" to match their top-grossing animated flick of all time. The NYT might have pointed out that "Cars" has done much less overseas business than the others (only $200 mil) but given the subject matter (NASCAR racing), they presumably knew that going in. $450 mil worldwide on a $70 mil budget is a winner every time. Pixar knows what it's doing: if you try to craft every single picture to be a mass appeal world-beater, you end up with the anonymous junk this very article is criticizing. To lump in a smash hit like "Cars" with them is idiotic.

New Season Of "Lost" Tonight!

And this NYTimes rundown of the endless, tiresome mysteries and puzzles and plot twists on the show pretty much sums up why I don't care very much anymore. I'll watch, but it's become a chore.

Overnight TV Ratings -- "Studio 60" Hurting

The big news is Aaron Sorkin's "Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip." The show is well-written and well-acted, but the tone of it is all wrong. Yes, working behind the scenes of a major network sketch comedy show can be tense and political and back-biting. But from the tone of the series, you'd think they were struggling to find the cure for cancer. It's a comedy show they're making. Lighten up. Viewers are not coming back and even the ones that do are changing the channel at 10:30. If this continues next week, the show is in deep trouble, which is too bad since it's fun to see Matthew Perry move beyond his "Friends" persona once and for all. (He was always my pick for the castmember who would succeed best after the show ended.) As for the others, "Vanished" and "Runaway" are lost causes, "Prison Break" is doing great, "How I Met Your Mother" is a keeper, and "Heroes" looks like a genuine hit, growing by leaps and bounds in the prized 18-34 demographic.

8 p.m.
1. Deal Or No Deal (NBC) -- 13.04 million
2. Prison Break (Fox) -- 8.93 million
3. The Class (CBS) -- 8 million/How I Met Your Mother -- 9.44 million
4. Wife Swap (ABC) -- 7.70 million
5. 7th Heaven (CW) -- 4.3 million

9 p.m.
1. Two and a Half Men (CBS) -- 15.93 million/Old Christine -- 13.71 million
2. Heroes (NBC) -- 12.57 million
3. The Bachelor: Rome (ABC) -- 8.95 million
4. Vanished (Fox) -- 6.39 million
5. Runaway (CW) -- 1.95 million

10 p.m.
1. CSI: Miami (CBS) -- 17.35 million
2. Studio 60 On The Sunset Strip (NBC) -- 9.05 million
3. The Bachelor Rome (ABC) two hour (cont) -- 8.95 million

And Now, A Word About Pornography

For various reasons, I was in a hotel room the other day scrolling through the menu of options on my TV. Current movies (including "Little Miss Sunshine" which I STILL haven't seen), TV shows, a Howard Stern channel (of course) and "Adult Desires," also known as porn. I'm not an avid consumer of porn, I know the stories of the exploited kids who enter the industry (often runaways or coming from abusive families etc) and so on. But porn is there, so I look. What do I find? Porn featuring blacks, whites, Asians and Latinos. Naughty nurses. Guys who want you to sleep with their wives. Best Buddies who want you to sleep with their moms. Girl on girl action (of course). And on and on. At the very end of the extensive list available at the Sheraton I was staying at, there were two movies with threesomes, one involving two men and a woman, though the text assured me that there would always be women involved in every scene. (Thank God.) What didn't I find? Gay porn. I actually felt insulted. Is the Sheraton telling me that the filthy-minded customers who want to look at pornography can't even bear the thought of seeing that gay porn is an option for the Sheraton's customers. Are they suggesting the people who want to fork over $15 for porn would actually be offended by simply seeing some gay titles were offered? Did the Sheraton know that a substantial portion of gay porn is purchased by straight women? Was I crazy to find this bizarre and obnoxious?

TV Is Getting Very Expensive

And I don't mean your cable bill. TV pilots are more expensive than a lot of indie films, costing some $6 million more often than not. And a full season of a show for a major network? $60 million for 22 episodes is becoming common. That's a LOT of DVD sales they'd need to break even. But the money shows on screen: the quality of fall pilots this year was the best I've ever seen; even the bad shows were watchable, slick, good-looking and filled with top-notch actors. Pilots used to be unbearable; you'd watch them and think THIS is the best they could do? Now you only react that way to sitcoms. But I question the comment that only a handful of actors used to get more than $100,000 an episode before this year. Seems like you could name a bunch of folks on sitcoms like "Raymond," "Seinfeld," "Friends," and dramas like "ER" where that was happening. The top-paid sitcom actor is Charlie Sheen with a little over $300,000, nowhere near the top dollars Seinfeld and Raymond made. (But of course they had much bigger hits.)

Dylan Shaky On Broadway

Twlya Tharp's new musical -- which uses the music of Bob Dylan -- opened in previews on Broadway to modest sales of $342,000. It doesn't seem nearly as obvious a fit as her musical with Billy Joel's music. But all they need is great reviews and the show will take off. Meanwhile, the lure of "A Chorus Line" remains potent, the revival of "Heartbreak House" looks iffy and that man and his dummy show "Jay Johnson: The Two and Only" clearly would have struggled in an OFF Broadway house. On Broadway, it grossed $53,424 which has to be close to a record low.

Netflix Wants To Get Better

They're offering a prize to engineers and software makers who can figure out a better way to recommend movies to their users. Having just jumped onto Netflix (so friends could see my ratings), I've got a few general suggestions. Let people rate movies anywhere and everywhere they're listed. When you look up a friend and see movies they've just watched, you can't rate any that you see without going through a multi-step process. Also, when you're scrolling through the website, you keep "stumbling" onto new titles. Oh, I can look at movies by decade? There's a bunch of new movies listed I hadn't seen before. How about a master list of movies for every category (movies, TV, action, etc.) that includes every single title they have? Most people won't want to use that, but the hardcore users who want to rate every movie they've seen would love it. The information is there. Why make it hard for us to find?

UK Music Charts -- Hello "High School Musical"

Scissor Sisters remain on top of the singles and album charts in the UK. (I think that the singles chart is actually more important than the album chart to the Brits. Just saying.) But the big news for me is seeing a single from "High School Musical" debut at #9. The show just debuted to massive numbers in the Uk. It is way beyond a phenomenon and is now simply inexplicable, the success that this TV movie has had. On the album charts, Corrine Bailey Rae isn't touring in the UK but her album is edging back into the Top 20. And she'll get another boost in the US: Rae is the musical guest on "Saturday Night Live" this weekend. (She also plays Town Hall in NYC on December 13.)

George Clooney Wants To Date DiCaprio

It's true. Clooney's plan is to make a mockery of the tabloids by having a different date every night for three months.

"You know, Halle Berry one night, Salma Hayek the next, and then walk on the beach holding hands with Leonardo DiCaprio," 45-year-old Clooney said.

I like Clooney more and more. You gotta like someone who has fun with their fame.

Your Fickle Lover Of Pop Culture Is Back

Away on personal business. Now I'm back. Hang tight.