Low Attendance Equals Layoffs

Hollywood studio Warner Bros will cut around 1,000 jobs – more than ​an eighth of its total worldwide workforce – as it seeks to balance the books following a difficult year.

CEO Kevin Tsujihara aims to cut $200m  from the studio’s annual budget according to the Hollywood Reporter. 

Last month, he told investors the aim was a “leaner” organization which spends less on marketing.

The cuts are mostly in the studio’s home entertainment real estate, information and technology and finance departments, as opposed to its film or television units. 

However, analysts point out that Warner has suffered ​a ​disappointing summer at the box office compared to its usual rampaging results. Its top film, Godzilla, only just broke the $500m mark worldwide and is the ninth highest-grossing film of 2014, while ​Warner’s next biggest film, The Lego Movie, pulled in $468m.

Rival studios Twentieth Century Fox and Disney are both ahead in terms of ​domestic box-office share, while Paramount has the year’s top​ film: Michael Bay’s $1bn-grossing Transformers: Age of Extinction. 

However, Warner Bros has the final Hobbit movie, The Battle of Five Armies, hitting cinemas in December, a film which would be expected to add close to $1bn to its total.

Christopher Nolan space drama Interstellar is also expected to score at the box office this weekend, with analysts expecting a US opening in excess of $50m. Nolan’s most recent non-comic book venture, Inception, took $825m globally in 2010.

Last year, Warner was the top-grossing studio with $1.8bn. In July, parent company Time Warner fought off an $80bn takeover bid from Rupert Murdoch-owned rival 21st Century Fox.

Notation:  People must understand that business is not in the business of providing jobs as many people think; it is in the business of making money for its shareholders.  When business is down, people get laid off so that the shareholders can still be paid what they expect to be paid for their investments.

So, in order to prevent these people from being laid off in the future if and when they are hired back, we must attend movies that this company makes whether we are interested in them or not.  That is, if we care about those people who lost their jobs.

Becoming More Sophisticated

Oscar-winner Billy Bob Thornton (left) has become the latest Hollywood star to argue that television now provides a more creative environment for actors to work in than film.

Speaking ahead of his appearance in the forthcoming small-screen remake of the Coen brothers' classic 1996 neo-noir Fargo, Thornton said those in search of sophisticated scripts were increasingly turning to TV. He said cinema was now about churning out action movies, broad comedies and "movies where apparently vampires are all models."

"The entertainment business can pretend all they want, but the movie world has changed drastically, particularly in the last five or six years," said Thornton, who won the best adapted screenplay Oscar for his 1996 film Sling Blade. "If you want to be an actor, get on a really good series in television because there's where it's at."

In comments at a Television Critics Association meeting, Thornton cited recent TV appearances by figures such as Kevin Costner, Dennis Quaid and Kevin Bacon.

Fargo also stars The Hobbit's Martin Freeman, Breaking Bad's Bob Odenkirk, Colin Hanks and Oliver Platt. Developed with the support of Joel and Ethan Coen, it is due to debut in April on US TV channel FX.

Thornton's fellow Oscar-winner Steven Soderbergh announced his big-screen retirement last year. The director of Traffic, Magic Mike and the Ocean's Eleven series has accused Hollywood of treating directors in an "absolutely horrible" fashion over the past two decades.

Hollywood legend David Lynch recently railed against the "depressing" landscape of modern cinema, amid suggestions he will never make another film. 

Need 50K of Cocaine

 John Rizzo (above), 34-year CIA employee, is breaking the organization’s code of silence to expose the government organization’s darkest secrets for the very first time.

Chief among his bombshell revelations is the suggestion that Hollywood and Washington are much closer than anyone has previously thought: exchanging money, information — and in one staggering case — a request for $50,000 of cocaine!

In his new book, Company Man: Thirty Years of Controversy and Crisis in CIA, whistleblower Rizzo, who served as the acting general counsel for the entire CIA, admits,  “the CIA has long had a special relationship with the entertainment industry, devoting considerable attention to fostering relationships with Hollywood movers and shakers: studio executives, producers, directors and big-name actors.”

“There are officers assigned to this account full-time,” he reveals, adding many Hollywood denizens offer up information to their country — at a price.

Movie industry vets are “receptive to helping the CIA in any way they can,” Rizzo claims, “probably in equal parts because they are sincerely patriotic and because it gives them a taste of real-life intrigue and excitement.”

On the other hand, for the government, “their power and international celebrity can be valuable,” Rizzo explains. “It gives them entrée to people and places abroad. Heads of state want to meet and get cozy with them.”

“But things can get complicated,” he admits.

In one instance, Rizzo claims, the agency was approached blindly by “a major film star at the time” who “somehow knew that another big star’s production company had an association with the CIA’s clandestine service over the years … Now this guy was offering his own name and services to us. Free of charge. Anything he could do. Just out of patriotic duty.”

But it wasn’t exactly a case of no-strings-attached, Rizzo would soon find out.

“As our guy related his story, I wondered to myself, why is he telling me this?” he admits. “It all sounded perfectly fine to me. It was kind of cool actually. And then he got to the kicker.”

 “There is one little kicker,” Rizzo claims his underling said. “The actor refuses to take any money, but he told us that instead all he wants of us is to score him the best fifty-thousand-dollar stash of cocaine we can find. He seems to think we can get the real primo stuff. 

So that’s why I’m here. Is it ok for us to do it?”

What do you think happened?

Secret Files on Old Hollywood Scandals Revealed by PI's Daughter

by Laura Heffner

Rock Hudson's gay confession to his wife, Marilyn Monroe taped, Judy Garland's body guard, Fred Otash was a notorious Hollywood PI who spied on anyone and everyone for the right money.  Recently, his daughter, Colleen opened the files of the now deceased Otash in hopes of developing an FX pilot based on his life. 

Otash heard the confrontation between Robert Kennedy, Marilyn Monroe and Peter Lawson the day that Marilyn died.  He was also able to confirm that JFK and she did indeed have a sexual relationship.  He also scoured Judy Garland's home for her multiple stashes of pills and destroyed them.  

The files Otash complied include a transcript of the conversation Hudson had with his wife, Phyllis, about her suspicious that he preferred sexual relations with men.  Though most of what seems to be the eye openers in Otash's files are scandalous information though long-suspected or confirmed by other sources.   Today, what would have been unheard of in the public sector, is quite tame.  Being gay is no longer the stigma it once held.  Drug addictions, also, more the normal than the opposite.  

I am always fascinated on lives of Hollywood stars in that era.  How things were so hushed but yet eventually the truth comes out.  It will be interesting to see if FX picks up a show based on Otash's life and how close to Otash's notes the show will be able to emulate.