Keith Richards on Johnny Depp, the Scream Awards and talking like a pirate

SCREAM AWARDS, airing 10 p.m., TUESDAY, OCT. 27 on SPIKE TV

You never know who you're going to meet at the Scream Awards -- last year I found myself standing between Marilyn Manson and George Lucas -- and this year didn't disappoint. Not long after I arrived at the Greek Theatre for the taping of this year's show I was whisked off to a trailer for an unexpected interview with a guitar hero who qualifies as true rock royalty -- even if he was tapping his cigarette into an ashtray he had just made out of aluminum foil.

"I've never see one of these shows," Keith Richards said with a rasp and a chuckle, "but it sounded like fun and when I heard Johnny was going to be involved, I said, 'Well, at least I'll know somebody there.'"

Richards meant Johnny Depp, of course, the actor who based a good bit of his Jack Sparrow screen persona on the bleary, decadent charm of the Rolling Stones guitarist. Depp even brought Richards into the "Pirates of the Caribbean" franchise for a cameo as Sparrow's father. For the youngest generations of movie fans, the 65-year-old musician actually may be better known for his sea-dog duty than he is for playing the signature riffs in "Satisfaction," "Gimme Shelter" and "Start Me Up."

"Yeah, it's always cropped up, ever since I was in the movie and some kids even think I'm Johnny's dad," Richards said. "Like his real dad. That's not so bad, right?" Then, with a wink, he added: "We might enlarge upon that in another movie."

Depp may be the biggest movie star in the world right now, but later, during the taping (shown in photo above), he was the picture of respectful deference to Richards as he presented his British elder with the Rock Immortal Award. It's a trophy that maybe they should call the Rock Undead Award, considering its past winners were Alice Cooper and Ozzy Osbourne. Those previous winners have long and interesting careers but they can't really compete with a member of the Stones as far as pop-culture heft. I said as much to Richards and, behind a haze of smoke, he grinned. "Yeah, really, we're going uptown now."

Richards and Depp were born 20 years and an ocean apart, but their close friendship has become a topic of fascination. Rolling Stone (the magazine, not the band) put the pair on its cover in 2007 with a story that read like a long valentine to a pair of roadhouse souls who just happen to be wildly rich and famous. The pair met in the mid-1990s and Richards talks of Depp as a peer, not a protege.

"We've grown together," Richards said."Funny enough, I met Johnny through my son, Marlon, who said, 'Dad, this my mate, Johnny.' I knew the name but not much more. He was just a friend of my son's, I didn't know more than that. It's been grand."

Richard needed to get going, so I asked one last question: Looking back on rock and its history, was it strange to him that we've reached a point where young consumers show more marketplace enthusiasm for buying ring tones and guitar-playing video games than albums?

He shrugged and said it was all just part of the evolution of a revolution. "It's interesting how the music has pervaded everywhere. You have video games now and movies and commercials and TV. You can't get escape it. There's the air you breathe and there's rock 'n' roll."

As I left the trailer I noticed that Depp had been waiting patiently right outside the door for his turn to visit with his pal and, when he did enter the smoky trailer, he had a big smile on his face.

-- Geoff Boucher

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PHOTOS: Top two photos by Kevin Winter / Getty Images. Johnny Depp portrait by Liz O. Baylen / Los Angeles Times.

READER POLL: 'The Hobbit' will triumph but 'X-Men' and 'Pirates' franchises should quit now

FOUR FRANCHISES AT A CROSSROADS

 

Talk about heroic: Four film franchises, one decade, more than $10 billion worth of theater tickets sold.

And more than that, in their very best moments, each of these franchises shown above delivered sparkling adventure and escapism for moviegoers. Now, though, with the decade winding down and all four franchises sitting a nice tidy trilogy, the question must be asked: Isn't three the magic number? Do we really need a fourth movie from any of these aging popcorn enterprises? Clearly, all of them will be written up in the Hollywood history books but right now the indelicate must be asked: "How can we miss you if you won't leave?"

Last week we gave you an in-depth report on this quartet of mega-franchises and their quests for a fourth visit to theaters. We told you how "The Hobbit" must escape the the towering shadow of "The Lord of the Rings," while Sam Raimi's "Spider-Man" series needs to get back to its roots to thrive. We also explained that the "X-Men" future looks especially uncertain while the "Pirates of the Caribbean" franchise might be facing a one-man mutiny with Johnny Depp's distress over recent changes at Disney.

We also put the question to you: Which of these franchises is making a mistake by adding a fourth film?

You made it clear that "The Hobbit," with director Guillermo del Toro taking over with a new vision, is in a class by itself -- the other franchises may tack on new editions to cash in, but fans are expecting nothing but magic from Del Toro's arrival in Middle-earth. The remaining three franchises got a frostier reception. For five days last week, more than half of our reader voters named "Pirates" as the cinematic series that should walk the plank. Over the weekend that changed and (with a lot of late-arriving Depp fans?) the surging "X-Men" became the top choice as a franchise hitting bottom.

It's not too late, though, we'll take votes for the next 48 hours before declaring our, uh, winning loser. In the meantime, thanks for reading, commenting and voting.

-- Geoff Boucher

  

VOTE: WHICH FRANCHISE IS MAKING A MISTAKE WITH A FOURTH FILM?

   

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Photos at top, from left, Ian McKellen in "Lord of the Rings," Tobey Maguire in "Spider-Man," Halle Berry in "X-Men: The Last Stand" and Johnny Depp in "Pirates of the Caribbean."  Credits from left: New Line Cinema, Sony Pictures, 20th Century Fox, Walt Disney Studios. Bottom photo of Sam Raimi by Ken Hively / Los Angeles Times

Is the 'Pirates of the Caribbean' film franchise a sinking ship?

FOUR FRANCHISES AT A CROSSROADS: PART 4

This week, we're taking a look at four major trilogies from this decade that are looking to add a fourth film despite substantial challenges -- not least among those challenges the skepticism of moviegoers who may wonder whether some of these Hollywood vehicles are running on empty. You can find the other three installments of the series right here.

 

 "Pirates of the Caribbean"

The story so far: Back in 2003, in the months before the release of the first "Pirates of the Caribbean" film, few observers thought the venture was seaworthy. It was a $135-million movie based on a Disneyland ride -- a crass approach to filmmaking that had given the world the furry failure of "The Country Bears" just a year earlier. The movie was also a pirate film -- a genre that went out of style in Errol Flynn's lifetime and  produced the cringe-worthy flop "Cutthroat Island" less than a decade earlier. The star, meanwhile, was Johnny Depp, an actor who had proved himself too quirky for the American moviegoing public (he had starred in only one film, "Sleepy Hollow," that topped $100 million in U.S. box office). On paper, it looked like madness, but, of course, it turned out to be a treasure map. Depp's bleary rogue, Jack Sparrow, would become a signature character in modern popcorn-film history (and earn Depp an Academy Award nomination) while director Gore Verbinski tapped into a rollicking mix of adventure, supernatural thrills and comedy. The first film pulled in $654 million worldwide. The sequel did even better -- it's $1.06 billion worldwide made it the highest-grossing film of 2006. A third film in 2007 brought in $961 million. A fourth installment, "Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides," is due in 2011.

The challenge: There are plenty. The first film was fresh, fun and unexpected, but the franchise started to get creaky as soon as it came back for a second voyage. The third film was oddly long and labored -- didn't this franchise start as a swashbuckling lark? -- and left critics sounding as though they'd found a drowning victim in the theater aisle. Claudia Puig of USA Today called it a "bloated, overwrought and convoluted three-hour misfire." Still, money was made, and Disney wanted to keep this ship afloat, so a new approach was taken with this fourth film: The studio secured the rights to "On Stranger Tides," a 1987 novel by fantasy author Tim Powers that weaves a tale of pirates, voodoo and the fountain of touth, making this the first adapted work in the series. That move was made (presumably) to save the next film from the loopy and confusing plot threads of the last installment. That's all to the good, but there's also the question of who will replace Verbinski, who decided that after three films it was time to go ashore. Rob Marshall ("Chicago") is the name that is everywhere, but his hiring has not been publicly confirmed by the studio as I type this. Really, though, the more pressing worry: What would "Pirates" do if its jolly anti-hero Jack Sparrow decided at this late date to abandon ship?

The status: The plan is to start filming in the spring (that according to an MTV interview with costar Geoffrey Rush).  The venture got off to a sunny start when Depp, proving himself a real trouper, showed up at a Disney convention in Anaheim in his full Sparrow costume and makeup to promote the film. Depp and Dick Cook, the longtime Disney studio executive who was a key player in the "Pirates" franchise, smiled, hugged and mugged for the cameras and fans. Then, just days later, Cook was kicked to the curb by his corporate bosses. Depp, in an interview with Claudia Eller of the Los Angeles Times, said he was "shocked and very sad" and admitted that there was "a crack in my enthusiasm" for the planned "Pirates" sequel.

The prediction: Depp is in an interesting spot here. He does a lot of work with Disney ("Alice in Wonderland" is now in post-production, and Disney officials say the "Lone Ranger" project is still out there on the horizon line) and I would imagine that, contractually, it would be very difficult for him to walk away from "Pirates" at this point too. (If he does walk away, it would be a thunderbolt announcement that would fracture his relations with the studio and cause a great deal of embarrassment for Disney CEO Bob Iger, the fellow who pushed Cook out onto the plank.) Depp showed himself to be a team player by dressing up as Sparrow for the aforementioned promotional event, but he also flashed his maverick spirit by publicly siding with the long-gone Cook. From my vantage point, that suggests he might honor his commitment to a fourth "Pirates" voyage and then set sail in a new direction.

-- Geoff Boucher

 
Four major franchises look to make a fourth film, but should they?

VOTE: WHICH FRANCHISE IS MAKING A MISTAKE WITH A FOURTH FILM?

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Photos: From top, Johnny Depp and Orlando Bloom lead the way in "Pirates of the Caribbean." Credit: Walt Disney Studios.  Johnny Depp and Dick Cook. Credit: Walt Disney Studios. Johnny Depp portrait. Credit: Liz O. Baylen / Los Angeles Times

Surprised author Tim Powers finds himself setting sail with 'Pirates of the Caribbean' [Updated]

Last month, Johnny Depp walked on stage at the Anaheim Convention Center in his Jack Sparrow costume and delighted a surprised audience of Disney fans with his rummy buccaneer's trademark mutter. Within an hour, in San Bernadino, an award-winning fantasy author named Tim Powers found a flurry of emails from surprised friends and fans filling his inbox.

The reason for the e-mail barrage: Depp's theatrical appearance at Disney's D23 Expo included the announcement that the fourth Sparrow film will be entitled "Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides," which echoes the name of a 1987 fantasy novel by Powers about pirates and the Fountain of Youth. Everyone wanted to know if Powers had hit the Hollywood jackpot -- or if he needed to be in touch with his attorney.

Powers was in a tricky spot -- he wanted to publicly celebrate a career windfall but the folks at Disney had made it clear that he was supposed to keep everything under wraps. He was more surprised than anyone that the title had been trumpeted at Disney's new promotional convention.

"I was still -- as far as I understood -- not free to talk about it," the  author told me Monday. "Then about a week ago my agent wrote and said, 'You're now able to say that in fact Disney did option the book.' That happened a while ago, it'll be three years in April."

The novelist, with a dozen books to his credit, is still a bit dazed by the fact that a book he published during the Reagan administration will setting sail in May 2011 as new edition of a Disney franchise that has racked up $1.78 billion in worldwide box office since hoisting its flag in 2003. "Yes, I'm thrilled," Power said, "I think it's great."

The 57-year-old is a two-time winner of the World Fantasy Award, taking the prize home for "Last Call" (the 1992 tale based in the gritty underbelly of Las Vegas that weaves in tales on ancient magic and wagers for the soul) and "Declare" (a 2001 novel that presents the secret supernatural history of Cold War spies and conspiracies). All of his books, he says, have "some kind of supernatural stuff going on, it's the only sort of stories I can think of."

Powers is intrigued to see how Hollywood will bend his historical fantasy to its needs. In the original form, "On Stranger Tides" was the tale of "Jack Shandy" Chandagnac, who is the son of a British puppeteer who gave up the family marionette tradition after his father died destitute. He sets sail for Jamaica to find the nefarious uncle who stole his father's rightful inheritance but en route he is captured by pirates who practice sorcery -- they give him the choice of joining their ranks or execution. Soon he reluctantly falls into service to Blackbeard, who is on a quest to locate the Fountain of Youth.

"I've watched all the movies several times, of course, and I think the clear thing they would use is the trip to the Fountain of Youth," Powers said. "My main character doesn't overlap with Jack Sparrow at all [in personality or circumstance]; they're totally different characters. I suppose they might overlap the Geoffrey Rush character Barbossa and Blackbeard. The only thing I feel certain they will hold on to is the Fountain of Youth since they telegraphed that at the end of the last movie." Either way, Powers said he is not going to walk into the theater with too many expectations other than hoping to have a good time as a moviegoer.

"Some people said, 'Powers are you worried that they're going to mess up your book?' and I always think of something James Cain, the author of 'The Postman Always Rings Twice,' said when people asked what he thought of the things Hollywood had done to his books; he pointed to the bookshelf and said, 'They haven't done anything to them, look.' That's my attitude. Just take all the fun stuff and, of course, any checks.... It strikes me as unrealistic to look at it in any other way."

Still, Powers has a bit of concern about the project as it moves forward, considering some recent reports. On Sept. 18, after the D23 Expo, Depp spoke to Claudia Eller of the Los Angeles Times and said that the abrupt ouster of longtime Disney studio chief Dick Cook had dampened his interest in a fourth "Pirates" film.

"There's a fissure, a crack in my enthusiasm at the moment," the star said, saying also that he was "shocked and very sad" to see Cook walk the corporate plank after playing such a key role in the "Pirates" success story. "Pirates" would also be moving forward without Gore Verbinski, the director of the opening trilogy. On Monday, Powers sounded like a man who wishes he could cast a voodoo spell on all the Hollywood players who are navigating the cinematic ship of the "Pirates" franchise. "Nobody talk to each other, everyone just stand and smile, don't do anything to mess this up, let's keep this going, OK?" 

-- Geoff Boucher 

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Photos: Johnny Depp as Jack Sparrow; Depp with former Disney executive Dick Cook. Credit: Walt Disney Co. Tim Powers photo courtesy of the author.

UPDATED: I typed "Civil War" instead of "Cold War" in an earlier version of this post when describing the novel "Declare."

  Thanks to reader SF Strangelove for catching that.

Four major franchises look to make a fourth film -- but should they? [Updated]

They are four of the biggest franchises in Hollywood history and each is at a major crossroads. This week the Hero Complex will look at "The Lord of the Rings," "Spider-Man," "X-Men" and "Pirates of the Caribbean" and size up their future as they attempt to move past their original trilogies and into a new decade.

Tuesday "Lord of the Rings/The Hobbit": How can Guillermo del Toro possibly match up to Peter Jackson's magical conquests ($2.92 billion in global box office and 17 Oscars including best picture, best director and best adapted screenplay)? At least he has Jackson on his side ...

Wednesday "Spider-Man": Director Sam Raimi and stars Tobey Maguire and Kirsten Dunst are back for more and that's no surprise considering "Spider-Man 3" had the highest-grossing opening weekend of the wall-crawling films -- and went on to make $891 million worldwide. Still, the last film got decidedly mixed reviews, and some fans are wondering if the magic is gone.

Thursday: "X-Men": The summer 2000 release of Bryan Singer's "X-Men" truly signaled the beginning of the modern era of superhero cinema and its new ambitions. While the 2006 release of "X-Men: The Last Stand" led to commercial success ($459 million), the hero-snuffing plot, the finality of the title and those cruel reviews all suggested the run was over. Now, though, producers are looking for a return to the mutant chronicles...

Friday "Pirates of the Caribbean" : The fourth film, "Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides," hits theaters in 2011, but after a shake-up at the top of Walt Disney Studios, star Johnny Depp said he is feeling glum about the project. If he's not excited, should you be?

Check back to read them all, but in the meantime, give us your opinion: Which franchise would be making the biggest mistake by continuing past the original trilogy? Vote below ...

-- Geoff Boucher

Photos from left, Ian McKellen in "Lord of the Rings," Tobey Maguire in "Spider-Man," Halle Berry in "X-Men: The Last Stand" and Johnny Depp in "Pirates of the Caribbean."  Credits from left: New Line Cinema, Sony Pictures, 20th Century Fox, Walt Disney Studios.

UPDATED: Previous version of this post had an incorrect year of release on one of the X-films.

Johnny Depp 'shocked and very sad' to hear his favorite Disney exec forced to walk the plank

The shockwaves are still being felt in Hollywood after the abrupt departure of Dick Cook from his longtime post atop The Walt Disney Studios. Just last weekend, Cook was on stage in Anaheim at Disney's D23 Expo where he was sharing hugs and backslaps on stage with elite talent such as Johnny Depp, Nicolas Cage, John Travolta and Tim Burton.  (You can find links to our coverage of those moments below)

Dawn C. Chmielewski led the Los Angeles Times coverage of Cook's ejection from the Disney corporate cockpit, which is being framed as a dispute with the big boss of the Mouse House, which would be Bob Iger, chairman of Disney as a whole. Here's an excerpt from her piece (reported and written with Claudia Eller and Ben Fritz) which hints at the popularity that Cook enjoyed with the on-screen talent and directors even as his corporate connections turned sour...

Cook, the onetime Disneyland ride operator who rose to head the studio, is viewed as a traditionalist at a time when Iger is seeking new ways of doing business. Cook tended to be uncommunicative to the point of secretiveness -- a personal style that frustrated Iger, who emphasizes collaboration.

Iger nonetheless lauded Cook's contributions to Disney, in a tenure that included the launch of 63 movies that exceeded $100 million in domestic box office, the release of "Toy Story" and the first release of a digital film, "Tarzan."

"Dick Cook's outstanding creative instincts and incomparable showmanship have truly enriched this company and significantly impacted Disney's great legacy," Iger said. "We thank Dick for his tremendous passion for Disney, and his many accomplishments and contributions."

Some of Hollywood's most prominent figures reacted to the news with dismay.

Johnny Depp, star of the "Pirates of the Caribbean" franchise, said he was "shocked and very sad" to hear about Cook's abrupt departure.

"He is the utmost gentleman," said Depp, whom Cook contacted personally in London. "He said, 'I'd like you to hear it from me before you hear it from someone else or read it.' He said today was my last day. He didn't give me a reason."

In a statement, Cook said he had been contemplating stepping down for some time. "I have loved every minute of my 38 years that I have worked at Disney . . . from the beginning as a ride operator on Disneyland's steam train and monorail to my position as chairman of the Walt Disney Studios," he said. "To wrap up my Disney experience in a neatly bundled statement is close to impossible. But what I will say is . . . we have achieved many industry and company milestones."

I wouldn't be surprised to see Depp decide that this is a pretty good reason to cut the "Pirates" franchise off with the fourth film that he and Cook were promoting in Anaheim. In fact, I wonder if Cook's ouster was postponed until Depp was publicly locked in for that return trip aboard the Black Pearl. 

Again, you can read the full story from the Business section right here.  -- Geoff Boucher

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Photo: Walt Disney photo showing Johnny Depp and Dick Cook in happier days.

UPDATE: Early post had a scrambled spelling on Bob Iger's name. If I worked for him, I'd be walking the plank...

Johnny Depp (in Jack Sparrow costume) surprises Disney D23 Expo audience

Johnny Depp, arguably the biggest movie star in the world, surprised the audience of Walt Disney Co.'s D23 Expo in Anaheim by sailing on stage in his famous pirate regalia.

As 5,000 fans jumped to their feet, the star emerged in full character, with his bleary ballet of the forever besotted Jack Sparrow.

Cracking wise about rum he also said he'd like a little snack -- that nice frog named Kermit who had been on stage earlier and "probably tastes like chicken."

Disney executive Dick Cook played the straight man for the short presentation and it was the least he could do: The "Pirates" franchise has pulled in more than $1 billion in domestic box-office alone and Depp is also on tap for a fourth, "Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides" in 2011. (An earlier version of this post had scrambled title and date -- blame the blackberry!) Depp is also starring "Alice in Wonderland" and "The Lone Ranger" for the Mouse House.

Depp arrived on stage in gliding replica of the Black Pearl pirate ship and, before they saw his famous face, the crowd was cheering at the sight of his silhouette behind a billowing back-lit sail and pumping stage smoke. Depp was the big finale in a program that featured appearances by John Travolta, Nicolas Cage, Tim Burton and a performance by Miley Cyrus. Check back here more details on the program, as well as info on Guillermo del Toro's newly announced venture with Disney and Pixar.

-- Geoff Boucher

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'Vampire Diaries' and Hollywood's undying love for fang fantasy

This year marks the 40th anniversary of "Let It Bleed," the classic Rolling Stones album, and how perfect is that? There has never been more bloodsucking in pop culture that right now, and Gina McIntyre reports in this fun feature on Hollywood's vamping pursuits. Next we may ask her to consider the link between the resurgence in zombie cinema and the current condition of Keith Richards...   

Forget the garlic, the crucifixes, the security of daylight. Nothing is holding the vampires at bay these days. With the wild popularity of movie, TV and literary properties including "Twilight" and HBO's hit series "True Blood," the bloodthirsty undead are dominating the pop culture landscape in ways Count Dracula could have never imagined, and the trend seems unlikely to abate any time soon.

"The Twilight Saga: New Moon," the second film adaptation of the popular series of novels, is set for release in November, with the third installment to follow in June 2010. "True Blood," drawing some of HBO's largest audiences since "The Sopranos," concludes its second season on Sunday. Now, the CW network is taking a stab at the genre with "The Vampire Diaries," which premieres Thursday.

"Vampires are the bad boys," says series co-creator Kevin Williamson in trying to explain their popularity. "They're dangerous, but they're also just sexy and they can protect you. You can challenge them. There's so much there -- epic love, epic romance, epic epic! Everyone wants their life to be epic."

He admits, though, that he was somewhat skeptical at first, well aware that his new show will be compared to "Twilight." And there are plenty of similarities: Small-town girl meets good-guy vampire, falls head over heels, conflict ensues.

But Williamson said that it's where the action goes after that point that he found particularly intriguing, and the creative possibilities ultimately convinced him to say yes. Well, that and the fact that vampire stories are just plain cool.

And they appear to be here to stay, at least through 2012. Tim Burton is crafting a "Dark Shadows" movie starring Johnny Depp that is set for release in 2011, and there's also a talked-about cinematic reboot of "Buffy the Vampire Slayer" aimed for the following year.

On the page, director Guillermo del Toro and his writing partner Chuck Hogan will produce the second and third installments in their vampire series -- the first book the pair co-wrote, "The Strain," was released earlier this year to solid reviews.

Of course, this is not the first time in recent memory vampires have captivated the pop culture consciousness. In the late 1970s and '80s, Anne Rice's novels sparked a resurgence in the popularity of the creatures, playing up the romantic and sexual aspects of the vampire myth more strongly than writers who had come before.

She created a dashing monster. These days, the vampire is almost always depicted as the handsome leading man (or at least the handsome, conflicted villain)...

THERE'S MORE, READ THE REST

-- Gina McIntyre

Here's a trailer for "The Vampire Diaries"...

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CREDITS: Photos, starting from top -- "Vampire Diaries" (The CW);  "True Blood" (HBO); "The Twilight Saga: New Moon" (Summit Entertainment) and the cover for "The Strain."

Tim Burton's graveyard cabaret -- career highlights for the filmmaker who turns 51 today

Happy birthday today to Tim Burton, who long ago pulled filmgoers down into the rabbit hole into his own singular imagination.

Burton is 51 today and enjoys a rare status in Hollywood as one of very few contemporary directors who are as big as the films they make and truly unique in the sensibility and vision they put on the screen. Martin Scorsese, Woody Allen and Quentin Tarantino, in their own ways, would make that list, as would Guillermo del Toro and Hayao Miyazaki, but none of those masters has made blockbusters on the scale of Burton. (The 13 Burton-directed feature films to date have grossed $1.3 billion in the U.S. alone.)  Love his work or hate it (and there are plenty of outspoken advocates for both points of view), it's impossible not to recognize a Burton film at this point and anyone who loves film pays attention to each of his releases.

Burton is back next year with "Alice in Wonderland" (check out the trailer if you haven't already seen it) but today we're taking a look back at some of his previous work. Since this is the Hero Complex, let's start with Burton's highest-grossing film, "Batman" from 1989, and its underrated sequel, "Batman Returns." Hard to believe it has been 20 years since Jack Nicholson brought the Joker to life and even harder to believe that it's now only the second most-celebrated portrayal of the greatest comic-book villian ever. Ever wonder what Burton thought of "The Dark Knight"? I asked him, and his surprising answer is here.

 

My favorite Burton movie? I know this is going to be jeered by many of you, but I adore "Ed Wood." There's a spirit to the film that is so playful and loving and bittersweet -- I think it may be the most human of all his films. Depp is amazing in the movie, and it has the role of a lifetime (and an Oscar winner) for the great Martin Landau. Along with Woody Allen's darkly sublime "Crimes and Misdemeanors" in 1989, this gave Landau two marvelous touchstone films in the third decade of his career, which got an early jump start with Alfred Hitchcock's "North By Northwest" in 1959. Burton, Hitchcock and Allen? Pretty good directors there, Mr. Landau. "Ed Wood" was a commercial bomb and I remember that I coaxed a group of friends to go see it at late show and (after too much beer) a few of them were dozing off by the end. I don't care, I thought it was genius that night in 1994 and I still think so today.

Burton likes to stick with actors who understand his vision. Apparently, no one understands it better than Johnny Depp, who has been in six of Burton's films and stars in "Alice" as the Mad Hatter. Here are the trailers for their first collaboration, 1990's "Edward Scissorhands," and the most recent, 2005's "The Corpse Bride."

Not every Burton movie works. I thought "Mars Attacks!" was, well, unwatchable, and the ending of "Planet of the Apes" still has me scratching my head. When they click, though, they can be magic. Take a look back at "Beetlejuice," which (along with the "Ghostbusters" films) really created the template for special-effects comedies that would follow, among them films as varied as "Men in Black" and "Night at the Museum." I was never fully won over to the idea of Michael Keaton as Batman (although he was a good Bruce Wayne) but he was perfect in this ghost movie that has become one of my kids' favorite films despite the 21 years since its release. (And look how skinny Alec Baldwin was!)

What do you think, what's Burton's best film? Leave a comment or, better yet, a birthday wish. I know Tim has checked out the blog in the past and he may see your message.

--Geoff Boucher

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"Alice" will be a big part of Disney's D23 Expo

Tim Burton on past "Alice" films: "There wasn't anything underneath"

Tim Burton on Comic-Con of the 70s: "The last time I was here..."

Meet the cast: Tim Burton's "Alice in Wonderland"

Tim Burton on working with Depp on a darker "Alice"

CREDITS: Tim Burton in 2006 at Hollywood Forever Cemetery, photographed by Ricardo DeAratanha/Los Angeles Times.Tim Burton and Johnny Depp photo by Liz O. Baylen/Los Angeles Times.

Disney's D23 Expo in Anaheim may be the start of something special

FOR D23 EXPO DAY-BY-DAY SCHEDULE GO TO THE BOTTOM OF THIS POST

This is a longer version of a story I wrote with Dawn Chmielewski, the business writer who covers Disney for the Los Angeles Times. Our story ran on the cover of the Calendar section this morning...

Will the success formula of Comic-Con International work for a Mickey Mouse operation?

The leadership at Walt Disney Co. hopes so as it moves forward with the D23 Expo, a four-day event next month in Anaheim that will celebrate -- and sell -- all things Disney with celebrity appearances and slick sneak previews of upcoming films, television shows and theme park attractions.

The approach is pure Comic-Con, the pop-culture festival that has become one of Hollywood's most potent megaphones by providing hard-core fans with insider-access experiences that turn many of them into Internet apostles for movies, television shows and other projects.

Last month, more than 126,000 people attended Comic-Con in San Diego, and films such as "District 9" and "Avatar" enjoyed a strong surge in public awareness after putting stars and filmmakers in the same room as fans hard-wired into Twitter, YouTube and Facebook.

Disney was a key player at Comic-Con with Johnny Depp and director Tim Burton appearing before a cheering crowd to promote their 2010 release "Alice in Wonderland," but now the company is looking to separate itself by throwing its own pop-culture party in Disneyland's shadow.

Robert Iger, Disney's president and chief executive, said that the company has, more than any other entertainment outlet, enjoyed decades of support from "very passionate, very ardent" über-fans, but now, in this digital age, that constituency has greater expectations as well as newfound tastemaker power.

"We will be much better served by serving them better," Iger said. "We live in a world where digital communication enables people to express their opinions about things to a much broader set of people. We call it the combustion of digital world of mouth . . . their ability to communicate with others is unlike anything we've seen at any time before."

It's a good time for Disney to reach out to fans -- the recession has been bruising, even for a company with a market cap of $49.8 billion. Disney's profits declined in the most recent quarter with tough times for television advertising, DVD sales and domestic theme park attendance. The film studio posted its first operating loss since 2005, despite the success of Pixar's "Up." Disney's ABC has also struggled, with declines in summer prime-time viewership landing the network in fourth place.

Still, company leaders are sunny about the potential of D23, which is a chance to preach to their most devoted choir, the fans who are true believers in the Disney marketing message, that the company creates touchstones, not just entertainment properties.

The event at the venerable Anaheim Convention Center will be a chance for Disney to promote feature films such as Burton's "Alice," "The Princess and the Frog" and "A Christmas Carol" but also will serve as a big tent for Disney's varied empire. Attendees will not only be offered the chance to buy new teen-pop CDs and vintage animation cels, for example, they also will be pitched travel packages for the Disney Cruise Line.

ABC Entertainment Group President Steve McPherson and stars Patricia Heaton, Kelsey Grammer and Ed O'Neill will be part of a major presence for the network, which has a screening room and an exhibit dedicated to "Lost."

The expo's schedule aspires to be all things to all Disney fans. The Disney Channel will bring the cast of "Wizards of Waverly Place," screen an upcoming episode and stage a musical performance. Pixar fans will be more interested in the final day's slate of events: a presentation by animation guru John Lasseter, a special "Toy Story 3" preview and a digital 3-D screening of the first two "Toy Story" films. There will also be an exhibit devoted to Captain Eo, the sci-fi fantasy collaboration between Disney and the late Michael Jackson. 

The expo will also try to stir interest in Disney's California Adventure, the struggling Anaheim venture that is undergoing a $1 billion reworking and will, in 2012, have a new 12-acre attraction based on Pixar's "Cars." It may also be used to announce the major upgrade to "Star Tours," the somewhat creaky Disneyland ride based on "Star Wars." One thing that won't be there? The Lone Ranger revival (with "Alice" and "Pirates of the Caribbean" Depp as Tonto) is too far off and "is not on the agenda" at the Expo, Iger said, adding that the projects that will be presented will be those that have enough completed visuals to make for an exciting presentation. 

The D23 Expo (the name alludes to 1923, when founder Walt Disney arrived in Hollywood) will begin Sept. 10 with an Iger speech about the future of the company. Iger may take the opportunity to share a favorite anecdote about a fan who stood up at a Disney shareholders meeting in New Mexico and said the company should give its most passionate fans more respect and special access.

"Some of these fans show up at those meetings," Iger said, "because, other than going to our parks, it's been the only way they can feel truly connected."

D23's corporate heritage sets it apart from Comic-Con, which started in 1970 as a scruffy merchant show in a hotel basement. Now bursting at the seams, it has become a world's fair for fanboys.

Conventions in New York and Chicago are cutting into the San Diego event's supremacy as far as Hollywood programming, and it's reasonable to wonder if Disney will also scale back its participation if it finds success in Anaheim. The D23 Expo is $37 a day (or less with multi-day passes) -- for programming that runs from 10 a.m. past 11 p.m.

Disney is not the first corporate entertainment power to create a major dedicated expo aimed at giving fans an insider experience. About 35,000 people attended Star Wars Celebration in 1999 in Denver, organized by LucasFilm, and there have been six editions of the event since, including a 2007 staging at the Los Angeles Convention Center. Lucasfilm is entertaining civic sweetheart deals now for a 2010 encore.

Like "Star Wars," Disney has a world-class array of toys and collectibles, and there will be 20,000 square feet at the expo devoted to merchandise new and old. A Disney Treasures exhibit will feature more than 100 rare items, among them artifacts such as Annette Funicello's sweater from "The Mickey Mouse Club" and Fess Parker's coonskin cap from "Davy Crockett." Iger said he was stunned during a warehouse tour of the pieces, especially a "20,000 Leagues Under the Sea" prop of the Nautilus that he called "a jewel."

Iger said some components of D23 may eventually travel beyond Anaheim -- perhaps those vintage items, considering the success of the touring "Harry Potter" exhibit -- but overall the expo is viewed as an annual Anaheim tradition in the making.

The D23 brand goes beyond the expo. It's a new $75-a-year paid-membership fan club that launched in March to provide "a high-end, elite-level access" for intense Disney fans, according to Steven Clark, head of the initiative. It includes a glossy quarterly magazine and members-only special events and advance screenings.

The passion Disney is hoping to tap into is the same one that powers hundreds of blogs that obsess over Disney lore, theme park doings and daily corporate life of the company employing more than 150,000.

The D23 community got off to a slow start, according to Al Lutz, editor of the independent Disney blog MiceAge, but the expo seems to mark a turning point. "To their credit, they have really come to the ballpark," he said. "They've been responsive and listening to the fan community."

Kevin Burk, a 44-year-old Disneyphile living in Papillion, Nebraska, joined D23 on the first day. He plans to spend four days at the Expo in Anaheim – actually, he will arrive a day early, so that he can visit Disneyland.  He’s hoping it will afford him the opportunity to bump into Roy Disney, nephew of company founder Walt, or one of his favorite classic Disney stars.

“If I was to ever run into Julie Andrews, I told my wife that’s the one person I’d probably faint in front of,” Burk said.
 
Burk hopes to catch  the presentations of by Iger and Lasseter. “I’ll see what I can get into,” Burk said. “It’s going to be 8 am to midnight for four days.  You have to pace yourself a little bit. Sugar and caffeine will only carry you so far.”

For Burk, it’s classic Disney and Pixar, for younger fans it may be the special  that Depp or Zac Efron might be among the promised surprise guests. Iger said the fans today demand a deeper experience and D23 will aim to give it a wide number of them.
 
“This is all about – and I hate to sound clichéd – but it’s about making their wish come true,” he said.

-- Geoff Boucher and Dawn Chmielewski

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THE SCHEDULE FOR D23 EXPO IS BELOW...

Tim Burton on past 'Alice' films: 'There wasn't anything underneath them'

Hero Complex contributor Gina McIntyre sat down with director Tim Burton Friday afternoon in San Diego to talk about the very busy schedule the filmmaker is keeping these days. He's just produced the dark, PG-13 rated animated fantasy "9," due out Sept. 9; he's in post-production on his elaborate adaptation of the works of Lewis Carroll, "Alice in Wonderland"; and he's looking to bring vampire Barnabas Collins to the screen with a "Dark Shadows" movie starring Johnny Depp. Part two of the conversation follows... 

G.M. How challenging has it been for you on 'Alice in Wonderland' since you're marrying several technologies to give the film its unique look? But also, how liberating has it been to utilize these new tools?

T.B.: I don't feel liberated yet, no, only because it's a very strange process and I like what I like. That's why I like stop-motion. On a live-action, you've got actors, you've got sets and that's what I like. This is almost the opposite of that. You've got a lot of pieces and not until very late in the game do you see a finished shot. I think I've yet to see a finished shot. It's quite a scary, daunting process. It's exciting but it's the opposite of what I'm used to. You see a piece of a shot and it's like a puzzle. You're trying to hope and make sure it gets to the right place but you're only seeing one piece at a time.

G.M. Did the process change how you worked with the actors?

 

T.B.: No. Because it's such a long  big process, the key with that is to try to keep that as energetic as quick and moving as possible because otherwise you just get bogged down in technology. We just didn't worry about the technology to begin with and just started to shoot so the actors could keep their energy and their focus. With these kinds of things you're acting against an animated character or something that's not there, so there's a lot of that kind of stuff. 

G.M. The sets and the costumes that Disney has on display here are just beautiful. 

 

T.B.: We had some reality to hang onto there a little bit. It helps, believe me. This is the first time I've dealt with a lot of green screen and it drives you nuts. After a while you start to get kind of jittery and crazy. It's a weird phenomenon. I'd never really experienced it to this degree. The thing is, you can't really deal with Method actors in that scenario. They're in trouble. That was part of the thing, you're going to be working in a void and you're going to be dealing with people who aren't there and you try to suss that out before you work with somebody. You can kind of tell when you meet somebody if they're going to go for it and I like those people anyway. I worked with some new people that I hadn't worked with and they were all great.

 

G.M.: There's so much 'Alice' material. How did you go through and select what to include in the film.

 

T.B.: Linda [Woolverton] the screenwriter, that was the thing I thought she did well and it was a hard thing to do. As books, [the story], it's very episodic, this story, that story. She ended up kind of using a lot of the vibe of the Jabberwocky poem, the weird language, that figures into it. You can't have every character but we tried to keep the few iconic ones, the Hatter, of course, and the Cheshire Cat and the White Rabbit and the March Hare and Red Queen, White Queen, that fit within the story that Linda wrote. Obviously there are a lot of characters that aren't in it. It was more important to take that material and try to make it a movie. Every other version I've ever seen I've never really connected to because it's always just a series of weird events. She's passively wandering through, [meeting] this weird character, that weird character. It's fine in the books, but the movies always felt like there wasn't anything underneath them. That's what we tried to do. Instead of the Hatter just being weird, is get some kind of underneath him, some kind of character underneath him. That's the goal is to give the Alice material a little more weight to it. 

G.M.: That notion of making her less passive is very interesting. Was that something that you talked about with actress Mia Wasikowska?

T.B.: What I liked about her is she's not a big demonstrative actor. She's got that old soul quality, somebody you can see has an internal life and intelligence and a gravity to her and kind of a slightly disturbed quality, which fits into the material. You've got to believe that she's got an internal life. That's what a lot of these stories are, characters kind of working out their issues or problems. You like to find somebody and they don't have to say anything or do anything, but you look at them and you know there's something going on, they have some kind of gravity. 

G.M.: Was that a difficult quality to find in a young actress?

T.B.: I met lots of good actresses but [Mia] just had something different about her that I liked. She's very quiet. It's not even something that you can put into words. I like those kinds of things were you can't necessarily identify it in a verbal or specific way. It's more of a feeling. 

G.M. How long is the post-production process, one year?

T.B.: Well, it comes out in March, so that's when it will end. It will go all the way up to that. It's the kind of project, most of these that use this kind of technology take probably a couple of years longer than we have. I don't mean that as an excuse. In some ways there's something kind of good about just having to do it, but in reality I wish there were more shots done than where we are at this moment. It's been daunting. If you saw how much was missing, you'd be nervous, too. [laughs]

G.M.: Would you do something this technically complex again?

T.B.: Right now it's hard for me to say. Usually you talk about a film, even at the end it's hard, I don't like it. But at this stage all I can think about is how much I've got to do. It's hard to say. I don't really know what the outcome's going to be. Any film you do, you just kind of finish and you wish you could spend a little bit more time on this or that. I don't yet know how much at the end of this I will have felt that I've compromised or not. It's a hard call to know. I don't even think I'm that much of a perfectionist, but it's hard to let go of anything. It's tricky. This one could be pretty rough way I don't know.

G.M.: You've talked about doing "Dark Shadows" next. Is that still the plan?

T.B.: I think so, yes. That's the plan. There was something very weird about that, it had the weirdest vibe to it. I'm sort of intrigued about that vibe. It's early days on it, but I'm excited about it. 

G.M. We seem to be in the midst of vampire-mania, what with "Twilight" and "True Blood" and other projects. What do you make of that?

T.B.: It happens. You look at the history of film and whether it's vampires or witches or wizards or whatever, it's like any great fable or fairytale, it's got a power to it. I think that's why people keep going back to it. There's something symbolic about it that touches people in different ways. It's symbolic for something, I'm sure with everybody it's slightly different but it's still powerful. All great stories, there are about five different variations. I grew up on monster movies and it wasn't until later that I realized it's all the same story basically, but the monsters are great and they're all different and it makes it feel like it's all different. The monsters have more personality than the actors around them a lot of times.

— Gina McIntyre

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Photo: Johnny Depp as the Mad Hatter; credit: Walt Disney Co.  

Johnny Depp, Jude Law and Colin Farrell try to fill a void left by Heath Ledger

Los Angeles Times film critic Kenneth Turan, reporting from Cannes, has a wonderful piece about Terry Gilliam and his new film, "The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus,"  which Heath Ledger was still working on at the time of his death...

Terry Gilliam went to the movies the other night, and this is what he saw: "Trailers from 'Transformers,' ' G.I. Joe,' ' Harry Potter'; they all had the same explosions, the same sound mix, the same rhythms, it was all the same film," the director says, still not quite believing it. "Hollywood's been doing this for 20 years. When's it going to end?"

It ends right here and now at Cannes' Festival du Film, where Gilliam's "The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus," a work as exceptional and unusual as its title, premieres out of competition today. A tale of good and evil battling for souls that's made with Gilliam's fantastic and fantastical visual imagination, "Imaginarium" is the director's best, most entertaining film in years.

"Imaginarium" is also perhaps the most anticipated film of the festival because it's the one Heath Ledger was working on when he died in January 2008, the one that ends with the on-screen credit "A Film From Heath Ledger and Friends" because colleagues Johnny Depp, Jude Law and Colin Farrell pitched in to finish it.

More unusual still, the structure of "Imaginarium" and the nature of what was left to shoot when the actor died made the use of those substitute actors so seamless that, Gilliam said, "the postproduction sound guy assumed it had been written that way."

It's no wonder, then, that Gilliam feels that he "didn't make this film. Forces from above and below made it. It made itself. I don't panic anymore. It's got its own relentless momentum. It just needed some human sacrifice..."

READ THE REST

--Geoff Boucher

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Credit: Photo of Heath Ledger by Jennifer S. Altman/For the Los Angeles Times. Terry Gilliam photo by Patricia Williams/For the Times

Tim Burton talks about Johnny Depp, 'Alice in Wonderland' and 'The Dark Knight'

EXCLUSIVE

I got Tim Burton on the phone the other day while he was on the set of "Alice in Wonderland" and I had to admit right off the bat that I was surprised that, with the filming just underway, he was taking the time to chat. "Yeah, well, me too," he said in his droll deadpan, and I wasn't sure whether to laugh or apologize and hang up. Then he let me off the hook. "Actually," he said in a sunnier voice, "we're just about to get going so we'll see how things go. Good, I hope."

I'm guessing things will go quite well for the 50-year-old filmmaker, who seems like the ideal auteur to bring Lewis Carroll's surreal 1865 classic "Alice's Adventures in Wonderland" to the screen for a 21st century audience.

Young Aussie Mia Wasikowska will be Burton's Alice, while Johnny Depp is the inspired choice to play the Mad Hatter.

I told Burton that it seems as if Depp (who has other upcoming roles as an Old West hero, a pirate and a vampire) approaches his acting choices the same way a gleeful kid rummages through a trunk of dress-up clothes. The filmmaker let out a loud laugh. "It's true. Yeah we have a big dress-up clothes trunk here. We take it with us wherever we go."

Who will Johnny Depp call Kemo Sabe?

Johnny Depp will play Tonto in a Disney revisitation of the Lone Ranger, but who will be the masked man?

The Hero Complex is officially supporting Viggo Mortensen for the role of mystery man of the Old West because, after seeing "Hidalgo" and the trailer for "Appaloosa," we just think he does the dusty-trail adventure thing with a nice flair.

George Clooney would also give Disney a powerhouse tandem at the top of this hoped-for franchise, as well as some major opportunity for the type of winking humor that gave "Pirates of the Caribbean" its box-office flair. Clooney may be too old, but we still think he has enough silver bullets in his ammo belt. Depp, meanwhile, may be just five years shy of 50 but still approaches his acting career like a kid rummaging through a trunk of dress-up costumes. Not only will the part-Cherokee Depp be wearing the fringed buckskin, he will also be donning the garb of a pirate, a vampire, a gangster and, um, a guy with a funny hat.

The Oscar nominee has a busy schedule, to say the least. On Wednesday at the Kodak Theatre in Hollywood, Disney gathered the press for a preview of its upcoming major releases and announced that Depp will be back in eyeliner as Jack Sparrow, the rummy scoundrel of "Pirates of the Caribbean," which will have a fourth installment with Jerry Bruckheimer back as producer. The franchise has already pulled in $2.6 billion at the box office. (Bruckheimer will also produce the Lone Ranger movie.)

Other Depp projects coming include a turn as the Mad Hatter in a Tim Burton adaptation of "Alice in Wonderland," which will be a 2010 animated release with a motion-capture approach in the same vein as "Beowulf." It will be Depp's seventh major project with Burton -- and No. 8 will be "Dark Shadows," yet another black-cape affair for the movie-making partnership, this one a remake of the baroque soap opera from the late 1960s and early 1970s about an accursed family in Maine that, we suspect, had a lasting effect on a local youngster named Stephen King.

Depp will also be robbing banks as the gentlemen bandit John Dillinger in Michael Mann's period gangster flick "Public Enemies," due in theaters next year. That film also stars Christian Bale.

-- Geoff Boucher

Johnny Depp photo from December 2007 by Liz O. Baylen/Los Angeles Times

Clayton Moore as the Lone Ranger and Jay Silverheels as Tonto, from the Los Angeles Times archives.