Disney angers theater owners with 'Bolt' stunt

When my colleague John Horn took his two young boys to see a matinee showing of Disney's "Beverly Hills Chihuahua" in Pasadena the other day, he was in for quite a surprise. It wasn't enough that Disney got to promote its upcoming movies on two of the six trailers that played before the film. The studio also showed a six-minute-long promo ad for "Bolt," its superhero dog family film that comes out Nov. 21.

It turns out that John wasn't the only one a little bit peeved at having to sit through such an obvious and lengthy commercial plug. Theater owners around the country are ticked off too, as John reports in a story running in our Saturday paper. Why are exhibitors furious? First off, they say that six-minute-plug for "Bolt" violates a long-standing agreement about where ads can be placed--and how long they can run--before movies are shown. They are also mad because Disney got away with calling the ad a short film, even submitting it to the MPAA, the studio's lapdog watchdog organization, which happily gave it a PG rating, even though it was clearly an ad attached to the film.

If you read John's story, you'll discover that while exhibitors were happy to have Disney's ruse exposed, none of them would actually speak on the record about the issue. Why not? Because no one is willing to bite the hand that feeds them -- in this case Disney, a powerful distributor who provides them with a seemingly endless string of commercial movies, from "Chihuahua" to "High School Musical 3," which is expected to dominate the box office this weekend. John says Disney apologized to exhibitors for the "Bolt" ruse, saying it wouldn't run such a lengthy trailer again. Maybe so. But the cat's out of the bag. When the head of a rival studio learned of Disney's clever promotion, the studio boss reacted the way any competitor would, saying, "Why aren't we doing that?"   

Steven Soderbergh in 3-D

Has there ever (well, at least since the days of Orson Welles) been a commercial Hollywood filmmaker more bizarrely idiosyncratic than Steven Soderbergh? Just when you thought he couldn't possibly dream up anything stranger than his upcoming  "Liberace" drama -- with no less than Michael Douglas as Liberace -- comes the news from Variety that Soderbergh is out pitching a 3-D live-action rock musical about. . .Cleopatra! But before he launches into that historical tale, the filmmaker has already been at work directing (apparently in a breakneck 14-day shoot) "The Girlfriend Experience," in which porn star Sasha Grey plays a $10,000-a-night call girl.

And yet, there's something strangely appealing about the idea that Soderbergh has become the quintessential filmmaker as pinball wizard, bouncing around from tidy commercial projects (like Warners' ongoing "Oceans" series) to grand illusions like "Che" to low-budget toss-'em-out quickies like "Bubble," which was released in theaters and DVD simultaneously, as "The Girlfriend Experience" will be.

The good news is that Soderbergh never repeats himself -- he's always eager to be up on the high wire, working without a net. I cringe whenever I hear Jeffrey Katzenberg noisily beating the drums again for the 3-D revolution, dreading the notion of having to someday sit through a 3-D version of "Madagascar," knowing it will be a retread of old ideas (people who've seen the new sequel were amazed at many scenes that seemed to be directly lifted from "The Lion King"). But a Soderbergh 3-D musical -- that's something I wouldn't miss, whether it turns out to be an enchanting lark or a train wreck.

In an era where too many directors either wait years for the right material to come along or waste too much free time on the party circuit, Soderbergh is an artiste with the work ethic of a mercenary -- he's always looking for a new war to fight. His critics say he's so compulsive that he finds it hard to keep his focus on one project at a time. Even though he's now in the midst of post-production on the Matt Damon-starring "The Informant," he suddenly disappeared for two weeks to shoot "The Girlfriend Experience," not at all concerned that his starlet's credits are limited to such fare as "2 Big 2 Be True 4" and "Grand Theft Anal 11." (Apparently Sasha Grey does more sequels than Steve Guttenberg.)

On the other hand, Soderbergh is no slouch -- he demands even more from himself than from his actors or crew. He's famous for self-criticism, always showing early cuts of his films to friends, eager for brutally honest advice and counsel. At a recent early test screening of "The Informant," he brought along his own personal focus group -- David Fincher and Spike Jonze. Soderbergh arrived two hours beforehand, taking the time to personally tape off the seats in the far corners and front row of the theater, so audience members would see the film from the best seats possible.

Of course, the films themselves still have to be good. I'm eager to see all four-plus hours of "Che," but the early reviews have been very mixed, with charges of self-indulgence being one of the most voiced complaints. As much as you cherish the idea of a filmmaker refusing to bend to the cautious careerism of today's Hollywood, it's impossible to ignore the fact that Soderbergh's antic pace has resulted in a series of well-crafted projects, notably "The Good German" and "Solaris," that have had little emotional connection with audiences.

It's been nearly a decade since Soderbergh made back-to-back masterworks with "Erin Brockovich" and "Traffic." I'm eager to see this new batch of films, but I worry that, for all his brainpower and brilliant notions, Soderbergh's career is at a perilous crossroads. It was Welles who succumbed to horrific obesity, but it's Soderbergh who's in danger of being capsized by his own creative appetites.

Photo of Steven Soderbergh by Alessia Pierdomenico/Reuters.

Harvey Weinstein explains it all for you

It's gotten to the point where if you have a movie with the Weinstein Co., you need to have your agent phoning Exhibitor Relations every morning to see if your film's still coming out. Even worse, you can't be sure who'll be handling the company's acquisition, marketing or production either. As the Hollywood Reporter revealed yesterday, a host of top Weinstein execs are jumping ship. The company's co-heads of acquisitions and production left recently. They will now be joined by the company's production president , a senior VP of production and a top marketing executive, who are either heading out the door or leaving shortly.

Now there's a movie exodus as well, at least from the company's end-of-year slate of pictures. As I reported earlier in the week, the Viggo Mortensen-starring adaptation of "The Road" has been bumped into next year. Our sources say a number of other movies are suffering the same fate, led by "Crossing Over," a Harrison Ford and Sean Penn-starring drama that was expecting to contend for awards-season plaudits. It's been pushed out of 2008, much to the dismay of its stars. The company has also once again bumped "Killshot," a Mickey Rourke-starring film that has had as many release dates as colleges attended by Sarah Palin.

The company has also backed off from December release dates for "Fanboys" and "Shanghai," a John Cusack-starring drama that was originally slated for a Christmas release in New York and L.A. What is going on? The moves only reinforce the rampant speculation inside the industry that the Weinstein Co. is running low, low, low on money. Weinstein execs have been informing talent reps that its end-of-the-year release schedule was too crowded to release all the films, but now that any possible logjam has been cleared, you have to wonder what the latest explanation will be.

Luckily, I managed to get Harvey Weinstein on the phone late today, and he had an answer for everything. He contends that all the late-breaking moves are simply ways for the company to take advantage of various marketing, promotion and scheduling opportunities. Here's his take:

"Fanboys": Harvey says the movie has been moved to January "so we can do a major promotion with Comcast, who's arranging for a big advertising tie-in for us on the film."

"Crossing Over": "We're moving it to January. The market is just too crowded. Every week there are five more movies coming out. It's too crazy. Spring is much better--there are a lot more wide-open dates. The most important thing is to do well by the movie. Having it out in January gives us the opportunity to play the film at the Sundance and Berlin film festivals, which will be a big help to the movie."

"Killshot": "Everyone has said that Mickey Rourke is amazing in 'The Wrestler' and will be up for all sorts of awards, so we decided to move 'Killshot' to a date a few weeks before the Oscars. That way we can capitalize on all the heat that's going to be around Mickey."

"Shanghai": "It just couldn't be ready in time. The movie wasn't finished shooting until August and the director, Mikael Hafstrom, doesn't even deliver his cut until early November. He doesn't want it out now and neither do we. He needs time to make it as great as possible."

That means that after "Zack and Miri Make a Porno" hits theaters next weekend, the Weinsteins aren't distributing another film themselves until "The Reader" at year's end. Harvey insists it will be worth the wait. He believes that all the buzz about his money woes will blow over after people see how some of these pictures perform in the marketplace. I hope he's right. There's no one I'd rather have yell at me talk movie talk with than Harvey. But there's no getting around the fact that his credibility in Hollywood today is at an all-time low. As one agent said to me recently, "Whenever I'm tempted to take a project to Harvey, I lie down and take a nap and hope that when I wake up, I'm sober again."

Photo of Harrison Ford in "Crossing Over" by Dale Robinette / The Weinstein Co.

The 2008 Election: Casting the Hollywood movie

If Oliver Stone got hired today to do a quickie TV movie about the 2008 election, we all know who would play Sarah Palin. But what about all those other juicy roles? Minnesota Rep. Michele Bachmann has become a media sensation, telling MSNBC's Chris Matthews that she thinks Barack Obama may hold "anti-American views," proposing a media investigation into the views of other members of Congress to find out "are they pro-America or anti-America?"

I think it's pretty obvious from the above "separated at birth" photos that Catherine Keener has a lock on doing Rep. Bachmann.

But I want some casting advice: Who should play McCain and Obama? We have so many other possible parts to fill. How about some suggestions. Who could play Joe Biden? Cindy McCain? Hillary Clinton? Bill Ayers? Rev. Jeremiah Wright? Bristol Palin? Sean Hannity? Chris Matthews? Mitt Romney? And of course, who on Earth could play Joe the Plumber? Cast your vote and I'll post the most inspired suggestions.

Photo of Rep. Michele Bachman, R-Minn. by Paul Sancya/AP Photo; Catherine Keener by Warner. Bros.

Variety's Peter Bart: Who stole our Oscar ads?

You have to hand it to Variety's venerable Peter Bart. He's been everything during his long tenure in Hollywood -- Variety editor, New York Times correspondent, studio executive (after the thousand columns he's written about his years of dealing with recalcitrant talent, how could we ever forget it?). So when he sees that the usual deluge of studio Oscar ads that normally plump up Variety this time of year are slowing to a trickle, thanks to our current economic debacle, he's far too smooth to call up his studio chief pals to complain. He simply writes a blog post about it.

Even better, Bart cleverly disguises the real motivation of the post. Instead of saying "Come on, guys, how about ponying up some dough for Oscar ads?" he preys on their worst fears: that by not taking out ads, they would go away from Academy Awards night empty-handed. Or as he puts it: "It's been proven that aggressive campaigns produce kudo nominations -- the constituencies of the Oscars and the Globes will be totally inundated by the rush of December pictures (roughly 45 in all)."

Translation: You better get those ads in now! Notice the way Bart slips in the expression "it's been proven." In fact, I'd defy Peter to show where there's "proof" that you can buy an Oscar nomination simply by buying a lot of ads. That might be the long-held conventional wisdom, but that's not the same as "proof." We'd probably all agree that by having a big movie star court the foreign press, you can help score a Golden Globe nomination, but ads alone don't buy bupkis.

As a showbiz vet, Bart knows that the best way to put pressure on belt-tightening studios is by cranking up the anxiety of the people who have their ears--the star talent and their stable of managers and agents. So he ends his post by insinuating that all this cost-cutting will leave a host of Oscar-worthy movies "hung out to dry." Actually, just the opposite would happen. If the studio conglomerates, who spend the most money on Oscar campaigns, all cut back their expenditures, it would actually level the playing field, making it more feasible for the tiny independents and Sony Classics of the world to compete for the top awards.

Because Peter is only interested in Oscar ad moola, he doesn't see it that way. He wants studio chiefs to be afraid -- very afraid -- that they could be the odd one out at Oscar time if they don't spend enough dough. Perhaps that's why he ends his post by asking the question "Is that austerity? Or does it represent a betrayal of the talent community?" Sorry, Peter, but bringing some sanity to the crazed Oscar ad spending spree isn't a betrayal. It would be a breath of fresh air.

Photo credit: AMC

Oliver Stone and David Zucker get the critical ax

I'm not exactly singing "Kumbaya" yet, but as we move toward the final week of the presidential campaign, it seems as if those of us on the left and the right are slowly beginning to see the world in a similar light. First I found myself agreeing with a host of conservatives--notably David Brooks, Christopher Buckley and George Will, not to mention Gen. Colin Powell--who view Gov. Sarah Palin as a bantamweight politico, unworthy of being a heartbeat away from the presidency.

And now I find myself agreeing with conservative novelist/screenwriter/blogger Roger L. Simon, who just posted a dual review of Oliver Stone's "W." and David Zucker's "An American Carol," saying in his usual briskly authoritative manner that "they are both abysmal movies in almost every way." I guess we're discussing criticism a lot on the blog today, but I have to admit that Simon has a more intriguing take on both films than most of the print professionals who've weighed in the past few weeks. For starters, Simon admits his bias--he's a conservative who had hoped Zucker's movie would succeed. In fact, he held off writing about the film until it "mercifully disappeared from the marketplace," as he puts it, to avoid harming its chances in any way.

But he is now painfully honest about its drawbacks, saying that it is important for conservatives to avoid pulling punches for the rare conservative film that surfaces. "If there is one thing that is bad for conservative filmmaking in general," he writes, "it is to make bad films.... Furthermore, dwelling on being 'victims' of Hollywood by conservative filmmakers is a surefire prescription for continued failure, just as it is for other minority groups. To applaud this kind of [bad] filmmaking is to applaud affirmative action for conservatives."

Simon also zeros in on "American Carol's" key flaw. Like "W.," it underestimates its protagonist, in this case portraying its lead character--a Michael Moore-style documentary filmmaker--as "a self-centered dolt who overeats." As Simon points out, portraying the cagey, slick Moore as a dolt leaves the film bereft of any comic friction: "Since there is no serious adversary, there is no real plot tension. The audience is left waiting for the obviously imbecilic Moore finally to see the light, making for a totally predictable experience."

He is just as hard on "W.," which he zings for wallowing in an equally predictable dime-store psychological portrait of a bad-boy son desiring the approval of his powerful father.  "This plays like a film made by a director who has never experienced real family life over time. [Stone] doesn't seem to realize how family members interact with each other. He has them all making speeches to each other instead of behaving, well, like people who have lived together for decades." Simon concludes: "It's not the politics, liberal or otherwise. It's the bad dramaturgy that dooms this movie in which nothing is subtext and everything is text. The audience is treated like idiots, never allowed to figure out anything for themselves."

I'd go even farther. "W.'s" biggest problem is that it aspires to be a serious drama, but its timing is off. Stone clearly sees the Bush family as Eugene O'Neill territory, but his film arrives in the twilight of a failed presidency, when moviegoers were hoping to see a caustic satire (closer to what Stone did marvelously in "Natural Born Killers"), not an earnest, not especially original portrayal of how the Bush presidency went awry.

Bad times are good times for satirists, which is why no comic in America--however liberal they may be--has any professional rooting interest in an Obama presidency. He's too thoughtful and sober-minded to have much fun with. The comics are all rooting for McCain and Palin. She's already proved her value to "SNL," while McCain has the kind of raw emotional edges and awkward mannerisms that keep comedy writers working overtime. However you look at it, the great satirists rise above personal politics and find a deeper well of comic material to draw from. As Simon said so well in his review, preaching to the choir is not enough.

Photo of Josh Brolin in "W." from Lions Gate Entertainment

Roger Ebert gives a thumbs down to his own review

It's definitely been the media kerfuffle of the week: Roger Ebert's admission that he wrote an entire review of a new film after only watching eight minutes of the picture has inspired a storm of outrage. It turns out that everybody's a critic, especially when it comes to judging movie critics. Now a clearly chastened Ebert has acknowledged that he was wrong, posting a follow-up post to his original explanation admitting that he wishes he had never published the review (of a small indie film called "Tru Loved") in the first place. As he puts it:

"It sent the wrong message. If I had seen the entire film, a review, however negative, would have been appropriate. But in reviewing the first eight minutes, I was guilty of too much affection for my prose. I have learned a great deal from the intelligent, opinionated, useful comments from all those readers.... I will never, ever, again review a film I have not seen in its entirety. Never. Ever." He adds: "I must apologize to writer-director Stewart Wade, his actors and his crew. They did nothing to deserve this. For them, it must have been like a drive-by shooting.... I feel like a jerk. In even my negative reviews, I try to give some sense of why you might want to see a film even if I didn't admire it. Here, I failed."

Once you get past the fact that Ebert's abject apology sounds a lot like one of those blacklisted '50s Hollywood screenwriters telling HUAC that "I am deeply sorry for ever joining the Communist Party--I let my country down, I let my family down, I let my therapist down," basically saying anything to get his job back--you get the feeling that this is just another nail in the coffin for the credibility of film critics with the average moviegoer. If there were ever an act that indelibly painted critics as elitist snobs, it would be America's best-known critic reviewing a movie after only bothering to watch for eight minutes.

I remain a loyal fan of Ebert, who was a huge influence on me as a young writer and has sprung to my defense when I've been under attack. So I'm definitely not an objective observer. I also read critics religiously, looking to them for guidance and inspiration. But I am part of a vanishing breed. The average newspaper reader has less and less use for critical opinion, increasingly preferring to rely on aggregated critical judgment from websites like Rotten Tomatoes over individual critics--or solely relying on recommendations from friends. As one Ebert basher wrote: "After learning that Roger Ebert defends writing a full-column review based on a 8-minute scrap of film, I don't feel so bad about not reading movie reviews."   

Ebert's blunder, one of the few he's made in a four-decade-long career, will probably take on a life of its own, cited in future years in various broadsides against the critical establishment, probably in a sentence that reads something like: "After reading Kenny Turan's dismissal of 'Quantum of Solace,' one wonders whether Mr. Turan was dozing off during the film's breathtaking action sequences, or whether he simply walked out of the screening room after eight minutes, in emulation of Roger Ebert's rude dismissal of a movie earlier this year." All critics have is their credibility. I'd be lying if I told you I've never walked out of a film. At film festivals, I do it all the time. Like Roger, I am convinced that you can tell after 20 or 25 minutes, almost within the shadow of a doubt, that a movie has been directed by a clumsy amateur or a deluded auteur. At a festival, when you're trying to see 4 or 5 movies in a day, you are pretty ruthless about cutting your losses and moving on to the next film.

But I don't review movies. I see them looking for stories. If a movie is so bad that I walk out, I simply scratch it off my list. If you're a reviewer, you're held to a higher standard. Trust me, it's why critics often sound so cranky--they knew the film was a dog right away, but had to stay to the bitter end, just to make sure. But you have to stick it out. I guess it's a lot like being a sportswriter. You have to stay to the last out. It was just the other day that the Boston Red Sox were down 7-0 going into the seventh inning of a big playoff game, before storming back to beat the Tampa Bay Rays 8-7. You wouldn't have wanted to leave in the middle of that game, right?

The same goes with movies. Maybe the plot kicks into gear, maybe an actor shows up, delivering a graceful performance, maybe (at the very least) the story takes us to the South of France and we get to see some beautiful scenery. If a movie has a hidden surprise, you want to be around to see it. Yogi Berra probably never read Pauline Kael, but he knew this much about being a critic: "It ain't over 'til it's over." 

Photo of Roger Ebert by Chris Pizzello / Associated Press

Why Hollywood is fighting over LeBron James

For years, everyone has wanted a piece of LeBron James, who is right now--sorry, Kobe--perhaps the most popular basketball player on the planet. It's a testimony to LeBron's mega-stardom that a trio of Hollywood studios are in the midst of a bidding war over "More Than a Game," a riveting documentary about LeBron's Akron, Ohio high-school basketball team that ended up going from obscurity to being the No. 1 ranked team in the country. The film debuted to glowing reviews at the Toronto Film Festival last month, sparking interest from a variety of studios.

Three studios are in the thick of the action: Lionsgate, Overture and Sony (which would release the film through one of its subsidiary labels). The most aggressive offer is from Lionsgate, which has the pole position in the bidding because of its track record, both with documentaries (it released two of Michael Moore's biggest hits) and with urban audiences, having had great success shepherding the Tyler Perry film franchise. The biggest challenge for the studios, in terms of figuring out what kind of offer to make, has been in assessing the film's potential worth.

It's an intriguing equation. On the one hand, LeBron is a gigantic worldwide brand, with a slew of big corporations--led by Nike and Coke--who are all valuable potential promotion partners for the film. LeBron has also carved out several months of his schedule to promote the movie. The film also has Interscope Records chief Jimmy Iovine on board as an executive producer, offering the tantalizing prospect of extra marketing muscle via a soundtrack album loaded up with a host of Iovine's hip-hop artists.

On the other hand, it's been a tricky proposition trying to figure out when the film should have a theatrical release. Ideally the film should come out during basketball season, when a studio could promote it with a radio and TV ad campaign. But LeBron is, well, otherwise occupied then, playing basketball himself. Lionsgate has pushed to release the film in late summer 2009, shortly before the season begins. The filmmakers seem eager for the film to come out in the fall of 2009, perhaps because LeBron has already committed to other promotional duties during the summer. Negotiations have also been slowed by the LeBron camp's desire to possibly carve out a post-theatrical window for a TV premiere for the film, presumably for a heavily promoted ESPN debut.

Still, I expect to see the film sell, perhaps as early as later this week. Having seen the film myself, it's clear that "More Than a Game" is more than just a documentary. Directed by Kristopher Belman, it's an uplifting story, almost a fable, about a close-knit group of kids who overcome adversity, survive a series of obstacles, show a lot of heart and are rewarded with a well-deserved triumph on the basketball court. It doesn't hurt that one of those Akron, Ohio kids is one of the most famous athletes in the world.

People have always said that if every documentary had Michael Moore as its publicist, we'd see a lot more money-making documentaries. "More Than a Game" is no slouch -- it has the NBA, Coke, Nike and Interscope as its promotional partners. I have a feeling that whoever ends up distributing this film isn't going to have any trouble getting our attention when it finally comes out.

Photo of LeBron James by Ethan Miller / Getty Images

Put a fork in 'The Road'

"The Road," which has been the subject of incredible fascination in the blogosphere in recent weeks, is finally, officially, absolutely, definitely moving its release to 2009. The feature adaptation of Cormac McCarthy's Pulitzer Prize- winning novel, which stars Viggo Mortensen, will have to wait another year for any possible Oscar plaudits. Dimension Films, which is releasing the picture, originally had the film scheduled for this November, but its filmmaking team has made it clear that the movie just isn't ready for release.

Its producers, 2929 Productions chief Marc Butan and producer Nick Wechsler, said today that "we know the release of 'The Road' is eagerly anticipated by millions of fans who love the book as well as many others. The film simply won't be ready in time to release in 2008. Depicting McCarthy's post-apocalyptic tale involves an incredible amount of visual effects and we want to make sure to give this beautiful movie the time it needs to be perfected."

Apparently the producers have more clout with the Weinstein brothers than the filmmakers behind "The Reader," who also said their film wasn't ready for release but were bulldozed into agreeing to a late 2008 release date, prompting producer Scott Rudin to quit the film in protest. The departure of "The Road" from 2008 further thins out the field of potential Oscar contenders, leaving "The Curious Case of Benjamin Button" as the reigning early favorite for best picture glory.

Photo" Kodi Smit McPhee (left) and Viggo Mortensen in "The Road."  Credit: Macall Polay / Dimension Films.

Is Universal pulling Focus?

Anne Thompson has a really good story in today's Variety breaking the news that Universal is nearing a deal to sell its Rogue Pictures label to Ryan Kavanaugh's Relativity Media. The sale, Thompson reports, would give Kavanaugh Rogue's 30-title library as well as its entire development slate, including four films already set for release in 2009. Universal, which gets $150 million for the Rogue assets, will agree to distribute Rogue films through 2013. Rogue was launched in 2004 by Focus Features as a way for Focus, Universal's specialty film division, to diversify its product, giving it the ability to deliver youth-oriented commercial genre pictures as well as art-house dramas for older moviegoers.

So, to quote from the title of Art Linson's current Hollywood satire--what just happened? As usual, Variety--despite Anne's good reporting--has managed to avoid stating the obvious: The sale of Rogue probably marks the beginning of the end for Focus Films. If Universal is willing to dump Focus' genre arm, the most consistently commercial underpinning of its specialty division, then surely it is ready to put the squeeze on Focus itself. Just look around: In an era where entertainment conglomerates are under enormous pressure to save money and drastically lower their overhead, virtually every studio in town has either downsized or shut down its specialty division.

Now that Universal has brought DreamWorks on board, which will deliver six or more movies a year, there's really no justification for paying the freight needed to sustain Focus as a full-blown studio division. Even though Focus did a great job with "Burn After Reading," going against the conventional wisdom by releasing a Coen brothers movie in early September after the filmmakers had won an Oscar--and outperforming expectations with a great comedy marketing campaign--the old specialty model that created Focus is dead. In a transformed economic environment, studios are no longer willing to subsidize a division that relies on insanely costly Oscar campaigns to try to make its numbers.

With Rogue gone, Focus' days are numbered. Just as Warners didn't close up all its specialty divisions at once, preferring to spread out the bad news over a period of months, Universal will probably say, for now, that it's committed to Focus' survival. That's because the company is about to launch "Milk," its big end-of-the-year Oscar movie, whose campaign would be undermined if Focus looked like a lame duck. Expect Universal to wait until next spring, after Oscar season is over, before quietly announcing layoffs, signaling that Focus, like Paramount Vantage before it, will remain a label, but without its own marketing and distribution apparatus.

Rogue may well be a shrewd deal for Ryan Kavanaugh, who now has the ability to put a number of films through Universal's top-notch distribution machinery. But it makes Focus' future look shakier than ever, which in turn makes the future for quality low-budget films look a little more bleak as well. 

Photo of Josh Brolin (left) as Dan White and Sean Penn as Harvey Milk in "Milk" by Daniel Nicoletta / Focus Features