Studio Report Card, Part 6: Universal
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It was hardly a shocker to see the news that Universal is keeping its dynamic duo, Marc Shmuger and David Linde, as studio chairmen through 2013. There were lots of initial industry doubts about their ability to follow in the big footsteps of former studio boss Stacey Snider, not to mention the whole idea of a power-sharing relationship that was something of an arranged marriage. But the two men have proved the skeptics (myself included) wrong. Universal enjoyed one of its best years in 2008, largely thanks to their steady, capable leadership. But what matters most isn’t just the raw numbers, but the fact that Universal managed to assemble a slate of pictures that was reminiscent of the fabled days in the business when movie studios aimed for class and quality as well as box-office receipts.
Universal’s biggest successes of 2008 offered a good indicator of its strengths. (Our box-office totals, courtesy of Media By Numbers, are through Jan. 4.) The studio’s top-grossing film, ‘Mamma Mia!,’ made an astounding $430 million overseas, roughly three times what it did in the U.S., thanks to the continuing strength of the studio’s international distribution system. In fact, the studio’s top three performers from last year (‘Mamma Mia!, ‘The Mummy 3’ and ‘Wanted’) all did far more business overseas than in America. ‘Wanted’ was an especially gratifying success, since it was a modestly budgeted ($75 million) summer action extravaganza that created a new franchise--the studio is already at work on a sequel--while showcasing the studio’s risk-taking by putting the film in the hands of Timur Bekmambetov, a Russian filmmaker who is a brilliant visual stylist but was totally an unknown commodity, having never enjoyed any commercial success outside his native land.
It wasn’t a fluke that Universal embraced Bekmambetov. The studio has been aggressively setting up deals with gifted filmmakers in a variety of countries, including China, Russia (where it’s in business with Bekmambetov, who’s overseeing a slate of homegrown films), Brazil (where Universal has a deal with Fernando Meirelles) and Mexico, where the studio has an ongoing partnership with Cha Cha Cha, a company led by three top filmmakers, Alfonso Cuaron, Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu and Guillermo del Toro (the latter having directed the studio’s profitable ‘Hellboy 2’ last year). Whether its simply a shrewd way to expand its presence in growing national markets or a way to ally itself with top filmmakers, the strategy is a good example of the studio’s aspirations to balance quality with commerce.
Universal still had its share of missteps. It bankrolled a pair of utter flops: a costly George Clooney comedy (‘Leatherheads’) and ‘The Express,’ a drama about football star Ernie Davis. But the studio had solid successes with a string of sharply written comedies, notably ‘Forgetting Sarah Marshall’ and ‘Role Models,’ which came out of Universal’s relationships with producers Judd Apatow and Scott Stuber. Universal also is in the thick of the Oscar race, thanks to ‘Frost/Nixon,’ a collaboration from another pair of its top producers, Working Title and Imagine Entertainment. Industry insiders say a big part of Universal’s strength comes from its diverse leadership (including well-liked production chief Donna Langley), who are unfailingly talent friendly, willing to trust their filmmakers and blessed with a canny understanding of what they do well and what they don’t.
Most important, Universal is that rare modern-day studio that still aspires to make quality films a significant part of its portfolio. ‘We don’t make a simple, single kind of movie,’ says Shmuger. ‘The whole goal for us is to come up with a slate that cuts across all genres and makes movies of all shapes and sizes. For us, that’s the ideal for a studio to aspire to. One of our big objectives in 2008 was to launch new franchises, which we did with ‘Wanted’ and ‘Mamma Mia!’ But we also wanted to keep working with filmmakers who would bring us diverse projects and execute them with ingenuity and invention, not just massive scale.’
Performance: A-minus Quality: A-minus Overall: A-minus
Studio Report Card: 20th Century Fox