Weinstein Co. Gloom: Layoffs announced

The New York Post has the scoop that Harvey and Bob Weinstein have made 24 staffers an offer they couldn't refuse, with the Weinstein Co. laying off 11% of its work force today. I can't say this is unexpected, even though the last time I referred to the Weinstein Co.'s financial problems, I got an irate phone call from Harvey, telling me how much money he had in the bank after his big payoff from Disney. I guess this means Harvey isn't putting any of his personal fortune into the company's coffers.

The move apparently cuts the Weinstein Co.'s work force down to 200 staffers. The Weinsteins called employees into a meeting at 2 pm NY time to deliver the grim news. The shaky state of the nations's economy clearly played a role in the layoffs, with company insiders predicting the cutbacks would be a one-time event. But the move is sure to prompt new worries about the Weinstein's future, especially with the company still looking for a big break-out hit. The Post certainly didn't mince words. As it's story put it: "The layoff move is bound to stir a new round of rumors that the studio is on the brink of collapse."

Photo: Harvey Weinstein: Photo credit: Jeff Vespa/ WireImage.com

A bunch of us were crowded in an elevator at the Directors Guild, heading down to the parking lot last night after the first screening of "The Curious Case of Benjamin Button," David Fincher's much-anticipated epic portrait of a man--played by Brad Pitt--whose life unfolds in, well, the wrong direction. Everyone had a strong opinion of the movie--"It was great!" one guy said. "It stunk!" said another. "Oscars all around!" someone else chimed in.

Alas, we were all joking. It was gallows humor time. About 25 minutes into the 2 1/2 hour film, the screening was aborted. Apparently cinematographer Claudio Miranda (who's worked as a gaffer on nearly all of Fincher's films) noticed with growing horror that one of the digital projector's color channels was out of whack, producing a washed-out image. Not that anyone around me noticed a thing, mind you, all of us assuming that if the film had a slightly pale look, knowing Fincher's fondness for visual trickery, it was surely intentional. But it wasn't. After spending nearly half an hour making adjustments and trying to reboot the computer, the Paramount staff threw up their hands and canceled the screening.

I can only imagine the backstage drama. Having to pull the plug on your film's first screening is sort of like being at the opening night of a swank new Peter Morton restaurant, with all the critics and glittering guests at the tables, only to discover that the oven isn't working. Miranda was the unlucky person who had to phone Fincher, a notoriously prickly perfectionist, with the bad news. But kudos to Paramount PR exec David Waldman, who was unbelievably cool under fire. He ordered the catering staff to serve as much food and drink as possible, which seemed to quiet the potentially riotous crowd of parched critics and writers milling around in the DGA lobby.

Paramount will take another shot at screening the film Saturday at noon and 6 p.m. Maybe the computer will be more cooperative the second time around. After seeing the first 25 minutes, I'm ready to jump back into the pool. But judging from this post at Sproutblog, Karina Longworth--who saw the entire film at an earlier screening--is not eager to put her bathing suit on again. 

Photo of Taraji P. Henson, left, and Brad Pitt in "The Curious Case of Benjamin Button" from Paramount Pictures   

Nothing is sweeter than seeing a movie on the Fox lot at the Darryl Zanuck Theater, its vast expanse allowing your imagination to run wild, conjuring up all the hits and flops that have unspooled there, inflaming the ego or crushing the spirit of generations of studio executives. It wasn't quite so glamorous at 9:30 this morning, waiting for the first big screening of Baz Luhrmann's "Australia" to begin. Much of the audience was made up of lowly media types and beleaguered critics, so most of the small-talk before hand focused on the low-level depression that hovers like a dark cloud, with each new week bringing news of more friends or colleagues who've either lost their jobs or are worried about the next round of layoffs at our various publications.

I was hoping Baz's movie would serve as a much-needed escape. I was not disappointed. I'll leave the reviews to the critics--you can read another mixed notice from Australia here--but after experiencing such an ambitious piece of work, it's impossible to refrain from making some observations.

It's pretty obvious that "Australia" works best if you can imagine it as a musical. It brims with all sorts of grand melodrama and oversize emotion that would feel, well, hopelessly cornball if you're not willing to embrace the material with the same childlike abandon you felt when you first saw "Brigadoon" or "Singin' in the Rain." In Luhrmann's hands, even the desolate outback, the main setting for the film, feels like a giant painted-desert studio set. Watching a thrilling cattle drive that dominates the earlier part of the 165-minute film, you feel like you're watching a western directed by Vincente Minnelli, with all the dirt and dust accompanied by soaring tracking shots, a booming musical score and blood-red sunsets. It is a film filled with both extravagant artifice and gripping social commentary--one of the key subplots involves an Aboriginal boy in danger of being taken from his home and forcibly thrown into government care. Talking to some viewers afterward, it was clear their reaction were colored by how much they could handle the clash between those two sensibilities.

As with all Luhrmann movies, "Australia" operates on several different layers, the most obvious being the fact that it is a story about storytelling, or as Hugh Jackman says early in the picture: "The only thing you can own is your story--you just hope that it's a good one." Luhrmann weaves his postmodernist style with the simplicity of Aboriginal life, where having a story is a huge part of their spiritual world. "Australia" also has a movie within the movie, "The Wizard of Oz," the big hit of the day, which is seen playing at a Darwin movie house, with Oz's fantasy world, spirit of adventure and yearning for home serving as a commentary on "Australia's" own narrative.

The movie's story is unabashedly old-fashioned, seemingly cobbled together from a hundred other movies. Nicole Kidman is a transplanted English aristocrat who takes over her husband's spread in the Northern Territory. Hugh Jackman is a rough-hewn drover, a cattle driver who loves the freedom of the open range. Brandon Walters plays the young Aboriginal boy who develops an intense bond with both Kidman and Jackman. Bryan Brown is the villain of the piece, a ruthless cattle baron who'll stop at nothing to wrest away Kidman's land. If it sounds a bit cliched, it is. In fact, the movie is full of cliches, from the kindly drunk to the thuggish ranch hand to the uptight city slicker to the gruff, lone-wolf hero.

If you've seen a lot of John Ford westerns, you'll feel right at home. The bad guys do what all bad guys do on cattle drives--they stampede the cattle and poison the water hole. At night, people sing around the campfire and volunteer hidden yearning after they've had too much to drink. On the other hand, like Ford, Luhrmann uses these conventions to capture the bigger, more mythical sweep of his country's history. Even if the movie often treads on too familiar ground, you feel as if you're in the hands of a powerful storyteller, someone intent on finding the humanity and the healing power in retracing his country's history. "Australia" certainly reminds us that Luhrmann is a one-of-a-kind filmmaker. "Australia" is ambitious, perhaps too ambitious for its own good, but you'd never accuse its director of resting on his laurels.       

Photo of Baz Lurhmann by Carolyn Cole / Los Angeles Times

When producer Zvi Howard Rosenman arrived at the academy screening of "Milk" last week, he found someone occupying his reserved seat--Jack Nicholson. The actor ended up sitting right behind Rosenman. When the film was over, Nicholson leaned forward, tapped Rosenman on the shoulder and said, "Boy, oh boy, you did a good job." Having produced dozens of films over the years--from "The Main Event" to "Buffy the Vampire Slayer" to "Family Man"--Rosenman is used to accepting accolades at movie premieres.

But Rosenman had a totally new role in "Milk," as an actor, not a producer. He makes his debut playing David Goodstein, a powerful, self-made businessman who, as publisher of the San Francisco-based Advocate, helped turn a flimsy sex-ad publication into the Time magazine of the gay universe. "Goodstein was a kingmaker," Rosenman told me the other day. "He was basically the David Geffen of San Francisco. If you were involved in gay politics in that era, he was the grand poobah, the go-to guy."

As we learn in "Milk," Goodstein viewed Harvey Milk as an uncontrollable activist, as someone who was pushing for change, too much, too soon. "Goodstein wanted to work through the system, not outside it," Rosenman explains. "Harvey needed his endorsement when he was running for supervisor, but Goodstein saw Harvey as too radical, too flamboyant. They had a very contentious, complicated relationship."

Although Rosenman had never acted before, he knew "Milk" casting director Francine Maisler, who--working with "Milk" director Gus Van Sant--had been putting a lot of real-life people into parts in the film. "When they were trying to cast Goodstein, Francine said to Gus, 'We need someone who looks like Howard Rosenman, who talks like him and who has his size.' I think all Gus said was, 'Well, can he act?' Francine called me and asked if I had any experience and I told her that I'd done 'My Fair Lady' when I was 14 at a Hebrew student camp."

Even before he was cast, Rosenman started thinking like an actor. "My next words to Francine were, 'So, who am I up against?' " The competition was stiff--Van Sant had already seen the likes of Richard Schiff and Tom Hulce. Rosenman was nervous about having to audition, but he says that his best friend, the Endeavor agent Brian Swardstrom, persuaded him this was too important an opportunity to pass up. "So I did two takes with Francine, she looked at the tape and said, 'I'm recommending you to Gus.' And I got the part."

When Rosenman arrived in San Francisco for the film shoot, he realized his biggest challenge lay ahead--here he was, a novice actor, about to play several scenes opposite Sean Penn. What was it like? 

 

In my mind's eye, I see Peter Bart standing outside Campanile, holding one of those cardboard signs you see in the hands of homeless men on street corners, except the Variety editor, being a good editor, has slightly reworked the message: "Will Work for Food Oscar Ads." That was the essential point of Bart's column in today's Variety--why hasn't everyone jumped into the pool, frolicking in the annual rites of Oscar overkill? As Bart put it: "Oscar '08 may go down as the year of the Great Non-Race."

By this time last year, according to Bart, the studios had sent him 24 movie screeners. This year: Three. I only read Variety online, so I asked a studio marketing chief to leaf through today's edition and count up the number of ads. It was sobering. The only studio in the pool was Warners, who took out a double-truck ad for "The Dark Knight," the studio presumably having made so much money on the film that it wants to give some of it away to a needy trade publication (or more likely, to impress director Chris Nolan so he'll consider making a lucrative sequel). The rest of the issue had a half-page ad for a Polish film, a quarter-page ad for a film from Taiwan and a third-page ad for "Last Chance Harvey."

That was it. The studio marketer told me that at this point in time three years ago, Variety would've had at least 10 or 12 pages of studio ads. Why the drop-off? Anyone paying attention to the outside world knows we're in the midst of a hideous global economic recession, with corporate profits plunging, the biggest U.S. carmakers teetering on the brink of bankruptcy and tens of thousands of everyday Joes being laid off from their jobs. But Bart, like most Hollywood insiders, lives a life of privilege, putting those nice Campanile lunches on his expense account. So when he hears that GE's hurting or Sony's having a tough time, his reaction? "Hankies, please."

Desperate to drum up some business, Bart asks the rhetorical question: "Are the studios hanging the talent out to dry? Films like 'Milk," 'Doubt' or 'Frost/Nixon' need award nominations to find a mainstream audience." He even recruits Harvey Weinstein, the great Oscar showman of years past, to give Bart a money quote, with Harvey saying "If you don't pay for that big upfront Oscar campaign, you end up paying at the box office."

I managed to track Harvey down to ask him point-blank: Isn't is actually entirely appropriate for media conglomerates to cut back on Oscar ads in the middle of a horrific recession? Won't the best movies get plenty of nominations anyway? His response: "No one has shown me yet that you'll get the nominations unless you spend the money in the trades," he says. "It certainly hasn't worked for me so far. We had years where we spent less on Oscar ads and left it to serendipity and it didn't work. Oscar advertising makes a real difference in these kind of movies' commercial success. I mean, where do we stop? Should we be getting rid of all of the Oscar PR people too? Oscar ads just make economic sense." (Harvey, I'll be counting up all your full-page "Reader" ads from now on to see if you put your money where your mouth is.)

Bart calls Weinstein's support for big Oscar campaigns sage advice. I call it outdated and ill-advised. When people are losing their jobs left and right, it's frivolous, not to mention nauseatingly narcissistic, for studios to be tossing away millions of dollars on Oscar campaigns when that money could be better spent in a thousand different ways. Imagine how you'd feel if you were one of the hundreds of employees that's been laid off at a media conglomerate, only to see that your company's film division still has plenty of dough left to run Oscar ads in Variety or the New York Times or my newspaper.

What really worries Bart is the prospect of someone getting an Oscar nomination without spending a dime on an Oscar campaign. It would be a big blow to his bottom line, but it would be a giant step forward in studio accounting--the kind of accounting that puts a priority on good judgment, not on the costly and trivial pursuit of silly prizes. 

Photo of Harvey Weinstein from the Associated Press

Up until now, Summit Entertainment hasn't exactly set the movie world on fire. Run by veteran sales agent Patrick Wachsberger and former Paramount vice chairman Rob Friedman, the new indie distributor and finance company has struggled to prove that it can compete with the studio behemoths in the marketplace. Of its five releases, only one, the mixed martial arts film "Never Back Down," was a modest success, grossing about $25 million in the U.S. The company's most recent release, the teen comedy "Sex Drive," was a bomb, making barely $8 million after opening on nearly 2,500 screens.

But Summit has an amazing ace up its sleeve--"Twilight." If you know a teenager, I need not say more. If you don't, the sound you hear in the distance is the approaching pop culture tsunami. Written by Stephenie Meyer, "Twilight" is the first in a series of enormously popular vampire love stories that are now poised to spawn one of the hottest Hollywood literary franchises since "Harry Potter." Directed by Catherine Hardwicke ("13" and "Lords of Dogtown"), "Twilight" arrives on 5,500 screens this Friday, with the industry already abuzz with reports about spectacular advance ticket sales. During the past few weeks I've been hearing from studio marketing chiefs, who all seem in awe of the word-of-mouth groundswell for the film.

When the film's young stars, Kristen Stewart and Robert Pattinson, showed up at Comic-Con last July, they were greeted by Beatlemania-style screams. Last week 10,000 kids showed up at a mall in Dallas to mob them. They've been on the cover of Entertainment Weekly and a variety of teen tabloids as well as all over MTV. (Here's our dispatch earlier this year from the film set.) But what's amazing is that one of Hollywood's biggest studios had the project for years and simply let it go. "Twilight" was originally at Paramount's MTV Films, which spent nearly two years trying to develop the picture before the studio put the project in turnaround. A second studio, Fox Atomic, also passed on the project before it came Summit's way.

It wasn't as if "Twilight's" teen appeal was exactly a secret. The second novel in Meyer's series, "New Moon," debuted at No. 5 on the New York Times bestseller list for children's books when it was released in 2006. It hit No. 1 the following week and remained in the top position for 11 straight weeks. The fourth installment, "Breaking Dawn," sold 1.3 million copies in its first day of release. The entire series has now sold 8.5 million copies in the U.S., more than 17 million copies worldwide.

So how did this budding literary phenomenon practically drop in Summit's lap? Keep reading:

 

When I had lunch with John Hamburg the other day, the writer-director of the upcoming comedy "I Love You, Man" appeared full of anxiety, something of a natural condition I suspect, since judging from his work, he is the poet laureate of comic anxiety. (Best known in the business as Ben Stiller's in-house writer, Hamburg's writing credits include "Meet the Parents," "Zoolander" and "Meet the Fockers" as well as serving as the writer-director of "Along Came Polly.") The problem at hand was pretty clear. His new film, which stars Paul Rudd, Jason Segal and Jamie Pressly, had the perfect title and he desperately wanted to keep it.

After all, what else would you call a comedy about a loner engaged to a nice girl who suddenly realizes that he has no male friend to be his best man--and proceeds to go out on a series of male dates, hoping to find the right guy? I mean, doesn't "I Love You, Man" say it all? Hamburg thought so too. So did DreamWorks, which produced the film (which is being distributed by Paramount). There was just one snag. 20th Century Fox had a film coming out at roughly the same time next spring called "I Love You Beth Cooper." And if there were ever a studio that would attempt to copyright the phrase "I Love You," it would be Fox.

So even though Hamburg had done a lot of work at Fox, including some key rewrites on the studio's mega-hit "Night at the Museum," he was worried. And rightfully so. After all, it was DreamWorks who had a Farrelly brothers comedy called "The Seven Day Itch," loosely based on 1972's "The Heartbreak Kid." At least it was called that until Fox challenged the title, claiming the movie could be confused with the 1955 Billy Wilder film "The Seven Year Itch." (I only wish Wilder were still alive, since surely he'd have a great quip about the logic of how you'd confuse a 50-year-old Marilyn Monroe movie with a Farrelly brothers comedy.) Fox was so fiercely committed to protecting its title that studio Co-Chairman Tom Rothman personally went before the MPAA title arbitration board to plead the studio's case--and won on appeal, forcing DreamWorks to change its title to "The Heartbreak Kid." (The movie flopped.)

"I have to admit I don't have a real fall-back position," Hamburg told me over lunch. "I have a list of other titles in my office and they're all terrible. 'I Love You, Man' is so good because it's a phrase that's in the culture. It symbolizes the way men talk to each other, especially the 'comma' and the 'man.' And the whole subtext of the phrase really plays out in the movie. I dunno--isn't 'I love you' a pretty common phrase? It seems like I've heard it in movie titles before."

So does this story have a happy ending? Did Fox put the screws to Hamburg or did the studio make him an offer he couldn't refuse? Keep reading:

When I was young and fancy free, I once went out with a girl whose major criteria for granting a guy a second date (and trust me when I say there was always a long line of potential grant recipients) was whether we could offer a persuasive answer to the question: What is your favorite James Bond theme song? (I could identify--in high school, I once bailed on a girl after it became apparent that I was going to be subjected to a steady stream of Cat Stevens and Three Dog Night songs from her LP collection.)

But I digress. Outside of arguing over who's the best baseball player or the worst president of all time, what could be more emotionally satisfying than debating the merits of the amazing array of James Bond theme songs? So kudos to Drew Kerr at TotalMusicGeek, who came up with the great idea of doing a Top 20 ranking of the themes--along with a YouTube link allowing us to watch all of the film's title sequences while listening to the themes.

I'm not sure I agree with all of Drew's rankings--he puts Nancy Sinatra's steamy rendition of "You Only Live Twice" (covered not so long ago by Coldplay) at No. 1, which strikes me as a bit high. But puzzling over the entire Bond aesthetic is half of the fun of playing the game. I agree with Drew that the new Jack White-Alicia Keys theme, "Another Way to Die," is, well, dreadful, almost as bad as Madonna's dreary "Die Another Day" and Garbage's dismal "The World Is Not Enough." On the plus side, I'd forgotten how good Tina Turner sounds on "GoldenEye" (co-written by Bono and the Edge) or how classic Carly Simon's "Nobody Does It Better" feels today, perhaps because it was co-written by the one and only Marvin Hamlisch, who's still enough of a brand name to get name-checked in "Role Models."

Anyway, go see for yourself--and don't miss the wonderfully kitschy title sequence from "On Her Majesty's Secret Service." As for my favorite theme? If you must know, I'm going with Tom Jones' brassy gals-toss-your-panties-on-stage version of "Thunderball." But don't take my word for it. Watch it for yourself:

Photo of Eunice Gayson and Sean Connery in "Dr. No" from UPI

If you hang around Hollywood long enough, you learn not to believe everything you read in the trades. Still, it was pretty exciting to see the news this week that the indefatigable producer Avi Lerner had wooed Brett Ratner into directing Lerner's upcoming remake of "Conan," the iconic 1982 film that helped launch Arnold Schwarzenegger's long run as a Hollywood action hero. According to the original Hollywood Reporter headline, Ratner had committed to the project, though its latest version was a bit more circumspect, saying he was in "final negotiations" to do the film after working with the screenwriters, who were doing a quick polish to "incorporate" some of Ratner's ideas. The blogosphere wasn't quite so discerning, with some Web outlets simply saying that Ratner was "officially directing" the film.

One of Hollywood's most persuasive salesman, Lerner told me this morning that Ratner was the perfect director. "He has the passion and feeling for this project--he even wrote a story about Conan when he was 10 years old," Lerner explained. "He understands the character, he analyzed the script really well. He knows how to make this a really big movie. I like his childlike enthusiasm--he almost sees these movies as wonderful toys. What can I say, he's a nice, likable Jewish boy."

Lerner acknowledged that even though he sent out a press release announcing Ratner's involvement with the project, the deal wasn't actually done. "We still have a few obstacles," he said. "Brett is only committed if we agree on a budget, on how to do the special effects and exactly where we'd shoot the film." Lerner has a studio in Bulgaria, so he'd like to shoot most of the movie there, with some exterior work in China.

But is Ratner actually committed to doing the film? In two words: Not really. When I called him today, he sounded somewhat agitated, unhappy that news of his negotiations with Lerner had surfaced, especially since he is extremely close to getting a green light from Paramount to make "Beverly Hills Cop 4." "Let me make this very clear," he told me. "I am not doing 'Conan' now. This is totally premature. For now, 'Conan' is only a development deal. I have a deal at Paramount and I'm doing 'Beverly Hills Cop' first, no matter what. Avi shouldn't be telling you or anyone else in the press what I'm doing."

So what happened here? And how did Avi get the rights to "Conan" in the first place? Keep reading:

The blogosphere has been full of breathless tales that Baz Luhrmann has been forced to dump the unhappy ending he filmed for "Australia," his $130-million adventure epic (due out later this month) that stars Hugh Jackman and Nicole Kidman. Australia's Sunday Telegraph reports that 20th Century Fox executives forced Luhrmann to add a more upbeat ending after the film had "disastrous reviews" at early test screenings. Is it really possible that Fox would bully Luhrmann, a final-cut director, into giving his movie a happier ending?

Even though we've had some heated disagreements in recent months about my coverage of his studio, Fox Co-Chairman Tom Rothman graciously agreed to have lunch with me today at the Fox commissary, where we did see eye-to-eye on one important matter--it was very cool to be sitting two tables away from the legendary Hong Kong action movie star Chow Yun-Fat. (What he was doing at Fox was something of a mystery, since Rothman said he wasn't making a movie with the actor.) So what about "Australia"? Was there any truth to the Sunday Telegraph story?

"Everything in that story was patently nonsensical," Rothman said. "It's all too typical of the way the world works today that everybody picked up an unsourced, anonymous quote-filled story in a tabloid from Sydney and nobody ever bothered to check to see if it was accurate. The facts are--Baz is a final-cut director and we never pressured him in any way, shape or form. He wrote the movie, shot it and cut it all himself without any interference from us at all."

Rothman said that the movie "has probably had seven different endings at one time or another, none of them easily characterized as happy or sad." He said Luhrmann chose the ending the director thought worked best for the film. "But you couldn't possibly characterize the ending as happy or sad," he told me. "I'd call it deeply satisfying but that's because it's very complex. In fact, you could have a long conversation about whether it's happy or sad, which is actually part of what makes it a great movie."

I can't wait to see the film. And I couldn't agree more with Rothman about the gall of the Sunday Telegraph relying on such shoddy reporting. Maybe Tom can use his influence to improve the quality of journalism Down Under. All he has to do is pick up the phone, since the Telegraph is owned by ... his boss, Rupert Murdoch.

Photo of Hugh Jackman and Nicole Kidman in "Australia"  from Twentieth Century Fox / AFP / Getty Images

If you're like me, always hanging around producers, managers and agents, you frequently hear them groaning about the latest nutty studio rule dealing with the movies the studio will never, ever, ever make again. With "Soul Men" having tanked this weekend, it's a good bet that some studio chief somewhere is grumbling, "I don't want to ever see another script about soul singers!" (That dictum probably extends to college football players who get leukemia after the failure of "The Express" last month.)

Studio bosses do tend to make certain blanket pronouncements. Fox's Tom Rothman thinks sci-fi comedies are box-office poison, one key reason why he wouldn't make "Used Guys," a Jay Roach-directed sci-fi comedy that would have starred Ben Stiller and Jim Carrey (and cost a ton of money). Nikki Finke reported last year that after the failure of several female-starring comedies, Warners production chief Jeff Robinov told three different producers that WB was "no longer doing movies with women in the lead"--in fact, he supposedly didn't even want to see a script with a woman in a leading role. Everyone in town was talking about that one for weeks, even though I see that Warners is releasing a Cameron Diaz movie next spring ("The Box"), which didn't start filming till long after the supposed ban on female stars. So maybe Robinov had second thoughts--or never really said it in the first place.

I was reminded of all this the other day when an agent told me that they'd heard that Disney had put out the word that they didn't want to make any movies with young protagonists, which must mean really young protagonists, since the "High School Musical" series is such a box-office bonanza. So when I was having lunch with Sony chief Amy Pascal on Friday, I asked her--do you guys really say this stuff? Do you have crazy phobias too?

She laughed. "We all probably say things like that, but it's in the heat of the moment--everyone says things they don't really mean. So if there's a really young executive in a meeting and they hear you say something, even though you almost didn't mean it the minute it came out of your mouth, they sometimes take it seriously, when they should probably do what you do, which is forget all about it five minutes later."

But has she, in the heat of the moment, made crazy pronouncements too, like not wanting to make a movie whose title starts with the letter X? "I did say--I hate movies that begin with a bet," Pascal admits. "It's a bad idea, because it usually means that it's a fake story that revolves around a gimmick. But on the other hand, someone made 'My Fair Lady' and it was great. Rules are oversimplifications, which are bad no matter how you look at it. It would be like my saying, 'I'm so sick of Iraq movies, so I don't ever want to see another script about Iraq.' But that's just my reaction in the moment. Someone will make a phenomenal movie about Iraq and everyone's attitude will change."

According to Pascal, people simply overinterpret offhanded remarks. "I really don't think any studio has those kinds of rules. How could they? You have to open to hearing crazy, surprising ideas. One minute you have one of those rules, the next minute you'd want to break it."

Photo of Amy Pascal by Sony Pictures Entertainment

Sam Moore, the sole surviving half of soul legends Sam & Dave, is claiming that "Soul Men," which stars Samuel L. Jackson and Bernie Mac as long-estranged R&B backup singers who reunite for a last concert, is a rip-off of his life story. According to a story in the Independent today, Moore says the film--due out this weekend--is a "defamatory account" of a reunion he and the late Dave Prater attempted to pull off in 1982 after not speaking for several years. Moore claims the film has "bastardized" his life story, saying the comedy is "sexist, racist and embarrassing and that's not what Sam & Dave were about. It's so amateurish, so stupid and I'm surprised that Samuel L. Jackson is involved in this.... When you read the script, all you see is vulgarity. Every other word is the N-word or M-f and it's just not right."

Apparently Moore hasn't been going to the movies much lately, since there's nothing in "Soul Men" that's any more vulgar than the scatological jokes in "Zach and Miri Make a Porno" or the nauseating violence in "Saw 5," both of which just opened over the weekend. But does he have a point? Is "Soul Men" really a thinly disguised version of the Sam & Dave story? No way, says "Soul Men" producer David Friendly. "Our whole movie is a fiction, from start to finish," he told me. "We never got any life rights from anyone at any time because this was completely an invention. I'm a big-enough fan of Sam & Dave to know that it's a preposterous charge, since Sam & Dave were headliners, while our guys are backup singers."

Friendly laughed. "We haven't heard anything from the Pips [Gladys Knight's backup singers.] They'd at least have a stronger argument." Friendly said that he was asked to develop the project as a vehicle for Jackson and Mac, who wanted to work together in a comedy. He knew he had a hook for a movie when one of the film's writers posed the question--what if Bernie and Sam were backup singers who hadn't spoken in 30 years? The project was originally at New Regency, and then at New Line before ending up at the Weinstein Co., which is releasing the film through MGM this weekend.

Friendly said that, by coincidence, his offices were in the same building in Beverly Hills that housed Stax Records. "I literally took the elevator up one floor and talked to them about using wall-to-wall Stax music, which is how we came to license the music from them." Moore's lawyers are saying the Weinstein Co. has abused Moore's "Soul Man" trademark and are exploiting his reputation in order to make some dough. The Weinsteins' attorney, the always ferocious Bert Fields, insists Moore has no case, saying the movie tells a different story about different people. As Fields told the Independent: "If Mr. Moore decides to file a lawsuit, he will lose."

I'm no lawyer, but having seen the movie, I think Sam should rethink his position. The movie isn't racist, unless you want to contend that every Eddie Murphy and Chris Tucker comedy ever made is racist. It isn't more sexist than a thousand other Hollywood films. And guess what--it's pretty funny, largely thanks to some great chemistry between Jackson and Mac, who receives a nice, heartfelt tribute at the end of the film. As for the charge of unauthorized borrowing, someone should phone up Neil Simon. If the movie steals from anyone, it's from "The Sunshine Boys," which, as anyone could tell you, is stealing from the best.

See for yourself:

Photo of Bernie Mac and Samuel L. Jackson in "Soul Men" by Doug Hyun / The Weinstein Co.

Will white folks go to movie theaters to see black folks in a movie without any big white stars? That was the question some of us in the media were all asking before the release of "The Secret Life of Bees" earlier this month. Most old-fashioned movie marketers had said--not likely, based on past experience and long-held attitudes about white moviegoers. Some marketers cited the "Bradley Effect," the controversial analysis of a Tom Bradley 1982 election defeat in the California gubernatorial election where he'd led in polling before the election, prompting pundits to blame the loss on white voters who didn't tell pollsters how they really intended to vote. 

But guess what? "Bees" has quietly emerged as a minor hit, now projected to pass the $30-million mark at the box office. And as my colleague John Horn reports, it's doing even better in theaters catering to white moviegoers than in traditionally African American theaters. What gives? Here's John's report:

Fox Searchlight was confident that African American moviegoers would turn up for "The Secret Life of Bees," whose cast includes Queen Latifah, Jennifer Hudson and Alicia Keys. But the studio and the film's makers worried that white audiences, even after they embraced the bestselling Sue Monk Kidd novel on which the film was based, might stay away when the film premiered on Oct. 17.  After two weeks of release, it's clear that white ticket buyers are not only showing up for "Bees" but also are becoming the film's most loyal audience.

Last weekend, the film grossed more at Pacific's The Grove Stadium 14 than it did at the AMC Magic Johnson Crenshaw 15. In the rest of the country, theaters catering to black moviegoers reported strong opening weekend "Bee" sales but suffered steep declines last weekend. It's consistent with how movies with strong African American appeal--including Tyler Perry's efforts--tend to perform. For example, "Bee's" grosses at Georgia's AMC Southlake Pavilion 24 fell more than 61% last weekend, and sales at Maryland's Regal Bowie Crossing Cinema 14 collapsed almost as badly.

But in theaters that tend to cater to white audiences, support remained much stronger.  "Bee" sales at Oregon's Regal Cinemas Bridgeport Village Stadium 18 were down just 32.1%, and grosses at Northern California's Century 14 Downtown Walnut Creek dropped less than 18%. With total ticket sales of more than $21 million, "The Secret Life of Bees" will never catch "Beverly Hills Chihuahua." But "Bees" is not suffering from any "Bradley Effect" discrimination, and the very thing that scares off potential studio backing--an almost entirely black cast--has shown to be not a liability at all.

Photo of Queen Latifah, Jennifer Hudson and Alicia Keys in "The Secret Life of Bees" by Sidney Baldwin / Fox Searchlight

Since there's never been any doubt that Joaquin Phoenix was one of Hollywood's great modern-day eccentrics, it's hard to entirely take seriously the news that he has suddenly vowed to quit acting. After all, the oddball actor is always saying strange things. Working the press line at a fancy premiere for "Walk the Line," Phoenix asked a reporter, "Do I have a large frog in my hair?" When the reporter said no, Joaquin asked a new question: "Is there something crawling out of my scalp?" And how about this red-carpet story: Phoenix wrecked his car and was rescued by none other than ... Werner Herzog!

So I'm guessing the odds are pretty slim that Phoenix will stick to this pledge. Whatever has sidetracked him--playing in a cool band, learning how to cook, figuring out how to spot the moons of Jupiter without a telescope--will soon lose its appeal and he'll be back in action. But his pledge did spark the following idea: Who would make my list of the Top Ten actors we would like to see quit acting? (WARNING -- I'M JUST HAVING FUN HERE):

Click through to read my list, but please do feel free to offer your own suggestions:

When I was at an early screening of the upcoming comedy "Role Models" the other night, I found myself thinking about the Academy Awards, wondering what I always wonder when I see a good new comedy: Why on Earth shouldn't the Oscars recognize good work in comedy the same way they do in drama, animation, cinematography, editing and all the other great movie crafts? Shockingly, comedy is so thoroughly ignored by Oscar voters that it's been more than 30 years (yes, count 'em--thirty) since a true comedy--Woody Allen's "Annie Hall"--won the Oscar for best picture.

To say this is a disgrace would be an understatement. I hate to bore you with a recitation of film history, but movies began as a comic medium. A generation of Americans grew up falling in love with the cinema, largely thanks to Charlie Chaplin, Buster Keaton and Harold Lloyd and a host of other inspired silent movie comics. A second generation of moviegoers survived the Great Depression, thanks to the wonderful screwball comedies of the 1930s, from "My Man Godfrey" to "The Awful Truth" to "It Happened One Night" to "Midnight," not to mention the great Marx Brothers and W.C. Fields movies of the period.

The comedies of the '30s remain the true pillar of movie art from that era, immensely watchable even today, as many of the dramas and gangster films of the period have lost much of their thrill and allure. Comedy often tells us more about our time than the most acclaimed drama. In fact, I'd argue that if future cultural historians wanted the best window into the contemporary mores of the early 21st century, they wouldn't find much help from most of our recent Oscar winners ("Crash" aside), which tend to be set in the past, looking back in time for lessons about earlier eras. For the best analysis of people's anxieties, quirks and fears in 2008, you'd start by watching Judd Apatow movies, which have more to say about our time than "Beverly Hills Chihuahua," James Bond or even thoughtful art films like "Atonement" or "There Will Be Blood."

Directed by David Wain, who did 2001's "Wet Hot American Summer," "Role Models," which is being released by Universal Pictures Nov. 7, has no weighty message to deliver. It's simply loaded with shrewd comedy writing and slyly funny performances. Penned by a quartet of writers, including Wain, the film's costar Paul Rudd, Ken Marino (who plays a comically clueless stepdad in the film) and original writer Timothy Dowling, it follows the misadventures of two mismatched young guys--Rudd and Seann William Scott--who find themselves forced to become mentors to a pair of unhappy young boys in a Big Brothers-style community service program.

The Apatow influence is inescapable, since the film is populated with various actors, starting with Rudd and costar Elizabeth Banks, who are best known for their work in Apatow films. The project has an intriguing history. It was originally at Fox, which put it in turnaround. Producer Mary Parent, now MGM's  production chief but then a producing partner with Scott Stuber, picked it up, believing it was a timely comic premise. "I loved the concept of these two guys--one of them totally cynical, the other completely living in his imagination--who were forced to learn how to step out of themselves and help other people."

How did "Role Models" survive the loss of its director, its title and still make it to the finish line? And will the motion picture academy ever create a comedy category to honor all the great comedies being made? Keep reading:

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?"   

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.

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.

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.

"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.

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    

After an early screening of "Who Do You Love," one of the--count 'em--two new movies about 1950s powerhouse blues label Chess Records, a pair of women sought out Marshall Chess, whose dad, Leonard, was the driving force behind the record label. They were puzzled about one of the key story lines in the film. "Did your mother and father really make up after your father had that torrid affair with that beautiful singer?" one of them asked.

Marshall rolled his eyes. "No, they didn't make up," he said, "because there never was an affair. The filmmakers made that part up." When it comes to making movies about real-life people, Hollywood rarely lets the truth get in the way of a good story. No one knows that better now that Marshall Chess, who served as a technical consultant on the two competing Chess Records films, but discovered that while the actors and filmmakers were happy to listen to his recollections, it hardly meant that they would stick to the truth when it came time to film his family's story. Marshall knows the story intimately, having been behind the bar at his father's nightclub as a boy, seen his father hustle DJs on road tours and worked at Chess Records as a teenager.

He's delighted to see two films dramatizing his family history, but he's ambivalent about the results. "I guess I have a love-hate relationship with the movies," he told me recently. "They capture the spirit and the music wonderfully, but the truth isn't always there." He's especially upset over how "Cadillac Records," a film that stars Beyonce as Etta James and Oscar-winner Adrien Brody as Leonard Chess, cuts Leonard's brother, Phil, the co-founder of the record company, entirely out of the movie.

"It's a horrible distortion of history," says Marshall. "They started the company together. My uncle Phil was there every day. He recorded a lot of the best music we did. It wouldn't have happened without him and it's a real insult to our family. When I asked the producers, they simply said his character didn't work [in the script], so they cut him out."

When it comes to cutting people out of the Chess story, the rival "Who Do You Love" film has its own issues. The biggest-selling artist in Chess history is Chuck Berry, but his character was cut out of the movie. Why? Because the filmmakers couldn't make a deal for the rights to his music. The film's producer, Les Alexander, explains: "We made Chuck a spectacularly generous offer, but he wouldn't let us have anything. Our director, Jerry Zaks, even sent him a genuine fan note, saying how much his music meant to him. But it didn't matter--the answer was no."

Berry, who is still active as a touring act, is notoriously difficult when it comes to business matters. When Taylor Hackford, who directed the wonderful Berry concert film "Hail! Hail! Rock and Roll," recently ran into the performer, the first words out of Berry's mouth were, "You still owe me money." Mos Def plays Berry in "Cadillac Records," which managed to acquire some Berry songs that are owned by Marshall Chess. But dealing with Berry was so unbelievably arduous that when I asked the film's producer, Sofia Sondervan, about working with him, she replied in a hushed tone: "I can't talk about it. I can't say anything about Chuck Berry at all."

The "Who Do You Love" filmmakers defend their decision to show Leonard having an affair with a Chess artist who is clearly based on Etta James. "The question you always ask yourself is--are you illuminating who they were or are you assassinating their character?" says Zaks. "For me, the affair represents part of the seduction of success, which is a big part of the conflict in the movie's story. We did our own research and it seems evident that Leonard was a womanizer. Even his brother Phil says he had numerous affairs."

The filmmakers had less leeway in portraying Willie Dixon, the now-deceased songwriter (played by Chi McBride) who wrote most of Chess' biggest hits. Producer Les Alexander says, "We were prohibited by his estate as portraying him as someone who drank or smoked or sweared." Nonetheless, the film shows Dixon having two wives, who begrudgingly share his time together. "The estate didn't prohibit that," Alexander says.

Both films depict Chess giving his top artists a Cadillac after they had big chart-topping hits. It's a way for the films to capture the back-door way business was handled in the early days of the record industry, since the artists rarely realized that the expense of buying a Cadillac was deducted from their royalty statements. Marshall says it was a pragmatic way to reward a top artist, noting that few of the bluesmen had bank accounts at the time. "Getting a Cadillac in those days was a top of the line thing to have," he explains. "My father bought a new Cadillac every year too, because he was just like his artists--he wanted people to know he was a successful man."

Marshall laughs. "I guess he'd be happy to see two movies coming out about him at the same time. He'd definitely consider that a symbol of success too."

When I was a kid, I spent a lot of time in Chicago, home of two great baseball teams, a host of colorful politicians and the best blues in the world. Back in the day, you weren't anyone in the blues world unless you were signed to Chess Records, the label that made stars out of a generation of rough and tumble musicians, notably Muddy Waters, Little Walter, Willie Dixon and Howlin' Wolf.

So when I was at the recent Toronto Film Festival, I made a point of seeing "Who Do You Love," which stars Alessandro Nivola and Jon Abrahams as Leonard and Phil Chess, two hard-nosed immigrant entrepreneurs who ended up creating Chess Records, the 1950s record label that popularized urban blues and later, with the arrival of Chuck Berry and Bo Diddley, ushered in a brash new form of rock 'n' roll that was adopted by the Rolling Stones, the Beatles and thousands of other young white rock artists.

After the screening, I ran into a film executive, who whispered in my ear, "Do you know that there's another one?" Puzzled, I said, "Another what?" He laughed. "Another movie about Chess Records."

I really thought he was joking, but it's true. Against all odds and sound commercial judgment, the same crazy movie business that once made two asteroid movies and two movies about Truman Capote has now made two movies about the obscure icons of 1950s Chicago blues. What are the odds?

The second Chess film, made by Sony BMG Films, is "Cadillac Records," which will be released Dec. 5 through Sony's TriStar Pictures. Produced by Sofia Sondervan and Andy Lack, Sony BMG's former chairman (who just took a new job running Bloomberg's multimedia operations), the film has considerably more star power than its rival, featuring Beyonce Knowles as Chess' top songstress, Etta James; Adrien Brody as Leonard Chess; Mos Def as Chuck Berry; and Jeffrey Wright as Muddy Waters.

It's probably a misnomer to call the two pictures rivals, since "Who Do You Love," despite earning some good notices in Toronto, remains a long shot to land a theatrical release. "Cadillac Records" will be out in 800 theaters, with a Beyonce single and a soundtrack to help attract attention. Still, the question remains--what are the odds of two 1950s blues movies being made at the same time?

The answer, as always, is that making a movie isn't exactly a rational decision--passion trumps pragmatism. Neither film came out of today's increasingly timid studio system, which wouldn't dream of risking any loot on such obscure subject matter. "Cadillac Records" was championed by Lack, the former head of NBC News who ran Sony Music before being kicked upstairs after its BMG merger. According to Sondervan, Lack's family is from the Mississippi Delta, where he grew up listening to the blues, which gave him a strong interest in the story. "Who Do You Love" was financed by Jonathan Mitchell, a wealthy real estate developer with a love for the blues and directed by Jerry Zaks, who remembers singing to R&B records as a boy in his family basement.

"I was always drawn to black music," recalls Zaks, a four-time Tony Award-winning Broadway theater  director. "When I was in fifth grade, I was convinced I was Marvin Gaye. I'd put on the records I loved, everything from Gaye and Johnny Nash to Muddy Waters and Bo Diddley, and sing to the records in front of the mirror. I think that music had a powerful impact on a whole generation of kids."

But those kids are all nearing retirement age today and not especially regular moviegoers. So who's going to turn out for these films? When I asked Sondervan what made her think a blues movie could make a dent in today's marketplace, she offered an honest answer. "I don't really know," she said. "All I know is that Beyonce has a huge young following and a lot of people will come see the movie just because she's in it." She added that Beyonce has designed a clothing line of dresses inspired by the fashions in the film that are being launched later this fall at Bloomingdale's. "All the young people we've shown the film to really loved it," she says. "The blues is coming back. It's getting played at a lot of trendy restaurants, so there's a lot of new awareness out there."

Hhmm. Like I said, making movies isn't always a rational decision. Will Beyonce fans want to see her as a troubled '50s blues diva? Angelina Jolie fans do show up when she's trading gunfire with Brad Pitt, but they didn't bother to come when she played Mariane Pearl in "A Mighty Heart." And George Clooney fans, who loved him in "Oceans Eleven," turned up their noses at "Leatherheads" and "The Good German."

Music biopics have a pretty spotty track record. Taylor Hackford's "Ray" was a surprise hit (though it was also independently financed outside the studio system). But "She's Not There," Todd Haynes' impressionistic Bob Dylan biopic, never found an audience, despite a raft of rave reviews. Even "Dreamgirls," the Bill Condon film loosely based on the Supremes, was a box-office disappointment.

The real challenge for films that re-create the lives of real characters is--how true to life are they? Sony hasn't screened "Cadillac Records" yet, but the person who knows the story best of all--Leonard's son, Marshall Chess, who served as a technical consultant on both projects--says both movies took some dramatic liberties with many of the characters' personal lives. Which film took the most liberties? Which actor came the closest to capturing his real-life character? And which movie ended up cutting Chuck Berry entirely out of the story? We'll have Part 2 of our post up soon, so stay tuned.

Photo: Beyonce Knowles as Etta James in "Cadillac Records": photo credit: Eric Liebowitz

The one thing you can count on in Hollywood is that when a studio makes a sudden or unexpected decision, it is almost guaranteed that the official reason for the move is a smoke screen for what's really going on. I'm guessing that's the case with Paramount's surprise announcement late Thursday that it's knocking "The Soloist" out of the awards season scrum, "dashing any hopes," to use Variety's melodramatic phrase, for the film to win any Academy Award accolades in 2008. The film is of particular interest to those of us here at the LA Times, since it is based on a series of gripping columns by our own Steve Lopez about his relationship with a homeless musician grappling with schizophrenia.

The film, which stars Robert Downey Jr. as Lopez and Jamie Foxx as the musician, was slated for release Nov. 21st, a prime slot for a potential year-end Oscar campaign. The film, produced by Dreamworks and co-financed by Participant Media and Universal's Working Title, has now been bumped to March 13th, 2009. Why? According to a story in the LA Times, Paramount executives said the current economic collapse "might have made November an awkward time to release a movie about homelessness."

That's the kind of whopper you'd only hear in Hollywood. I think the appropriate response to that would be--when exactly would be a good time to release a film about homelessness? Halloween? The Fourth of July? Having read the script and seen the film being shot, I'm guessing that only a studio disguising its real motives would call "The Soloist" a film about homelessness, when in fact, it's a male-bonding love story about a crusading newspaper reporter and a musician with a troubled soul.

Paramount apparently told its partners, as well as top CAA brass, who represent most of the talent on the picture, that the studio was under pressure from Viacom superiors to cut costs, having recently acknowledged that it was thinning out its future release schedule. With even Sumner Redstone being forced to sell stock to keep his investments afloat, the studio was forced to take drastic measures. With four potential Oscar movies slated for year-end release, something had to give. It certainly wasn't going to be "The Curious Case of Benjamin Button," an expensive and much-anticipated Brad Pitt and David Fincher collaboration that studio chief Brad Grey has already publicly embraced as his ticket to a front-row seat Feb. 22nd at the Kodak Theater. And it certainly wasn't going to be "Revolutionary Road," a Scott Rudin-produced literary drama with a star too big to offend (Leonardo DiCaprio) and the kind of rarified subject matter that desperately needs Oscar buzz to sell tickets.

That left the studio's Ed Zwick-directed drama, "Defiance," which is a long-shot for Oscars, but still enough of a contender that while it's being pushed back to late December, is still getting an Oscar qualifying run before going wide in January. That made "The Soloist" the low man on the totem pole, since it conceivably has enough commercial potential to make a dent at the box office in the spring without the benefit of any Oscar coattails. Since the film was produced by Dreamworks, which just concluded an ugly divorce with Paramount, the inside chatter has focused on the idea that Paramount is somehow punishing Dreamworks by robbing the departing Spielberg team of any Oscar glory.

If anyone at Variety actually asked Paramount about all these complicated twists and turns involving "The Soloist," they didn't bother to mention it in their story, which credulously quotes Paramount vice chairman Rob Moore as simply saying "We decided it's a commercial movie that will play well in the spring." Like I said, studio executives almost never give the real reason for their moves. If they did, Paramount would acknowledge the obvious: These moves aren't so much about saving money--which is small potatoes in terms of the giant outlays studio make these days--as focusing the studio's marketing machinery on its biggest potential cash cow.

Even though it co-financed the film with Warners, Paramount has a huge bet down on "Benjamin Button," which is the one movie here that could be both an enormous commercial and critical hit. The studio has clearly decided to clear the decks. It can't do anything about potential Oscar rivals from other studios, but it doesn't want to compete with itself. My guess is that the studio is being uncharacteristically pragmatic. In an era where studios release all their quality films in the same 10 week time period--I call it the Oscar demolition derby--Paramount has decided to create some breathing room for its strongest contender. Only in Oscar-crazed Hollywood, where everyone lives and dies by awards glory, is the decision to move a quality movie to the spring viewed as an ignominious death sentence. If "The Soloist" gets a good reception in March, it will survive and flourish. I wish some of the industry's hand-ringers would realize there is actually life after the Oscars.

My colleague John Horn has a story in Thursday's Calendar section that grapples with the always touchy question--why do white moviegoers shy away from movies with largely African American casts? "Amistad," Steven Spielberg's 1997 slavery epic, was his lowest-grossing movie in 20 years. Even "Ray," Taylor Hackford's Oscar-nominated musical biography of Ray Charles, drew an overwhelmingly black audience.

Will the same thing happen to "The Secret Life of Bees," a highbrow literary adaptation from an African American filmmaker (Gina Prince-Bythewood) that features a largely black female cast (Queen Latifah, Jennifer Hudson and Alicia Keys)? The film, distributed by Fox Searchlight, is going wide Friday in nearly 1,600 theaters, which means it will be playing in both suburban and urban neighborhoods. The book had a large white female following, but according to Horn, research shows that black moviegoers are showing roughly twice as much interest in seeing the film as whites.

Horn raises an intriguing political parallel:

"Pundits and election strategists have been deliberating feverishly whether white voters who tell interviewers they intend to vote for Sen. Barack Obama for president will really do so once they enter the polling booth. While the discrepancy known as the Bradley effect (named after former Los Angeles mayor Tom Bradley's 1982 loss in the California gubernatorial election, in which he consistently led in polling) may prove to be a minor factor in the year's presidential race, it is still a prominent concern within Hollywood, as movies made by and with African Americans often struggle to attract white supporters, both at the box office and within the studio's executive offices."

The first 'Benjamin Button' screening: Abort! Abort!

A bunch of us were crowded in an elevator at the Directors Guild, heading down to the parking lot last night after the first screening of "The Curious Case of Benjamin Button," David Fincher's much-anticipated epic portrait of a man--played by Brad Pitt--whose life unfolds in, well, the wrong direction. Everyone had a strong opinion of the movie--"It was great!" one guy said. "It stunk!" said another. "Oscars all around!" someone else chimed in.

Alas, we were all joking. It was gallows humor time. About 25 minutes into the 2 1/2 hour film, the screening was aborted. Apparently cinematographer Claudio Miranda (who's worked as a gaffer on nearly all of Fincher's films) noticed with growing horror that one of the digital projector's color channels was out of whack, producing a washed-out image. Not that anyone around me noticed a thing, mind you, all of us assuming that if the film had a slightly pale look, knowing Fincher's fondness for visual trickery, it was surely intentional. But it wasn't. After spending nearly half an hour making adjustments and trying to reboot the computer, the Paramount staff threw up their hands and canceled the screening.

I can only imagine the backstage drama. Having to pull the plug on your film's first screening is sort of like being at the opening night of a swank new Peter Morton restaurant, with all the critics and glittering guests at the tables, only to discover that the oven isn't working. Miranda was the unlucky person who had to phone Fincher, a notoriously prickly perfectionist, with the bad news. But kudos to Paramount PR exec David Waldman, who was unbelievably cool under fire. He ordered the catering staff to serve as much food and drink as possible, which seemed to quiet the potentially riotous crowd of parched critics and writers milling around in the DGA lobby.

Paramount will take another shot at screening the film Saturday at noon and 6 p.m. Maybe the computer will be more cooperative the second time around. After seeing the first 25 minutes, I'm ready to jump back into the pool. But judging from this post at Sproutblog, Karina Longworth--who saw the entire film at an earlier screening--is not eager to put her bathing suit on again. 

Photo of Taraji P. Henson, left, and Brad Pitt in "The Curious Case of Benjamin Button" from Paramount Pictures   

Nothing is sweeter than seeing a movie on the Fox lot at the Darryl Zanuck Theater, its vast expanse allowing your imagination to run wild, conjuring up all the hits and flops that have unspooled there, inflaming the ego or crushing the spirit of generations of studio executives. It wasn't quite so glamorous at 9:30 this morning, waiting for the first big screening of Baz Luhrmann's "Australia" to begin. Much of the audience was made up of lowly media types and beleaguered critics, so most of the small-talk before hand focused on the low-level depression that hovers like a dark cloud, with each new week bringing news of more friends or colleagues who've either lost their jobs or are worried about the next round of layoffs at our various publications.

I was hoping Baz's movie would serve as a much-needed escape. I was not disappointed. I'll leave the reviews to the critics--you can read another mixed notice from Australia here--but after experiencing such an ambitious piece of work, it's impossible to refrain from making some observations.

It's pretty obvious that "Australia" works best if you can imagine it as a musical. It brims with all sorts of grand melodrama and oversize emotion that would feel, well, hopelessly cornball if you're not willing to embrace the material with the same childlike abandon you felt when you first saw "Brigadoon" or "Singin' in the Rain." In Luhrmann's hands, even the desolate outback, the main setting for the film, feels like a giant painted-desert studio set. Watching a thrilling cattle drive that dominates the earlier part of the 165-minute film, you feel like you're watching a western directed by Vincente Minnelli, with all the dirt and dust accompanied by soaring tracking shots, a booming musical score and blood-red sunsets. It is a film filled with both extravagant artifice and gripping social commentary--one of the key subplots involves an Aboriginal boy in danger of being taken from his home and forcibly thrown into government care. Talking to some viewers afterward, it was clear their reaction were colored by how much they could handle the clash between those two sensibilities.

As with all Luhrmann movies, "Australia" operates on several different layers, the most obvious being the fact that it is a story about storytelling, or as Hugh Jackman says early in the picture: "The only thing you can own is your story--you just hope that it's a good one." Luhrmann weaves his postmodernist style with the simplicity of Aboriginal life, where having a story is a huge part of their spiritual world. "Australia" also has a movie within the movie, "The Wizard of Oz," the big hit of the day, which is seen playing at a Darwin movie house, with Oz's fantasy world, spirit of adventure and yearning for home serving as a commentary on "Australia's" own narrative.

The movie's story is unabashedly old-fashioned, seemingly cobbled together from a hundred other movies. Nicole Kidman is a transplanted English aristocrat who takes over her husband's spread in the Northern Territory. Hugh Jackman is a rough-hewn drover, a cattle driver who loves the freedom of the open range. Brandon Walters plays the young Aboriginal boy who develops an intense bond with both Kidman and Jackman. Bryan Brown is the villain of the piece, a ruthless cattle baron who'll stop at nothing to wrest away Kidman's land. If it sounds a bit cliched, it is. In fact, the movie is full of cliches, from the kindly drunk to the thuggish ranch hand to the uptight city slicker to the gruff, lone-wolf hero.

If you've seen a lot of John Ford westerns, you'll feel right at home. The bad guys do what all bad guys do on cattle drives--they stampede the cattle and poison the water hole. At night, people sing around the campfire and volunteer hidden yearning after they've had too much to drink. On the other hand, like Ford, Luhrmann uses these conventions to capture the bigger, more mythical sweep of his country's history. Even if the movie often treads on too familiar ground, you feel as if you're in the hands of a powerful storyteller, someone intent on finding the humanity and the healing power in retracing his country's history. "Australia" certainly reminds us that Luhrmann is a one-of-a-kind filmmaker. "Australia" is ambitious, perhaps too ambitious for its own good, but you'd never accuse its director of resting on his laurels.       

Photo of Baz Lurhmann by Carolyn Cole / Los Angeles Times

When producer Zvi Howard Rosenman arrived at the academy screening of "Milk" last week, he found someone occupying his reserved seat--Jack Nicholson. The actor ended up sitting right behind Rosenman. When the film was over, Nicholson leaned forward, tapped Rosenman on the shoulder and said, "Boy, oh boy, you did a good job." Having produced dozens of films over the years--from "The Main Event" to "Buffy the Vampire Slayer" to "Family Man"--Rosenman is used to accepting accolades at movie premieres.

But Rosenman had a totally new role in "Milk," as an actor, not a producer. He makes his debut playing David Goodstein, a powerful, self-made businessman who, as publisher of the San Francisco-based Advocate, helped turn a flimsy sex-ad publication into the Time magazine of the gay universe. "Goodstein was a kingmaker," Rosenman told me the other day. "He was basically the David Geffen of San Francisco. If you were involved in gay politics in that era, he was the grand poobah, the go-to guy."

As we learn in "Milk," Goodstein viewed Harvey Milk as an uncontrollable activist, as someone who was pushing for change, too much, too soon. "Goodstein wanted to work through the system, not outside it," Rosenman explains. "Harvey needed his endorsement when he was running for supervisor, but Goodstein saw Harvey as too radical, too flamboyant. They had a very contentious, complicated relationship."

Although Rosenman had never acted before, he knew "Milk" casting director Francine Maisler, who--working with "Milk" director Gus Van Sant--had been putting a lot of real-life people into parts in the film. "When they were trying to cast Goodstein, Francine said to Gus, 'We need someone who looks like Howard Rosenman, who talks like him and who has his size.' I think all Gus said was, 'Well, can he act?' Francine called me and asked if I had any experience and I told her that I'd done 'My Fair Lady' when I was 14 at a Hebrew student camp."

Even before he was cast, Rosenman started thinking like an actor. "My next words to Francine were, 'So, who am I up against?' " The competition was stiff--Van Sant had already seen the likes of Richard Schiff and Tom Hulce. Rosenman was nervous about having to audition, but he says that his best friend, the Endeavor agent Brian Swardstrom, persuaded him this was too important an opportunity to pass up. "So I did two takes with Francine, she looked at the tape and said, 'I'm recommending you to Gus.' And I got the part."

When Rosenman arrived in San Francisco for the film shoot, he realized his biggest challenge lay ahead--here he was, a novice actor, about to play several scenes opposite Sean Penn. What was it like? 

 

In my mind's eye, I see Peter Bart standing outside Campanile, holding one of those cardboard signs you see in the hands of homeless men on street corners, except the Variety editor, being a good editor, has slightly reworked the message: "Will Work for Food Oscar Ads." That was the essential point of Bart's column in today's Variety--why hasn't everyone jumped into the pool, frolicking in the annual rites of Oscar overkill? As Bart put it: "Oscar '08 may go down as the year of the Great Non-Race."

By this time last year, according to Bart, the studios had sent him 24 movie screeners. This year: Three. I only read Variety online, so I asked a studio marketing chief to leaf through today's edition and count up the number of ads. It was sobering. The only studio in the pool was Warners, who took out a double-truck ad for "The Dark Knight," the studio presumably having made so much money on the film that it wants to give some of it away to a needy trade publication (or more likely, to impress director Chris Nolan so he'll consider making a lucrative sequel). The rest of the issue had a half-page ad for a Polish film, a quarter-page ad for a film from Taiwan and a third-page ad for "Last Chance Harvey."

That was it. The studio marketer told me that at this point in time three years ago, Variety would've had at least 10 or 12 pages of studio ads. Why the drop-off? Anyone paying attention to the outside world knows we're in the midst of a hideous global economic recession, with corporate profits plunging, the biggest U.S. carmakers teetering on the brink of bankruptcy and tens of thousands of everyday Joes being laid off from their jobs. But Bart, like most Hollywood insiders, lives a life of privilege, putting those nice Campanile lunches on his expense account. So when he hears that GE's hurting or Sony's having a tough time, his reaction? "Hankies, please."

Desperate to drum up some business, Bart asks the rhetorical question: "Are the studios hanging the talent out to dry? Films like 'Milk," 'Doubt' or 'Frost/Nixon' need award nominations to find a mainstream audience." He even recruits Harvey Weinstein, the great Oscar showman of years past, to give Bart a money quote, with Harvey saying "If you don't pay for that big upfront Oscar campaign, you end up paying at the box office."

I managed to track Harvey down to ask him point-blank: Isn't is actually entirely appropriate for media conglomerates to cut back on Oscar ads in the middle of a horrific recession? Won't the best movies get plenty of nominations anyway? His response: "No one has shown me yet that you'll get the nominations unless you spend the money in the trades," he says. "It certainly hasn't worked for me so far. We had years where we spent less on Oscar ads and left it to serendipity and it didn't work. Oscar advertising makes a real difference in these kind of movies' commercial success. I mean, where do we stop? Should we be getting rid of all of the Oscar PR people too? Oscar ads just make economic sense." (Harvey, I'll be counting up all your full-page "Reader" ads from now on to see if you put your money where your mouth is.)

Bart calls Weinstein's support for big Oscar campaigns sage advice. I call it outdated and ill-advised. When people are losing their jobs left and right, it's frivolous, not to mention nauseatingly narcissistic, for studios to be tossing away millions of dollars on Oscar campaigns when that money could be better spent in a thousand different ways. Imagine how you'd feel if you were one of the hundreds of employees that's been laid off at a media conglomerate, only to see that your company's film division still has plenty of dough left to run Oscar ads in Variety or the New York Times or my newspaper.

What really worries Bart is the prospect of someone getting an Oscar nomination without spending a dime on an Oscar campaign. It would be a big blow to his bottom line, but it would be a giant step forward in studio accounting--the kind of accounting that puts a priority on good judgment, not on the costly and trivial pursuit of silly prizes. 

Photo of Harvey Weinstein from the Associated Press

Up until now, Summit Entertainment hasn't exactly set the movie world on fire. Run by veteran sales agent Patrick Wachsberger and former Paramount vice chairman Rob Friedman, the new indie distributor and finance company has struggled to prove that it can compete with the studio behemoths in the marketplace. Of its five releases, only one, the mixed martial arts film "Never Back Down," was a modest success, grossing about $25 million in the U.S. The company's most recent release, the teen comedy "Sex Drive," was a bomb, making barely $8 million after opening on nearly 2,500 screens.

But Summit has an amazing ace up its sleeve--"Twilight." If you know a teenager, I need not say more. If you don't, the sound you hear in the distance is the approaching pop culture tsunami. Written by Stephenie Meyer, "Twilight" is the first in a series of enormously popular vampire love stories that are now poised to spawn one of the hottest Hollywood literary franchises since "Harry Potter." Directed by Catherine Hardwicke ("13" and "Lords of Dogtown"), "Twilight" arrives on 5,500 screens this Friday, with the industry already abuzz with reports about spectacular advance ticket sales. During the past few weeks I've been hearing from studio marketing chiefs, who all seem in awe of the word-of-mouth groundswell for the film.

When the film's young stars, Kristen Stewart and Robert Pattinson, showed up at Comic-Con last July, they were greeted by Beatlemania-style screams. Last week 10,000 kids showed up at a mall in Dallas to mob them. They've been on the cover of Entertainment Weekly and a variety of teen tabloids as well as all over MTV. (Here's our dispatch earlier this year from the film set.) But what's amazing is that one of Hollywood's biggest studios had the project for years and simply let it go. "Twilight" was originally at Paramount's MTV Films, which spent nearly two years trying to develop the picture before the studio put the project in turnaround. A second studio, Fox Atomic, also passed on the project before it came Summit's way.

It wasn't as if "Twilight's" teen appeal was exactly a secret. The second novel in Meyer's series, "New Moon," debuted at No. 5 on the New York Times bestseller list for children's books when it was released in 2006. It hit No. 1 the following week and remained in the top position for 11 straight weeks. The fourth installment, "Breaking Dawn," sold 1.3 million copies in its first day of release. The entire series has now sold 8.5 million copies in the U.S., more than 17 million copies worldwide.

So how did this budding literary phenomenon practically drop in Summit's lap? Keep reading:

 

When I had lunch with John Hamburg the other day, the writer-director of the upcoming comedy "I Love You, Man" appeared full of anxiety, something of a natural condition I suspect, since judging from his work, he is the poet laureate of comic anxiety. (Best known in the business as Ben Stiller's in-house writer, Hamburg's writing credits include "Meet the Parents," "Zoolander" and "Meet the Fockers" as well as serving as the writer-director of "Along Came Polly.") The problem at hand was pretty clear. His new film, which stars Paul Rudd, Jason Segal and Jamie Pressly, had the perfect title and he desperately wanted to keep it.

After all, what else would you call a comedy about a loner engaged to a nice girl who suddenly realizes that he has no male friend to be his best man--and proceeds to go out on a series of male dates, hoping to find the right guy? I mean, doesn't "I Love You, Man" say it all? Hamburg thought so too. So did DreamWorks, which produced the film (which is being distributed by Paramount). There was just one snag. 20th Century Fox had a film coming out at roughly the same time next spring called "I Love You Beth Cooper." And if there were ever a studio that would attempt to copyright the phrase "I Love You," it would be Fox.

So even though Hamburg had done a lot of work at Fox, including some key rewrites on the studio's mega-hit "Night at the Museum," he was worried. And rightfully so. After all, it was DreamWorks who had a Farrelly brothers comedy called "The Seven Day Itch," loosely based on 1972's "The Heartbreak Kid." At least it was called that until Fox challenged the title, claiming the movie could be confused with the 1955 Billy Wilder film "The Seven Year Itch." (I only wish Wilder were still alive, since surely he'd have a great quip about the logic of how you'd confuse a 50-year-old Marilyn Monroe movie with a Farrelly brothers comedy.) Fox was so fiercely committed to protecting its title that studio Co-Chairman Tom Rothman personally went before the MPAA title arbitration board to plead the studio's case--and won on appeal, forcing DreamWorks to change its title to "The Heartbreak Kid." (The movie flopped.)

"I have to admit I don't have a real fall-back position," Hamburg told me over lunch. "I have a list of other titles in my office and they're all terrible. 'I Love You, Man' is so good because it's a phrase that's in the culture. It symbolizes the way men talk to each other, especially the 'comma' and the 'man.' And the whole subtext of the phrase really plays out in the movie. I dunno--isn't 'I love you' a pretty common phrase? It seems like I've heard it in movie titles before."

So does this story have a happy ending? Did Fox put the screws to Hamburg or did the studio make him an offer he couldn't refuse? Keep reading:

When I was young and fancy free, I once went out with a girl whose major criteria for granting a guy a second date (and trust me when I say there was always a long line of potential grant recipients) was whether we could offer a persuasive answer to the question: What is your favorite James Bond theme song? (I could identify--in high school, I once bailed on a girl after it became apparent that I was going to be subjected to a steady stream of Cat Stevens and Three Dog Night songs from her LP collection.)

But I digress. Outside of arguing over who's the best baseball player or the worst president of all time, what could be more emotionally satisfying than debating the merits of the amazing array of James Bond theme songs? So kudos to Drew Kerr at TotalMusicGeek, who came up with the great idea of doing a Top 20 ranking of the themes--along with a YouTube link allowing us to watch all of the film's title sequences while listening to the themes.

I'm not sure I agree with all of Drew's rankings--he puts Nancy Sinatra's steamy rendition of "You Only Live Twice" (covered not so long ago by Coldplay) at No. 1, which strikes me as a bit high. But puzzling over the entire Bond aesthetic is half of the fun of playing the game. I agree with Drew that the new Jack White-Alicia Keys theme, "Another Way to Die," is, well, dreadful, almost as bad as Madonna's dreary "Die Another Day" and Garbage's dismal "The World Is Not Enough." On the plus side, I'd forgotten how good Tina Turner sounds on "GoldenEye" (co-written by Bono and the Edge) or how classic Carly Simon's "Nobody Does It Better" feels today, perhaps because it was co-written by the one and only Marvin Hamlisch, who's still enough of a brand name to get name-checked in "Role Models."

Anyway, go see for yourself--and don't miss the wonderfully kitschy title sequence from "On Her Majesty's Secret Service." As for my favorite theme? If you must know, I'm going with Tom Jones' brassy gals-toss-your-panties-on-stage version of "Thunderball." But don't take my word for it. Watch it for yourself:

Photo of Eunice Gayson and Sean Connery in "Dr. No" from UPI

If you hang around Hollywood long enough, you learn not to believe everything you read in the trades. Still, it was pretty exciting to see the news this week that the indefatigable producer Avi Lerner had wooed Brett Ratner into directing Lerner's upcoming remake of "Conan," the iconic 1982 film that helped launch Arnold Schwarzenegger's long run as a Hollywood action hero. According to the original Hollywood Reporter headline, Ratner had committed to the project, though its latest version was a bit more circumspect, saying he was in "final negotiations" to do the film after working with the screenwriters, who were doing a quick polish to "incorporate" some of Ratner's ideas. The blogosphere wasn't quite so discerning, with some Web outlets simply saying that Ratner was "officially directing" the film.

One of Hollywood's most persuasive salesman, Lerner told me this morning that Ratner was the perfect director. "He has the passion and feeling for this project--he even wrote a story about Conan when he was 10 years old," Lerner explained. "He understands the character, he analyzed the script really well. He knows how to make this a really big movie. I like his childlike enthusiasm--he almost sees these movies as wonderful toys. What can I say, he's a nice, likable Jewish boy."

Lerner acknowledged that even though he sent out a press release announcing Ratner's involvement with the project, the deal wasn't actually done. "We still have a few obstacles," he said. "Brett is only committed if we agree on a budget, on how to do the special effects and exactly where we'd shoot the film." Lerner has a studio in Bulgaria, so he'd like to shoot most of the movie there, with some exterior work in China.

But is Ratner actually committed to doing the film? In two words: Not really. When I called him today, he sounded somewhat agitated, unhappy that news of his negotiations with Lerner had surfaced, especially since he is extremely close to getting a green light from Paramount to make "Beverly Hills Cop 4." "Let me make this very clear," he told me. "I am not doing 'Conan' now. This is totally premature. For now, 'Conan' is only a development deal. I have a deal at Paramount and I'm doing 'Beverly Hills Cop' first, no matter what. Avi shouldn't be telling you or anyone else in the press what I'm doing."

So what happened here? And how did Avi get the rights to "Conan" in the first place? Keep reading:

The blogosphere has been full of breathless tales that Baz Luhrmann has been forced to dump the unhappy ending he filmed for "Australia," his $130-million adventure epic (due out later this month) that stars Hugh Jackman and Nicole Kidman. Australia's Sunday Telegraph reports that 20th Century Fox executives forced Luhrmann to add a more upbeat ending after the film had "disastrous reviews" at early test screenings. Is it really possible that Fox would bully Luhrmann, a final-cut director, into giving his movie a happier ending?

Even though we've had some heated disagreements in recent months about my coverage of his studio, Fox Co-Chairman Tom Rothman graciously agreed to have lunch with me today at the Fox commissary, where we did see eye-to-eye on one important matter--it was very cool to be sitting two tables away from the legendary Hong Kong action movie star Chow Yun-Fat. (What he was doing at Fox was something of a mystery, since Rothman said he wasn't making a movie with the actor.) So what about "Australia"? Was there any truth to the Sunday Telegraph story?

"Everything in that story was patently nonsensical," Rothman said. "It's all too typical of the way the world works today that everybody picked up an unsourced, anonymous quote-filled story in a tabloid from Sydney and nobody ever bothered to check to see if it was accurate. The facts are--Baz is a final-cut director and we never pressured him in any way, shape or form. He wrote the movie, shot it and cut it all himself without any interference from us at all."

Rothman said that the movie "has probably had seven different endings at one time or another, none of them easily characterized as happy or sad." He said Luhrmann chose the ending the director thought worked best for the film. "But you couldn't possibly characterize the ending as happy or sad," he told me. "I'd call it deeply satisfying but that's because it's very complex. In fact, you could have a long conversation about whether it's happy or sad, which is actually part of what makes it a great movie."

I can't wait to see the film. And I couldn't agree more with Rothman about the gall of the Sunday Telegraph relying on such shoddy reporting. Maybe Tom can use his influence to improve the quality of journalism Down Under. All he has to do is pick up the phone, since the Telegraph is owned by ... his boss, Rupert Murdoch.

Photo of Hugh Jackman and Nicole Kidman in "Australia"  from Twentieth Century Fox / AFP / Getty Images

If you're like me, always hanging around producers, managers and agents, you frequently hear them groaning about the latest nutty studio rule dealing with the movies the studio will never, ever, ever make again. With "Soul Men" having tanked this weekend, it's a good bet that some studio chief somewhere is grumbling, "I don't want to ever see another script about soul singers!" (That dictum probably extends to college football players who get leukemia after the failure of "The Express" last month.)

Studio bosses do tend to make certain blanket pronouncements. Fox's Tom Rothman thinks sci-fi comedies are box-office poison, one key reason why he wouldn't make "Used Guys," a Jay Roach-directed sci-fi comedy that would have starred Ben Stiller and Jim Carrey (and cost a ton of money). Nikki Finke reported last year that after the failure of several female-starring comedies, Warners production chief Jeff Robinov told three different producers that WB was "no longer doing movies with women in the lead"--in fact, he supposedly didn't even want to see a script with a woman in a leading role. Everyone in town was talking about that one for weeks, even though I see that Warners is releasing a Cameron Diaz movie next spring ("The Box"), which didn't start filming till long after the supposed ban on female stars. So maybe Robinov had second thoughts--or never really said it in the first place.

I was reminded of all this the other day when an agent told me that they'd heard that Disney had put out the word that they didn't want to make any movies with young protagonists, which must mean really young protagonists, since the "High School Musical" series is such a box-office bonanza. So when I was having lunch with Sony chief Amy Pascal on Friday, I asked her--do you guys really say this stuff? Do you have crazy phobias too?

She laughed. "We all probably say things like that, but it's in the heat of the moment--everyone says things they don't really mean. So if there's a really young executive in a meeting and they hear you say something, even though you almost didn't mean it the minute it came out of your mouth, they sometimes take it seriously, when they should probably do what you do, which is forget all about it five minutes later."

But has she, in the heat of the moment, made crazy pronouncements too, like not wanting to make a movie whose title starts with the letter X? "I did say--I hate movies that begin with a bet," Pascal admits. "It's a bad idea, because it usually means that it's a fake story that revolves around a gimmick. But on the other hand, someone made 'My Fair Lady' and it was great. Rules are oversimplifications, which are bad no matter how you look at it. It would be like my saying, 'I'm so sick of Iraq movies, so I don't ever want to see another script about Iraq.' But that's just my reaction in the moment. Someone will make a phenomenal movie about Iraq and everyone's attitude will change."

According to Pascal, people simply overinterpret offhanded remarks. "I really don't think any studio has those kinds of rules. How could they? You have to open to hearing crazy, surprising ideas. One minute you have one of those rules, the next minute you'd want to break it."

Photo of Amy Pascal by Sony Pictures Entertainment

Sam Moore, the sole surviving half of soul legends Sam & Dave, is claiming that "Soul Men," which stars Samuel L. Jackson and Bernie Mac as long-estranged R&B backup singers who reunite for a last concert, is a rip-off of his life story. According to a story in the Independent today, Moore says the film--due out this weekend--is a "defamatory account" of a reunion he and the late Dave Prater attempted to pull off in 1982 after not speaking for several years. Moore claims the film has "bastardized" his life story, saying the comedy is "sexist, racist and embarrassing and that's not what Sam & Dave were about. It's so amateurish, so stupid and I'm surprised that Samuel L. Jackson is involved in this.... When you read the script, all you see is vulgarity. Every other word is the N-word or M-f and it's just not right."

Apparently Moore hasn't been going to the movies much lately, since there's nothing in "Soul Men" that's any more vulgar than the scatological jokes in "Zach and Miri Make a Porno" or the nauseating violence in "Saw 5," both of which just opened over the weekend. But does he have a point? Is "Soul Men" really a thinly disguised version of the Sam & Dave story? No way, says "Soul Men" producer David Friendly. "Our whole movie is a fiction, from start to finish," he told me. "We never got any life rights from anyone at any time because this was completely an invention. I'm a big-enough fan of Sam & Dave to know that it's a preposterous charge, since Sam & Dave were headliners, while our guys are backup singers."

Friendly laughed. "We haven't heard anything from the Pips [Gladys Knight's backup singers.] They'd at least have a stronger argument." Friendly said that he was asked to develop the project as a vehicle for Jackson and Mac, who wanted to work together in a comedy. He knew he had a hook for a movie when one of the film's writers posed the question--what if Bernie and Sam were backup singers who hadn't spoken in 30 years? The project was originally at New Regency, and then at New Line before ending up at the Weinstein Co., which is releasing the film through MGM this weekend.

Friendly said that, by coincidence, his offices were in the same building in Beverly Hills that housed Stax Records. "I literally took the elevator up one floor and talked to them about using wall-to-wall Stax music, which is how we came to license the music from them." Moore's lawyers are saying the Weinstein Co. has abused Moore's "Soul Man" trademark and are exploiting his reputation in order to make some dough. The Weinsteins' attorney, the always ferocious Bert Fields, insists Moore has no case, saying the movie tells a different story about different people. As Fields told the Independent: "If Mr. Moore decides to file a lawsuit, he will lose."

I'm no lawyer, but having seen the movie, I think Sam should rethink his position. The movie isn't racist, unless you want to contend that every Eddie Murphy and Chris Tucker comedy ever made is racist. It isn't more sexist than a thousand other Hollywood films. And guess what--it's pretty funny, largely thanks to some great chemistry between Jackson and Mac, who receives a nice, heartfelt tribute at the end of the film. As for the charge of unauthorized borrowing, someone should phone up Neil Simon. If the movie steals from anyone, it's from "The Sunshine Boys," which, as anyone could tell you, is stealing from the best.

See for yourself:

Photo of Bernie Mac and Samuel L. Jackson in "Soul Men" by Doug Hyun / The Weinstein Co.

Will white folks go to movie theaters to see black folks in a movie without any big white stars? That was the question some of us in the media were all asking before the release of "The Secret Life of Bees" earlier this month. Most old-fashioned movie marketers had said--not likely, based on past experience and long-held attitudes about white moviegoers. Some marketers cited the "Bradley Effect," the controversial analysis of a Tom Bradley 1982 election defeat in the California gubernatorial election where he'd led in polling before the election, prompting pundits to blame the loss on white voters who didn't tell pollsters how they really intended to vote. 

But guess what? "Bees" has quietly emerged as a minor hit, now projected to pass the $30-million mark at the box office. And as my colleague John Horn reports, it's doing even better in theaters catering to white moviegoers than in traditionally African American theaters. What gives? Here's John's report:

Fox Searchlight was confident that African American moviegoers would turn up for "The Secret Life of Bees," whose cast includes Queen Latifah, Jennifer Hudson and Alicia Keys. But the studio and the film's makers worried that white audiences, even after they embraced the bestselling Sue Monk Kidd novel on which the film was based, might stay away when the film premiered on Oct. 17.  After two weeks of release, it's clear that white ticket buyers are not only showing up for "Bees" but also are becoming the film's most loyal audience.

Last weekend, the film grossed more at Pacific's The Grove Stadium 14 than it did at the AMC Magic Johnson Crenshaw 15. In the rest of the country, theaters catering to black moviegoers reported strong opening weekend "Bee" sales but suffered steep declines last weekend. It's consistent with how movies with strong African American appeal--including Tyler Perry's efforts--tend to perform. For example, "Bee's" grosses at Georgia's AMC Southlake Pavilion 24 fell more than 61% last weekend, and sales at Maryland's Regal Bowie Crossing Cinema 14 collapsed almost as badly.

But in theaters that tend to cater to white audiences, support remained much stronger.  "Bee" sales at Oregon's Regal Cinemas Bridgeport Village Stadium 18 were down just 32.1%, and grosses at Northern California's Century 14 Downtown Walnut Creek dropped less than 18%. With total ticket sales of more than $21 million, "The Secret Life of Bees" will never catch "Beverly Hills Chihuahua." But "Bees" is not suffering from any "Bradley Effect" discrimination, and the very thing that scares off potential studio backing--an almost entirely black cast--has shown to be not a liability at all.

Photo of Queen Latifah, Jennifer Hudson and Alicia Keys in "The Secret Life of Bees" by Sidney Baldwin / Fox Searchlight

Since there's never been any doubt that Joaquin Phoenix was one of Hollywood's great modern-day eccentrics, it's hard to entirely take seriously the news that he has suddenly vowed to quit acting. After all, the oddball actor is always saying strange things. Working the press line at a fancy premiere for "Walk the Line," Phoenix asked a reporter, "Do I have a large frog in my hair?" When the reporter said no, Joaquin asked a new question: "Is there something crawling out of my scalp?" And how about this red-carpet story: Phoenix wrecked his car and was rescued by none other than ... Werner Herzog!

So I'm guessing the odds are pretty slim that Phoenix will stick to this pledge. Whatever has sidetracked him--playing in a cool band, learning how to cook, figuring out how to spot the moons of Jupiter without a telescope--will soon lose its appeal and he'll be back in action. But his pledge did spark the following idea: Who would make my list of the Top Ten actors we would like to see quit acting? (WARNING -- I'M JUST HAVING FUN HERE):

Click through to read my list, but please do feel free to offer your own suggestions:

When I was at an early screening of the upcoming comedy "Role Models" the other night, I found myself thinking about the Academy Awards, wondering what I always wonder when I see a good new comedy: Why on Earth shouldn't the Oscars recognize good work in comedy the same way they do in drama, animation, cinematography, editing and all the other great movie crafts? Shockingly, comedy is so thoroughly ignored by Oscar voters that it's been more than 30 years (yes, count 'em--thirty) since a true comedy--Woody Allen's "Annie Hall"--won the Oscar for best picture.

To say this is a disgrace would be an understatement. I hate to bore you with a recitation of film history, but movies began as a comic medium. A generation of Americans grew up falling in love with the cinema, largely thanks to Charlie Chaplin, Buster Keaton and Harold Lloyd and a host of other inspired silent movie comics. A second generation of moviegoers survived the Great Depression, thanks to the wonderful screwball comedies of the 1930s, from "My Man Godfrey" to "The Awful Truth" to "It Happened One Night" to "Midnight," not to mention the great Marx Brothers and W.C. Fields movies of the period.

The comedies of the '30s remain the true pillar of movie art from that era, immensely watchable even today, as many of the dramas and gangster films of the period have lost much of their thrill and allure. Comedy often tells us more about our time than the most acclaimed drama. In fact, I'd argue that if future cultural historians wanted the best window into the contemporary mores of the early 21st century, they wouldn't find much help from most of our recent Oscar winners ("Crash" aside), which tend to be set in the past, looking back in time for lessons about earlier eras. For the best analysis of people's anxieties, quirks and fears in 2008, you'd start by watching Judd Apatow movies, which have more to say about our time than "Beverly Hills Chihuahua," James Bond or even thoughtful art films like "Atonement" or "There Will Be Blood."

Directed by David Wain, who did 2001's "Wet Hot American Summer," "Role Models," which is being released by Universal Pictures Nov. 7, has no weighty message to deliver. It's simply loaded with shrewd comedy writing and slyly funny performances. Penned by a quartet of writers, including Wain, the film's costar Paul Rudd, Ken Marino (who plays a comically clueless stepdad in the film) and original writer Timothy Dowling, it follows the misadventures of two mismatched young guys--Rudd and Seann William Scott--who find themselves forced to become mentors to a pair of unhappy young boys in a Big Brothers-style community service program.

The Apatow influence is inescapable, since the film is populated with various actors, starting with Rudd and costar Elizabeth Banks, who are best known for their work in Apatow films. The project has an intriguing history. It was originally at Fox, which put it in turnaround. Producer Mary Parent, now MGM's  production chief but then a producing partner with Scott Stuber, picked it up, believing it was a timely comic premise. "I loved the concept of these two guys--one of them totally cynical, the other completely living in his imagination--who were forced to learn how to step out of themselves and help other people."

How did "Role Models" survive the loss of its director, its title and still make it to the finish line? And will the motion picture academy ever create a comedy category to honor all the great comedies being made? Keep reading:

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?"   

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.

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.

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.

"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.

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    

After an early screening of "Who Do You Love," one of the--count 'em--two new movies about 1950s powerhouse blues label Chess Records, a pair of women sought out Marshall Chess, whose dad, Leonard, was the driving force behind the record label. They were puzzled about one of the key story lines in the film. "Did your mother and father really make up after your father had that torrid affair with that beautiful singer?" one of them asked.

Marshall rolled his eyes. "No, they didn't make up," he said, "because there never was an affair. The filmmakers made that part up." When it comes to making movies about real-life people, Hollywood rarely lets the truth get in the way of a good story. No one knows that better now that Marshall Chess, who served as a technical consultant on the two competing Chess Records films, but discovered that while the actors and filmmakers were happy to listen to his recollections, it hardly meant that they would stick to the truth when it came time to film his family's story. Marshall knows the story intimately, having been behind the bar at his father's nightclub as a boy, seen his father hustle DJs on road tours and worked at Chess Records as a teenager.

He's delighted to see two films dramatizing his family history, but he's ambivalent about the results. "I guess I have a love-hate relationship with the movies," he told me recently. "They capture the spirit and the music wonderfully, but the truth isn't always there." He's especially upset over how "Cadillac Records," a film that stars Beyonce as Etta James and Oscar-winner Adrien Brody as Leonard Chess, cuts Leonard's brother, Phil, the co-founder of the record company, entirely out of the movie.

"It's a horrible distortion of history," says Marshall. "They started the company together. My uncle Phil was there every day. He recorded a lot of the best music we did. It wouldn't have happened without him and it's a real insult to our family. When I asked the producers, they simply said his character didn't work [in the script], so they cut him out."

When it comes to cutting people out of the Chess story, the rival "Who Do You Love" film has its own issues. The biggest-selling artist in Chess history is Chuck Berry, but his character was cut out of the movie. Why? Because the filmmakers couldn't make a deal for the rights to his music. The film's producer, Les Alexander, explains: "We made Chuck a spectacularly generous offer, but he wouldn't let us have anything. Our director, Jerry Zaks, even sent him a genuine fan note, saying how much his music meant to him. But it didn't matter--the answer was no."

Berry, who is still active as a touring act, is notoriously difficult when it comes to business matters. When Taylor Hackford, who directed the wonderful Berry concert film "Hail! Hail! Rock and Roll," recently ran into the performer, the first words out of Berry's mouth were, "You still owe me money." Mos Def plays Berry in "Cadillac Records," which managed to acquire some Berry songs that are owned by Marshall Chess. But dealing with Berry was so unbelievably arduous that when I asked the film's producer, Sofia Sondervan, about working with him, she replied in a hushed tone: "I can't talk about it. I can't say anything about Chuck Berry at all."

The "Who Do You Love" filmmakers defend their decision to show Leonard having an affair with a Chess artist who is clearly based on Etta James. "The question you always ask yourself is--are you illuminating who they were or are you assassinating their character?" says Zaks. "For me, the affair represents part of the seduction of success, which is a big part of the conflict in the movie's story. We did our own research and it seems evident that Leonard was a womanizer. Even his brother Phil says he had numerous affairs."

The filmmakers had less leeway in portraying Willie Dixon, the now-deceased songwriter (played by Chi McBride) who wrote most of Chess' biggest hits. Producer Les Alexander says, "We were prohibited by his estate as portraying him as someone who drank or smoked or sweared." Nonetheless, the film shows Dixon having two wives, who begrudgingly share his time together. "The estate didn't prohibit that," Alexander says.

Both films depict Chess giving his top artists a Cadillac after they had big chart-topping hits. It's a way for the films to capture the back-door way business was handled in the early days of the record industry, since the artists rarely realized that the expense of buying a Cadillac was deducted from their royalty statements. Marshall says it was a pragmatic way to reward a top artist, noting that few of the bluesmen had bank accounts at the time. "Getting a Cadillac in those days was a top of the line thing to have," he explains. "My father bought a new Cadillac every year too, because he was just like his artists--he wanted people to know he was a successful man."

Marshall laughs. "I guess he'd be happy to see two movies coming out about him at the same time. He'd definitely consider that a symbol of success too."

When I was a kid, I spent a lot of time in Chicago, home of two great baseball teams, a host of colorful politicians and the best blues in the world. Back in the day, you weren't anyone in the blues world unless you were signed to Chess Records, the label that made stars out of a generation of rough and tumble musicians, notably Muddy Waters, Little Walter, Willie Dixon and Howlin' Wolf.

So when I was at the recent Toronto Film Festival, I made a point of seeing "Who Do You Love," which stars Alessandro Nivola and Jon Abrahams as Leonard and Phil Chess, two hard-nosed immigrant entrepreneurs who ended up creating Chess Records, the 1950s record label that popularized urban blues and later, with the arrival of Chuck Berry and Bo Diddley, ushered in a brash new form of rock 'n' roll that was adopted by the Rolling Stones, the Beatles and thousands of other young white rock artists.

After the screening, I ran into a film executive, who whispered in my ear, "Do you know that there's another one?" Puzzled, I said, "Another what?" He laughed. "Another movie about Chess Records."

I really thought he was joking, but it's true. Against all odds and sound commercial judgment, the same crazy movie business that once made two asteroid movies and two movies about Truman Capote has now made two movies about the obscure icons of 1950s Chicago blues. What are the odds?

The second Chess film, made by Sony BMG Films, is "Cadillac Records," which will be released Dec. 5 through Sony's TriStar Pictures. Produced by Sofia Sondervan and Andy Lack, Sony BMG's former chairman (who just took a new job running Bloomberg's multimedia operations), the film has considerably more star power than its rival, featuring Beyonce Knowles as Chess' top songstress, Etta James; Adrien Brody as Leonard Chess; Mos Def as Chuck Berry; and Jeffrey Wright as Muddy Waters.

It's probably a misnomer to call the two pictures rivals, since "Who Do You Love," despite earning some good notices in Toronto, remains a long shot to land a theatrical release. "Cadillac Records" will be out in 800 theaters, with a Beyonce single and a soundtrack to help attract attention. Still, the question remains--what are the odds of two 1950s blues movies being made at the same time?

The answer, as always, is that making a movie isn't exactly a rational decision--passion trumps pragmatism. Neither film came out of today's increasingly timid studio system, which wouldn't dream of risking any loot on such obscure subject matter. "Cadillac Records" was championed by Lack, the former head of NBC News who ran Sony Music before being kicked upstairs after its BMG merger. According to Sondervan, Lack's family is from the Mississippi Delta, where he grew up listening to the blues, which gave him a strong interest in the story. "Who Do You Love" was financed by Jonathan Mitchell, a wealthy real estate developer with a love for the blues and directed by Jerry Zaks, who remembers singing to R&B records as a boy in his family basement.

"I was always drawn to black music," recalls Zaks, a four-time Tony Award-winning Broadway theater  director. "When I was in fifth grade, I was convinced I was Marvin Gaye. I'd put on the records I loved, everything from Gaye and Johnny Nash to Muddy Waters and Bo Diddley, and sing to the records in front of the mirror. I think that music had a powerful impact on a whole generation of kids."

But those kids are all nearing retirement age today and not especially regular moviegoers. So who's going to turn out for these films? When I asked Sondervan what made her think a blues movie could make a dent in today's marketplace, she offered an honest answer. "I don't really know," she said. "All I know is that Beyonce has a huge young following and a lot of people will come see the movie just because she's in it." She added that Beyonce has designed a clothing line of dresses inspired by the fashions in the film that are being launched later this fall at Bloomingdale's. "All the young people we've shown the film to really loved it," she says. "The blues is coming back. It's getting played at a lot of trendy restaurants, so there's a lot of new awareness out there."

Hhmm. Like I said, making movies isn't always a rational decision. Will Beyonce fans want to see her as a troubled '50s blues diva? Angelina Jolie fans do show up when she's trading gunfire with Brad Pitt, but they didn't bother to come when she played Mariane Pearl in "A Mighty Heart." And George Clooney fans, who loved him in "Oceans Eleven," turned up their noses at "Leatherheads" and "The Good German."

Music biopics have a pretty spotty track record. Taylor Hackford's "Ray" was a surprise hit (though it was also independently financed outside the studio system). But "She's Not There," Todd Haynes' impressionistic Bob Dylan biopic, never found an audience, despite a raft of rave reviews. Even "Dreamgirls," the Bill Condon film loosely based on the Supremes, was a box-office disappointment.

The real challenge for films that re-create the lives of real characters is--how true to life are they? Sony hasn't screened "Cadillac Records" yet, but the person who knows the story best of all--Leonard's son, Marshall Chess, who served as a technical consultant on both projects--says both movies took some dramatic liberties with many of the characters' personal lives. Which film took the most liberties? Which actor came the closest to capturing his real-life character? And which movie ended up cutting Chuck Berry entirely out of the story? We'll have Part 2 of our post up soon, so stay tuned.

Photo: Beyonce Knowles as Etta James in "Cadillac Records": photo credit: Eric Liebowitz

The one thing you can count on in Hollywood is that when a studio makes a sudden or unexpected decision, it is almost guaranteed that the official reason for the move is a smoke screen for what's really going on. I'm guessing that's the case with Paramount's surprise announcement late Thursday that it's knocking "The Soloist" out of the awards season scrum, "dashing any hopes," to use Variety's melodramatic phrase, for the film to win any Academy Award accolades in 2008. The film is of particular interest to those of us here at the LA Times, since it is based on a series of gripping columns by our own Steve Lopez about his relationship with a homeless musician grappling with schizophrenia.

The film, which stars Robert Downey Jr. as Lopez and Jamie Foxx as the musician, was slated for release Nov. 21st, a prime slot for a potential year-end Oscar campaign. The film, produced by Dreamworks and co-financed by Participant Media and Universal's Working Title, has now been bumped to March 13th, 2009. Why? According to a story in the LA Times, Paramount executives said the current economic collapse "might have made November an awkward time to release a movie about homelessness."

That's the kind of whopper you'd only hear in Hollywood. I think the appropriate response to that would be--when exactly would be a good time to release a film about homelessness? Halloween? The Fourth of July? Having read the script and seen the film being shot, I'm guessing that only a studio disguising its real motives would call "The Soloist" a film about homelessness, when in fact, it's a male-bonding love story about a crusading newspaper reporter and a musician with a troubled soul.

Paramount apparently told its partners, as well as top CAA brass, who represent most of the talent on the picture, that the studio was under pressure from Viacom superiors to cut costs, having recently acknowledged that it was thinning out its future release schedule. With even Sumner Redstone being forced to sell stock to keep his investments afloat, the studio was forced to take drastic measures. With four potential Oscar movies slated for year-end release, something had to give. It certainly wasn't going to be "The Curious Case of Benjamin Button," an expensive and much-anticipated Brad Pitt and David Fincher collaboration that studio chief Brad Grey has already publicly embraced as his ticket to a front-row seat Feb. 22nd at the Kodak Theater. And it certainly wasn't going to be "Revolutionary Road," a Scott Rudin-produced literary drama with a star too big to offend (Leonardo DiCaprio) and the kind of rarified subject matter that desperately needs Oscar buzz to sell tickets.

That left the studio's Ed Zwick-directed drama, "Defiance," which is a long-shot for Oscars, but still enough of a contender that while it's being pushed back to late December, is still getting an Oscar qualifying run before going wide in January. That made "The Soloist" the low man on the totem pole, since it conceivably has enough commercial potential to make a dent at the box office in the spring without the benefit of any Oscar coattails. Since the film was produced by Dreamworks, which just concluded an ugly divorce with Paramount, the inside chatter has focused on the idea that Paramount is somehow punishing Dreamworks by robbing the departing Spielberg team of any Oscar glory.

If anyone at Variety actually asked Paramount about all these complicated twists and turns involving "The Soloist," they didn't bother to mention it in their story, which credulously quotes Paramount vice chairman Rob Moore as simply saying "We decided it's a commercial movie that will play well in the spring." Like I said, studio executives almost never give the real reason for their moves. If they did, Paramount would acknowledge the obvious: These moves aren't so much about saving money--which is small potatoes in terms of the giant outlays studio make these days--as focusing the studio's marketing machinery on its biggest potential cash cow.

Even though it co-financed the film with Warners, Paramount has a huge bet down on "Benjamin Button," which is the one movie here that could be both an enormous commercial and critical hit. The studio has clearly decided to clear the decks. It can't do anything about potential Oscar rivals from other studios, but it doesn't want to compete with itself. My guess is that the studio is being uncharacteristically pragmatic. In an era where studios release all their quality films in the same 10 week time period--I call it the Oscar demolition derby--Paramount has decided to create some breathing room for its strongest contender. Only in Oscar-crazed Hollywood, where everyone lives and dies by awards glory, is the decision to move a quality movie to the spring viewed as an ignominious death sentence. If "The Soloist" gets a good reception in March, it will survive and flourish. I wish some of the industry's hand-ringers would realize there is actually life after the Oscars.

My colleague John Horn has a story in Thursday's Calendar section that grapples with the always touchy question--why do white moviegoers shy away from movies with largely African American casts? "Amistad," Steven Spielberg's 1997 slavery epic, was his lowest-grossing movie in 20 years. Even "Ray," Taylor Hackford's Oscar-nominated musical biography of Ray Charles, drew an overwhelmingly black audience.

Will the same thing happen to "The Secret Life of Bees," a highbrow literary adaptation from an African American filmmaker (Gina Prince-Bythewood) that features a largely black female cast (Queen Latifah, Jennifer Hudson and Alicia Keys)? The film, distributed by Fox Searchlight, is going wide Friday in nearly 1,600 theaters, which means it will be playing in both suburban and urban neighborhoods. The book had a large white female following, but according to Horn, research shows that black moviegoers are showing roughly twice as much interest in seeing the film as whites.

Horn raises an intriguing political parallel:

"Pundits and election strategists have been deliberating feverishly whether white voters who tell interviewers they intend to vote for Sen. Barack Obama for president will really do so once they enter the polling booth. While the discrepancy known as the Bradley effect (named after former Los Angeles mayor Tom Bradley's 1982 loss in the California gubernatorial election, in which he consistently led in polling) may prove to be a minor factor in the year's presidential race, it is still a prominent concern within Hollywood, as movies made by and with African Americans often struggle to attract white supporters, both at the box office and within the studio's executive offices."

'Australia': The first L.A. screening

Nothing is sweeter than seeing a movie on the Fox lot at the Darryl Zanuck Theater, its vast expanse allowing your imagination to run wild, conjuring up all the hits and flops that have unspooled there, inflaming the ego or crushing the spirit of generations of studio executives. It wasn't quite so glamorous at 9:30 this morning, waiting for the first big screening of Baz Luhrmann's "Australia" to begin. Much of the audience was made up of lowly media types and beleaguered critics, so most of the small-talk before hand focused on the low-level depression that hovers like a dark cloud, with each new week bringing news of more friends or colleagues who've either lost their jobs or are worried about the next round of layoffs at our various publications.

I was hoping Baz's movie would serve as a much-needed escape. I was not disappointed. I'll leave the reviews to the critics--you can read another mixed notice from Australia here--but after experiencing such an ambitious piece of work, it's impossible to refrain from making some observations.

It's pretty obvious that "Australia" works best if you can imagine it as a musical. It brims with all sorts of grand melodrama and oversize emotion that would feel, well, hopelessly cornball if you're not willing to embrace the material with the same childlike abandon you felt when you first saw "Brigadoon" or "Singin' in the Rain." In Luhrmann's hands, even the desolate outback, the main setting for the film, feels like a giant painted-desert studio set. Watching a thrilling cattle drive that dominates the earlier part of the 165-minute film, you feel like you're watching a western directed by Vincente Minnelli, with all the dirt and dust accompanied by soaring tracking shots, a booming musical score and blood-red sunsets. It is a film filled with both extravagant artifice and gripping social commentary--one of the key subplots involves an Aboriginal boy in danger of being taken from his home and forcibly thrown into government care. Talking to some viewers afterward, it was clear their reaction were colored by how much they could handle the clash between those two sensibilities.

As with all Luhrmann movies, "Australia" operates on several different layers, the most obvious being the fact that it is a story about storytelling, or as Hugh Jackman says early in the picture: "The only thing you can own is your story--you just hope that it's a good one." Luhrmann weaves his postmodernist style with the simplicity of Aboriginal life, where having a story is a huge part of their spiritual world. "Australia" also has a movie within the movie, "The Wizard of Oz," the big hit of the day, which is seen playing at a Darwin movie house, with Oz's fantasy world, spirit of adventure and yearning for home serving as a commentary on "Australia's" own narrative.

The movie's story is unabashedly old-fashioned, seemingly cobbled together from a hundred other movies. Nicole Kidman is a transplanted English aristocrat who takes over her husband's spread in the Northern Territory. Hugh Jackman is a rough-hewn drover, a cattle driver who loves the freedom of the open range. Brandon Walters plays the young Aboriginal boy who develops an intense bond with both Kidman and Jackman. Bryan Brown is the villain of the piece, a ruthless cattle baron who'll stop at nothing to wrest away Kidman's land. If it sounds a bit cliched, it is. In fact, the movie is full of cliches, from the kindly drunk to the thuggish ranch hand to the uptight city slicker to the gruff, lone-wolf hero.

If you've seen a lot of John Ford westerns, you'll feel right at home. The bad guys do what all bad guys do on cattle drives--they stampede the cattle and poison the water hole. At night, people sing around the campfire and volunteer hidden yearning after they've had too much to drink. On the other hand, like Ford, Luhrmann uses these conventions to capture the bigger, more mythical sweep of his country's history. Even if the movie often treads on too familiar ground, you feel as if you're in the hands of a powerful storyteller, someone intent on finding the humanity and the healing power in retracing his country's history. "Australia" certainly reminds us that Luhrmann is a one-of-a-kind filmmaker. "Australia" is ambitious, perhaps too ambitious for its own good, but you'd never accuse its director of resting on his laurels.       

Photo of Baz Lurhmann by Carolyn Cole / Los Angeles Times

When producer Zvi Howard Rosenman arrived at the academy screening of "Milk" last week, he found someone occupying his reserved seat--Jack Nicholson. The actor ended up sitting right behind Rosenman. When the film was over, Nicholson leaned forward, tapped Rosenman on the shoulder and said, "Boy, oh boy, you did a good job." Having produced dozens of films over the years--from "The Main Event" to "Buffy the Vampire Slayer" to "Family Man"--Rosenman is used to accepting accolades at movie premieres.

But Rosenman had a totally new role in "Milk," as an actor, not a producer. He makes his debut playing David Goodstein, a powerful, self-made businessman who, as publisher of the San Francisco-based Advocate, helped turn a flimsy sex-ad publication into the Time magazine of the gay universe. "Goodstein was a kingmaker," Rosenman told me the other day. "He was basically the David Geffen of San Francisco. If you were involved in gay politics in that era, he was the grand poobah, the go-to guy."

As we learn in "Milk," Goodstein viewed Harvey Milk as an uncontrollable activist, as someone who was pushing for change, too much, too soon. "Goodstein wanted to work through the system, not outside it," Rosenman explains. "Harvey needed his endorsement when he was running for supervisor, but Goodstein saw Harvey as too radical, too flamboyant. They had a very contentious, complicated relationship."

Although Rosenman had never acted before, he knew "Milk" casting director Francine Maisler, who--working with "Milk" director Gus Van Sant--had been putting a lot of real-life people into parts in the film. "When they were trying to cast Goodstein, Francine said to Gus, 'We need someone who looks like Howard Rosenman, who talks like him and who has his size.' I think all Gus said was, 'Well, can he act?' Francine called me and asked if I had any experience and I told her that I'd done 'My Fair Lady' when I was 14 at a Hebrew student camp."

Even before he was cast, Rosenman started thinking like an actor. "My next words to Francine were, 'So, who am I up against?' " The competition was stiff--Van Sant had already seen the likes of Richard Schiff and Tom Hulce. Rosenman was nervous about having to audition, but he says that his best friend, the Endeavor agent Brian Swardstrom, persuaded him this was too important an opportunity to pass up. "So I did two takes with Francine, she looked at the tape and said, 'I'm recommending you to Gus.' And I got the part."

When Rosenman arrived in San Francisco for the film shoot, he realized his biggest challenge lay ahead--here he was, a novice actor, about to play several scenes opposite Sean Penn. What was it like? 

 

In my mind's eye, I see Peter Bart standing outside Campanile, holding one of those cardboard signs you see in the hands of homeless men on street corners, except the Variety editor, being a good editor, has slightly reworked the message: "Will Work for Food Oscar Ads." That was the essential point of Bart's column in today's Variety--why hasn't everyone jumped into the pool, frolicking in the annual rites of Oscar overkill? As Bart put it: "Oscar '08 may go down as the year of the Great Non-Race."

By this time last year, according to Bart, the studios had sent him 24 movie screeners. This year: Three. I only read Variety online, so I asked a studio marketing chief to leaf through today's edition and count up the number of ads. It was sobering. The only studio in the pool was Warners, who took out a double-truck ad for "The Dark Knight," the studio presumably having made so much money on the film that it wants to give some of it away to a needy trade publication (or more likely, to impress director Chris Nolan so he'll consider making a lucrative sequel). The rest of the issue had a half-page ad for a Polish film, a quarter-page ad for a film from Taiwan and a third-page ad for "Last Chance Harvey."

That was it. The studio marketer told me that at this point in time three years ago, Variety would've had at least 10 or 12 pages of studio ads. Why the drop-off? Anyone paying attention to the outside world knows we're in the midst of a hideous global economic recession, with corporate profits plunging, the biggest U.S. carmakers teetering on the brink of bankruptcy and tens of thousands of everyday Joes being laid off from their jobs. But Bart, like most Hollywood insiders, lives a life of privilege, putting those nice Campanile lunches on his expense account. So when he hears that GE's hurting or Sony's having a tough time, his reaction? "Hankies, please."

Desperate to drum up some business, Bart asks the rhetorical question: "Are the studios hanging the talent out to dry? Films like 'Milk," 'Doubt' or 'Frost/Nixon' need award nominations to find a mainstream audience." He even recruits Harvey Weinstein, the great Oscar showman of years past, to give Bart a money quote, with Harvey saying "If you don't pay for that big upfront Oscar campaign, you end up paying at the box office."

I managed to track Harvey down to ask him point-blank: Isn't is actually entirely appropriate for media conglomerates to cut back on Oscar ads in the middle of a horrific recession? Won't the best movies get plenty of nominations anyway? His response: "No one has shown me yet that you'll get the nominations unless you spend the money in the trades," he says. "It certainly hasn't worked for me so far. We had years where we spent less on Oscar ads and left it to serendipity and it didn't work. Oscar advertising makes a real difference in these kind of movies' commercial success. I mean, where do we stop? Should we be getting rid of all of the Oscar PR people too? Oscar ads just make economic sense." (Harvey, I'll be counting up all your full-page "Reader" ads from now on to see if you put your money where your mouth is.)

Bart calls Weinstein's support for big Oscar campaigns sage advice. I call it outdated and ill-advised. When people are losing their jobs left and right, it's frivolous, not to mention nauseatingly narcissistic, for studios to be tossing away millions of dollars on Oscar campaigns when that money could be better spent in a thousand different ways. Imagine how you'd feel if you were one of the hundreds of employees that's been laid off at a media conglomerate, only to see that your company's film division still has plenty of dough left to run Oscar ads in Variety or the New York Times or my newspaper.

What really worries Bart is the prospect of someone getting an Oscar nomination without spending a dime on an Oscar campaign. It would be a big blow to his bottom line, but it would be a giant step forward in studio accounting--the kind of accounting that puts a priority on good judgment, not on the costly and trivial pursuit of silly prizes. 

Photo of Harvey Weinstein from the Associated Press

Up until now, Summit Entertainment hasn't exactly set the movie world on fire. Run by veteran sales agent Patrick Wachsberger and former Paramount vice chairman Rob Friedman, the new indie distributor and finance company has struggled to prove that it can compete with the studio behemoths in the marketplace. Of its five releases, only one, the mixed martial arts film "Never Back Down," was a modest success, grossing about $25 million in the U.S. The company's most recent release, the teen comedy "Sex Drive," was a bomb, making barely $8 million after opening on nearly 2,500 screens.

But Summit has an amazing ace up its sleeve--"Twilight." If you know a teenager, I need not say more. If you don't, the sound you hear in the distance is the approaching pop culture tsunami. Written by Stephenie Meyer, "Twilight" is the first in a series of enormously popular vampire love stories that are now poised to spawn one of the hottest Hollywood literary franchises since "Harry Potter." Directed by Catherine Hardwicke ("13" and "Lords of Dogtown"), "Twilight" arrives on 5,500 screens this Friday, with the industry already abuzz with reports about spectacular advance ticket sales. During the past few weeks I've been hearing from studio marketing chiefs, who all seem in awe of the word-of-mouth groundswell for the film.

When the film's young stars, Kristen Stewart and Robert Pattinson, showed up at Comic-Con last July, they were greeted by Beatlemania-style screams. Last week 10,000 kids showed up at a mall in Dallas to mob them. They've been on the cover of Entertainment Weekly and a variety of teen tabloids as well as all over MTV. (Here's our dispatch earlier this year from the film set.) But what's amazing is that one of Hollywood's biggest studios had the project for years and simply let it go. "Twilight" was originally at Paramount's MTV Films, which spent nearly two years trying to develop the picture before the studio put the project in turnaround. A second studio, Fox Atomic, also passed on the project before it came Summit's way.

It wasn't as if "Twilight's" teen appeal was exactly a secret. The second novel in Meyer's series, "New Moon," debuted at No. 5 on the New York Times bestseller list for children's books when it was released in 2006. It hit No. 1 the following week and remained in the top position for 11 straight weeks. The fourth installment, "Breaking Dawn," sold 1.3 million copies in its first day of release. The entire series has now sold 8.5 million copies in the U.S., more than 17 million copies worldwide.

So how did this budding literary phenomenon practically drop in Summit's lap? Keep reading:

 

When I had lunch with John Hamburg the other day, the writer-director of the upcoming comedy "I Love You, Man" appeared full of anxiety, something of a natural condition I suspect, since judging from his work, he is the poet laureate of comic anxiety. (Best known in the business as Ben Stiller's in-house writer, Hamburg's writing credits include "Meet the Parents," "Zoolander" and "Meet the Fockers" as well as serving as the writer-director of "Along Came Polly.") The problem at hand was pretty clear. His new film, which stars Paul Rudd, Jason Segal and Jamie Pressly, had the perfect title and he desperately wanted to keep it.

After all, what else would you call a comedy about a loner engaged to a nice girl who suddenly realizes that he has no male friend to be his best man--and proceeds to go out on a series of male dates, hoping to find the right guy? I mean, doesn't "I Love You, Man" say it all? Hamburg thought so too. So did DreamWorks, which produced the film (which is being distributed by Paramount). There was just one snag. 20th Century Fox had a film coming out at roughly the same time next spring called "I Love You Beth Cooper." And if there were ever a studio that would attempt to copyright the phrase "I Love You," it would be Fox.

So even though Hamburg had done a lot of work at Fox, including some key rewrites on the studio's mega-hit "Night at the Museum," he was worried. And rightfully so. After all, it was DreamWorks who had a Farrelly brothers comedy called "The Seven Day Itch," loosely based on 1972's "The Heartbreak Kid." At least it was called that until Fox challenged the title, claiming the movie could be confused with the 1955 Billy Wilder film "The Seven Year Itch." (I only wish Wilder were still alive, since surely he'd have a great quip about the logic of how you'd confuse a 50-year-old Marilyn Monroe movie with a Farrelly brothers comedy.) Fox was so fiercely committed to protecting its title that studio Co-Chairman Tom Rothman personally went before the MPAA title arbitration board to plead the studio's case--and won on appeal, forcing DreamWorks to change its title to "The Heartbreak Kid." (The movie flopped.)

"I have to admit I don't have a real fall-back position," Hamburg told me over lunch. "I have a list of other titles in my office and they're all terrible. 'I Love You, Man' is so good because it's a phrase that's in the culture. It symbolizes the way men talk to each other, especially the 'comma' and the 'man.' And the whole subtext of the phrase really plays out in the movie. I dunno--isn't 'I love you' a pretty common phrase? It seems like I've heard it in movie titles before."

So does this story have a happy ending? Did Fox put the screws to Hamburg or did the studio make him an offer he couldn't refuse? Keep reading:

When I was young and fancy free, I once went out with a girl whose major criteria for granting a guy a second date (and trust me when I say there was always a long line of potential grant recipients) was whether we could offer a persuasive answer to the question: What is your favorite James Bond theme song? (I could identify--in high school, I once bailed on a girl after it became apparent that I was going to be subjected to a steady stream of Cat Stevens and Three Dog Night songs from her LP collection.)

But I digress. Outside of arguing over who's the best baseball player or the worst president of all time, what could be more emotionally satisfying than debating the merits of the amazing array of James Bond theme songs? So kudos to Drew Kerr at TotalMusicGeek, who came up with the great idea of doing a Top 20 ranking of the themes--along with a YouTube link allowing us to watch all of the film's title sequences while listening to the themes.

I'm not sure I agree with all of Drew's rankings--he puts Nancy Sinatra's steamy rendition of "You Only Live Twice" (covered not so long ago by Coldplay) at No. 1, which strikes me as a bit high. But puzzling over the entire Bond aesthetic is half of the fun of playing the game. I agree with Drew that the new Jack White-Alicia Keys theme, "Another Way to Die," is, well, dreadful, almost as bad as Madonna's dreary "Die Another Day" and Garbage's dismal "The World Is Not Enough." On the plus side, I'd forgotten how good Tina Turner sounds on "GoldenEye" (co-written by Bono and the Edge) or how classic Carly Simon's "Nobody Does It Better" feels today, perhaps because it was co-written by the one and only Marvin Hamlisch, who's still enough of a brand name to get name-checked in "Role Models."

Anyway, go see for yourself--and don't miss the wonderfully kitschy title sequence from "On Her Majesty's Secret Service." As for my favorite theme? If you must know, I'm going with Tom Jones' brassy gals-toss-your-panties-on-stage version of "Thunderball." But don't take my word for it. Watch it for yourself:

Photo of Eunice Gayson and Sean Connery in "Dr. No" from UPI

If you hang around Hollywood long enough, you learn not to believe everything you read in the trades. Still, it was pretty exciting to see the news this week that the indefatigable producer Avi Lerner had wooed Brett Ratner into directing Lerner's upcoming remake of "Conan," the iconic 1982 film that helped launch Arnold Schwarzenegger's long run as a Hollywood action hero. According to the original Hollywood Reporter headline, Ratner had committed to the project, though its latest version was a bit more circumspect, saying he was in "final negotiations" to do the film after working with the screenwriters, who were doing a quick polish to "incorporate" some of Ratner's ideas. The blogosphere wasn't quite so discerning, with some Web outlets simply saying that Ratner was "officially directing" the film.

One of Hollywood's most persuasive salesman, Lerner told me this morning that Ratner was the perfect director. "He has the passion and feeling for this project--he even wrote a story about Conan when he was 10 years old," Lerner explained. "He understands the character, he analyzed the script really well. He knows how to make this a really big movie. I like his childlike enthusiasm--he almost sees these movies as wonderful toys. What can I say, he's a nice, likable Jewish boy."

Lerner acknowledged that even though he sent out a press release announcing Ratner's involvement with the project, the deal wasn't actually done. "We still have a few obstacles," he said. "Brett is only committed if we agree on a budget, on how to do the special effects and exactly where we'd shoot the film." Lerner has a studio in Bulgaria, so he'd like to shoot most of the movie there, with some exterior work in China.

But is Ratner actually committed to doing the film? In two words: Not really. When I called him today, he sounded somewhat agitated, unhappy that news of his negotiations with Lerner had surfaced, especially since he is extremely close to getting a green light from Paramount to make "Beverly Hills Cop 4." "Let me make this very clear," he told me. "I am not doing 'Conan' now. This is totally premature. For now, 'Conan' is only a development deal. I have a deal at Paramount and I'm doing 'Beverly Hills Cop' first, no matter what. Avi shouldn't be telling you or anyone else in the press what I'm doing."

So what happened here? And how did Avi get the rights to "Conan" in the first place? Keep reading:

The blogosphere has been full of breathless tales that Baz Luhrmann has been forced to dump the unhappy ending he filmed for "Australia," his $130-million adventure epic (due out later this month) that stars Hugh Jackman and Nicole Kidman. Australia's Sunday Telegraph reports that 20th Century Fox executives forced Luhrmann to add a more upbeat ending after the film had "disastrous reviews" at early test screenings. Is it really possible that Fox would bully Luhrmann, a final-cut director, into giving his movie a happier ending?

Even though we've had some heated disagreements in recent months about my coverage of his studio, Fox Co-Chairman Tom Rothman graciously agreed to have lunch with me today at the Fox commissary, where we did see eye-to-eye on one important matter--it was very cool to be sitting two tables away from the legendary Hong Kong action movie star Chow Yun-Fat. (What he was doing at Fox was something of a mystery, since Rothman said he wasn't making a movie with the actor.) So what about "Australia"? Was there any truth to the Sunday Telegraph story?

"Everything in that story was patently nonsensical," Rothman said. "It's all too typical of the way the world works today that everybody picked up an unsourced, anonymous quote-filled story in a tabloid from Sydney and nobody ever bothered to check to see if it was accurate. The facts are--Baz is a final-cut director and we never pressured him in any way, shape or form. He wrote the movie, shot it and cut it all himself without any interference from us at all."

Rothman said that the movie "has probably had seven different endings at one time or another, none of them easily characterized as happy or sad." He said Luhrmann chose the ending the director thought worked best for the film. "But you couldn't possibly characterize the ending as happy or sad," he told me. "I'd call it deeply satisfying but that's because it's very complex. In fact, you could have a long conversation about whether it's happy or sad, which is actually part of what makes it a great movie."

I can't wait to see the film. And I couldn't agree more with Rothman about the gall of the Sunday Telegraph relying on such shoddy reporting. Maybe Tom can use his influence to improve the quality of journalism Down Under. All he has to do is pick up the phone, since the Telegraph is owned by ... his boss, Rupert Murdoch.

Photo of Hugh Jackman and Nicole Kidman in "Australia"  from Twentieth Century Fox / AFP / Getty Images

If you're like me, always hanging around producers, managers and agents, you frequently hear them groaning about the latest nutty studio rule dealing with the movies the studio will never, ever, ever make again. With "Soul Men" having tanked this weekend, it's a good bet that some studio chief somewhere is grumbling, "I don't want to ever see another script about soul singers!" (That dictum probably extends to college football players who get leukemia after the failure of "The Express" last month.)

Studio bosses do tend to make certain blanket pronouncements. Fox's Tom Rothman thinks sci-fi comedies are box-office poison, one key reason why he wouldn't make "Used Guys," a Jay Roach-directed sci-fi comedy that would have starred Ben Stiller and Jim Carrey (and cost a ton of money). Nikki Finke reported last year that after the failure of several female-starring comedies, Warners production chief Jeff Robinov told three different producers that WB was "no longer doing movies with women in the lead"--in fact, he supposedly didn't even want to see a script with a woman in a leading role. Everyone in town was talking about that one for weeks, even though I see that Warners is releasing a Cameron Diaz movie next spring ("The Box"), which didn't start filming till long after the supposed ban on female stars. So maybe Robinov had second thoughts--or never really said it in the first place.

I was reminded of all this the other day when an agent told me that they'd heard that Disney had put out the word that they didn't want to make any movies with young protagonists, which must mean really young protagonists, since the "High School Musical" series is such a box-office bonanza. So when I was having lunch with Sony chief Amy Pascal on Friday, I asked her--do you guys really say this stuff? Do you have crazy phobias too?

She laughed. "We all probably say things like that, but it's in the heat of the moment--everyone says things they don't really mean. So if there's a really young executive in a meeting and they hear you say something, even though you almost didn't mean it the minute it came out of your mouth, they sometimes take it seriously, when they should probably do what you do, which is forget all about it five minutes later."

But has she, in the heat of the moment, made crazy pronouncements too, like not wanting to make a movie whose title starts with the letter X? "I did say--I hate movies that begin with a bet," Pascal admits. "It's a bad idea, because it usually means that it's a fake story that revolves around a gimmick. But on the other hand, someone made 'My Fair Lady' and it was great. Rules are oversimplifications, which are bad no matter how you look at it. It would be like my saying, 'I'm so sick of Iraq movies, so I don't ever want to see another script about Iraq.' But that's just my reaction in the moment. Someone will make a phenomenal movie about Iraq and everyone's attitude will change."

According to Pascal, people simply overinterpret offhanded remarks. "I really don't think any studio has those kinds of rules. How could they? You have to open to hearing crazy, surprising ideas. One minute you have one of those rules, the next minute you'd want to break it."

Photo of Amy Pascal by Sony Pictures Entertainment

Sam Moore, the sole surviving half of soul legends Sam & Dave, is claiming that "Soul Men," which stars Samuel L. Jackson and Bernie Mac as long-estranged R&B backup singers who reunite for a last concert, is a rip-off of his life story. According to a story in the Independent today, Moore says the film--due out this weekend--is a "defamatory account" of a reunion he and the late Dave Prater attempted to pull off in 1982 after not speaking for several years. Moore claims the film has "bastardized" his life story, saying the comedy is "sexist, racist and embarrassing and that's not what Sam & Dave were about. It's so amateurish, so stupid and I'm surprised that Samuel L. Jackson is involved in this.... When you read the script, all you see is vulgarity. Every other word is the N-word or M-f and it's just not right."

Apparently Moore hasn't been going to the movies much lately, since there's nothing in "Soul Men" that's any more vulgar than the scatological jokes in "Zach and Miri Make a Porno" or the nauseating violence in "Saw 5," both of which just opened over the weekend. But does he have a point? Is "Soul Men" really a thinly disguised version of the Sam & Dave story? No way, says "Soul Men" producer David Friendly. "Our whole movie is a fiction, from start to finish," he told me. "We never got any life rights from anyone at any time because this was completely an invention. I'm a big-enough fan of Sam & Dave to know that it's a preposterous charge, since Sam & Dave were headliners, while our guys are backup singers."

Friendly laughed. "We haven't heard anything from the Pips [Gladys Knight's backup singers.] They'd at least have a stronger argument." Friendly said that he was asked to develop the project as a vehicle for Jackson and Mac, who wanted to work together in a comedy. He knew he had a hook for a movie when one of the film's writers posed the question--what if Bernie and Sam were backup singers who hadn't spoken in 30 years? The project was originally at New Regency, and then at New Line before ending up at the Weinstein Co., which is releasing the film through MGM this weekend.

Friendly said that, by coincidence, his offices were in the same building in Beverly Hills that housed Stax Records. "I literally took the elevator up one floor and talked to them about using wall-to-wall Stax music, which is how we came to license the music from them." Moore's lawyers are saying the Weinstein Co. has abused Moore's "Soul Man" trademark and are exploiting his reputation in order to make some dough. The Weinsteins' attorney, the always ferocious Bert Fields, insists Moore has no case, saying the movie tells a different story about different people. As Fields told the Independent: "If Mr. Moore decides to file a lawsuit, he will lose."

I'm no lawyer, but having seen the movie, I think Sam should rethink his position. The movie isn't racist, unless you want to contend that every Eddie Murphy and Chris Tucker comedy ever made is racist. It isn't more sexist than a thousand other Hollywood films. And guess what--it's pretty funny, largely thanks to some great chemistry between Jackson and Mac, who receives a nice, heartfelt tribute at the end of the film. As for the charge of unauthorized borrowing, someone should phone up Neil Simon. If the movie steals from anyone, it's from "The Sunshine Boys," which, as anyone could tell you, is stealing from the best.

See for yourself:

Photo of Bernie Mac and Samuel L. Jackson in "Soul Men" by Doug Hyun / The Weinstein Co.

Will white folks go to movie theaters to see black folks in a movie without any big white stars? That was the question some of us in the media were all asking before the release of "The Secret Life of Bees" earlier this month. Most old-fashioned movie marketers had said--not likely, based on past experience and long-held attitudes about white moviegoers. Some marketers cited the "Bradley Effect," the controversial analysis of a Tom Bradley 1982 election defeat in the California gubernatorial election where he'd led in polling before the election, prompting pundits to blame the loss on white voters who didn't tell pollsters how they really intended to vote. 

But guess what? "Bees" has quietly emerged as a minor hit, now projected to pass the $30-million mark at the box office. And as my colleague John Horn reports, it's doing even better in theaters catering to white moviegoers than in traditionally African American theaters. What gives? Here's John's report:

Fox Searchlight was confident that African American moviegoers would turn up for "The Secret Life of Bees," whose cast includes Queen Latifah, Jennifer Hudson and Alicia Keys. But the studio and the film's makers worried that white audiences, even after they embraced the bestselling Sue Monk Kidd novel on which the film was based, might stay away when the film premiered on Oct. 17.  After two weeks of release, it's clear that white ticket buyers are not only showing up for "Bees" but also are becoming the film's most loyal audience.

Last weekend, the film grossed more at Pacific's The Grove Stadium 14 than it did at the AMC Magic Johnson Crenshaw 15. In the rest of the country, theaters catering to black moviegoers reported strong opening weekend "Bee" sales but suffered steep declines last weekend. It's consistent with how movies with strong African American appeal--including Tyler Perry's efforts--tend to perform. For example, "Bee's" grosses at Georgia's AMC Southlake Pavilion 24 fell more than 61% last weekend, and sales at Maryland's Regal Bowie Crossing Cinema 14 collapsed almost as badly.

But in theaters that tend to cater to white audiences, support remained much stronger.  "Bee" sales at Oregon's Regal Cinemas Bridgeport Village Stadium 18 were down just 32.1%, and grosses at Northern California's Century 14 Downtown Walnut Creek dropped less than 18%. With total ticket sales of more than $21 million, "The Secret Life of Bees" will never catch "Beverly Hills Chihuahua." But "Bees" is not suffering from any "Bradley Effect" discrimination, and the very thing that scares off potential studio backing--an almost entirely black cast--has shown to be not a liability at all.

Photo of Queen Latifah, Jennifer Hudson and Alicia Keys in "The Secret Life of Bees" by Sidney Baldwin / Fox Searchlight

Since there's never been any doubt that Joaquin Phoenix was one of Hollywood's great modern-day eccentrics, it's hard to entirely take seriously the news that he has suddenly vowed to quit acting. After all, the oddball actor is always saying strange things. Working the press line at a fancy premiere for "Walk the Line," Phoenix asked a reporter, "Do I have a large frog in my hair?" When the reporter said no, Joaquin asked a new question: "Is there something crawling out of my scalp?" And how about this red-carpet story: Phoenix wrecked his car and was rescued by none other than ... Werner Herzog!

So I'm guessing the odds are pretty slim that Phoenix will stick to this pledge. Whatever has sidetracked him--playing in a cool band, learning how to cook, figuring out how to spot the moons of Jupiter without a telescope--will soon lose its appeal and he'll be back in action. But his pledge did spark the following idea: Who would make my list of the Top Ten actors we would like to see quit acting? (WARNING -- I'M JUST HAVING FUN HERE):

Click through to read my list, but please do feel free to offer your own suggestions:

When I was at an early screening of the upcoming comedy "Role Models" the other night, I found myself thinking about the Academy Awards, wondering what I always wonder when I see a good new comedy: Why on Earth shouldn't the Oscars recognize good work in comedy the same way they do in drama, animation, cinematography, editing and all the other great movie crafts? Shockingly, comedy is so thoroughly ignored by Oscar voters that it's been more than 30 years (yes, count 'em--thirty) since a true comedy--Woody Allen's "Annie Hall"--won the Oscar for best picture.

To say this is a disgrace would be an understatement. I hate to bore you with a recitation of film history, but movies began as a comic medium. A generation of Americans grew up falling in love with the cinema, largely thanks to Charlie Chaplin, Buster Keaton and Harold Lloyd and a host of other inspired silent movie comics. A second generation of moviegoers survived the Great Depression, thanks to the wonderful screwball comedies of the 1930s, from "My Man Godfrey" to "The Awful Truth" to "It Happened One Night" to "Midnight," not to mention the great Marx Brothers and W.C. Fields movies of the period.

The comedies of the '30s remain the true pillar of movie art from that era, immensely watchable even today, as many of the dramas and gangster films of the period have lost much of their thrill and allure. Comedy often tells us more about our time than the most acclaimed drama. In fact, I'd argue that if future cultural historians wanted the best window into the contemporary mores of the early 21st century, they wouldn't find much help from most of our recent Oscar winners ("Crash" aside), which tend to be set in the past, looking back in time for lessons about earlier eras. For the best analysis of people's anxieties, quirks and fears in 2008, you'd start by watching Judd Apatow movies, which have more to say about our time than "Beverly Hills Chihuahua," James Bond or even thoughtful art films like "Atonement" or "There Will Be Blood."

Directed by David Wain, who did 2001's "Wet Hot American Summer," "Role Models," which is being released by Universal Pictures Nov. 7, has no weighty message to deliver. It's simply loaded with shrewd comedy writing and slyly funny performances. Penned by a quartet of writers, including Wain, the film's costar Paul Rudd, Ken Marino (who plays a comically clueless stepdad in the film) and original writer Timothy Dowling, it follows the misadventures of two mismatched young guys--Rudd and Seann William Scott--who find themselves forced to become mentors to a pair of unhappy young boys in a Big Brothers-style community service program.

The Apatow influence is inescapable, since the film is populated with various actors, starting with Rudd and costar Elizabeth Banks, who are best known for their work in Apatow films. The project has an intriguing history. It was originally at Fox, which put it in turnaround. Producer Mary Parent, now MGM's  production chief but then a producing partner with Scott Stuber, picked it up, believing it was a timely comic premise. "I loved the concept of these two guys--one of them totally cynical, the other completely living in his imagination--who were forced to learn how to step out of themselves and help other people."

How did "Role Models" survive the loss of its director, its title and still make it to the finish line? And will the motion picture academy ever create a comedy category to honor all the great comedies being made? Keep reading:

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?"   

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.

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.

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.

"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.

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    

After an early screening of "Who Do You Love," one of the--count 'em--two new movies about 1950s powerhouse blues label Chess Records, a pair of women sought out Marshall Chess, whose dad, Leonard, was the driving force behind the record label. They were puzzled about one of the key story lines in the film. "Did your mother and father really make up after your father had that torrid affair with that beautiful singer?" one of them asked.

Marshall rolled his eyes. "No, they didn't make up," he said, "because there never was an affair. The filmmakers made that part up." When it comes to making movies about real-life people, Hollywood rarely lets the truth get in the way of a good story. No one knows that better now that Marshall Chess, who served as a technical consultant on the two competing Chess Records films, but discovered that while the actors and filmmakers were happy to listen to his recollections, it hardly meant that they would stick to the truth when it came time to film his family's story. Marshall knows the story intimately, having been behind the bar at his father's nightclub as a boy, seen his father hustle DJs on road tours and worked at Chess Records as a teenager.

He's delighted to see two films dramatizing his family history, but he's ambivalent about the results. "I guess I have a love-hate relationship with the movies," he told me recently. "They capture the spirit and the music wonderfully, but the truth isn't always there." He's especially upset over how "Cadillac Records," a film that stars Beyonce as Etta James and Oscar-winner Adrien Brody as Leonard Chess, cuts Leonard's brother, Phil, the co-founder of the record company, entirely out of the movie.

"It's a horrible distortion of history," says Marshall. "They started the company together. My uncle Phil was there every day. He recorded a lot of the best music we did. It wouldn't have happened without him and it's a real insult to our family. When I asked the producers, they simply said his character didn't work [in the script], so they cut him out."

When it comes to cutting people out of the Chess story, the rival "Who Do You Love" film has its own issues. The biggest-selling artist in Chess history is Chuck Berry, but his character was cut out of the movie. Why? Because the filmmakers couldn't make a deal for the rights to his music. The film's producer, Les Alexander, explains: "We made Chuck a spectacularly generous offer, but he wouldn't let us have anything. Our director, Jerry Zaks, even sent him a genuine fan note, saying how much his music meant to him. But it didn't matter--the answer was no."

Berry, who is still active as a touring act, is notoriously difficult when it comes to business matters. When Taylor Hackford, who directed the wonderful Berry concert film "Hail! Hail! Rock and Roll," recently ran into the performer, the first words out of Berry's mouth were, "You still owe me money." Mos Def plays Berry in "Cadillac Records," which managed to acquire some Berry songs that are owned by Marshall Chess. But dealing with Berry was so unbelievably arduous that when I asked the film's producer, Sofia Sondervan, about working with him, she replied in a hushed tone: "I can't talk about it. I can't say anything about Chuck Berry at all."

The "Who Do You Love" filmmakers defend their decision to show Leonard having an affair with a Chess artist who is clearly based on Etta James. "The question you always ask yourself is--are you illuminating who they were or are you assassinating their character?" says Zaks. "For me, the affair represents part of the seduction of success, which is a big part of the conflict in the movie's story. We did our own research and it seems evident that Leonard was a womanizer. Even his brother Phil says he had numerous affairs."

The filmmakers had less leeway in portraying Willie Dixon, the now-deceased songwriter (played by Chi McBride) who wrote most of Chess' biggest hits. Producer Les Alexander says, "We were prohibited by his estate as portraying him as someone who drank or smoked or sweared." Nonetheless, the film shows Dixon having two wives, who begrudgingly share his time together. "The estate didn't prohibit that," Alexander says.

Both films depict Chess giving his top artists a Cadillac after they had big chart-topping hits. It's a way for the films to capture the back-door way business was handled in the early days of the record industry, since the artists rarely realized that the expense of buying a Cadillac was deducted from their royalty statements. Marshall says it was a pragmatic way to reward a top artist, noting that few of the bluesmen had bank accounts at the time. "Getting a Cadillac in those days was a top of the line thing to have," he explains. "My father bought a new Cadillac every year too, because he was just like his artists--he wanted people to know he was a successful man."

Marshall laughs. "I guess he'd be happy to see two movies coming out about him at the same time. He'd definitely consider that a symbol of success too."

When I was a kid, I spent a lot of time in Chicago, home of two great baseball teams, a host of colorful politicians and the best blues in the world. Back in the day, you weren't anyone in the blues world unless you were signed to Chess Records, the label that made stars out of a generation of rough and tumble musicians, notably Muddy Waters, Little Walter, Willie Dixon and Howlin' Wolf.

So when I was at the recent Toronto Film Festival, I made a point of seeing "Who Do You Love," which stars Alessandro Nivola and Jon Abrahams as Leonard and Phil Chess, two hard-nosed immigrant entrepreneurs who ended up creating Chess Records, the 1950s record label that popularized urban blues and later, with the arrival of Chuck Berry and Bo Diddley, ushered in a brash new form of rock 'n' roll that was adopted by the Rolling Stones, the Beatles and thousands of other young white rock artists.

After the screening, I ran into a film executive, who whispered in my ear, "Do you know that there's another one?" Puzzled, I said, "Another what?" He laughed. "Another movie about Chess Records."

I really thought he was joking, but it's true. Against all odds and sound commercial judgment, the same crazy movie business that once made two asteroid movies and two movies about Truman Capote has now made two movies about the obscure icons of 1950s Chicago blues. What are the odds?

The second Chess film, made by Sony BMG Films, is "Cadillac Records," which will be released Dec. 5 through Sony's TriStar Pictures. Produced by Sofia Sondervan and Andy Lack, Sony BMG's former chairman (who just took a new job running Bloomberg's multimedia operations), the film has considerably more star power than its rival, featuring Beyonce Knowles as Chess' top songstress, Etta James; Adrien Brody as Leonard Chess; Mos Def as Chuck Berry; and Jeffrey Wright as Muddy Waters.

It's probably a misnomer to call the two pictures rivals, since "Who Do You Love," despite earning some good notices in Toronto, remains a long shot to land a theatrical release. "Cadillac Records" will be out in 800 theaters, with a Beyonce single and a soundtrack to help attract attention. Still, the question remains--what are the odds of two 1950s blues movies being made at the same time?

The answer, as always, is that making a movie isn't exactly a rational decision--passion trumps pragmatism. Neither film came out of today's increasingly timid studio system, which wouldn't dream of risking any loot on such obscure subject matter. "Cadillac Records" was championed by Lack, the former head of NBC News who ran Sony Music before being kicked upstairs after its BMG merger. According to Sondervan, Lack's family is from the Mississippi Delta, where he grew up listening to the blues, which gave him a strong interest in the story. "Who Do You Love" was financed by Jonathan Mitchell, a wealthy real estate developer with a love for the blues and directed by Jerry Zaks, who remembers singing to R&B records as a boy in his family basement.

"I was always drawn to black music," recalls Zaks, a four-time Tony Award-winning Broadway theater  director. "When I was in fifth grade, I was convinced I was Marvin Gaye. I'd put on the records I loved, everything from Gaye and Johnny Nash to Muddy Waters and Bo Diddley, and sing to the records in front of the mirror. I think that music had a powerful impact on a whole generation of kids."

But those kids are all nearing retirement age today and not especially regular moviegoers. So who's going to turn out for these films? When I asked Sondervan what made her think a blues movie could make a dent in today's marketplace, she offered an honest answer. "I don't really know," she said. "All I know is that Beyonce has a huge young following and a lot of people will come see the movie just because she's in it." She added that Beyonce has designed a clothing line of dresses inspired by the fashions in the film that are being launched later this fall at Bloomingdale's. "All the young people we've shown the film to really loved it," she says. "The blues is coming back. It's getting played at a lot of trendy restaurants, so there's a lot of new awareness out there."

Hhmm. Like I said, making movies isn't always a rational decision. Will Beyonce fans want to see her as a troubled '50s blues diva? Angelina Jolie fans do show up when she's trading gunfire with Brad Pitt, but they didn't bother to come when she played Mariane Pearl in "A Mighty Heart." And George Clooney fans, who loved him in "Oceans Eleven," turned up their noses at "Leatherheads" and "The Good German."

Music biopics have a pretty spotty track record. Taylor Hackford's "Ray" was a surprise hit (though it was also independently financed outside the studio system). But "She's Not There," Todd Haynes' impressionistic Bob Dylan biopic, never found an audience, despite a raft of rave reviews. Even "Dreamgirls," the Bill Condon film loosely based on the Supremes, was a box-office disappointment.

The real challenge for films that re-create the lives of real characters is--how true to life are they? Sony hasn't screened "Cadillac Records" yet, but the person who knows the story best of all--Leonard's son, Marshall Chess, who served as a technical consultant on both projects--says both movies took some dramatic liberties with many of the characters' personal lives. Which film took the most liberties? Which actor came the closest to capturing his real-life character? And which movie ended up cutting Chuck Berry entirely out of the story? We'll have Part 2 of our post up soon, so stay tuned.

Photo: Beyonce Knowles as Etta James in "Cadillac Records": photo credit: Eric Liebowitz

The one thing you can count on in Hollywood is that when a studio makes a sudden or unexpected decision, it is almost guaranteed that the official reason for the move is a smoke screen for what's really going on. I'm guessing that's the case with Paramount's surprise announcement late Thursday that it's knocking "The Soloist" out of the awards season scrum, "dashing any hopes," to use Variety's melodramatic phrase, for the film to win any Academy Award accolades in 2008. The film is of particular interest to those of us here at the LA Times, since it is based on a series of gripping columns by our own Steve Lopez about his relationship with a homeless musician grappling with schizophrenia.

The film, which stars Robert Downey Jr. as Lopez and Jamie Foxx as the musician, was slated for release Nov. 21st, a prime slot for a potential year-end Oscar campaign. The film, produced by Dreamworks and co-financed by Participant Media and Universal's Working Title, has now been bumped to March 13th, 2009. Why? According to a story in the LA Times, Paramount executives said the current economic collapse "might have made November an awkward time to release a movie about homelessness."

That's the kind of whopper you'd only hear in Hollywood. I think the appropriate response to that would be--when exactly would be a good time to release a film about homelessness? Halloween? The Fourth of July? Having read the script and seen the film being shot, I'm guessing that only a studio disguising its real motives would call "The Soloist" a film about homelessness, when in fact, it's a male-bonding love story about a crusading newspaper reporter and a musician with a troubled soul.

Paramount apparently told its partners, as well as top CAA brass, who represent most of the talent on the picture, that the studio was under pressure from Viacom superiors to cut costs, having recently acknowledged that it was thinning out its future release schedule. With even Sumner Redstone being forced to sell stock to keep his investments afloat, the studio was forced to take drastic measures. With four potential Oscar movies slated for year-end release, something had to give. It certainly wasn't going to be "The Curious Case of Benjamin Button," an expensive and much-anticipated Brad Pitt and David Fincher collaboration that studio chief Brad Grey has already publicly embraced as his ticket to a front-row seat Feb. 22nd at the Kodak Theater. And it certainly wasn't going to be "Revolutionary Road," a Scott Rudin-produced literary drama with a star too big to offend (Leonardo DiCaprio) and the kind of rarified subject matter that desperately needs Oscar buzz to sell tickets.

That left the studio's Ed Zwick-directed drama, "Defiance," which is a long-shot for Oscars, but still enough of a contender that while it's being pushed back to late December, is still getting an Oscar qualifying run before going wide in January. That made "The Soloist" the low man on the totem pole, since it conceivably has enough commercial potential to make a dent at the box office in the spring without the benefit of any Oscar coattails. Since the film was produced by Dreamworks, which just concluded an ugly divorce with Paramount, the inside chatter has focused on the idea that Paramount is somehow punishing Dreamworks by robbing the departing Spielberg team of any Oscar glory.

If anyone at Variety actually asked Paramount about all these complicated twists and turns involving "The Soloist," they didn't bother to mention it in their story, which credulously quotes Paramount vice chairman Rob Moore as simply saying "We decided it's a commercial movie that will play well in the spring." Like I said, studio executives almost never give the real reason for their moves. If they did, Paramount would acknowledge the obvious: These moves aren't so much about saving money--which is small potatoes in terms of the giant outlays studio make these days--as focusing the studio's marketing machinery on its biggest potential cash cow.

Even though it co-financed the film with Warners, Paramount has a huge bet down on "Benjamin Button," which is the one movie here that could be both an enormous commercial and critical hit. The studio has clearly decided to clear the decks. It can't do anything about potential Oscar rivals from other studios, but it doesn't want to compete with itself. My guess is that the studio is being uncharacteristically pragmatic. In an era where studios release all their quality films in the same 10 week time period--I call it the Oscar demolition derby--Paramount has decided to create some breathing room for its strongest contender. Only in Oscar-crazed Hollywood, where everyone lives and dies by awards glory, is the decision to move a quality movie to the spring viewed as an ignominious death sentence. If "The Soloist" gets a good reception in March, it will survive and flourish. I wish some of the industry's hand-ringers would realize there is actually life after the Oscars.

My colleague John Horn has a story in Thursday's Calendar section that grapples with the always touchy question--why do white moviegoers shy away from movies with largely African American casts? "Amistad," Steven Spielberg's 1997 slavery epic, was his lowest-grossing movie in 20 years. Even "Ray," Taylor Hackford's Oscar-nominated musical biography of Ray Charles, drew an overwhelmingly black audience.

Will the same thing happen to "The Secret Life of Bees," a highbrow literary adaptation from an African American filmmaker (Gina Prince-Bythewood) that features a largely black female cast (Queen Latifah, Jennifer Hudson and Alicia Keys)? The film, distributed by Fox Searchlight, is going wide Friday in nearly 1,600 theaters, which means it will be playing in both suburban and urban neighborhoods. The book had a large white female following, but according to Horn, research shows that black moviegoers are showing roughly twice as much interest in seeing the film as whites.

Horn raises an intriguing political parallel:

"Pundits and election strategists have been deliberating feverishly whether white voters who tell interviewers they intend to vote for Sen. Barack Obama for president will really do so once they enter the polling booth. While the discrepancy known as the Bradley effect (named after former Los Angeles mayor Tom Bradley's 1982 loss in the California gubernatorial election, in which he consistently led in polling) may prove to be a minor factor in the year's presidential race, it is still a prominent concern within Hollywood, as movies made by and with African Americans often struggle to attract white supporters, both at the box office and within the studio's executive offices."

'Milk's' hot new actor: A Hollywood producer?

When producer Zvi Howard Rosenman arrived at the academy screening of "Milk" last week, he found someone occupying his reserved seat--Jack Nicholson. The actor ended up sitting right behind Rosenman. When the film was over, Nicholson leaned forward, tapped Rosenman on the shoulder and said, "Boy, oh boy, you did a good job." Having produced dozens of films over the years--from "The Main Event" to "Buffy the Vampire Slayer" to "Family Man"--Rosenman is used to accepting accolades at movie premieres.

But Rosenman had a totally new role in "Milk," as an actor, not a producer. He makes his debut playing David Goodstein, a powerful, self-made businessman who, as publisher of the San Francisco-based Advocate, helped turn a flimsy sex-ad publication into the Time magazine of the gay universe. "Goodstein was a kingmaker," Rosenman told me the other day. "He was basically the David Geffen of San Francisco. If you were involved in gay politics in that era, he was the grand poobah, the go-to guy."

As we learn in "Milk," Goodstein viewed Harvey Milk as an uncontrollable activist, as someone who was pushing for change, too much, too soon. "Goodstein wanted to work through the system, not outside it," Rosenman explains. "Harvey needed his endorsement when he was running for supervisor, but Goodstein saw Harvey as too radical, too flamboyant. They had a very contentious, complicated relationship."

Although Rosenman had never acted before, he knew "Milk" casting director Francine Maisler, who--working with "Milk" director Gus Van Sant--had been putting a lot of real-life people into parts in the film. "When they were trying to cast Goodstein, Francine said to Gus, 'We need someone who looks like Howard Rosenman, who talks like him and who has his size.' I think all Gus said was, 'Well, can he act?' Francine called me and asked if I had any experience and I told her that I'd done 'My Fair Lady' when I was 14 at a Hebrew student camp."

Even before he was cast, Rosenman started thinking like an actor. "My next words to Francine were, 'So, who am I up against?' " The competition was stiff--Van Sant had already seen the likes of Richard Schiff and Tom Hulce. Rosenman was nervous about having to audition, but he says that his best friend, the Endeavor agent Brian Swardstrom, persuaded him this was too important an opportunity to pass up. "So I did two takes with Francine, she looked at the tape and said, 'I'm recommending you to Gus.' And I got the part."

When Rosenman arrived in San Francisco for the film shoot, he realized his biggest challenge lay ahead--here he was, a novice actor, about to play several scenes opposite Sean Penn. What was it like? 

 

In my mind's eye, I see Peter Bart standing outside Campanile, holding one of those cardboard signs you see in the hands of homeless men on street corners, except the Variety editor, being a good editor, has slightly reworked the message: "Will Work for Food Oscar Ads." That was the essential point of Bart's column in today's Variety--why hasn't everyone jumped into the pool, frolicking in the annual rites of Oscar overkill? As Bart put it: "Oscar '08 may go down as the year of the Great Non-Race."

By this time last year, according to Bart, the studios had sent him 24 movie screeners. This year: Three. I only read Variety online, so I asked a studio marketing chief to leaf through today's edition and count up the number of ads. It was sobering. The only studio in the pool was Warners, who took out a double-truck ad for "The Dark Knight," the studio presumably having made so much money on the film that it wants to give some of it away to a needy trade publication (or more likely, to impress director Chris Nolan so he'll consider making a lucrative sequel). The rest of the issue had a half-page ad for a Polish film, a quarter-page ad for a film from Taiwan and a third-page ad for "Last Chance Harvey."

That was it. The studio marketer told me that at this point in time three years ago, Variety would've had at least 10 or 12 pages of studio ads. Why the drop-off? Anyone paying attention to the outside world knows we're in the midst of a hideous global economic recession, with corporate profits plunging, the biggest U.S. carmakers teetering on the brink of bankruptcy and tens of thousands of everyday Joes being laid off from their jobs. But Bart, like most Hollywood insiders, lives a life of privilege, putting those nice Campanile lunches on his expense account. So when he hears that GE's hurting or Sony's having a tough time, his reaction? "Hankies, please."

Desperate to drum up some business, Bart asks the rhetorical question: "Are the studios hanging the talent out to dry? Films like 'Milk," 'Doubt' or 'Frost/Nixon' need award nominations to find a mainstream audience." He even recruits Harvey Weinstein, the great Oscar showman of years past, to give Bart a money quote, with Harvey saying "If you don't pay for that big upfront Oscar campaign, you end up paying at the box office."

I managed to track Harvey down to ask him point-blank: Isn't is actually entirely appropriate for media conglomerates to cut back on Oscar ads in the middle of a horrific recession? Won't the best movies get plenty of nominations anyway? His response: "No one has shown me yet that you'll get the nominations unless you spend the money in the trades," he says. "It certainly hasn't worked for me so far. We had years where we spent less on Oscar ads and left it to serendipity and it didn't work. Oscar advertising makes a real difference in these kind of movies' commercial success. I mean, where do we stop? Should we be getting rid of all of the Oscar PR people too? Oscar ads just make economic sense." (Harvey, I'll be counting up all your full-page "Reader" ads from now on to see if you put your money where your mouth is.)

Bart calls Weinstein's support for big Oscar campaigns sage advice. I call it outdated and ill-advised. When people are losing their jobs left and right, it's frivolous, not to mention nauseatingly narcissistic, for studios to be tossing away millions of dollars on Oscar campaigns when that money could be better spent in a thousand different ways. Imagine how you'd feel if you were one of the hundreds of employees that's been laid off at a media conglomerate, only to see that your company's film division still has plenty of dough left to run Oscar ads in Variety or the New York Times or my newspaper.

What really worries Bart is the prospect of someone getting an Oscar nomination without spending a dime on an Oscar campaign. It would be a big blow to his bottom line, but it would be a giant step forward in studio accounting--the kind of accounting that puts a priority on good judgment, not on the costly and trivial pursuit of silly prizes. 

Photo of Harvey Weinstein from the Associated Press

Up until now, Summit Entertainment hasn't exactly set the movie world on fire. Run by veteran sales agent Patrick Wachsberger and former Paramount vice chairman Rob Friedman, the new indie distributor and finance company has struggled to prove that it can compete with the studio behemoths in the marketplace. Of its five releases, only one, the mixed martial arts film "Never Back Down," was a modest success, grossing about $25 million in the U.S. The company's most recent release, the teen comedy "Sex Drive," was a bomb, making barely $8 million after opening on nearly 2,500 screens.

But Summit has an amazing ace up its sleeve--"Twilight." If you know a teenager, I need not say more. If you don't, the sound you hear in the distance is the approaching pop culture tsunami. Written by Stephenie Meyer, "Twilight" is the first in a series of enormously popular vampire love stories that are now poised to spawn one of the hottest Hollywood literary franchises since "Harry Potter." Directed by Catherine Hardwicke ("13" and "Lords of Dogtown"), "Twilight" arrives on 5,500 screens this Friday, with the industry already abuzz with reports about spectacular advance ticket sales. During the past few weeks I've been hearing from studio marketing chiefs, who all seem in awe of the word-of-mouth groundswell for the film.

When the film's young stars, Kristen Stewart and Robert Pattinson, showed up at Comic-Con last July, they were greeted by Beatlemania-style screams. Last week 10,000 kids showed up at a mall in Dallas to mob them. They've been on the cover of Entertainment Weekly and a variety of teen tabloids as well as all over MTV. (Here's our dispatch earlier this year from the film set.) But what's amazing is that one of Hollywood's biggest studios had the project for years and simply let it go. "Twilight" was originally at Paramount's MTV Films, which spent nearly two years trying to develop the picture before the studio put the project in turnaround. A second studio, Fox Atomic, also passed on the project before it came Summit's way.

It wasn't as if "Twilight's" teen appeal was exactly a secret. The second novel in Meyer's series, "New Moon," debuted at No. 5 on the New York Times bestseller list for children's books when it was released in 2006. It hit No. 1 the following week and remained in the top position for 11 straight weeks. The fourth installment, "Breaking Dawn," sold 1.3 million copies in its first day of release. The entire series has now sold 8.5 million copies in the U.S., more than 17 million copies worldwide.

So how did this budding literary phenomenon practically drop in Summit's lap? Keep reading:

 

When I had lunch with John Hamburg the other day, the writer-director of the upcoming comedy "I Love You, Man" appeared full of anxiety, something of a natural condition I suspect, since judging from his work, he is the poet laureate of comic anxiety. (Best known in the business as Ben Stiller's in-house writer, Hamburg's writing credits include "Meet the Parents," "Zoolander" and "Meet the Fockers" as well as serving as the writer-director of "Along Came Polly.") The problem at hand was pretty clear. His new film, which stars Paul Rudd, Jason Segal and Jamie Pressly, had the perfect title and he desperately wanted to keep it.

After all, what else would you call a comedy about a loner engaged to a nice girl who suddenly realizes that he has no male friend to be his best man--and proceeds to go out on a series of male dates, hoping to find the right guy? I mean, doesn't "I Love You, Man" say it all? Hamburg thought so too. So did DreamWorks, which produced the film (which is being distributed by Paramount). There was just one snag. 20th Century Fox had a film coming out at roughly the same time next spring called "I Love You Beth Cooper." And if there were ever a studio that would attempt to copyright the phrase "I Love You," it would be Fox.

So even though Hamburg had done a lot of work at Fox, including some key rewrites on the studio's mega-hit "Night at the Museum," he was worried. And rightfully so. After all, it was DreamWorks who had a Farrelly brothers comedy called "The Seven Day Itch," loosely based on 1972's "The Heartbreak Kid." At least it was called that until Fox challenged the title, claiming the movie could be confused with the 1955 Billy Wilder film "The Seven Year Itch." (I only wish Wilder were still alive, since surely he'd have a great quip about the logic of how you'd confuse a 50-year-old Marilyn Monroe movie with a Farrelly brothers comedy.) Fox was so fiercely committed to protecting its title that studio Co-Chairman Tom Rothman personally went before the MPAA title arbitration board to plead the studio's case--and won on appeal, forcing DreamWorks to change its title to "The Heartbreak Kid." (The movie flopped.)

"I have to admit I don't have a real fall-back position," Hamburg told me over lunch. "I have a list of other titles in my office and they're all terrible. 'I Love You, Man' is so good because it's a phrase that's in the culture. It symbolizes the way men talk to each other, especially the 'comma' and the 'man.' And the whole subtext of the phrase really plays out in the movie. I dunno--isn't 'I love you' a pretty common phrase? It seems like I've heard it in movie titles before."

So does this story have a happy ending? Did Fox put the screws to Hamburg or did the studio make him an offer he couldn't refuse? Keep reading:

When I was young and fancy free, I once went out with a girl whose major criteria for granting a guy a second date (and trust me when I say there was always a long line of potential grant recipients) was whether we could offer a persuasive answer to the question: What is your favorite James Bond theme song? (I could identify--in high school, I once bailed on a girl after it became apparent that I was going to be subjected to a steady stream of Cat Stevens and Three Dog Night songs from her LP collection.)

But I digress. Outside of arguing over who's the best baseball player or the worst president of all time, what could be more emotionally satisfying than debating the merits of the amazing array of James Bond theme songs? So kudos to Drew Kerr at TotalMusicGeek, who came up with the great idea of doing a Top 20 ranking of the themes--along with a YouTube link allowing us to watch all of the film's title sequences while listening to the themes.

I'm not sure I agree with all of Drew's rankings--he puts Nancy Sinatra's steamy rendition of "You Only Live Twice" (covered not so long ago by Coldplay) at No. 1, which strikes me as a bit high. But puzzling over the entire Bond aesthetic is half of the fun of playing the game. I agree with Drew that the new Jack White-Alicia Keys theme, "Another Way to Die," is, well, dreadful, almost as bad as Madonna's dreary "Die Another Day" and Garbage's dismal "The World Is Not Enough." On the plus side, I'd forgotten how good Tina Turner sounds on "GoldenEye" (co-written by Bono and the Edge) or how classic Carly Simon's "Nobody Does It Better" feels today, perhaps because it was co-written by the one and only Marvin Hamlisch, who's still enough of a brand name to get name-checked in "Role Models."

Anyway, go see for yourself--and don't miss the wonderfully kitschy title sequence from "On Her Majesty's Secret Service." As for my favorite theme? If you must know, I'm going with Tom Jones' brassy gals-toss-your-panties-on-stage version of "Thunderball." But don't take my word for it. Watch it for yourself:

Photo of Eunice Gayson and Sean Connery in "Dr. No" from UPI

If you hang around Hollywood long enough, you learn not to believe everything you read in the trades. Still, it was pretty exciting to see the news this week that the indefatigable producer Avi Lerner had wooed Brett Ratner into directing Lerner's upcoming remake of "Conan," the iconic 1982 film that helped launch Arnold Schwarzenegger's long run as a Hollywood action hero. According to the original Hollywood Reporter headline, Ratner had committed to the project, though its latest version was a bit more circumspect, saying he was in "final negotiations" to do the film after working with the screenwriters, who were doing a quick polish to "incorporate" some of Ratner's ideas. The blogosphere wasn't quite so discerning, with some Web outlets simply saying that Ratner was "officially directing" the film.

One of Hollywood's most persuasive salesman, Lerner told me this morning that Ratner was the perfect director. "He has the passion and feeling for this project--he even wrote a story about Conan when he was 10 years old," Lerner explained. "He understands the character, he analyzed the script really well. He knows how to make this a really big movie. I like his childlike enthusiasm--he almost sees these movies as wonderful toys. What can I say, he's a nice, likable Jewish boy."

Lerner acknowledged that even though he sent out a press release announcing Ratner's involvement with the project, the deal wasn't actually done. "We still have a few obstacles," he said. "Brett is only committed if we agree on a budget, on how to do the special effects and exactly where we'd shoot the film." Lerner has a studio in Bulgaria, so he'd like to shoot most of the movie there, with some exterior work in China.

But is Ratner actually committed to doing the film? In two words: Not really. When I called him today, he sounded somewhat agitated, unhappy that news of his negotiations with Lerner had surfaced, especially since he is extremely close to getting a green light from Paramount to make "Beverly Hills Cop 4." "Let me make this very clear," he told me. "I am not doing 'Conan' now. This is totally premature. For now, 'Conan' is only a development deal. I have a deal at Paramount and I'm doing 'Beverly Hills Cop' first, no matter what. Avi shouldn't be telling you or anyone else in the press what I'm doing."

So what happened here? And how did Avi get the rights to "Conan" in the first place? Keep reading:

The blogosphere has been full of breathless tales that Baz Luhrmann has been forced to dump the unhappy ending he filmed for "Australia," his $130-million adventure epic (due out later this month) that stars Hugh Jackman and Nicole Kidman. Australia's Sunday Telegraph reports that 20th Century Fox executives forced Luhrmann to add a more upbeat ending after the film had "disastrous reviews" at early test screenings. Is it really possible that Fox would bully Luhrmann, a final-cut director, into giving his movie a happier ending?

Even though we've had some heated disagreements in recent months about my coverage of his studio, Fox Co-Chairman Tom Rothman graciously agreed to have lunch with me today at the Fox commissary, where we did see eye-to-eye on one important matter--it was very cool to be sitting two tables away from the legendary Hong Kong action movie star Chow Yun-Fat. (What he was doing at Fox was something of a mystery, since Rothman said he wasn't making a movie with the actor.) So what about "Australia"? Was there any truth to the Sunday Telegraph story?

"Everything in that story was patently nonsensical," Rothman said. "It's all too typical of the way the world works today that everybody picked up an unsourced, anonymous quote-filled story in a tabloid from Sydney and nobody ever bothered to check to see if it was accurate. The facts are--Baz is a final-cut director and we never pressured him in any way, shape or form. He wrote the movie, shot it and cut it all himself without any interference from us at all."

Rothman said that the movie "has probably had seven different endings at one time or another, none of them easily characterized as happy or sad." He said Luhrmann chose the ending the director thought worked best for the film. "But you couldn't possibly characterize the ending as happy or sad," he told me. "I'd call it deeply satisfying but that's because it's very complex. In fact, you could have a long conversation about whether it's happy or sad, which is actually part of what makes it a great movie."

I can't wait to see the film. And I couldn't agree more with Rothman about the gall of the Sunday Telegraph relying on such shoddy reporting. Maybe Tom can use his influence to improve the quality of journalism Down Under. All he has to do is pick up the phone, since the Telegraph is owned by ... his boss, Rupert Murdoch.

Photo of Hugh Jackman and Nicole Kidman in "Australia"  from Twentieth Century Fox / AFP / Getty Images

If you're like me, always hanging around producers, managers and agents, you frequently hear them groaning about the latest nutty studio rule dealing with the movies the studio will never, ever, ever make again. With "Soul Men" having tanked this weekend, it's a good bet that some studio chief somewhere is grumbling, "I don't want to ever see another script about soul singers!" (That dictum probably extends to college football players who get leukemia after the failure of "The Express" last month.)

Studio bosses do tend to make certain blanket pronouncements. Fox's Tom Rothman thinks sci-fi comedies are box-office poison, one key reason why he wouldn't make "Used Guys," a Jay Roach-directed sci-fi comedy that would have starred Ben Stiller and Jim Carrey (and cost a ton of money). Nikki Finke reported last year that after the failure of several female-starring comedies, Warners production chief Jeff Robinov told three different producers that WB was "no longer doing movies with women in the lead"--in fact, he supposedly didn't even want to see a script with a woman in a leading role. Everyone in town was talking about that one for weeks, even though I see that Warners is releasing a Cameron Diaz movie next spring ("The Box"), which didn't start filming till long after the supposed ban on female stars. So maybe Robinov had second thoughts--or never really said it in the first place.

I was reminded of all this the other day when an agent told me that they'd heard that Disney had put out the word that they didn't want to make any movies with young protagonists, which must mean really young protagonists, since the "High School Musical" series is such a box-office bonanza. So when I was having lunch with Sony chief Amy Pascal on Friday, I asked her--do you guys really say this stuff? Do you have crazy phobias too?

She laughed. "We all probably say things like that, but it's in the heat of the moment--everyone says things they don't really mean. So if there's a really young executive in a meeting and they hear you say something, even though you almost didn't mean it the minute it came out of your mouth, they sometimes take it seriously, when they should probably do what you do, which is forget all about it five minutes later."

But has she, in the heat of the moment, made crazy pronouncements too, like not wanting to make a movie whose title starts with the letter X? "I did say--I hate movies that begin with a bet," Pascal admits. "It's a bad idea, because it usually means that it's a fake story that revolves around a gimmick. But on the other hand, someone made 'My Fair Lady' and it was great. Rules are oversimplifications, which are bad no matter how you look at it. It would be like my saying, 'I'm so sick of Iraq movies, so I don't ever want to see another script about Iraq.' But that's just my reaction in the moment. Someone will make a phenomenal movie about Iraq and everyone's attitude will change."

According to Pascal, people simply overinterpret offhanded remarks. "I really don't think any studio has those kinds of rules. How could they? You have to open to hearing crazy, surprising ideas. One minute you have one of those rules, the next minute you'd want to break it."

Photo of Amy Pascal by Sony Pictures Entertainment

Sam Moore, the sole surviving half of soul legends Sam & Dave, is claiming that "Soul Men," which stars Samuel L. Jackson and Bernie Mac as long-estranged R&B backup singers who reunite for a last concert, is a rip-off of his life story. According to a story in the Independent today, Moore says the film--due out this weekend--is a "defamatory account" of a reunion he and the late Dave Prater attempted to pull off in 1982 after not speaking for several years. Moore claims the film has "bastardized" his life story, saying the comedy is "sexist, racist and embarrassing and that's not what Sam & Dave were about. It's so amateurish, so stupid and I'm surprised that Samuel L. Jackson is involved in this.... When you read the script, all you see is vulgarity. Every other word is the N-word or M-f and it's just not right."

Apparently Moore hasn't been going to the movies much lately, since there's nothing in "Soul Men" that's any more vulgar than the scatological jokes in "Zach and Miri Make a Porno" or the nauseating violence in "Saw 5," both of which just opened over the weekend. But does he have a point? Is "Soul Men" really a thinly disguised version of the Sam & Dave story? No way, says "Soul Men" producer David Friendly. "Our whole movie is a fiction, from start to finish," he told me. "We never got any life rights from anyone at any time because this was completely an invention. I'm a big-enough fan of Sam & Dave to know that it's a preposterous charge, since Sam & Dave were headliners, while our guys are backup singers."

Friendly laughed. "We haven't heard anything from the Pips [Gladys Knight's backup singers.] They'd at least have a stronger argument." Friendly said that he was asked to develop the project as a vehicle for Jackson and Mac, who wanted to work together in a comedy. He knew he had a hook for a movie when one of the film's writers posed the question--what if Bernie and Sam were backup singers who hadn't spoken in 30 years? The project was originally at New Regency, and then at New Line before ending up at the Weinstein Co., which is releasing the film through MGM this weekend.

Friendly said that, by coincidence, his offices were in the same building in Beverly Hills that housed Stax Records. "I literally took the elevator up one floor and talked to them about using wall-to-wall Stax music, which is how we came to license the music from them." Moore's lawyers are saying the Weinstein Co. has abused Moore's "Soul Man" trademark and are exploiting his reputation in order to make some dough. The Weinsteins' attorney, the always ferocious Bert Fields, insists Moore has no case, saying the movie tells a different story about different people. As Fields told the Independent: "If Mr. Moore decides to file a lawsuit, he will lose."

I'm no lawyer, but having seen the movie, I think Sam should rethink his position. The movie isn't racist, unless you want to contend that every Eddie Murphy and Chris Tucker comedy ever made is racist. It isn't more sexist than a thousand other Hollywood films. And guess what--it's pretty funny, largely thanks to some great chemistry between Jackson and Mac, who receives a nice, heartfelt tribute at the end of the film. As for the charge of unauthorized borrowing, someone should phone up Neil Simon. If the movie steals from anyone, it's from "The Sunshine Boys," which, as anyone could tell you, is stealing from the best.

See for yourself:

Photo of Bernie Mac and Samuel L. Jackson in "Soul Men" by Doug Hyun / The Weinstein Co.

Will white folks go to movie theaters to see black folks in a movie without any big white stars? That was the question some of us in the media were all asking before the release of "The Secret Life of Bees" earlier this month. Most old-fashioned movie marketers had said--not likely, based on past experience and long-held attitudes about white moviegoers. Some marketers cited the "Bradley Effect," the controversial analysis of a Tom Bradley 1982 election defeat in the California gubernatorial election where he'd led in polling before the election, prompting pundits to blame the loss on white voters who didn't tell pollsters how they really intended to vote. 

But guess what? "Bees" has quietly emerged as a minor hit, now projected to pass the $30-million mark at the box office. And as my colleague John Horn reports, it's doing even better in theaters catering to white moviegoers than in traditionally African American theaters. What gives? Here's John's report:

Fox Searchlight was confident that African American moviegoers would turn up for "The Secret Life of Bees," whose cast includes Queen Latifah, Jennifer Hudson and Alicia Keys. But the studio and the film's makers worried that white audiences, even after they embraced the bestselling Sue Monk Kidd novel on which the film was based, might stay away when the film premiered on Oct. 17.  After two weeks of release, it's clear that white ticket buyers are not only showing up for "Bees" but also are becoming the film's most loyal audience.

Last weekend, the film grossed more at Pacific's The Grove Stadium 14 than it did at the AMC Magic Johnson Crenshaw 15. In the rest of the country, theaters catering to black moviegoers reported strong opening weekend "Bee" sales but suffered steep declines last weekend. It's consistent with how movies with strong African American appeal--including Tyler Perry's efforts--tend to perform. For example, "Bee's" grosses at Georgia's AMC Southlake Pavilion 24 fell more than 61% last weekend, and sales at Maryland's Regal Bowie Crossing Cinema 14 collapsed almost as badly.

But in theaters that tend to cater to white audiences, support remained much stronger.  "Bee" sales at Oregon's Regal Cinemas Bridgeport Village Stadium 18 were down just 32.1%, and grosses at Northern California's Century 14 Downtown Walnut Creek dropped less than 18%. With total ticket sales of more than $21 million, "The Secret Life of Bees" will never catch "Beverly Hills Chihuahua." But "Bees" is not suffering from any "Bradley Effect" discrimination, and the very thing that scares off potential studio backing--an almost entirely black cast--has shown to be not a liability at all.

Photo of Queen Latifah, Jennifer Hudson and Alicia Keys in "The Secret Life of Bees" by Sidney Baldwin / Fox Searchlight

Since there's never been any doubt that Joaquin Phoenix was one of Hollywood's great modern-day eccentrics, it's hard to entirely take seriously the news that he has suddenly vowed to quit acting. After all, the oddball actor is always saying strange things. Working the press line at a fancy premiere for "Walk the Line," Phoenix asked a reporter, "Do I have a large frog in my hair?" When the reporter said no, Joaquin asked a new question: "Is there something crawling out of my scalp?" And how about this red-carpet story: Phoenix wrecked his car and was rescued by none other than ... Werner Herzog!

So I'm guessing the odds are pretty slim that Phoenix will stick to this pledge. Whatever has sidetracked him--playing in a cool band, learning how to cook, figuring out how to spot the moons of Jupiter without a telescope--will soon lose its appeal and he'll be back in action. But his pledge did spark the following idea: Who would make my list of the Top Ten actors we would like to see quit acting? (WARNING -- I'M JUST HAVING FUN HERE):

Click through to read my list, but please do feel free to offer your own suggestions:

When I was at an early screening of the upcoming comedy "Role Models" the other night, I found myself thinking about the Academy Awards, wondering what I always wonder when I see a good new comedy: Why on Earth shouldn't the Oscars recognize good work in comedy the same way they do in drama, animation, cinematography, editing and all the other great movie crafts? Shockingly, comedy is so thoroughly ignored by Oscar voters that it's been more than 30 years (yes, count 'em--thirty) since a true comedy--Woody Allen's "Annie Hall"--won the Oscar for best picture.

To say this is a disgrace would be an understatement. I hate to bore you with a recitation of film history, but movies began as a comic medium. A generation of Americans grew up falling in love with the cinema, largely thanks to Charlie Chaplin, Buster Keaton and Harold Lloyd and a host of other inspired silent movie comics. A second generation of moviegoers survived the Great Depression, thanks to the wonderful screwball comedies of the 1930s, from "My Man Godfrey" to "The Awful Truth" to "It Happened One Night" to "Midnight," not to mention the great Marx Brothers and W.C. Fields movies of the period.

The comedies of the '30s remain the true pillar of movie art from that era, immensely watchable even today, as many of the dramas and gangster films of the period have lost much of their thrill and allure. Comedy often tells us more about our time than the most acclaimed drama. In fact, I'd argue that if future cultural historians wanted the best window into the contemporary mores of the early 21st century, they wouldn't find much help from most of our recent Oscar winners ("Crash" aside), which tend to be set in the past, looking back in time for lessons about earlier eras. For the best analysis of people's anxieties, quirks and fears in 2008, you'd start by watching Judd Apatow movies, which have more to say about our time than "Beverly Hills Chihuahua," James Bond or even thoughtful art films like "Atonement" or "There Will Be Blood."

Directed by David Wain, who did 2001's "Wet Hot American Summer," "Role Models," which is being released by Universal Pictures Nov. 7, has no weighty message to deliver. It's simply loaded with shrewd comedy writing and slyly funny performances. Penned by a quartet of writers, including Wain, the film's costar Paul Rudd, Ken Marino (who plays a comically clueless stepdad in the film) and original writer Timothy Dowling, it follows the misadventures of two mismatched young guys--Rudd and Seann William Scott--who find themselves forced to become mentors to a pair of unhappy young boys in a Big Brothers-style community service program.

The Apatow influence is inescapable, since the film is populated with various actors, starting with Rudd and costar Elizabeth Banks, who are best known for their work in Apatow films. The project has an intriguing history. It was originally at Fox, which put it in turnaround. Producer Mary Parent, now MGM's  production chief but then a producing partner with Scott Stuber, picked it up, believing it was a timely comic premise. "I loved the concept of these two guys--one of them totally cynical, the other completely living in his imagination--who were forced to learn how to step out of themselves and help other people."

How did "Role Models" survive the loss of its director, its title and still make it to the finish line? And will the motion picture academy ever create a comedy category to honor all the great comedies being made? Keep reading:

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?"   

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.

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.

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.

"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.

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    

After an early screening of "Who Do You Love," one of the--count 'em--two new movies about 1950s powerhouse blues label Chess Records, a pair of women sought out Marshall Chess, whose dad, Leonard, was the driving force behind the record label. They were puzzled about one of the key story lines in the film. "Did your mother and father really make up after your father had that torrid affair with that beautiful singer?" one of them asked.

Marshall rolled his eyes. "No, they didn't make up," he said, "because there never was an affair. The filmmakers made that part up." When it comes to making movies about real-life people, Hollywood rarely lets the truth get in the way of a good story. No one knows that better now that Marshall Chess, who served as a technical consultant on the two competing Chess Records films, but discovered that while the actors and filmmakers were happy to listen to his recollections, it hardly meant that they would stick to the truth when it came time to film his family's story. Marshall knows the story intimately, having been behind the bar at his father's nightclub as a boy, seen his father hustle DJs on road tours and worked at Chess Records as a teenager.

He's delighted to see two films dramatizing his family history, but he's ambivalent about the results. "I guess I have a love-hate relationship with the movies," he told me recently. "They capture the spirit and the music wonderfully, but the truth isn't always there." He's especially upset over how "Cadillac Records," a film that stars Beyonce as Etta James and Oscar-winner Adrien Brody as Leonard Chess, cuts Leonard's brother, Phil, the co-founder of the record company, entirely out of the movie.

"It's a horrible distortion of history," says Marshall. "They started the company together. My uncle Phil was there every day. He recorded a lot of the best music we did. It wouldn't have happened without him and it's a real insult to our family. When I asked the producers, they simply said his character didn't work [in the script], so they cut him out."

When it comes to cutting people out of the Chess story, the rival "Who Do You Love" film has its own issues. The biggest-selling artist in Chess history is Chuck Berry, but his character was cut out of the movie. Why? Because the filmmakers couldn't make a deal for the rights to his music. The film's producer, Les Alexander, explains: "We made Chuck a spectacularly generous offer, but he wouldn't let us have anything. Our director, Jerry Zaks, even sent him a genuine fan note, saying how much his music meant to him. But it didn't matter--the answer was no."

Berry, who is still active as a touring act, is notoriously difficult when it comes to business matters. When Taylor Hackford, who directed the wonderful Berry concert film "Hail! Hail! Rock and Roll," recently ran into the performer, the first words out of Berry's mouth were, "You still owe me money." Mos Def plays Berry in "Cadillac Records," which managed to acquire some Berry songs that are owned by Marshall Chess. But dealing with Berry was so unbelievably arduous that when I asked the film's producer, Sofia Sondervan, about working with him, she replied in a hushed tone: "I can't talk about it. I can't say anything about Chuck Berry at all."

The "Who Do You Love" filmmakers defend their decision to show Leonard having an affair with a Chess artist who is clearly based on Etta James. "The question you always ask yourself is--are you illuminating who they were or are you assassinating their character?" says Zaks. "For me, the affair represents part of the seduction of success, which is a big part of the conflict in the movie's story. We did our own research and it seems evident that Leonard was a womanizer. Even his brother Phil says he had numerous affairs."

The filmmakers had less leeway in portraying Willie Dixon, the now-deceased songwriter (played by Chi McBride) who wrote most of Chess' biggest hits. Producer Les Alexander says, "We were prohibited by his estate as portraying him as someone who drank or smoked or sweared." Nonetheless, the film shows Dixon having two wives, who begrudgingly share his time together. "The estate didn't prohibit that," Alexander says.

Both films depict Chess giving his top artists a Cadillac after they had big chart-topping hits. It's a way for the films to capture the back-door way business was handled in the early days of the record industry, since the artists rarely realized that the expense of buying a Cadillac was deducted from their royalty statements. Marshall says it was a pragmatic way to reward a top artist, noting that few of the bluesmen had bank accounts at the time. "Getting a Cadillac in those days was a top of the line thing to have," he explains. "My father bought a new Cadillac every year too, because he was just like his artists--he wanted people to know he was a successful man."

Marshall laughs. "I guess he'd be happy to see two movies coming out about him at the same time. He'd definitely consider that a symbol of success too."

When I was a kid, I spent a lot of time in Chicago, home of two great baseball teams, a host of colorful politicians and the best blues in the world. Back in the day, you weren't anyone in the blues world unless you were signed to Chess Records, the label that made stars out of a generation of rough and tumble musicians, notably Muddy Waters, Little Walter, Willie Dixon and Howlin' Wolf.

So when I was at the recent Toronto Film Festival, I made a point of seeing "Who Do You Love," which stars Alessandro Nivola and Jon Abrahams as Leonard and Phil Chess, two hard-nosed immigrant entrepreneurs who ended up creating Chess Records, the 1950s record label that popularized urban blues and later, with the arrival of Chuck Berry and Bo Diddley, ushered in a brash new form of rock 'n' roll that was adopted by the Rolling Stones, the Beatles and thousands of other young white rock artists.

After the screening, I ran into a film executive, who whispered in my ear, "Do you know that there's another one?" Puzzled, I said, "Another what?" He laughed. "Another movie about Chess Records."

I really thought he was joking, but it's true. Against all odds and sound commercial judgment, the same crazy movie business that once made two asteroid movies and two movies about Truman Capote has now made two movies about the obscure icons of 1950s Chicago blues. What are the odds?

The second Chess film, made by Sony BMG Films, is "Cadillac Records," which will be released Dec. 5 through Sony's TriStar Pictures. Produced by Sofia Sondervan and Andy Lack, Sony BMG's former chairman (who just took a new job running Bloomberg's multimedia operations), the film has considerably more star power than its rival, featuring Beyonce Knowles as Chess' top songstress, Etta James; Adrien Brody as Leonard Chess; Mos Def as Chuck Berry; and Jeffrey Wright as Muddy Waters.

It's probably a misnomer to call the two pictures rivals, since "Who Do You Love," despite earning some good notices in Toronto, remains a long shot to land a theatrical release. "Cadillac Records" will be out in 800 theaters, with a Beyonce single and a soundtrack to help attract attention. Still, the question remains--what are the odds of two 1950s blues movies being made at the same time?

The answer, as always, is that making a movie isn't exactly a rational decision--passion trumps pragmatism. Neither film came out of today's increasingly timid studio system, which wouldn't dream of risking any loot on such obscure subject matter. "Cadillac Records" was championed by Lack, the former head of NBC News who ran Sony Music before being kicked upstairs after its BMG merger. According to Sondervan, Lack's family is from the Mississippi Delta, where he grew up listening to the blues, which gave him a strong interest in the story. "Who Do You Love" was financed by Jonathan Mitchell, a wealthy real estate developer with a love for the blues and directed by Jerry Zaks, who remembers singing to R&B records as a boy in his family basement.

"I was always drawn to black music," recalls Zaks, a four-time Tony Award-winning Broadway theater  director. "When I was in fifth grade, I was convinced I was Marvin Gaye. I'd put on the records I loved, everything from Gaye and Johnny Nash to Muddy Waters and Bo Diddley, and sing to the records in front of the mirror. I think that music had a powerful impact on a whole generation of kids."

But those kids are all nearing retirement age today and not especially regular moviegoers. So who's going to turn out for these films? When I asked Sondervan what made her think a blues movie could make a dent in today's marketplace, she offered an honest answer. "I don't really know," she said. "All I know is that Beyonce has a huge young following and a lot of people will come see the movie just because she's in it." She added that Beyonce has designed a clothing line of dresses inspired by the fashions in the film that are being launched later this fall at Bloomingdale's. "All the young people we've shown the film to really loved it," she says. "The blues is coming back. It's getting played at a lot of trendy restaurants, so there's a lot of new awareness out there."

Hhmm. Like I said, making movies isn't always a rational decision. Will Beyonce fans want to see her as a troubled '50s blues diva? Angelina Jolie fans do show up when she's trading gunfire with Brad Pitt, but they didn't bother to come when she played Mariane Pearl in "A Mighty Heart." And George Clooney fans, who loved him in "Oceans Eleven," turned up their noses at "Leatherheads" and "The Good German."

Music biopics have a pretty spotty track record. Taylor Hackford's "Ray" was a surprise hit (though it was also independently financed outside the studio system). But "She's Not There," Todd Haynes' impressionistic Bob Dylan biopic, never found an audience, despite a raft of rave reviews. Even "Dreamgirls," the Bill Condon film loosely based on the Supremes, was a box-office disappointment.

The real challenge for films that re-create the lives of real characters is--how true to life are they? Sony hasn't screened "Cadillac Records" yet, but the person who knows the story best of all--Leonard's son, Marshall Chess, who served as a technical consultant on both projects--says both movies took some dramatic liberties with many of the characters' personal lives. Which film took the most liberties? Which actor came the closest to capturing his real-life character? And which movie ended up cutting Chuck Berry entirely out of the story? We'll have Part 2 of our post up soon, so stay tuned.

Photo: Beyonce Knowles as Etta James in "Cadillac Records": photo credit: Eric Liebowitz

The one thing you can count on in Hollywood is that when a studio makes a sudden or unexpected decision, it is almost guaranteed that the official reason for the move is a smoke screen for what's really going on. I'm guessing that's the case with Paramount's surprise announcement late Thursday that it's knocking "The Soloist" out of the awards season scrum, "dashing any hopes," to use Variety's melodramatic phrase, for the film to win any Academy Award accolades in 2008. The film is of particular interest to those of us here at the LA Times, since it is based on a series of gripping columns by our own Steve Lopez about his relationship with a homeless musician grappling with schizophrenia.

The film, which stars Robert Downey Jr. as Lopez and Jamie Foxx as the musician, was slated for release Nov. 21st, a prime slot for a potential year-end Oscar campaign. The film, produced by Dreamworks and co-financed by Participant Media and Universal's Working Title, has now been bumped to March 13th, 2009. Why? According to a story in the LA Times, Paramount executives said the current economic collapse "might have made November an awkward time to release a movie about homelessness."

That's the kind of whopper you'd only hear in Hollywood. I think the appropriate response to that would be--when exactly would be a good time to release a film about homelessness? Halloween? The Fourth of July? Having read the script and seen the film being shot, I'm guessing that only a studio disguising its real motives would call "The Soloist" a film about homelessness, when in fact, it's a male-bonding love story about a crusading newspaper reporter and a musician with a troubled soul.

Paramount apparently told its partners, as well as top CAA brass, who represent most of the talent on the picture, that the studio was under pressure from Viacom superiors to cut costs, having recently acknowledged that it was thinning out its future release schedule. With even Sumner Redstone being forced to sell stock to keep his investments afloat, the studio was forced to take drastic measures. With four potential Oscar movies slated for year-end release, something had to give. It certainly wasn't going to be "The Curious Case of Benjamin Button," an expensive and much-anticipated Brad Pitt and David Fincher collaboration that studio chief Brad Grey has already publicly embraced as his ticket to a front-row seat Feb. 22nd at the Kodak Theater. And it certainly wasn't going to be "Revolutionary Road," a Scott Rudin-produced literary drama with a star too big to offend (Leonardo DiCaprio) and the kind of rarified subject matter that desperately needs Oscar buzz to sell tickets.

That left the studio's Ed Zwick-directed drama, "Defiance," which is a long-shot for Oscars, but still enough of a contender that while it's being pushed back to late December, is still getting an Oscar qualifying run before going wide in January. That made "The Soloist" the low man on the totem pole, since it conceivably has enough commercial potential to make a dent at the box office in the spring without the benefit of any Oscar coattails. Since the film was produced by Dreamworks, which just concluded an ugly divorce with Paramount, the inside chatter has focused on the idea that Paramount is somehow punishing Dreamworks by robbing the departing Spielberg team of any Oscar glory.

If anyone at Variety actually asked Paramount about all these complicated twists and turns involving "The Soloist," they didn't bother to mention it in their story, which credulously quotes Paramount vice chairman Rob Moore as simply saying "We decided it's a commercial movie that will play well in the spring." Like I said, studio executives almost never give the real reason for their moves. If they did, Paramount would acknowledge the obvious: These moves aren't so much about saving money--which is small potatoes in terms of the giant outlays studio make these days--as focusing the studio's marketing machinery on its biggest potential cash cow.

Even though it co-financed the film with Warners, Paramount has a huge bet down on "Benjamin Button," which is the one movie here that could be both an enormous commercial and critical hit. The studio has clearly decided to clear the decks. It can't do anything about potential Oscar rivals from other studios, but it doesn't want to compete with itself. My guess is that the studio is being uncharacteristically pragmatic. In an era where studios release all their quality films in the same 10 week time period--I call it the Oscar demolition derby--Paramount has decided to create some breathing room for its strongest contender. Only in Oscar-crazed Hollywood, where everyone lives and dies by awards glory, is the decision to move a quality movie to the spring viewed as an ignominious death sentence. If "The Soloist" gets a good reception in March, it will survive and flourish. I wish some of the industry's hand-ringers would realize there is actually life after the Oscars.

My colleague John Horn has a story in Thursday's Calendar section that grapples with the always touchy question--why do white moviegoers shy away from movies with largely African American casts? "Amistad," Steven Spielberg's 1997 slavery epic, was his lowest-grossing movie in 20 years. Even "Ray," Taylor Hackford's Oscar-nominated musical biography of Ray Charles, drew an overwhelmingly black audience.

Will the same thing happen to "The Secret Life of Bees," a highbrow literary adaptation from an African American filmmaker (Gina Prince-Bythewood) that features a largely black female cast (Queen Latifah, Jennifer Hudson and Alicia Keys)? The film, distributed by Fox Searchlight, is going wide Friday in nearly 1,600 theaters, which means it will be playing in both suburban and urban neighborhoods. The book had a large white female following, but according to Horn, research shows that black moviegoers are showing roughly twice as much interest in seeing the film as whites.

Horn raises an intriguing political parallel:

"Pundits and election strategists have been deliberating feverishly whether white voters who tell interviewers they intend to vote for Sen. Barack Obama for president will really do so once they enter the polling booth. While the discrepancy known as the Bradley effect (named after former Los Angeles mayor Tom Bradley's 1982 loss in the California gubernatorial election, in which he consistently led in polling) may prove to be a minor factor in the year's presidential race, it is still a prominent concern within Hollywood, as movies made by and with African Americans often struggle to attract white supporters, both at the box office and within the studio's executive offices."

Variety's Oscar ads going ... going ... gone

In my mind's eye, I see Peter Bart standing outside Campanile, holding one of those cardboard signs you see in the hands of homeless men on street corners, except the Variety editor, being a good editor, has slightly reworked the message: "Will Work for Food Oscar Ads." That was the essential point of Bart's column in today's Variety--why hasn't everyone jumped into the pool, frolicking in the annual rites of Oscar overkill? As Bart put it: "Oscar '08 may go down as the year of the Great Non-Race."

By this time last year, according to Bart, the studios had sent him 24 movie screeners. This year: Three. I only read Variety online, so I asked a studio marketing chief to leaf through today's edition and count up the number of ads. It was sobering. The only studio in the pool was Warners, who took out a double-truck ad for "The Dark Knight," the studio presumably having made so much money on the film that it wants to give some of it away to a needy trade publication (or more likely, to impress director Chris Nolan so he'll consider making a lucrative sequel). The rest of the issue had a half-page ad for a Polish film, a quarter-page ad for a film from Taiwan and a third-page ad for "Last Chance Harvey."

That was it. The studio marketer told me that at this point in time three years ago, Variety would've had at least 10 or 12 pages of studio ads. Why the drop-off? Anyone paying attention to the outside world knows we're in the midst of a hideous global economic recession, with corporate profits plunging, the biggest U.S. carmakers teetering on the brink of bankruptcy and tens of thousands of everyday Joes being laid off from their jobs. But Bart, like most Hollywood insiders, lives a life of privilege, putting those nice Campanile lunches on his expense account. So when he hears that GE's hurting or Sony's having a tough time, his reaction? "Hankies, please."

Desperate to drum up some business, Bart asks the rhetorical question: "Are the studios hanging the talent out to dry? Films like 'Milk," 'Doubt' or 'Frost/Nixon' need award nominations to find a mainstream audience." He even recruits Harvey Weinstein, the great Oscar showman of years past, to give Bart a money quote, with Harvey saying "If you don't pay for that big upfront Oscar campaign, you end up paying at the box office."

I managed to track Harvey down to ask him point-blank: Isn't is actually entirely appropriate for media conglomerates to cut back on Oscar ads in the middle of a horrific recession? Won't the best movies get plenty of nominations anyway? His response: "No one has shown me yet that you'll get the nominations unless you spend the money in the trades," he says. "It certainly hasn't worked for me so far. We had years where we spent less on Oscar ads and left it to serendipity and it didn't work. Oscar advertising makes a real difference in these kind of movies' commercial success. I mean, where do we stop? Should we be getting rid of all of the Oscar PR people too? Oscar ads just make economic sense." (Harvey, I'll be counting up all your full-page "Reader" ads from now on to see if you put your money where your mouth is.)

Bart calls Weinstein's support for big Oscar campaigns sage advice. I call it outdated and ill-advised. When people are losing their jobs left and right, it's frivolous, not to mention nauseatingly narcissistic, for studios to be tossing away millions of dollars on Oscar campaigns when that money could be better spent in a thousand different ways. Imagine how you'd feel if you were one of the hundreds of employees that's been laid off at a media conglomerate, only to see that your company's film division still has plenty of dough left to run Oscar ads in Variety or the New York Times or my newspaper.

What really worries Bart is the prospect of someone getting an Oscar nomination without spending a dime on an Oscar campaign. It would be a big blow to his bottom line, but it would be a giant step forward in studio accounting--the kind of accounting that puts a priority on good judgment, not on the costly and trivial pursuit of silly prizes. 

Photo of Harvey Weinstein from the Associated Press

Up until now, Summit Entertainment hasn't exactly set the movie world on fire. Run by veteran sales agent Patrick Wachsberger and former Paramount vice chairman Rob Friedman, the new indie distributor and finance company has struggled to prove that it can compete with the studio behemoths in the marketplace. Of its five releases, only one, the mixed martial arts film "Never Back Down," was a modest success, grossing about $25 million in the U.S. The company's most recent release, the teen comedy "Sex Drive," was a bomb, making barely $8 million after opening on nearly 2,500 screens.

But Summit has an amazing ace up its sleeve--"Twilight." If you know a teenager, I need not say more. If you don't, the sound you hear in the distance is the approaching pop culture tsunami. Written by Stephenie Meyer, "Twilight" is the first in a series of enormously popular vampire love stories that are now poised to spawn one of the hottest Hollywood literary franchises since "Harry Potter." Directed by Catherine Hardwicke ("13" and "Lords of Dogtown"), "Twilight" arrives on 5,500 screens this Friday, with the industry already abuzz with reports about spectacular advance ticket sales. During the past few weeks I've been hearing from studio marketing chiefs, who all seem in awe of the word-of-mouth groundswell for the film.

When the film's young stars, Kristen Stewart and Robert Pattinson, showed up at Comic-Con last July, they were greeted by Beatlemania-style screams. Last week 10,000 kids showed up at a mall in Dallas to mob them. They've been on the cover of Entertainment Weekly and a variety of teen tabloids as well as all over MTV. (Here's our dispatch earlier this year from the film set.) But what's amazing is that one of Hollywood's biggest studios had the project for years and simply let it go. "Twilight" was originally at Paramount's MTV Films, which spent nearly two years trying to develop the picture before the studio put the project in turnaround. A second studio, Fox Atomic, also passed on the project before it came Summit's way.

It wasn't as if "Twilight's" teen appeal was exactly a secret. The second novel in Meyer's series, "New Moon," debuted at No. 5 on the New York Times bestseller list for children's books when it was released in 2006. It hit No. 1 the following week and remained in the top position for 11 straight weeks. The fourth installment, "Breaking Dawn," sold 1.3 million copies in its first day of release. The entire series has now sold 8.5 million copies in the U.S., more than 17 million copies worldwide.

So how did this budding literary phenomenon practically drop in Summit's lap? Keep reading:

 

When I had lunch with John Hamburg the other day, the writer-director of the upcoming comedy "I Love You, Man" appeared full of anxiety, something of a natural condition I suspect, since judging from his work, he is the poet laureate of comic anxiety. (Best known in the business as Ben Stiller's in-house writer, Hamburg's writing credits include "Meet the Parents," "Zoolander" and "Meet the Fockers" as well as serving as the writer-director of "Along Came Polly.") The problem at hand was pretty clear. His new film, which stars Paul Rudd, Jason Segal and Jamie Pressly, had the perfect title and he desperately wanted to keep it.

After all, what else would you call a comedy about a loner engaged to a nice girl who suddenly realizes that he has no male friend to be his best man--and proceeds to go out on a series of male dates, hoping to find the right guy? I mean, doesn't "I Love You, Man" say it all? Hamburg thought so too. So did DreamWorks, which produced the film (which is being distributed by Paramount). There was just one snag. 20th Century Fox had a film coming out at roughly the same time next spring called "I Love You Beth Cooper." And if there were ever a studio that would attempt to copyright the phrase "I Love You," it would be Fox.

So even though Hamburg had done a lot of work at Fox, including some key rewrites on the studio's mega-hit "Night at the Museum," he was worried. And rightfully so. After all, it was DreamWorks who had a Farrelly brothers comedy called "The Seven Day Itch," loosely based on 1972's "The Heartbreak Kid." At least it was called that until Fox challenged the title, claiming the movie could be confused with the 1955 Billy Wilder film "The Seven Year Itch." (I only wish Wilder were still alive, since surely he'd have a great quip about the logic of how you'd confuse a 50-year-old Marilyn Monroe movie with a Farrelly brothers comedy.) Fox was so fiercely committed to protecting its title that studio Co-Chairman Tom Rothman personally went before the MPAA title arbitration board to plead the studio's case--and won on appeal, forcing DreamWorks to change its title to "The Heartbreak Kid." (The movie flopped.)

"I have to admit I don't have a real fall-back position," Hamburg told me over lunch. "I have a list of other titles in my office and they're all terrible. 'I Love You, Man' is so good because it's a phrase that's in the culture. It symbolizes the way men talk to each other, especially the 'comma' and the 'man.' And the whole subtext of the phrase really plays out in the movie. I dunno--isn't 'I love you' a pretty common phrase? It seems like I've heard it in movie titles before."

So does this story have a happy ending? Did Fox put the screws to Hamburg or did the studio make him an offer he couldn't refuse? Keep reading:

When I was young and fancy free, I once went out with a girl whose major criteria for granting a guy a second date (and trust me when I say there was always a long line of potential grant recipients) was whether we could offer a persuasive answer to the question: What is your favorite James Bond theme song? (I could identify--in high school, I once bailed on a girl after it became apparent that I was going to be subjected to a steady stream of Cat Stevens and Three Dog Night songs from her LP collection.)

But I digress. Outside of arguing over who's the best baseball player or the worst president of all time, what could be more emotionally satisfying than debating the merits of the amazing array of James Bond theme songs? So kudos to Drew Kerr at TotalMusicGeek, who came up with the great idea of doing a Top 20 ranking of the themes--along with a YouTube link allowing us to watch all of the film's title sequences while listening to the themes.

I'm not sure I agree with all of Drew's rankings--he puts Nancy Sinatra's steamy rendition of "You Only Live Twice" (covered not so long ago by Coldplay) at No. 1, which strikes me as a bit high. But puzzling over the entire Bond aesthetic is half of the fun of playing the game. I agree with Drew that the new Jack White-Alicia Keys theme, "Another Way to Die," is, well, dreadful, almost as bad as Madonna's dreary "Die Another Day" and Garbage's dismal "The World Is Not Enough." On the plus side, I'd forgotten how good Tina Turner sounds on "GoldenEye" (co-written by Bono and the Edge) or how classic Carly Simon's "Nobody Does It Better" feels today, perhaps because it was co-written by the one and only Marvin Hamlisch, who's still enough of a brand name to get name-checked in "Role Models."

Anyway, go see for yourself--and don't miss the wonderfully kitschy title sequence from "On Her Majesty's Secret Service." As for my favorite theme? If you must know, I'm going with Tom Jones' brassy gals-toss-your-panties-on-stage version of "Thunderball." But don't take my word for it. Watch it for yourself:

Photo of Eunice Gayson and Sean Connery in "Dr. No" from UPI

If you hang around Hollywood long enough, you learn not to believe everything you read in the trades. Still, it was pretty exciting to see the news this week that the indefatigable producer Avi Lerner had wooed Brett Ratner into directing Lerner's upcoming remake of "Conan," the iconic 1982 film that helped launch Arnold Schwarzenegger's long run as a Hollywood action hero. According to the original Hollywood Reporter headline, Ratner had committed to the project, though its latest version was a bit more circumspect, saying he was in "final negotiations" to do the film after working with the screenwriters, who were doing a quick polish to "incorporate" some of Ratner's ideas. The blogosphere wasn't quite so discerning, with some Web outlets simply saying that Ratner was "officially directing" the film.

One of Hollywood's most persuasive salesman, Lerner told me this morning that Ratner was the perfect director. "He has the passion and feeling for this project--he even wrote a story about Conan when he was 10 years old," Lerner explained. "He understands the character, he analyzed the script really well. He knows how to make this a really big movie. I like his childlike enthusiasm--he almost sees these movies as wonderful toys. What can I say, he's a nice, likable Jewish boy."

Lerner acknowledged that even though he sent out a press release announcing Ratner's involvement with the project, the deal wasn't actually done. "We still have a few obstacles," he said. "Brett is only committed if we agree on a budget, on how to do the special effects and exactly where we'd shoot the film." Lerner has a studio in Bulgaria, so he'd like to shoot most of the movie there, with some exterior work in China.

But is Ratner actually committed to doing the film? In two words: Not really. When I called him today, he sounded somewhat agitated, unhappy that news of his negotiations with Lerner had surfaced, especially since he is extremely close to getting a green light from Paramount to make "Beverly Hills Cop 4." "Let me make this very clear," he told me. "I am not doing 'Conan' now. This is totally premature. For now, 'Conan' is only a development deal. I have a deal at Paramount and I'm doing 'Beverly Hills Cop' first, no matter what. Avi shouldn't be telling you or anyone else in the press what I'm doing."

So what happened here? And how did Avi get the rights to "Conan" in the first place? Keep reading:

The blogosphere has been full of breathless tales that Baz Luhrmann has been forced to dump the unhappy ending he filmed for "Australia," his $130-million adventure epic (due out later this month) that stars Hugh Jackman and Nicole Kidman. Australia's Sunday Telegraph reports that 20th Century Fox executives forced Luhrmann to add a more upbeat ending after the film had "disastrous reviews" at early test screenings. Is it really possible that Fox would bully Luhrmann, a final-cut director, into giving his movie a happier ending?

Even though we've had some heated disagreements in recent months about my coverage of his studio, Fox Co-Chairman Tom Rothman graciously agreed to have lunch with me today at the Fox commissary, where we did see eye-to-eye on one important matter--it was very cool to be sitting two tables away from the legendary Hong Kong action movie star Chow Yun-Fat. (What he was doing at Fox was something of a mystery, since Rothman said he wasn't making a movie with the actor.) So what about "Australia"? Was there any truth to the Sunday Telegraph story?

"Everything in that story was patently nonsensical," Rothman said. "It's all too typical of the way the world works today that everybody picked up an unsourced, anonymous quote-filled story in a tabloid from Sydney and nobody ever bothered to check to see if it was accurate. The facts are--Baz is a final-cut director and we never pressured him in any way, shape or form. He wrote the movie, shot it and cut it all himself without any interference from us at all."

Rothman said that the movie "has probably had seven different endings at one time or another, none of them easily characterized as happy or sad." He said Luhrmann chose the ending the director thought worked best for the film. "But you couldn't possibly characterize the ending as happy or sad," he told me. "I'd call it deeply satisfying but that's because it's very complex. In fact, you could have a long conversation about whether it's happy or sad, which is actually part of what makes it a great movie."

I can't wait to see the film. And I couldn't agree more with Rothman about the gall of the Sunday Telegraph relying on such shoddy reporting. Maybe Tom can use his influence to improve the quality of journalism Down Under. All he has to do is pick up the phone, since the Telegraph is owned by ... his boss, Rupert Murdoch.

Photo of Hugh Jackman and Nicole Kidman in "Australia"  from Twentieth Century Fox / AFP / Getty Images

If you're like me, always hanging around producers, managers and agents, you frequently hear them groaning about the latest nutty studio rule dealing with the movies the studio will never, ever, ever make again. With "Soul Men" having tanked this weekend, it's a good bet that some studio chief somewhere is grumbling, "I don't want to ever see another script about soul singers!" (That dictum probably extends to college football players who get leukemia after the failure of "The Express" last month.)

Studio bosses do tend to make certain blanket pronouncements. Fox's Tom Rothman thinks sci-fi comedies are box-office poison, one key reason why he wouldn't make "Used Guys," a Jay Roach-directed sci-fi comedy that would have starred Ben Stiller and Jim Carrey (and cost a ton of money). Nikki Finke reported last year that after the failure of several female-starring comedies, Warners production chief Jeff Robinov told three different producers that WB was "no longer doing movies with women in the lead"--in fact, he supposedly didn't even want to see a script with a woman in a leading role. Everyone in town was talking about that one for weeks, even though I see that Warners is releasing a Cameron Diaz movie next spring ("The Box"), which didn't start filming till long after the supposed ban on female stars. So maybe Robinov had second thoughts--or never really said it in the first place.

I was reminded of all this the other day when an agent told me that they'd heard that Disney had put out the word that they didn't want to make any movies with young protagonists, which must mean really young protagonists, since the "High School Musical" series is such a box-office bonanza. So when I was having lunch with Sony chief Amy Pascal on Friday, I asked her--do you guys really say this stuff? Do you have crazy phobias too?

She laughed. "We all probably say things like that, but it's in the heat of the moment--everyone says things they don't really mean. So if there's a really young executive in a meeting and they hear you say something, even though you almost didn't mean it the minute it came out of your mouth, they sometimes take it seriously, when they should probably do what you do, which is forget all about it five minutes later."

But has she, in the heat of the moment, made crazy pronouncements too, like not wanting to make a movie whose title starts with the letter X? "I did say--I hate movies that begin with a bet," Pascal admits. "It's a bad idea, because it usually means that it's a fake story that revolves around a gimmick. But on the other hand, someone made 'My Fair Lady' and it was great. Rules are oversimplifications, which are bad no matter how you look at it. It would be like my saying, 'I'm so sick of Iraq movies, so I don't ever want to see another script about Iraq.' But that's just my reaction in the moment. Someone will make a phenomenal movie about Iraq and everyone's attitude will change."

According to Pascal, people simply overinterpret offhanded remarks. "I really don't think any studio has those kinds of rules. How could they? You have to open to hearing crazy, surprising ideas. One minute you have one of those rules, the next minute you'd want to break it."

Photo of Amy Pascal by Sony Pictures Entertainment

Sam Moore, the sole surviving half of soul legends Sam & Dave, is claiming that "Soul Men," which stars Samuel L. Jackson and Bernie Mac as long-estranged R&B backup singers who reunite for a last concert, is a rip-off of his life story. According to a story in the Independent today, Moore says the film--due out this weekend--is a "defamatory account" of a reunion he and the late Dave Prater attempted to pull off in 1982 after not speaking for several years. Moore claims the film has "bastardized" his life story, saying the comedy is "sexist, racist and embarrassing and that's not what Sam & Dave were about. It's so amateurish, so stupid and I'm surprised that Samuel L. Jackson is involved in this.... When you read the script, all you see is vulgarity. Every other word is the N-word or M-f and it's just not right."

Apparently Moore hasn't been going to the movies much lately, since there's nothing in "Soul Men" that's any more vulgar than the scatological jokes in "Zach and Miri Make a Porno" or the nauseating violence in "Saw 5," both of which just opened over the weekend. But does he have a point? Is "Soul Men" really a thinly disguised version of the Sam & Dave story? No way, says "Soul Men" producer David Friendly. "Our whole movie is a fiction, from start to finish," he told me. "We never got any life rights from anyone at any time because this was completely an invention. I'm a big-enough fan of Sam & Dave to know that it's a preposterous charge, since Sam & Dave were headliners, while our guys are backup singers."

Friendly laughed. "We haven't heard anything from the Pips [Gladys Knight's backup singers.] They'd at least have a stronger argument." Friendly said that he was asked to develop the project as a vehicle for Jackson and Mac, who wanted to work together in a comedy. He knew he had a hook for a movie when one of the film's writers posed the question--what if Bernie and Sam were backup singers who hadn't spoken in 30 years? The project was originally at New Regency, and then at New Line before ending up at the Weinstein Co., which is releasing the film through MGM this weekend.

Friendly said that, by coincidence, his offices were in the same building in Beverly Hills that housed Stax Records. "I literally took the elevator up one floor and talked to them about using wall-to-wall Stax music, which is how we came to license the music from them." Moore's lawyers are saying the Weinstein Co. has abused Moore's "Soul Man" trademark and are exploiting his reputation in order to make some dough. The Weinsteins' attorney, the always ferocious Bert Fields, insists Moore has no case, saying the movie tells a different story about different people. As Fields told the Independent: "If Mr. Moore decides to file a lawsuit, he will lose."

I'm no lawyer, but having seen the movie, I think Sam should rethink his position. The movie isn't racist, unless you want to contend that every Eddie Murphy and Chris Tucker comedy ever made is racist. It isn't more sexist than a thousand other Hollywood films. And guess what--it's pretty funny, largely thanks to some great chemistry between Jackson and Mac, who receives a nice, heartfelt tribute at the end of the film. As for the charge of unauthorized borrowing, someone should phone up Neil Simon. If the movie steals from anyone, it's from "The Sunshine Boys," which, as anyone could tell you, is stealing from the best.

See for yourself:

Photo of Bernie Mac and Samuel L. Jackson in "Soul Men" by Doug Hyun / The Weinstein Co.

Will white folks go to movie theaters to see black folks in a movie without any big white stars? That was the question some of us in the media were all asking before the release of "The Secret Life of Bees" earlier this month. Most old-fashioned movie marketers had said--not likely, based on past experience and long-held attitudes about white moviegoers. Some marketers cited the "Bradley Effect," the controversial analysis of a Tom Bradley 1982 election defeat in the California gubernatorial election where he'd led in polling before the election, prompting pundits to blame the loss on white voters who didn't tell pollsters how they really intended to vote. 

But guess what? "Bees" has quietly emerged as a minor hit, now projected to pass the $30-million mark at the box office. And as my colleague John Horn reports, it's doing even better in theaters catering to white moviegoers than in traditionally African American theaters. What gives? Here's John's report:

Fox Searchlight was confident that African American moviegoers would turn up for "The Secret Life of Bees," whose cast includes Queen Latifah, Jennifer Hudson and Alicia Keys. But the studio and the film's makers worried that white audiences, even after they embraced the bestselling Sue Monk Kidd novel on which the film was based, might stay away when the film premiered on Oct. 17.  After two weeks of release, it's clear that white ticket buyers are not only showing up for "Bees" but also are becoming the film's most loyal audience.

Last weekend, the film grossed more at Pacific's The Grove Stadium 14 than it did at the AMC Magic Johnson Crenshaw 15. In the rest of the country, theaters catering to black moviegoers reported strong opening weekend "Bee" sales but suffered steep declines last weekend. It's consistent with how movies with strong African American appeal--including Tyler Perry's efforts--tend to perform. For example, "Bee's" grosses at Georgia's AMC Southlake Pavilion 24 fell more than 61% last weekend, and sales at Maryland's Regal Bowie Crossing Cinema 14 collapsed almost as badly.

But in theaters that tend to cater to white audiences, support remained much stronger.  "Bee" sales at Oregon's Regal Cinemas Bridgeport Village Stadium 18 were down just 32.1%, and grosses at Northern California's Century 14 Downtown Walnut Creek dropped less than 18%. With total ticket sales of more than $21 million, "The Secret Life of Bees" will never catch "Beverly Hills Chihuahua." But "Bees" is not suffering from any "Bradley Effect" discrimination, and the very thing that scares off potential studio backing--an almost entirely black cast--has shown to be not a liability at all.

Photo of Queen Latifah, Jennifer Hudson and Alicia Keys in "The Secret Life of Bees" by Sidney Baldwin / Fox Searchlight

Since there's never been any doubt that Joaquin Phoenix was one of Hollywood's great modern-day eccentrics, it's hard to entirely take seriously the news that he has suddenly vowed to quit acting. After all, the oddball actor is always saying strange things. Working the press line at a fancy premiere for "Walk the Line," Phoenix asked a reporter, "Do I have a large frog in my hair?" When the reporter said no, Joaquin asked a new question: "Is there something crawling out of my scalp?" And how about this red-carpet story: Phoenix wrecked his car and was rescued by none other than ... Werner Herzog!

So I'm guessing the odds are pretty slim that Phoenix will stick to this pledge. Whatever has sidetracked him--playing in a cool band, learning how to cook, figuring out how to spot the moons of Jupiter without a telescope--will soon lose its appeal and he'll be back in action. But his pledge did spark the following idea: Who would make my list of the Top Ten actors we would like to see quit acting? (WARNING -- I'M JUST HAVING FUN HERE):

Click through to read my list, but please do feel free to offer your own suggestions:

When I was at an early screening of the upcoming comedy "Role Models" the other night, I found myself thinking about the Academy Awards, wondering what I always wonder when I see a good new comedy: Why on Earth shouldn't the Oscars recognize good work in comedy the same way they do in drama, animation, cinematography, editing and all the other great movie crafts? Shockingly, comedy is so thoroughly ignored by Oscar voters that it's been more than 30 years (yes, count 'em--thirty) since a true comedy--Woody Allen's "Annie Hall"--won the Oscar for best picture.

To say this is a disgrace would be an understatement. I hate to bore you with a recitation of film history, but movies began as a comic medium. A generation of Americans grew up falling in love with the cinema, largely thanks to Charlie Chaplin, Buster Keaton and Harold Lloyd and a host of other inspired silent movie comics. A second generation of moviegoers survived the Great Depression, thanks to the wonderful screwball comedies of the 1930s, from "My Man Godfrey" to "The Awful Truth" to "It Happened One Night" to "Midnight," not to mention the great Marx Brothers and W.C. Fields movies of the period.

The comedies of the '30s remain the true pillar of movie art from that era, immensely watchable even today, as many of the dramas and gangster films of the period have lost much of their thrill and allure. Comedy often tells us more about our time than the most acclaimed drama. In fact, I'd argue that if future cultural historians wanted the best window into the contemporary mores of the early 21st century, they wouldn't find much help from most of our recent Oscar winners ("Crash" aside), which tend to be set in the past, looking back in time for lessons about earlier eras. For the best analysis of people's anxieties, quirks and fears in 2008, you'd start by watching Judd Apatow movies, which have more to say about our time than "Beverly Hills Chihuahua," James Bond or even thoughtful art films like "Atonement" or "There Will Be Blood."

Directed by David Wain, who did 2001's "Wet Hot American Summer," "Role Models," which is being released by Universal Pictures Nov. 7, has no weighty message to deliver. It's simply loaded with shrewd comedy writing and slyly funny performances. Penned by a quartet of writers, including Wain, the film's costar Paul Rudd, Ken Marino (who plays a comically clueless stepdad in the film) and original writer Timothy Dowling, it follows the misadventures of two mismatched young guys--Rudd and Seann William Scott--who find themselves forced to become mentors to a pair of unhappy young boys in a Big Brothers-style community service program.

The Apatow influence is inescapable, since the film is populated with various actors, starting with Rudd and costar Elizabeth Banks, who are best known for their work in Apatow films. The project has an intriguing history. It was originally at Fox, which put it in turnaround. Producer Mary Parent, now MGM's  production chief but then a producing partner with Scott Stuber, picked it up, believing it was a timely comic premise. "I loved the concept of these two guys--one of them totally cynical, the other completely living in his imagination--who were forced to learn how to step out of themselves and help other people."

How did "Role Models" survive the loss of its director, its title and still make it to the finish line? And will the motion picture academy ever create a comedy category to honor all the great comedies being made? Keep reading:

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?"   

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.

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.

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.

"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.

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    

After an early screening of "Who Do You Love," one of the--count 'em--two new movies about 1950s powerhouse blues label Chess Records, a pair of women sought out Marshall Chess, whose dad, Leonard, was the driving force behind the record label. They were puzzled about one of the key story lines in the film. "Did your mother and father really make up after your father had that torrid affair with that beautiful singer?" one of them asked.

Marshall rolled his eyes. "No, they didn't make up," he said, "because there never was an affair. The filmmakers made that part up." When it comes to making movies about real-life people, Hollywood rarely lets the truth get in the way of a good story. No one knows that better now that Marshall Chess, who served as a technical consultant on the two competing Chess Records films, but discovered that while the actors and filmmakers were happy to listen to his recollections, it hardly meant that they would stick to the truth when it came time to film his family's story. Marshall knows the story intimately, having been behind the bar at his father's nightclub as a boy, seen his father hustle DJs on road tours and worked at Chess Records as a teenager.

He's delighted to see two films dramatizing his family history, but he's ambivalent about the results. "I guess I have a love-hate relationship with the movies," he told me recently. "They capture the spirit and the music wonderfully, but the truth isn't always there." He's especially upset over how "Cadillac Records," a film that stars Beyonce as Etta James and Oscar-winner Adrien Brody as Leonard Chess, cuts Leonard's brother, Phil, the co-founder of the record company, entirely out of the movie.

"It's a horrible distortion of history," says Marshall. "They started the company together. My uncle Phil was there every day. He recorded a lot of the best music we did. It wouldn't have happened without him and it's a real insult to our family. When I asked the producers, they simply said his character didn't work [in the script], so they cut him out."

When it comes to cutting people out of the Chess story, the rival "Who Do You Love" film has its own issues. The biggest-selling artist in Chess history is Chuck Berry, but his character was cut out of the movie. Why? Because the filmmakers couldn't make a deal for the rights to his music. The film's producer, Les Alexander, explains: "We made Chuck a spectacularly generous offer, but he wouldn't let us have anything. Our director, Jerry Zaks, even sent him a genuine fan note, saying how much his music meant to him. But it didn't matter--the answer was no."

Berry, who is still active as a touring act, is notoriously difficult when it comes to business matters. When Taylor Hackford, who directed the wonderful Berry concert film "Hail! Hail! Rock and Roll," recently ran into the performer, the first words out of Berry's mouth were, "You still owe me money." Mos Def plays Berry in "Cadillac Records," which managed to acquire some Berry songs that are owned by Marshall Chess. But dealing with Berry was so unbelievably arduous that when I asked the film's producer, Sofia Sondervan, about working with him, she replied in a hushed tone: "I can't talk about it. I can't say anything about Chuck Berry at all."

The "Who Do You Love" filmmakers defend their decision to show Leonard having an affair with a Chess artist who is clearly based on Etta James. "The question you always ask yourself is--are you illuminating who they were or are you assassinating their character?" says Zaks. "For me, the affair represents part of the seduction of success, which is a big part of the conflict in the movie's story. We did our own research and it seems evident that Leonard was a womanizer. Even his brother Phil says he had numerous affairs."

The filmmakers had less leeway in portraying Willie Dixon, the now-deceased songwriter (played by Chi McBride) who wrote most of Chess' biggest hits. Producer Les Alexander says, "We were prohibited by his estate as portraying him as someone who drank or smoked or sweared." Nonetheless, the film shows Dixon having two wives, who begrudgingly share his time together. "The estate didn't prohibit that," Alexander says.

Both films depict Chess giving his top artists a Cadillac after they had big chart-topping hits. It's a way for the films to capture the back-door way business was handled in the early days of the record industry, since the artists rarely realized that the expense of buying a Cadillac was deducted from their royalty statements. Marshall says it was a pragmatic way to reward a top artist, noting that few of the bluesmen had bank accounts at the time. "Getting a Cadillac in those days was a top of the line thing to have," he explains. "My father bought a new Cadillac every year too, because he was just like his artists--he wanted people to know he was a successful man."

Marshall laughs. "I guess he'd be happy to see two movies coming out about him at the same time. He'd definitely consider that a symbol of success too."

When I was a kid, I spent a lot of time in Chicago, home of two great baseball teams, a host of colorful politicians and the best blues in the world. Back in the day, you weren't anyone in the blues world unless you were signed to Chess Records, the label that made stars out of a generation of rough and tumble musicians, notably Muddy Waters, Little Walter, Willie Dixon and Howlin' Wolf.

So when I was at the recent Toronto Film Festival, I made a point of seeing "Who Do You Love," which stars Alessandro Nivola and Jon Abrahams as Leonard and Phil Chess, two hard-nosed immigrant entrepreneurs who ended up creating Chess Records, the 1950s record label that popularized urban blues and later, with the arrival of Chuck Berry and Bo Diddley, ushered in a brash new form of rock 'n' roll that was adopted by the Rolling Stones, the Beatles and thousands of other young white rock artists.

After the screening, I ran into a film executive, who whispered in my ear, "Do you know that there's another one?" Puzzled, I said, "Another what?" He laughed. "Another movie about Chess Records."

I really thought he was joking, but it's true. Against all odds and sound commercial judgment, the same crazy movie business that once made two asteroid movies and two movies about Truman Capote has now made two movies about the obscure icons of 1950s Chicago blues. What are the odds?

The second Chess film, made by Sony BMG Films, is "Cadillac Records," which will be released Dec. 5 through Sony's TriStar Pictures. Produced by Sofia Sondervan and Andy Lack, Sony BMG's former chairman (who just took a new job running Bloomberg's multimedia operations), the film has considerably more star power than its rival, featuring Beyonce Knowles as Chess' top songstress, Etta James; Adrien Brody as Leonard Chess; Mos Def as Chuck Berry; and Jeffrey Wright as Muddy Waters.

It's probably a misnomer to call the two pictures rivals, since "Who Do You Love," despite earning some good notices in Toronto, remains a long shot to land a theatrical release. "Cadillac Records" will be out in 800 theaters, with a Beyonce single and a soundtrack to help attract attention. Still, the question remains--what are the odds of two 1950s blues movies being made at the same time?

The answer, as always, is that making a movie isn't exactly a rational decision--passion trumps pragmatism. Neither film came out of today's increasingly timid studio system, which wouldn't dream of risking any loot on such obscure subject matter. "Cadillac Records" was championed by Lack, the former head of NBC News who ran Sony Music before being kicked upstairs after its BMG merger. According to Sondervan, Lack's family is from the Mississippi Delta, where he grew up listening to the blues, which gave him a strong interest in the story. "Who Do You Love" was financed by Jonathan Mitchell, a wealthy real estate developer with a love for the blues and directed by Jerry Zaks, who remembers singing to R&B records as a boy in his family basement.

"I was always drawn to black music," recalls Zaks, a four-time Tony Award-winning Broadway theater  director. "When I was in fifth grade, I was convinced I was Marvin Gaye. I'd put on the records I loved, everything from Gaye and Johnny Nash to Muddy Waters and Bo Diddley, and sing to the records in front of the mirror. I think that music had a powerful impact on a whole generation of kids."

But those kids are all nearing retirement age today and not especially regular moviegoers. So who's going to turn out for these films? When I asked Sondervan what made her think a blues movie could make a dent in today's marketplace, she offered an honest answer. "I don't really know," she said. "All I know is that Beyonce has a huge young following and a lot of people will come see the movie just because she's in it." She added that Beyonce has designed a clothing line of dresses inspired by the fashions in the film that are being launched later this fall at Bloomingdale's. "All the young people we've shown the film to really loved it," she says. "The blues is coming back. It's getting played at a lot of trendy restaurants, so there's a lot of new awareness out there."

Hhmm. Like I said, making movies isn't always a rational decision. Will Beyonce fans want to see her as a troubled '50s blues diva? Angelina Jolie fans do show up when she's trading gunfire with Brad Pitt, but they didn't bother to come when she played Mariane Pearl in "A Mighty Heart." And George Clooney fans, who loved him in "Oceans Eleven," turned up their noses at "Leatherheads" and "The Good German."

Music biopics have a pretty spotty track record. Taylor Hackford's "Ray" was a surprise hit (though it was also independently financed outside the studio system). But "She's Not There," Todd Haynes' impressionistic Bob Dylan biopic, never found an audience, despite a raft of rave reviews. Even "Dreamgirls," the Bill Condon film loosely based on the Supremes, was a box-office disappointment.

The real challenge for films that re-create the lives of real characters is--how true to life are they? Sony hasn't screened "Cadillac Records" yet, but the person who knows the story best of all--Leonard's son, Marshall Chess, who served as a technical consultant on both projects--says both movies took some dramatic liberties with many of the characters' personal lives. Which film took the most liberties? Which actor came the closest to capturing his real-life character? And which movie ended up cutting Chuck Berry entirely out of the story? We'll have Part 2 of our post up soon, so stay tuned.

Photo: Beyonce Knowles as Etta James in "Cadillac Records": photo credit: Eric Liebowitz

The one thing you can count on in Hollywood is that when a studio makes a sudden or unexpected decision, it is almost guaranteed that the official reason for the move is a smoke screen for what's really going on. I'm guessing that's the case with Paramount's surprise announcement late Thursday that it's knocking "The Soloist" out of the awards season scrum, "dashing any hopes," to use Variety's melodramatic phrase, for the film to win any Academy Award accolades in 2008. The film is of particular interest to those of us here at the LA Times, since it is based on a series of gripping columns by our own Steve Lopez about his relationship with a homeless musician grappling with schizophrenia.

The film, which stars Robert Downey Jr. as Lopez and Jamie Foxx as the musician, was slated for release Nov. 21st, a prime slot for a potential year-end Oscar campaign. The film, produced by Dreamworks and co-financed by Participant Media and Universal's Working Title, has now been bumped to March 13th, 2009. Why? According to a story in the LA Times, Paramount executives said the current economic collapse "might have made November an awkward time to release a movie about homelessness."

That's the kind of whopper you'd only hear in Hollywood. I think the appropriate response to that would be--when exactly would be a good time to release a film about homelessness? Halloween? The Fourth of July? Having read the script and seen the film being shot, I'm guessing that only a studio disguising its real motives would call "The Soloist" a film about homelessness, when in fact, it's a male-bonding love story about a crusading newspaper reporter and a musician with a troubled soul.

Paramount apparently told its partners, as well as top CAA brass, who represent most of the talent on the picture, that the studio was under pressure from Viacom superiors to cut costs, having recently acknowledged that it was thinning out its future release schedule. With even Sumner Redstone being forced to sell stock to keep his investments afloat, the studio was forced to take drastic measures. With four potential Oscar movies slated for year-end release, something had to give. It certainly wasn't going to be "The Curious Case of Benjamin Button," an expensive and much-anticipated Brad Pitt and David Fincher collaboration that studio chief Brad Grey has already publicly embraced as his ticket to a front-row seat Feb. 22nd at the Kodak Theater. And it certainly wasn't going to be "Revolutionary Road," a Scott Rudin-produced literary drama with a star too big to offend (Leonardo DiCaprio) and the kind of rarified subject matter that desperately needs Oscar buzz to sell tickets.

That left the studio's Ed Zwick-directed drama, "Defiance," which is a long-shot for Oscars, but still enough of a contender that while it's being pushed back to late December, is still getting an Oscar qualifying run before going wide in January. That made "The Soloist" the low man on the totem pole, since it conceivably has enough commercial potential to make a dent at the box office in the spring without the benefit of any Oscar coattails. Since the film was produced by Dreamworks, which just concluded an ugly divorce with Paramount, the inside chatter has focused on the idea that Paramount is somehow punishing Dreamworks by robbing the departing Spielberg team of any Oscar glory.

If anyone at Variety actually asked Paramount about all these complicated twists and turns involving "The Soloist," they didn't bother to mention it in their story, which credulously quotes Paramount vice chairman Rob Moore as simply saying "We decided it's a commercial movie that will play well in the spring." Like I said, studio executives almost never give the real reason for their moves. If they did, Paramount would acknowledge the obvious: These moves aren't so much about saving money--which is small potatoes in terms of the giant outlays studio make these days--as focusing the studio's marketing machinery on its biggest potential cash cow.

Even though it co-financed the film with Warners, Paramount has a huge bet down on "Benjamin Button," which is the one movie here that could be both an enormous commercial and critical hit. The studio has clearly decided to clear the decks. It can't do anything about potential Oscar rivals from other studios, but it doesn't want to compete with itself. My guess is that the studio is being uncharacteristically pragmatic. In an era where studios release all their quality films in the same 10 week time period--I call it the Oscar demolition derby--Paramount has decided to create some breathing room for its strongest contender. Only in Oscar-crazed Hollywood, where everyone lives and dies by awards glory, is the decision to move a quality movie to the spring viewed as an ignominious death sentence. If "The Soloist" gets a good reception in March, it will survive and flourish. I wish some of the industry's hand-ringers would realize there is actually life after the Oscars.

My colleague John Horn has a story in Thursday's Calendar section that grapples with the always touchy question--why do white moviegoers shy away from movies with largely African American casts? "Amistad," Steven Spielberg's 1997 slavery epic, was his lowest-grossing movie in 20 years. Even "Ray," Taylor Hackford's Oscar-nominated musical biography of Ray Charles, drew an overwhelmingly black audience.

Will the same thing happen to "The Secret Life of Bees," a highbrow literary adaptation from an African American filmmaker (Gina Prince-Bythewood) that features a largely black female cast (Queen Latifah, Jennifer Hudson and Alicia Keys)? The film, distributed by Fox Searchlight, is going wide Friday in nearly 1,600 theaters, which means it will be playing in both suburban and urban neighborhoods. The book had a large white female following, but according to Horn, research shows that black moviegoers are showing roughly twice as much interest in seeing the film as whites.

Horn raises an intriguing political parallel:

"Pundits and election strategists have been deliberating feverishly whether white voters who tell interviewers they intend to vote for Sen. Barack Obama for president will really do so once they enter the polling booth. While the discrepancy known as the Bradley effect (named after former Los Angeles mayor Tom Bradley's 1982 loss in the California gubernatorial election, in which he consistently led in polling) may prove to be a minor factor in the year's presidential race, it is still a prominent concern within Hollywood, as movies made by and with African Americans often struggle to attract white supporters, both at the box office and within the studio's executive offices."

How the big studios missed the boat on 'Twilight'

Up until now, Summit Entertainment hasn't exactly set the movie world on fire. Run by veteran sales agent Patrick Wachsberger and former Paramount vice chairman Rob Friedman, the new indie distributor and finance company has struggled to prove that it can compete with the studio behemoths in the marketplace. Of its five releases, only one, the mixed martial arts film "Never Back Down," was a modest success, grossing about $25 million in the U.S. The company's most recent release, the teen comedy "Sex Drive," was a bomb, making barely $8 million after opening on nearly 2,500 screens.

But Summit has an amazing ace up its sleeve--"Twilight." If you know a teenager, I need not say more. If you don't, the sound you hear in the distance is the approaching pop culture tsunami. Written by Stephenie Meyer, "Twilight" is the first in a series of enormously popular vampire love stories that are now poised to spawn one of the hottest Hollywood literary franchises since "Harry Potter." Directed by Catherine Hardwicke ("13" and "Lords of Dogtown"), "Twilight" arrives on 5,500 screens this Friday, with the industry already abuzz with reports about spectacular advance ticket sales. During the past few weeks I've been hearing from studio marketing chiefs, who all seem in awe of the word-of-mouth groundswell for the film.

When the film's young stars, Kristen Stewart and Robert Pattinson, showed up at Comic-Con last July, they were greeted by Beatlemania-style screams. Last week 10,000 kids showed up at a mall in Dallas to mob them. They've been on the cover of Entertainment Weekly and a variety of teen tabloids as well as all over MTV. (Here's our dispatch earlier this year from the film set.) But what's amazing is that one of Hollywood's biggest studios had the project for years and simply let it go. "Twilight" was originally at Paramount's MTV Films, which spent nearly two years trying to develop the picture before the studio put the project in turnaround. A second studio, Fox Atomic, also passed on the project before it came Summit's way.

It wasn't as if "Twilight's" teen appeal was exactly a secret. The second novel in Meyer's series, "New Moon," debuted at No. 5 on the New York Times bestseller list for children's books when it was released in 2006. It hit No. 1 the following week and remained in the top position for 11 straight weeks. The fourth installment, "Breaking Dawn," sold 1.3 million copies in its first day of release. The entire series has now sold 8.5 million copies in the U.S., more than 17 million copies worldwide.

So how did this budding literary phenomenon practically drop in Summit's lap? Keep reading:

 

When I had lunch with John Hamburg the other day, the writer-director of the upcoming comedy "I Love You, Man" appeared full of anxiety, something of a natural condition I suspect, since judging from his work, he is the poet laureate of comic anxiety. (Best known in the business as Ben Stiller's in-house writer, Hamburg's writing credits include "Meet the Parents," "Zoolander" and "Meet the Fockers" as well as serving as the writer-director of "Along Came Polly.") The problem at hand was pretty clear. His new film, which stars Paul Rudd, Jason Segal and Jamie Pressly, had the perfect title and he desperately wanted to keep it.

After all, what else would you call a comedy about a loner engaged to a nice girl who suddenly realizes that he has no male friend to be his best man--and proceeds to go out on a series of male dates, hoping to find the right guy? I mean, doesn't "I Love You, Man" say it all? Hamburg thought so too. So did DreamWorks, which produced the film (which is being distributed by Paramount). There was just one snag. 20th Century Fox had a film coming out at roughly the same time next spring called "I Love You Beth Cooper." And if there were ever a studio that would attempt to copyright the phrase "I Love You," it would be Fox.

So even though Hamburg had done a lot of work at Fox, including some key rewrites on the studio's mega-hit "Night at the Museum," he was worried. And rightfully so. After all, it was DreamWorks who had a Farrelly brothers comedy called "The Seven Day Itch," loosely based on 1972's "The Heartbreak Kid." At least it was called that until Fox challenged the title, claiming the movie could be confused with the 1955 Billy Wilder film "The Seven Year Itch." (I only wish Wilder were still alive, since surely he'd have a great quip about the logic of how you'd confuse a 50-year-old Marilyn Monroe movie with a Farrelly brothers comedy.) Fox was so fiercely committed to protecting its title that studio Co-Chairman Tom Rothman personally went before the MPAA title arbitration board to plead the studio's case--and won on appeal, forcing DreamWorks to change its title to "The Heartbreak Kid." (The movie flopped.)

"I have to admit I don't have a real fall-back position," Hamburg told me over lunch. "I have a list of other titles in my office and they're all terrible. 'I Love You, Man' is so good because it's a phrase that's in the culture. It symbolizes the way men talk to each other, especially the 'comma' and the 'man.' And the whole subtext of the phrase really plays out in the movie. I dunno--isn't 'I love you' a pretty common phrase? It seems like I've heard it in movie titles before."

So does this story have a happy ending? Did Fox put the screws to Hamburg or did the studio make him an offer he couldn't refuse? Keep reading:

When I was young and fancy free, I once went out with a girl whose major criteria for granting a guy a second date (and trust me when I say there was always a long line of potential grant recipients) was whether we could offer a persuasive answer to the question: What is your favorite James Bond theme song? (I could identify--in high school, I once bailed on a girl after it became apparent that I was going to be subjected to a steady stream of Cat Stevens and Three Dog Night songs from her LP collection.)

But I digress. Outside of arguing over who's the best baseball player or the worst president of all time, what could be more emotionally satisfying than debating the merits of the amazing array of James Bond theme songs? So kudos to Drew Kerr at TotalMusicGeek, who came up with the great idea of doing a Top 20 ranking of the themes--along with a YouTube link allowing us to watch all of the film's title sequences while listening to the themes.

I'm not sure I agree with all of Drew's rankings--he puts Nancy Sinatra's steamy rendition of "You Only Live Twice" (covered not so long ago by Coldplay) at No. 1, which strikes me as a bit high. But puzzling over the entire Bond aesthetic is half of the fun of playing the game. I agree with Drew that the new Jack White-Alicia Keys theme, "Another Way to Die," is, well, dreadful, almost as bad as Madonna's dreary "Die Another Day" and Garbage's dismal "The World Is Not Enough." On the plus side, I'd forgotten how good Tina Turner sounds on "GoldenEye" (co-written by Bono and the Edge) or how classic Carly Simon's "Nobody Does It Better" feels today, perhaps because it was co-written by the one and only Marvin Hamlisch, who's still enough of a brand name to get name-checked in "Role Models."

Anyway, go see for yourself--and don't miss the wonderfully kitschy title sequence from "On Her Majesty's Secret Service." As for my favorite theme? If you must know, I'm going with Tom Jones' brassy gals-toss-your-panties-on-stage version of "Thunderball." But don't take my word for it. Watch it for yourself:

Photo of Eunice Gayson and Sean Connery in "Dr. No" from UPI

If you hang around Hollywood long enough, you learn not to believe everything you read in the trades. Still, it was pretty exciting to see the news this week that the indefatigable producer Avi Lerner had wooed Brett Ratner into directing Lerner's upcoming remake of "Conan," the iconic 1982 film that helped launch Arnold Schwarzenegger's long run as a Hollywood action hero. According to the original Hollywood Reporter headline, Ratner had committed to the project, though its latest version was a bit more circumspect, saying he was in "final negotiations" to do the film after working with the screenwriters, who were doing a quick polish to "incorporate" some of Ratner's ideas. The blogosphere wasn't quite so discerning, with some Web outlets simply saying that Ratner was "officially directing" the film.

One of Hollywood's most persuasive salesman, Lerner told me this morning that Ratner was the perfect director. "He has the passion and feeling for this project--he even wrote a story about Conan when he was 10 years old," Lerner explained. "He understands the character, he analyzed the script really well. He knows how to make this a really big movie. I like his childlike enthusiasm--he almost sees these movies as wonderful toys. What can I say, he's a nice, likable Jewish boy."

Lerner acknowledged that even though he sent out a press release announcing Ratner's involvement with the project, the deal wasn't actually done. "We still have a few obstacles," he said. "Brett is only committed if we agree on a budget, on how to do the special effects and exactly where we'd shoot the film." Lerner has a studio in Bulgaria, so he'd like to shoot most of the movie there, with some exterior work in China.

But is Ratner actually committed to doing the film? In two words: Not really. When I called him today, he sounded somewhat agitated, unhappy that news of his negotiations with Lerner had surfaced, especially since he is extremely close to getting a green light from Paramount to make "Beverly Hills Cop 4." "Let me make this very clear," he told me. "I am not doing 'Conan' now. This is totally premature. For now, 'Conan' is only a development deal. I have a deal at Paramount and I'm doing 'Beverly Hills Cop' first, no matter what. Avi shouldn't be telling you or anyone else in the press what I'm doing."

So what happened here? And how did Avi get the rights to "Conan" in the first place? Keep reading:

The blogosphere has been full of breathless tales that Baz Luhrmann has been forced to dump the unhappy ending he filmed for "Australia," his $130-million adventure epic (due out later this month) that stars Hugh Jackman and Nicole Kidman. Australia's Sunday Telegraph reports that 20th Century Fox executives forced Luhrmann to add a more upbeat ending after the film had "disastrous reviews" at early test screenings. Is it really possible that Fox would bully Luhrmann, a final-cut director, into giving his movie a happier ending?

Even though we've had some heated disagreements in recent months about my coverage of his studio, Fox Co-Chairman Tom Rothman graciously agreed to have lunch with me today at the Fox commissary, where we did see eye-to-eye on one important matter--it was very cool to be sitting two tables away from the legendary Hong Kong action movie star Chow Yun-Fat. (What he was doing at Fox was something of a mystery, since Rothman said he wasn't making a movie with the actor.) So what about "Australia"? Was there any truth to the Sunday Telegraph story?

"Everything in that story was patently nonsensical," Rothman said. "It's all too typical of the way the world works today that everybody picked up an unsourced, anonymous quote-filled story in a tabloid from Sydney and nobody ever bothered to check to see if it was accurate. The facts are--Baz is a final-cut director and we never pressured him in any way, shape or form. He wrote the movie, shot it and cut it all himself without any interference from us at all."

Rothman said that the movie "has probably had seven different endings at one time or another, none of them easily characterized as happy or sad." He said Luhrmann chose the ending the director thought worked best for the film. "But you couldn't possibly characterize the ending as happy or sad," he told me. "I'd call it deeply satisfying but that's because it's very complex. In fact, you could have a long conversation about whether it's happy or sad, which is actually part of what makes it a great movie."

I can't wait to see the film. And I couldn't agree more with Rothman about the gall of the Sunday Telegraph relying on such shoddy reporting. Maybe Tom can use his influence to improve the quality of journalism Down Under. All he has to do is pick up the phone, since the Telegraph is owned by ... his boss, Rupert Murdoch.

Photo of Hugh Jackman and Nicole Kidman in "Australia"  from Twentieth Century Fox / AFP / Getty Images

If you're like me, always hanging around producers, managers and agents, you frequently hear them groaning about the latest nutty studio rule dealing with the movies the studio will never, ever, ever make again. With "Soul Men" having tanked this weekend, it's a good bet that some studio chief somewhere is grumbling, "I don't want to ever see another script about soul singers!" (That dictum probably extends to college football players who get leukemia after the failure of "The Express" last month.)

Studio bosses do tend to make certain blanket pronouncements. Fox's Tom Rothman thinks sci-fi comedies are box-office poison, one key reason why he wouldn't make "Used Guys," a Jay Roach-directed sci-fi comedy that would have starred Ben Stiller and Jim Carrey (and cost a ton of money). Nikki Finke reported last year that after the failure of several female-starring comedies, Warners production chief Jeff Robinov told three different producers that WB was "no longer doing movies with women in the lead"--in fact, he supposedly didn't even want to see a script with a woman in a leading role. Everyone in town was talking about that one for weeks, even though I see that Warners is releasing a Cameron Diaz movie next spring ("The Box"), which didn't start filming till long after the supposed ban on female stars. So maybe Robinov had second thoughts--or never really said it in the first place.

I was reminded of all this the other day when an agent told me that they'd heard that Disney had put out the word that they didn't want to make any movies with young protagonists, which must mean really young protagonists, since the "High School Musical" series is such a box-office bonanza. So when I was having lunch with Sony chief Amy Pascal on Friday, I asked her--do you guys really say this stuff? Do you have crazy phobias too?

She laughed. "We all probably say things like that, but it's in the heat of the moment--everyone says things they don't really mean. So if there's a really young executive in a meeting and they hear you say something, even though you almost didn't mean it the minute it came out of your mouth, they sometimes take it seriously, when they should probably do what you do, which is forget all about it five minutes later."

But has she, in the heat of the moment, made crazy pronouncements too, like not wanting to make a movie whose title starts with the letter X? "I did say--I hate movies that begin with a bet," Pascal admits. "It's a bad idea, because it usually means that it's a fake story that revolves around a gimmick. But on the other hand, someone made 'My Fair Lady' and it was great. Rules are oversimplifications, which are bad no matter how you look at it. It would be like my saying, 'I'm so sick of Iraq movies, so I don't ever want to see another script about Iraq.' But that's just my reaction in the moment. Someone will make a phenomenal movie about Iraq and everyone's attitude will change."

According to Pascal, people simply overinterpret offhanded remarks. "I really don't think any studio has those kinds of rules. How could they? You have to open to hearing crazy, surprising ideas. One minute you have one of those rules, the next minute you'd want to break it."

Photo of Amy Pascal by Sony Pictures Entertainment

Sam Moore, the sole surviving half of soul legends Sam & Dave, is claiming that "Soul Men," which stars Samuel L. Jackson and Bernie Mac as long-estranged R&B backup singers who reunite for a last concert, is a rip-off of his life story. According to a story in the Independent today, Moore says the film--due out this weekend--is a "defamatory account" of a reunion he and the late Dave Prater attempted to pull off in 1982 after not speaking for several years. Moore claims the film has "bastardized" his life story, saying the comedy is "sexist, racist and embarrassing and that's not what Sam & Dave were about. It's so amateurish, so stupid and I'm surprised that Samuel L. Jackson is involved in this.... When you read the script, all you see is vulgarity. Every other word is the N-word or M-f and it's just not right."

Apparently Moore hasn't been going to the movies much lately, since there's nothing in "Soul Men" that's any more vulgar than the scatological jokes in "Zach and Miri Make a Porno" or the nauseating violence in "Saw 5," both of which just opened over the weekend. But does he have a point? Is "Soul Men" really a thinly disguised version of the Sam & Dave story? No way, says "Soul Men" producer David Friendly. "Our whole movie is a fiction, from start to finish," he told me. "We never got any life rights from anyone at any time because this was completely an invention. I'm a big-enough fan of Sam & Dave to know that it's a preposterous charge, since Sam & Dave were headliners, while our guys are backup singers."

Friendly laughed. "We haven't heard anything from the Pips [Gladys Knight's backup singers.] They'd at least have a stronger argument." Friendly said that he was asked to develop the project as a vehicle for Jackson and Mac, who wanted to work together in a comedy. He knew he had a hook for a movie when one of the film's writers posed the question--what if Bernie and Sam were backup singers who hadn't spoken in 30 years? The project was originally at New Regency, and then at New Line before ending up at the Weinstein Co., which is releasing the film through MGM this weekend.

Friendly said that, by coincidence, his offices were in the same building in Beverly Hills that housed Stax Records. "I literally took the elevator up one floor and talked to them about using wall-to-wall Stax music, which is how we came to license the music from them." Moore's lawyers are saying the Weinstein Co. has abused Moore's "Soul Man" trademark and are exploiting his reputation in order to make some dough. The Weinsteins' attorney, the always ferocious Bert Fields, insists Moore has no case, saying the movie tells a different story about different people. As Fields told the Independent: "If Mr. Moore decides to file a lawsuit, he will lose."

I'm no lawyer, but having seen the movie, I think Sam should rethink his position. The movie isn't racist, unless you want to contend that every Eddie Murphy and Chris Tucker comedy ever made is racist. It isn't more sexist than a thousand other Hollywood films. And guess what--it's pretty funny, largely thanks to some great chemistry between Jackson and Mac, who receives a nice, heartfelt tribute at the end of the film. As for the charge of unauthorized borrowing, someone should phone up Neil Simon. If the movie steals from anyone, it's from "The Sunshine Boys," which, as anyone could tell you, is stealing from the best.

See for yourself:

Photo of Bernie Mac and Samuel L. Jackson in "Soul Men" by Doug Hyun / The Weinstein Co.

Will white folks go to movie theaters to see black folks in a movie without any big white stars? That was the question some of us in the media were all asking before the release of "The Secret Life of Bees" earlier this month. Most old-fashioned movie marketers had said--not likely, based on past experience and long-held attitudes about white moviegoers. Some marketers cited the "Bradley Effect," the controversial analysis of a Tom Bradley 1982 election defeat in the California gubernatorial election where he'd led in polling before the election, prompting pundits to blame the loss on white voters who didn't tell pollsters how they really intended to vote. 

But guess what? "Bees" has quietly emerged as a minor hit, now projected to pass the $30-million mark at the box office. And as my colleague John Horn reports, it's doing even better in theaters catering to white moviegoers than in traditionally African American theaters. What gives? Here's John's report:

Fox Searchlight was confident that African American moviegoers would turn up for "The Secret Life of Bees," whose cast includes Queen Latifah, Jennifer Hudson and Alicia Keys. But the studio and the film's makers worried that white audiences, even after they embraced the bestselling Sue Monk Kidd novel on which the film was based, might stay away when the film premiered on Oct. 17.  After two weeks of release, it's clear that white ticket buyers are not only showing up for "Bees" but also are becoming the film's most loyal audience.

Last weekend, the film grossed more at Pacific's The Grove Stadium 14 than it did at the AMC Magic Johnson Crenshaw 15. In the rest of the country, theaters catering to black moviegoers reported strong opening weekend "Bee" sales but suffered steep declines last weekend. It's consistent with how movies with strong African American appeal--including Tyler Perry's efforts--tend to perform. For example, "Bee's" grosses at Georgia's AMC Southlake Pavilion 24 fell more than 61% last weekend, and sales at Maryland's Regal Bowie Crossing Cinema 14 collapsed almost as badly.

But in theaters that tend to cater to white audiences, support remained much stronger.  "Bee" sales at Oregon's Regal Cinemas Bridgeport Village Stadium 18 were down just 32.1%, and grosses at Northern California's Century 14 Downtown Walnut Creek dropped less than 18%. With total ticket sales of more than $21 million, "The Secret Life of Bees" will never catch "Beverly Hills Chihuahua." But "Bees" is not suffering from any "Bradley Effect" discrimination, and the very thing that scares off potential studio backing--an almost entirely black cast--has shown to be not a liability at all.

Photo of Queen Latifah, Jennifer Hudson and Alicia Keys in "The Secret Life of Bees" by Sidney Baldwin / Fox Searchlight

Since there's never been any doubt that Joaquin Phoenix was one of Hollywood's great modern-day eccentrics, it's hard to entirely take seriously the news that he has suddenly vowed to quit acting. After all, the oddball actor is always saying strange things. Working the press line at a fancy premiere for "Walk the Line," Phoenix asked a reporter, "Do I have a large frog in my hair?" When the reporter said no, Joaquin asked a new question: "Is there something crawling out of my scalp?" And how about this red-carpet story: Phoenix wrecked his car and was rescued by none other than ... Werner Herzog!

So I'm guessing the odds are pretty slim that Phoenix will stick to this pledge. Whatever has sidetracked him--playing in a cool band, learning how to cook, figuring out how to spot the moons of Jupiter without a telescope--will soon lose its appeal and he'll be back in action. But his pledge did spark the following idea: Who would make my list of the Top Ten actors we would like to see quit acting? (WARNING -- I'M JUST HAVING FUN HERE):

Click through to read my list, but please do feel free to offer your own suggestions:

When I was at an early screening of the upcoming comedy "Role Models" the other night, I found myself thinking about the Academy Awards, wondering what I always wonder when I see a good new comedy: Why on Earth shouldn't the Oscars recognize good work in comedy the same way they do in drama, animation, cinematography, editing and all the other great movie crafts? Shockingly, comedy is so thoroughly ignored by Oscar voters that it's been more than 30 years (yes, count 'em--thirty) since a true comedy--Woody Allen's "Annie Hall"--won the Oscar for best picture.

To say this is a disgrace would be an understatement. I hate to bore you with a recitation of film history, but movies began as a comic medium. A generation of Americans grew up falling in love with the cinema, largely thanks to Charlie Chaplin, Buster Keaton and Harold Lloyd and a host of other inspired silent movie comics. A second generation of moviegoers survived the Great Depression, thanks to the wonderful screwball comedies of the 1930s, from "My Man Godfrey" to "The Awful Truth" to "It Happened One Night" to "Midnight," not to mention the great Marx Brothers and W.C. Fields movies of the period.

The comedies of the '30s remain the true pillar of movie art from that era, immensely watchable even today, as many of the dramas and gangster films of the period have lost much of their thrill and allure. Comedy often tells us more about our time than the most acclaimed drama. In fact, I'd argue that if future cultural historians wanted the best window into the contemporary mores of the early 21st century, they wouldn't find much help from most of our recent Oscar winners ("Crash" aside), which tend to be set in the past, looking back in time for lessons about earlier eras. For the best analysis of people's anxieties, quirks and fears in 2008, you'd start by watching Judd Apatow movies, which have more to say about our time than "Beverly Hills Chihuahua," James Bond or even thoughtful art films like "Atonement" or "There Will Be Blood."

Directed by David Wain, who did 2001's "Wet Hot American Summer," "Role Models," which is being released by Universal Pictures Nov. 7, has no weighty message to deliver. It's simply loaded with shrewd comedy writing and slyly funny performances. Penned by a quartet of writers, including Wain, the film's costar Paul Rudd, Ken Marino (who plays a comically clueless stepdad in the film) and original writer Timothy Dowling, it follows the misadventures of two mismatched young guys--Rudd and Seann William Scott--who find themselves forced to become mentors to a pair of unhappy young boys in a Big Brothers-style community service program.

The Apatow influence is inescapable, since the film is populated with various actors, starting with Rudd and costar Elizabeth Banks, who are best known for their work in Apatow films. The project has an intriguing history. It was originally at Fox, which put it in turnaround. Producer Mary Parent, now MGM's  production chief but then a producing partner with Scott Stuber, picked it up, believing it was a timely comic premise. "I loved the concept of these two guys--one of them totally cynical, the other completely living in his imagination--who were forced to learn how to step out of themselves and help other people."

How did "Role Models" survive the loss of its director, its title and still make it to the finish line? And will the motion picture academy ever create a comedy category to honor all the great comedies being made? Keep reading:

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?"   

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.

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.

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.

"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.

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    

After an early screening of "Who Do You Love," one of the--count 'em--two new movies about 1950s powerhouse blues label Chess Records, a pair of women sought out Marshall Chess, whose dad, Leonard, was the driving force behind the record label. They were puzzled about one of the key story lines in the film. "Did your mother and father really make up after your father had that torrid affair with that beautiful singer?" one of them asked.

Marshall rolled his eyes. "No, they didn't make up," he said, "because there never was an affair. The filmmakers made that part up." When it comes to making movies about real-life people, Hollywood rarely lets the truth get in the way of a good story. No one knows that better now that Marshall Chess, who served as a technical consultant on the two competing Chess Records films, but discovered that while the actors and filmmakers were happy to listen to his recollections, it hardly meant that they would stick to the truth when it came time to film his family's story. Marshall knows the story intimately, having been behind the bar at his father's nightclub as a boy, seen his father hustle DJs on road tours and worked at Chess Records as a teenager.

He's delighted to see two films dramatizing his family history, but he's ambivalent about the results. "I guess I have a love-hate relationship with the movies," he told me recently. "They capture the spirit and the music wonderfully, but the truth isn't always there." He's especially upset over how "Cadillac Records," a film that stars Beyonce as Etta James and Oscar-winner Adrien Brody as Leonard Chess, cuts Leonard's brother, Phil, the co-founder of the record company, entirely out of the movie.

"It's a horrible distortion of history," says Marshall. "They started the company together. My uncle Phil was there every day. He recorded a lot of the best music we did. It wouldn't have happened without him and it's a real insult to our family. When I asked the producers, they simply said his character didn't work [in the script], so they cut him out."

When it comes to cutting people out of the Chess story, the rival "Who Do You Love" film has its own issues. The biggest-selling artist in Chess history is Chuck Berry, but his character was cut out of the movie. Why? Because the filmmakers couldn't make a deal for the rights to his music. The film's producer, Les Alexander, explains: "We made Chuck a spectacularly generous offer, but he wouldn't let us have anything. Our director, Jerry Zaks, even sent him a genuine fan note, saying how much his music meant to him. But it didn't matter--the answer was no."

Berry, who is still active as a touring act, is notoriously difficult when it comes to business matters. When Taylor Hackford, who directed the wonderful Berry concert film "Hail! Hail! Rock and Roll," recently ran into the performer, the first words out of Berry's mouth were, "You still owe me money." Mos Def plays Berry in "Cadillac Records," which managed to acquire some Berry songs that are owned by Marshall Chess. But dealing with Berry was so unbelievably arduous that when I asked the film's producer, Sofia Sondervan, about working with him, she replied in a hushed tone: "I can't talk about it. I can't say anything about Chuck Berry at all."

The "Who Do You Love" filmmakers defend their decision to show Leonard having an affair with a Chess artist who is clearly based on Etta James. "The question you always ask yourself is--are you illuminating who they were or are you assassinating their character?" says Zaks. "For me, the affair represents part of the seduction of success, which is a big part of the conflict in the movie's story. We did our own research and it seems evident that Leonard was a womanizer. Even his brother Phil says he had numerous affairs."

The filmmakers had less leeway in portraying Willie Dixon, the now-deceased songwriter (played by Chi McBride) who wrote most of Chess' biggest hits. Producer Les Alexander says, "We were prohibited by his estate as portraying him as someone who drank or smoked or sweared." Nonetheless, the film shows Dixon having two wives, who begrudgingly share his time together. "The estate didn't prohibit that," Alexander says.

Both films depict Chess giving his top artists a Cadillac after they had big chart-topping hits. It's a way for the films to capture the back-door way business was handled in the early days of the record industry, since the artists rarely realized that the expense of buying a Cadillac was deducted from their royalty statements. Marshall says it was a pragmatic way to reward a top artist, noting that few of the bluesmen had bank accounts at the time. "Getting a Cadillac in those days was a top of the line thing to have," he explains. "My father bought a new Cadillac every year too, because he was just like his artists--he wanted people to know he was a successful man."

Marshall laughs. "I guess he'd be happy to see two movies coming out about him at the same time. He'd definitely consider that a symbol of success too."

When I was a kid, I spent a lot of time in Chicago, home of two great baseball teams, a host of colorful politicians and the best blues in the world. Back in the day, you weren't anyone in the blues world unless you were signed to Chess Records, the label that made stars out of a generation of rough and tumble musicians, notably Muddy Waters, Little Walter, Willie Dixon and Howlin' Wolf.

So when I was at the recent Toronto Film Festival, I made a point of seeing "Who Do You Love," which stars Alessandro Nivola and Jon Abrahams as Leonard and Phil Chess, two hard-nosed immigrant entrepreneurs who ended up creating Chess Records, the 1950s record label that popularized urban blues and later, with the arrival of Chuck Berry and Bo Diddley, ushered in a brash new form of rock 'n' roll that was adopted by the Rolling Stones, the Beatles and thousands of other young white rock artists.

After the screening, I ran into a film executive, who whispered in my ear, "Do you know that there's another one?" Puzzled, I said, "Another what?" He laughed. "Another movie about Chess Records."

I really thought he was joking, but it's true. Against all odds and sound commercial judgment, the same crazy movie business that once made two asteroid movies and two movies about Truman Capote has now made two movies about the obscure icons of 1950s Chicago blues. What are the odds?

The second Chess film, made by Sony BMG Films, is "Cadillac Records," which will be released Dec. 5 through Sony's TriStar Pictures. Produced by Sofia Sondervan and Andy Lack, Sony BMG's former chairman (who just took a new job running Bloomberg's multimedia operations), the film has considerably more star power than its rival, featuring Beyonce Knowles as Chess' top songstress, Etta James; Adrien Brody as Leonard Chess; Mos Def as Chuck Berry; and Jeffrey Wright as Muddy Waters.

It's probably a misnomer to call the two pictures rivals, since "Who Do You Love," despite earning some good notices in Toronto, remains a long shot to land a theatrical release. "Cadillac Records" will be out in 800 theaters, with a Beyonce single and a soundtrack to help attract attention. Still, the question remains--what are the odds of two 1950s blues movies being made at the same time?

The answer, as always, is that making a movie isn't exactly a rational decision--passion trumps pragmatism. Neither film came out of today's increasingly timid studio system, which wouldn't dream of risking any loot on such obscure subject matter. "Cadillac Records" was championed by Lack, the former head of NBC News who ran Sony Music before being kicked upstairs after its BMG merger. According to Sondervan, Lack's family is from the Mississippi Delta, where he grew up listening to the blues, which gave him a strong interest in the story. "Who Do You Love" was financed by Jonathan Mitchell, a wealthy real estate developer with a love for the blues and directed by Jerry Zaks, who remembers singing to R&B records as a boy in his family basement.

"I was always drawn to black music," recalls Zaks, a four-time Tony Award-winning Broadway theater  director. "When I was in fifth grade, I was convinced I was Marvin Gaye. I'd put on the records I loved, everything from Gaye and Johnny Nash to Muddy Waters and Bo Diddley, and sing to the records in front of the mirror. I think that music had a powerful impact on a whole generation of kids."

But those kids are all nearing retirement age today and not especially regular moviegoers. So who's going to turn out for these films? When I asked Sondervan what made her think a blues movie could make a dent in today's marketplace, she offered an honest answer. "I don't really know," she said. "All I know is that Beyonce has a huge young following and a lot of people will come see the movie just because she's in it." She added that Beyonce has designed a clothing line of dresses inspired by the fashions in the film that are being launched later this fall at Bloomingdale's. "All the young people we've shown the film to really loved it," she says. "The blues is coming back. It's getting played at a lot of trendy restaurants, so there's a lot of new awareness out there."

Hhmm. Like I said, making movies isn't always a rational decision. Will Beyonce fans want to see her as a troubled '50s blues diva? Angelina Jolie fans do show up when she's trading gunfire with Brad Pitt, but they didn't bother to come when she played Mariane Pearl in "A Mighty Heart." And George Clooney fans, who loved him in "Oceans Eleven," turned up their noses at "Leatherheads" and "The Good German."

Music biopics have a pretty spotty track record. Taylor Hackford's "Ray" was a surprise hit (though it was also independently financed outside the studio system). But "She's Not There," Todd Haynes' impressionistic Bob Dylan biopic, never found an audience, despite a raft of rave reviews. Even "Dreamgirls," the Bill Condon film loosely based on the Supremes, was a box-office disappointment.

The real challenge for films that re-create the lives of real characters is--how true to life are they? Sony hasn't screened "Cadillac Records" yet, but the person who knows the story best of all--Leonard's son, Marshall Chess, who served as a technical consultant on both projects--says both movies took some dramatic liberties with many of the characters' personal lives. Which film took the most liberties? Which actor came the closest to capturing his real-life character? And which movie ended up cutting Chuck Berry entirely out of the story? We'll have Part 2 of our post up soon, so stay tuned.

Photo: Beyonce Knowles as Etta James in "Cadillac Records": photo credit: Eric Liebowitz

The one thing you can count on in Hollywood is that when a studio makes a sudden or unexpected decision, it is almost guaranteed that the official reason for the move is a smoke screen for what's really going on. I'm guessing that's the case with Paramount's surprise announcement late Thursday that it's knocking "The Soloist" out of the awards season scrum, "dashing any hopes," to use Variety's melodramatic phrase, for the film to win any Academy Award accolades in 2008. The film is of particular interest to those of us here at the LA Times, since it is based on a series of gripping columns by our own Steve Lopez about his relationship with a homeless musician grappling with schizophrenia.

The film, which stars Robert Downey Jr. as Lopez and Jamie Foxx as the musician, was slated for release Nov. 21st, a prime slot for a potential year-end Oscar campaign. The film, produced by Dreamworks and co-financed by Participant Media and Universal's Working Title, has now been bumped to March 13th, 2009. Why? According to a story in the LA Times, Paramount executives said the current economic collapse "might have made November an awkward time to release a movie about homelessness."

That's the kind of whopper you'd only hear in Hollywood. I think the appropriate response to that would be--when exactly would be a good time to release a film about homelessness? Halloween? The Fourth of July? Having read the script and seen the film being shot, I'm guessing that only a studio disguising its real motives would call "The Soloist" a film about homelessness, when in fact, it's a male-bonding love story about a crusading newspaper reporter and a musician with a troubled soul.

Paramount apparently told its partners, as well as top CAA brass, who represent most of the talent on the picture, that the studio was under pressure from Viacom superiors to cut costs, having recently acknowledged that it was thinning out its future release schedule. With even Sumner Redstone being forced to sell stock to keep his investments afloat, the studio was forced to take drastic measures. With four potential Oscar movies slated for year-end release, something had to give. It certainly wasn't going to be "The Curious Case of Benjamin Button," an expensive and much-anticipated Brad Pitt and David Fincher collaboration that studio chief Brad Grey has already publicly embraced as his ticket to a front-row seat Feb. 22nd at the Kodak Theater. And it certainly wasn't going to be "Revolutionary Road," a Scott Rudin-produced literary drama with a star too big to offend (Leonardo DiCaprio) and the kind of rarified subject matter that desperately needs Oscar buzz to sell tickets.

That left the studio's Ed Zwick-directed drama, "Defiance," which is a long-shot for Oscars, but still enough of a contender that while it's being pushed back to late December, is still getting an Oscar qualifying run before going wide in January. That made "The Soloist" the low man on the totem pole, since it conceivably has enough commercial potential to make a dent at the box office in the spring without the benefit of any Oscar coattails. Since the film was produced by Dreamworks, which just concluded an ugly divorce with Paramount, the inside chatter has focused on the idea that Paramount is somehow punishing Dreamworks by robbing the departing Spielberg team of any Oscar glory.

If anyone at Variety actually asked Paramount about all these complicated twists and turns involving "The Soloist," they didn't bother to mention it in their story, which credulously quotes Paramount vice chairman Rob Moore as simply saying "We decided it's a commercial movie that will play well in the spring." Like I said, studio executives almost never give the real reason for their moves. If they did, Paramount would acknowledge the obvious: These moves aren't so much about saving money--which is small potatoes in terms of the giant outlays studio make these days--as focusing the studio's marketing machinery on its biggest potential cash cow.

Even though it co-financed the film with Warners, Paramount has a huge bet down on "Benjamin Button," which is the one movie here that could be both an enormous commercial and critical hit. The studio has clearly decided to clear the decks. It can't do anything about potential Oscar rivals from other studios, but it doesn't want to compete with itself. My guess is that the studio is being uncharacteristically pragmatic. In an era where studios release all their quality films in the same 10 week time period--I call it the Oscar demolition derby--Paramount has decided to create some breathing room for its strongest contender. Only in Oscar-crazed Hollywood, where everyone lives and dies by awards glory, is the decision to move a quality movie to the spring viewed as an ignominious death sentence. If "The Soloist" gets a good reception in March, it will survive and flourish. I wish some of the industry's hand-ringers would realize there is actually life after the Oscars.

My colleague John Horn has a story in Thursday's Calendar section that grapples with the always touchy question--why do white moviegoers shy away from movies with largely African American casts? "Amistad," Steven Spielberg's 1997 slavery epic, was his lowest-grossing movie in 20 years. Even "Ray," Taylor Hackford's Oscar-nominated musical biography of Ray Charles, drew an overwhelmingly black audience.

Will the same thing happen to "The Secret Life of Bees," a highbrow literary adaptation from an African American filmmaker (Gina Prince-Bythewood) that features a largely black female cast (Queen Latifah, Jennifer Hudson and Alicia Keys)? The film, distributed by Fox Searchlight, is going wide Friday in nearly 1,600 theaters, which means it will be playing in both suburban and urban neighborhoods. The book had a large white female following, but according to Horn, research shows that black moviegoers are showing roughly twice as much interest in seeing the film as whites.

Horn raises an intriguing political parallel:

"Pundits and election strategists have been deliberating feverishly whether white voters who tell interviewers they intend to vote for Sen. Barack Obama for president will really do so once they enter the polling booth. While the discrepancy known as the Bradley effect (named after former Los Angeles mayor Tom Bradley's 1982 loss in the California gubernatorial election, in which he consistently led in polling) may prove to be a minor factor in the year's presidential race, it is still a prominent concern within Hollywood, as movies made by and with African Americans often struggle to attract white supporters, both at the box office and within the studio's executive offices."

Movie-title madness: 'I Love You, Man'

When I had lunch with John Hamburg the other day, the writer-director of the upcoming comedy "I Love You, Man" appeared full of anxiety, something of a natural condition I suspect, since judging from his work, he is the poet laureate of comic anxiety. (Best known in the business as Ben Stiller's in-house writer, Hamburg's writing credits include "Meet the Parents," "Zoolander" and "Meet the Fockers" as well as serving as the writer-director of "Along Came Polly.") The problem at hand was pretty clear. His new film, which stars Paul Rudd, Jason Segal and Jamie Pressly, had the perfect title and he desperately wanted to keep it.

After all, what else would you call a comedy about a loner engaged to a nice girl who suddenly realizes that he has no male friend to be his best man--and proceeds to go out on a series of male dates, hoping to find the right guy? I mean, doesn't "I Love You, Man" say it all? Hamburg thought so too. So did DreamWorks, which produced the film (which is being distributed by Paramount). There was just one snag. 20th Century Fox had a film coming out at roughly the same time next spring called "I Love You Beth Cooper." And if there were ever a studio that would attempt to copyright the phrase "I Love You," it would be Fox.

So even though Hamburg had done a lot of work at Fox, including some key rewrites on the studio's mega-hit "Night at the Museum," he was worried. And rightfully so. After all, it was DreamWorks who had a Farrelly brothers comedy called "The Seven Day Itch," loosely based on 1972's "The Heartbreak Kid." At least it was called that until Fox challenged the title, claiming the movie could be confused with the 1955 Billy Wilder film "The Seven Year Itch." (I only wish Wilder were still alive, since surely he'd have a great quip about the logic of how you'd confuse a 50-year-old Marilyn Monroe movie with a Farrelly brothers comedy.) Fox was so fiercely committed to protecting its title that studio Co-Chairman Tom Rothman personally went before the MPAA title arbitration board to plead the studio's case--and won on appeal, forcing DreamWorks to change its title to "The Heartbreak Kid." (The movie flopped.)

"I have to admit I don't have a real fall-back position," Hamburg told me over lunch. "I have a list of other titles in my office and they're all terrible. 'I Love You, Man' is so good because it's a phrase that's in the culture. It symbolizes the way men talk to each other, especially the 'comma' and the 'man.' And the whole subtext of the phrase really plays out in the movie. I dunno--isn't 'I love you' a pretty common phrase? It seems like I've heard it in movie titles before."

So does this story have a happy ending? Did Fox put the screws to Hamburg or did the studio make him an offer he couldn't refuse? Keep reading:

When I was young and fancy free, I once went out with a girl whose major criteria for granting a guy a second date (and trust me when I say there was always a long line of potential grant recipients) was whether we could offer a persuasive answer to the question: What is your favorite James Bond theme song? (I could identify--in high school, I once bailed on a girl after it became apparent that I was going to be subjected to a steady stream of Cat Stevens and Three Dog Night songs from her LP collection.)

But I digress. Outside of arguing over who's the best baseball player or the worst president of all time, what could be more emotionally satisfying than debating the merits of the amazing array of James Bond theme songs? So kudos to Drew Kerr at TotalMusicGeek, who came up with the great idea of doing a Top 20 ranking of the themes--along with a YouTube link allowing us to watch all of the film's title sequences while listening to the themes.

I'm not sure I agree with all of Drew's rankings--he puts Nancy Sinatra's steamy rendition of "You Only Live Twice" (covered not so long ago by Coldplay) at No. 1, which strikes me as a bit high. But puzzling over the entire Bond aesthetic is half of the fun of playing the game. I agree with Drew that the new Jack White-Alicia Keys theme, "Another Way to Die," is, well, dreadful, almost as bad as Madonna's dreary "Die Another Day" and Garbage's dismal "The World Is Not Enough." On the plus side, I'd forgotten how good Tina Turner sounds on "GoldenEye" (co-written by Bono and the Edge) or how classic Carly Simon's "Nobody Does It Better" feels today, perhaps because it was co-written by the one and only Marvin Hamlisch, who's still enough of a brand name to get name-checked in "Role Models."

Anyway, go see for yourself--and don't miss the wonderfully kitschy title sequence from "On Her Majesty's Secret Service." As for my favorite theme? If you must know, I'm going with Tom Jones' brassy gals-toss-your-panties-on-stage version of "Thunderball." But don't take my word for it. Watch it for yourself:

Photo of Eunice Gayson and Sean Connery in "Dr. No" from UPI

If you hang around Hollywood long enough, you learn not to believe everything you read in the trades. Still, it was pretty exciting to see the news this week that the indefatigable producer Avi Lerner had wooed Brett Ratner into directing Lerner's upcoming remake of "Conan," the iconic 1982 film that helped launch Arnold Schwarzenegger's long run as a Hollywood action hero. According to the original Hollywood Reporter headline, Ratner had committed to the project, though its latest version was a bit more circumspect, saying he was in "final negotiations" to do the film after working with the screenwriters, who were doing a quick polish to "incorporate" some of Ratner's ideas. The blogosphere wasn't quite so discerning, with some Web outlets simply saying that Ratner was "officially directing" the film.

One of Hollywood's most persuasive salesman, Lerner told me this morning that Ratner was the perfect director. "He has the passion and feeling for this project--he even wrote a story about Conan when he was 10 years old," Lerner explained. "He understands the character, he analyzed the script really well. He knows how to make this a really big movie. I like his childlike enthusiasm--he almost sees these movies as wonderful toys. What can I say, he's a nice, likable Jewish boy."

Lerner acknowledged that even though he sent out a press release announcing Ratner's involvement with the project, the deal wasn't actually done. "We still have a few obstacles," he said. "Brett is only committed if we agree on a budget, on how to do the special effects and exactly where we'd shoot the film." Lerner has a studio in Bulgaria, so he'd like to shoot most of the movie there, with some exterior work in China.

But is Ratner actually committed to doing the film? In two words: Not really. When I called him today, he sounded somewhat agitated, unhappy that news of his negotiations with Lerner had surfaced, especially since he is extremely close to getting a green light from Paramount to make "Beverly Hills Cop 4." "Let me make this very clear," he told me. "I am not doing 'Conan' now. This is totally premature. For now, 'Conan' is only a development deal. I have a deal at Paramount and I'm doing 'Beverly Hills Cop' first, no matter what. Avi shouldn't be telling you or anyone else in the press what I'm doing."

So what happened here? And how did Avi get the rights to "Conan" in the first place? Keep reading:

The blogosphere has been full of breathless tales that Baz Luhrmann has been forced to dump the unhappy ending he filmed for "Australia," his $130-million adventure epic (due out later this month) that stars Hugh Jackman and Nicole Kidman. Australia's Sunday Telegraph reports that 20th Century Fox executives forced Luhrmann to add a more upbeat ending after the film had "disastrous reviews" at early test screenings. Is it really possible that Fox would bully Luhrmann, a final-cut director, into giving his movie a happier ending?

Even though we've had some heated disagreements in recent months about my coverage of his studio, Fox Co-Chairman Tom Rothman graciously agreed to have lunch with me today at the Fox commissary, where we did see eye-to-eye on one important matter--it was very cool to be sitting two tables away from the legendary Hong Kong action movie star Chow Yun-Fat. (What he was doing at Fox was something of a mystery, since Rothman said he wasn't making a movie with the actor.) So what about "Australia"? Was there any truth to the Sunday Telegraph story?

"Everything in that story was patently nonsensical," Rothman said. "It's all too typical of the way the world works today that everybody picked up an unsourced, anonymous quote-filled story in a tabloid from Sydney and nobody ever bothered to check to see if it was accurate. The facts are--Baz is a final-cut director and we never pressured him in any way, shape or form. He wrote the movie, shot it and cut it all himself without any interference from us at all."

Rothman said that the movie "has probably had seven different endings at one time or another, none of them easily characterized as happy or sad." He said Luhrmann chose the ending the director thought worked best for the film. "But you couldn't possibly characterize the ending as happy or sad," he told me. "I'd call it deeply satisfying but that's because it's very complex. In fact, you could have a long conversation about whether it's happy or sad, which is actually part of what makes it a great movie."

I can't wait to see the film. And I couldn't agree more with Rothman about the gall of the Sunday Telegraph relying on such shoddy reporting. Maybe Tom can use his influence to improve the quality of journalism Down Under. All he has to do is pick up the phone, since the Telegraph is owned by ... his boss, Rupert Murdoch.

Photo of Hugh Jackman and Nicole Kidman in "Australia"  from Twentieth Century Fox / AFP / Getty Images

If you're like me, always hanging around producers, managers and agents, you frequently hear them groaning about the latest nutty studio rule dealing with the movies the studio will never, ever, ever make again. With "Soul Men" having tanked this weekend, it's a good bet that some studio chief somewhere is grumbling, "I don't want to ever see another script about soul singers!" (That dictum probably extends to college football players who get leukemia after the failure of "The Express" last month.)

Studio bosses do tend to make certain blanket pronouncements. Fox's Tom Rothman thinks sci-fi comedies are box-office poison, one key reason why he wouldn't make "Used Guys," a Jay Roach-directed sci-fi comedy that would have starred Ben Stiller and Jim Carrey (and cost a ton of money). Nikki Finke reported last year that after the failure of several female-starring comedies, Warners production chief Jeff Robinov told three different producers that WB was "no longer doing movies with women in the lead"--in fact, he supposedly didn't even want to see a script with a woman in a leading role. Everyone in town was talking about that one for weeks, even though I see that Warners is releasing a Cameron Diaz movie next spring ("The Box"), which didn't start filming till long after the supposed ban on female stars. So maybe Robinov had second thoughts--or never really said it in the first place.

I was reminded of all this the other day when an agent told me that they'd heard that Disney had put out the word that they didn't want to make any movies with young protagonists, which must mean really young protagonists, since the "High School Musical" series is such a box-office bonanza. So when I was having lunch with Sony chief Amy Pascal on Friday, I asked her--do you guys really say this stuff? Do you have crazy phobias too?

She laughed. "We all probably say things like that, but it's in the heat of the moment--everyone says things they don't really mean. So if there's a really young executive in a meeting and they hear you say something, even though you almost didn't mean it the minute it came out of your mouth, they sometimes take it seriously, when they should probably do what you do, which is forget all about it five minutes later."

But has she, in the heat of the moment, made crazy pronouncements too, like not wanting to make a movie whose title starts with the letter X? "I did say--I hate movies that begin with a bet," Pascal admits. "It's a bad idea, because it usually means that it's a fake story that revolves around a gimmick. But on the other hand, someone made 'My Fair Lady' and it was great. Rules are oversimplifications, which are bad no matter how you look at it. It would be like my saying, 'I'm so sick of Iraq movies, so I don't ever want to see another script about Iraq.' But that's just my reaction in the moment. Someone will make a phenomenal movie about Iraq and everyone's attitude will change."

According to Pascal, people simply overinterpret offhanded remarks. "I really don't think any studio has those kinds of rules. How could they? You have to open to hearing crazy, surprising ideas. One minute you have one of those rules, the next minute you'd want to break it."

Photo of Amy Pascal by Sony Pictures Entertainment

Sam Moore, the sole surviving half of soul legends Sam & Dave, is claiming that "Soul Men," which stars Samuel L. Jackson and Bernie Mac as long-estranged R&B backup singers who reunite for a last concert, is a rip-off of his life story. According to a story in the Independent today, Moore says the film--due out this weekend--is a "defamatory account" of a reunion he and the late Dave Prater attempted to pull off in 1982 after not speaking for several years. Moore claims the film has "bastardized" his life story, saying the comedy is "sexist, racist and embarrassing and that's not what Sam & Dave were about. It's so amateurish, so stupid and I'm surprised that Samuel L. Jackson is involved in this.... When you read the script, all you see is vulgarity. Every other word is the N-word or M-f and it's just not right."

Apparently Moore hasn't been going to the movies much lately, since there's nothing in "Soul Men" that's any more vulgar than the scatological jokes in "Zach and Miri Make a Porno" or the nauseating violence in "Saw 5," both of which just opened over the weekend. But does he have a point? Is "Soul Men" really a thinly disguised version of the Sam & Dave story? No way, says "Soul Men" producer David Friendly. "Our whole movie is a fiction, from start to finish," he told me. "We never got any life rights from anyone at any time because this was completely an invention. I'm a big-enough fan of Sam & Dave to know that it's a preposterous charge, since Sam & Dave were headliners, while our guys are backup singers."

Friendly laughed. "We haven't heard anything from the Pips [Gladys Knight's backup singers.] They'd at least have a stronger argument." Friendly said that he was asked to develop the project as a vehicle for Jackson and Mac, who wanted to work together in a comedy. He knew he had a hook for a movie when one of the film's writers posed the question--what if Bernie and Sam were backup singers who hadn't spoken in 30 years? The project was originally at New Regency, and then at New Line before ending up at the Weinstein Co., which is releasing the film through MGM this weekend.

Friendly said that, by coincidence, his offices were in the same building in Beverly Hills that housed Stax Records. "I literally took the elevator up one floor and talked to them about using wall-to-wall Stax music, which is how we came to license the music from them." Moore's lawyers are saying the Weinstein Co. has abused Moore's "Soul Man" trademark and are exploiting his reputation in order to make some dough. The Weinsteins' attorney, the always ferocious Bert Fields, insists Moore has no case, saying the movie tells a different story about different people. As Fields told the Independent: "If Mr. Moore decides to file a lawsuit, he will lose."

I'm no lawyer, but having seen the movie, I think Sam should rethink his position. The movie isn't racist, unless you want to contend that every Eddie Murphy and Chris Tucker comedy ever made is racist. It isn't more sexist than a thousand other Hollywood films. And guess what--it's pretty funny, largely thanks to some great chemistry between Jackson and Mac, who receives a nice, heartfelt tribute at the end of the film. As for the charge of unauthorized borrowing, someone should phone up Neil Simon. If the movie steals from anyone, it's from "The Sunshine Boys," which, as anyone could tell you, is stealing from the best.

See for yourself:

Photo of Bernie Mac and Samuel L. Jackson in "Soul Men" by Doug Hyun / The Weinstein Co.

Will white folks go to movie theaters to see black folks in a movie without any big white stars? That was the question some of us in the media were all asking before the release of "The Secret Life of Bees" earlier this month. Most old-fashioned movie marketers had said--not likely, based on past experience and long-held attitudes about white moviegoers. Some marketers cited the "Bradley Effect," the controversial analysis of a Tom Bradley 1982 election defeat in the California gubernatorial election where he'd led in polling before the election, prompting pundits to blame the loss on white voters who didn't tell pollsters how they really intended to vote. 

But guess what? "Bees" has quietly emerged as a minor hit, now projected to pass the $30-million mark at the box office. And as my colleague John Horn reports, it's doing even better in theaters catering to white moviegoers than in traditionally African American theaters. What gives? Here's John's report:

Fox Searchlight was confident that African American moviegoers would turn up for "The Secret Life of Bees," whose cast includes Queen Latifah, Jennifer Hudson and Alicia Keys. But the studio and the film's makers worried that white audiences, even after they embraced the bestselling Sue Monk Kidd novel on which the film was based, might stay away when the film premiered on Oct. 17.  After two weeks of release, it's clear that white ticket buyers are not only showing up for "Bees" but also are becoming the film's most loyal audience.

Last weekend, the film grossed more at Pacific's The Grove Stadium 14 than it did at the AMC Magic Johnson Crenshaw 15. In the rest of the country, theaters catering to black moviegoers reported strong opening weekend "Bee" sales but suffered steep declines last weekend. It's consistent with how movies with strong African American appeal--including Tyler Perry's efforts--tend to perform. For example, "Bee's" grosses at Georgia's AMC Southlake Pavilion 24 fell more than 61% last weekend, and sales at Maryland's Regal Bowie Crossing Cinema 14 collapsed almost as badly.

But in theaters that tend to cater to white audiences, support remained much stronger.  "Bee" sales at Oregon's Regal Cinemas Bridgeport Village Stadium 18 were down just 32.1%, and grosses at Northern California's Century 14 Downtown Walnut Creek dropped less than 18%. With total ticket sales of more than $21 million, "The Secret Life of Bees" will never catch "Beverly Hills Chihuahua." But "Bees" is not suffering from any "Bradley Effect" discrimination, and the very thing that scares off potential studio backing--an almost entirely black cast--has shown to be not a liability at all.

Photo of Queen Latifah, Jennifer Hudson and Alicia Keys in "The Secret Life of Bees" by Sidney Baldwin / Fox Searchlight

Since there's never been any doubt that Joaquin Phoenix was one of Hollywood's great modern-day eccentrics, it's hard to entirely take seriously the news that he has suddenly vowed to quit acting. After all, the oddball actor is always saying strange things. Working the press line at a fancy premiere for "Walk the Line," Phoenix asked a reporter, "Do I have a large frog in my hair?" When the reporter said no, Joaquin asked a new question: "Is there something crawling out of my scalp?" And how about this red-carpet story: Phoenix wrecked his car and was rescued by none other than ... Werner Herzog!

So I'm guessing the odds are pretty slim that Phoenix will stick to this pledge. Whatever has sidetracked him--playing in a cool band, learning how to cook, figuring out how to spot the moons of Jupiter without a telescope--will soon lose its appeal and he'll be back in action. But his pledge did spark the following idea: Who would make my list of the Top Ten actors we would like to see quit acting? (WARNING -- I'M JUST HAVING FUN HERE):

Click through to read my list, but please do feel free to offer your own suggestions:

When I was at an early screening of the upcoming comedy "Role Models" the other night, I found myself thinking about the Academy Awards, wondering what I always wonder when I see a good new comedy: Why on Earth shouldn't the Oscars recognize good work in comedy the same way they do in drama, animation, cinematography, editing and all the other great movie crafts? Shockingly, comedy is so thoroughly ignored by Oscar voters that it's been more than 30 years (yes, count 'em--thirty) since a true comedy--Woody Allen's "Annie Hall"--won the Oscar for best picture.

To say this is a disgrace would be an understatement. I hate to bore you with a recitation of film history, but movies began as a comic medium. A generation of Americans grew up falling in love with the cinema, largely thanks to Charlie Chaplin, Buster Keaton and Harold Lloyd and a host of other inspired silent movie comics. A second generation of moviegoers survived the Great Depression, thanks to the wonderful screwball comedies of the 1930s, from "My Man Godfrey" to "The Awful Truth" to "It Happened One Night" to "Midnight," not to mention the great Marx Brothers and W.C. Fields movies of the period.

The comedies of the '30s remain the true pillar of movie art from that era, immensely watchable even today, as many of the dramas and gangster films of the period have lost much of their thrill and allure. Comedy often tells us more about our time than the most acclaimed drama. In fact, I'd argue that if future cultural historians wanted the best window into the contemporary mores of the early 21st century, they wouldn't find much help from most of our recent Oscar winners ("Crash" aside), which tend to be set in the past, looking back in time for lessons about earlier eras. For the best analysis of people's anxieties, quirks and fears in 2008, you'd start by watching Judd Apatow movies, which have more to say about our time than "Beverly Hills Chihuahua," James Bond or even thoughtful art films like "Atonement" or "There Will Be Blood."

Directed by David Wain, who did 2001's "Wet Hot American Summer," "Role Models," which is being released by Universal Pictures Nov. 7, has no weighty message to deliver. It's simply loaded with shrewd comedy writing and slyly funny performances. Penned by a quartet of writers, including Wain, the film's costar Paul Rudd, Ken Marino (who plays a comically clueless stepdad in the film) and original writer Timothy Dowling, it follows the misadventures of two mismatched young guys--Rudd and Seann William Scott--who find themselves forced to become mentors to a pair of unhappy young boys in a Big Brothers-style community service program.

The Apatow influence is inescapable, since the film is populated with various actors, starting with Rudd and costar Elizabeth Banks, who are best known for their work in Apatow films. The project has an intriguing history. It was originally at Fox, which put it in turnaround. Producer Mary Parent, now MGM's  production chief but then a producing partner with Scott Stuber, picked it up, believing it was a timely comic premise. "I loved the concept of these two guys--one of them totally cynical, the other completely living in his imagination--who were forced to learn how to step out of themselves and help other people."

How did "Role Models" survive the loss of its director, its title and still make it to the finish line? And will the motion picture academy ever create a comedy category to honor all the great comedies being made? Keep reading:

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?"   

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.

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.

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.

"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.

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    

After an early screening of "Who Do You Love," one of the--count 'em--two new movies about 1950s powerhouse blues label Chess Records, a pair of women sought out Marshall Chess, whose dad, Leonard, was the driving force behind the record label. They were puzzled about one of the key story lines in the film. "Did your mother and father really make up after your father had that torrid affair with that beautiful singer?" one of them asked.

Marshall rolled his eyes. "No, they didn't make up," he said, "because there never was an affair. The filmmakers made that part up." When it comes to making movies about real-life people, Hollywood rarely lets the truth get in the way of a good story. No one knows that better now that Marshall Chess, who served as a technical consultant on the two competing Chess Records films, but discovered that while the actors and filmmakers were happy to listen to his recollections, it hardly meant that they would stick to the truth when it came time to film his family's story. Marshall knows the story intimately, having been behind the bar at his father's nightclub as a boy, seen his father hustle DJs on road tours and worked at Chess Records as a teenager.

He's delighted to see two films dramatizing his family history, but he's ambivalent about the results. "I guess I have a love-hate relationship with the movies," he told me recently. "They capture the spirit and the music wonderfully, but the truth isn't always there." He's especially upset over how "Cadillac Records," a film that stars Beyonce as Etta James and Oscar-winner Adrien Brody as Leonard Chess, cuts Leonard's brother, Phil, the co-founder of the record company, entirely out of the movie.

"It's a horrible distortion of history," says Marshall. "They started the company together. My uncle Phil was there every day. He recorded a lot of the best music we did. It wouldn't have happened without him and it's a real insult to our family. When I asked the producers, they simply said his character didn't work [in the script], so they cut him out."

When it comes to cutting people out of the Chess story, the rival "Who Do You Love" film has its own issues. The biggest-selling artist in Chess history is Chuck Berry, but his character was cut out of the movie. Why? Because the filmmakers couldn't make a deal for the rights to his music. The film's producer, Les Alexander, explains: "We made Chuck a spectacularly generous offer, but he wouldn't let us have anything. Our director, Jerry Zaks, even sent him a genuine fan note, saying how much his music meant to him. But it didn't matter--the answer was no."

Berry, who is still active as a touring act, is notoriously difficult when it comes to business matters. When Taylor Hackford, who directed the wonderful Berry concert film "Hail! Hail! Rock and Roll," recently ran into the performer, the first words out of Berry's mouth were, "You still owe me money." Mos Def plays Berry in "Cadillac Records," which managed to acquire some Berry songs that are owned by Marshall Chess. But dealing with Berry was so unbelievably arduous that when I asked the film's producer, Sofia Sondervan, about working with him, she replied in a hushed tone: "I can't talk about it. I can't say anything about Chuck Berry at all."

The "Who Do You Love" filmmakers defend their decision to show Leonard having an affair with a Chess artist who is clearly based on Etta James. "The question you always ask yourself is--are you illuminating who they were or are you assassinating their character?" says Zaks. "For me, the affair represents part of the seduction of success, which is a big part of the conflict in the movie's story. We did our own research and it seems evident that Leonard was a womanizer. Even his brother Phil says he had numerous affairs."

The filmmakers had less leeway in portraying Willie Dixon, the now-deceased songwriter (played by Chi McBride) who wrote most of Chess' biggest hits. Producer Les Alexander says, "We were prohibited by his estate as portraying him as someone who drank or smoked or sweared." Nonetheless, the film shows Dixon having two wives, who begrudgingly share his time together. "The estate didn't prohibit that," Alexander says.

Both films depict Chess giving his top artists a Cadillac after they had big chart-topping hits. It's a way for the films to capture the back-door way business was handled in the early days of the record industry, since the artists rarely realized that the expense of buying a Cadillac was deducted from their royalty statements. Marshall says it was a pragmatic way to reward a top artist, noting that few of the bluesmen had bank accounts at the time. "Getting a Cadillac in those days was a top of the line thing to have," he explains. "My father bought a new Cadillac every year too, because he was just like his artists--he wanted people to know he was a successful man."

Marshall laughs. "I guess he'd be happy to see two movies coming out about him at the same time. He'd definitely consider that a symbol of success too."

When I was a kid, I spent a lot of time in Chicago, home of two great baseball teams, a host of colorful politicians and the best blues in the world. Back in the day, you weren't anyone in the blues world unless you were signed to Chess Records, the label that made stars out of a generation of rough and tumble musicians, notably Muddy Waters, Little Walter, Willie Dixon and Howlin' Wolf.

So when I was at the recent Toronto Film Festival, I made a point of seeing "Who Do You Love," which stars Alessandro Nivola and Jon Abrahams as Leonard and Phil Chess, two hard-nosed immigrant entrepreneurs who ended up creating Chess Records, the 1950s record label that popularized urban blues and later, with the arrival of Chuck Berry and Bo Diddley, ushered in a brash new form of rock 'n' roll that was adopted by the Rolling Stones, the Beatles and thousands of other young white rock artists.

After the screening, I ran into a film executive, who whispered in my ear, "Do you know that there's another one?" Puzzled, I said, "Another what?" He laughed. "Another movie about Chess Records."

I really thought he was joking, but it's true. Against all odds and sound commercial judgment, the same crazy movie business that once made two asteroid movies and two movies about Truman Capote has now made two movies about the obscure icons of 1950s Chicago blues. What are the odds?

The second Chess film, made by Sony BMG Films, is "Cadillac Records," which will be released Dec. 5 through Sony's TriStar Pictures. Produced by Sofia Sondervan and Andy Lack, Sony BMG's former chairman (who just took a new job running Bloomberg's multimedia operations), the film has considerably more star power than its rival, featuring Beyonce Knowles as Chess' top songstress, Etta James; Adrien Brody as Leonard Chess; Mos Def as Chuck Berry; and Jeffrey Wright as Muddy Waters.

It's probably a misnomer to call the two pictures rivals, since "Who Do You Love," despite earning some good notices in Toronto, remains a long shot to land a theatrical release. "Cadillac Records" will be out in 800 theaters, with a Beyonce single and a soundtrack to help attract attention. Still, the question remains--what are the odds of two 1950s blues movies being made at the same time?

The answer, as always, is that making a movie isn't exactly a rational decision--passion trumps pragmatism. Neither film came out of today's increasingly timid studio system, which wouldn't dream of risking any loot on such obscure subject matter. "Cadillac Records" was championed by Lack, the former head of NBC News who ran Sony Music before being kicked upstairs after its BMG merger. According to Sondervan, Lack's family is from the Mississippi Delta, where he grew up listening to the blues, which gave him a strong interest in the story. "Who Do You Love" was financed by Jonathan Mitchell, a wealthy real estate developer with a love for the blues and directed by Jerry Zaks, who remembers singing to R&B records as a boy in his family basement.

"I was always drawn to black music," recalls Zaks, a four-time Tony Award-winning Broadway theater  director. "When I was in fifth grade, I was convinced I was Marvin Gaye. I'd put on the records I loved, everything from Gaye and Johnny Nash to Muddy Waters and Bo Diddley, and sing to the records in front of the mirror. I think that music had a powerful impact on a whole generation of kids."

But those kids are all nearing retirement age today and not especially regular moviegoers. So who's going to turn out for these films? When I asked Sondervan what made her think a blues movie could make a dent in today's marketplace, she offered an honest answer. "I don't really know," she said. "All I know is that Beyonce has a huge young following and a lot of people will come see the movie just because she's in it." She added that Beyonce has designed a clothing line of dresses inspired by the fashions in the film that are being launched later this fall at Bloomingdale's. "All the young people we've shown the film to really loved it," she says. "The blues is coming back. It's getting played at a lot of trendy restaurants, so there's a lot of new awareness out there."

Hhmm. Like I said, making movies isn't always a rational decision. Will Beyonce fans want to see her as a troubled '50s blues diva? Angelina Jolie fans do show up when she's trading gunfire with Brad Pitt, but they didn't bother to come when she played Mariane Pearl in "A Mighty Heart." And George Clooney fans, who loved him in "Oceans Eleven," turned up their noses at "Leatherheads" and "The Good German."

Music biopics have a pretty spotty track record. Taylor Hackford's "Ray" was a surprise hit (though it was also independently financed outside the studio system). But "She's Not There," Todd Haynes' impressionistic Bob Dylan biopic, never found an audience, despite a raft of rave reviews. Even "Dreamgirls," the Bill Condon film loosely based on the Supremes, was a box-office disappointment.

The real challenge for films that re-create the lives of real characters is--how true to life are they? Sony hasn't screened "Cadillac Records" yet, but the person who knows the story best of all--Leonard's son, Marshall Chess, who served as a technical consultant on both projects--says both movies took some dramatic liberties with many of the characters' personal lives. Which film took the most liberties? Which actor came the closest to capturing his real-life character? And which movie ended up cutting Chuck Berry entirely out of the story? We'll have Part 2 of our post up soon, so stay tuned.

Photo: Beyonce Knowles as Etta James in "Cadillac Records": photo credit: Eric Liebowitz

The one thing you can count on in Hollywood is that when a studio makes a sudden or unexpected decision, it is almost guaranteed that the official reason for the move is a smoke screen for what's really going on. I'm guessing that's the case with Paramount's surprise announcement late Thursday that it's knocking "The Soloist" out of the awards season scrum, "dashing any hopes," to use Variety's melodramatic phrase, for the film to win any Academy Award accolades in 2008. The film is of particular interest to those of us here at the LA Times, since it is based on a series of gripping columns by our own Steve Lopez about his relationship with a homeless musician grappling with schizophrenia.

The film, which stars Robert Downey Jr. as Lopez and Jamie Foxx as the musician, was slated for release Nov. 21st, a prime slot for a potential year-end Oscar campaign. The film, produced by Dreamworks and co-financed by Participant Media and Universal's Working Title, has now been bumped to March 13th, 2009. Why? According to a story in the LA Times, Paramount executives said the current economic collapse "might have made November an awkward time to release a movie about homelessness."

That's the kind of whopper you'd only hear in Hollywood. I think the appropriate response to that would be--when exactly would be a good time to release a film about homelessness? Halloween? The Fourth of July? Having read the script and seen the film being shot, I'm guessing that only a studio disguising its real motives would call "The Soloist" a film about homelessness, when in fact, it's a male-bonding love story about a crusading newspaper reporter and a musician with a troubled soul.

Paramount apparently told its partners, as well as top CAA brass, who represent most of the talent on the picture, that the studio was under pressure from Viacom superiors to cut costs, having recently acknowledged that it was thinning out its future release schedule. With even Sumner Redstone being forced to sell stock to keep his investments afloat, the studio was forced to take drastic measures. With four potential Oscar movies slated for year-end release, something had to give. It certainly wasn't going to be "The Curious Case of Benjamin Button," an expensive and much-anticipated Brad Pitt and David Fincher collaboration that studio chief Brad Grey has already publicly embraced as his ticket to a front-row seat Feb. 22nd at the Kodak Theater. And it certainly wasn't going to be "Revolutionary Road," a Scott Rudin-produced literary drama with a star too big to offend (Leonardo DiCaprio) and the kind of rarified subject matter that desperately needs Oscar buzz to sell tickets.

That left the studio's Ed Zwick-directed drama, "Defiance," which is a long-shot for Oscars, but still enough of a contender that while it's being pushed back to late December, is still getting an Oscar qualifying run before going wide in January. That made "The Soloist" the low man on the totem pole, since it conceivably has enough commercial potential to make a dent at the box office in the spring without the benefit of any Oscar coattails. Since the film was produced by Dreamworks, which just concluded an ugly divorce with Paramount, the inside chatter has focused on the idea that Paramount is somehow punishing Dreamworks by robbing the departing Spielberg team of any Oscar glory.

If anyone at Variety actually asked Paramount about all these complicated twists and turns involving "The Soloist," they didn't bother to mention it in their story, which credulously quotes Paramount vice chairman Rob Moore as simply saying "We decided it's a commercial movie that will play well in the spring." Like I said, studio executives almost never give the real reason for their moves. If they did, Paramount would acknowledge the obvious: These moves aren't so much about saving money--which is small potatoes in terms of the giant outlays studio make these days--as focusing the studio's marketing machinery on its biggest potential cash cow.

Even though it co-financed the film with Warners, Paramount has a huge bet down on "Benjamin Button," which is the one movie here that could be both an enormous commercial and critical hit. The studio has clearly decided to clear the decks. It can't do anything about potential Oscar rivals from other studios, but it doesn't want to compete with itself. My guess is that the studio is being uncharacteristically pragmatic. In an era where studios release all their quality films in the same 10 week time period--I call it the Oscar demolition derby--Paramount has decided to create some breathing room for its strongest contender. Only in Oscar-crazed Hollywood, where everyone lives and dies by awards glory, is the decision to move a quality movie to the spring viewed as an ignominious death sentence. If "The Soloist" gets a good reception in March, it will survive and flourish. I wish some of the industry's hand-ringers would realize there is actually life after the Oscars.

My colleague John Horn has a story in Thursday's Calendar section that grapples with the always touchy question--why do white moviegoers shy away from movies with largely African American casts? "Amistad," Steven Spielberg's 1997 slavery epic, was his lowest-grossing movie in 20 years. Even "Ray," Taylor Hackford's Oscar-nominated musical biography of Ray Charles, drew an overwhelmingly black audience.

Will the same thing happen to "The Secret Life of Bees," a highbrow literary adaptation from an African American filmmaker (Gina Prince-Bythewood) that features a largely black female cast (Queen Latifah, Jennifer Hudson and Alicia Keys)? The film, distributed by Fox Searchlight, is going wide Friday in nearly 1,600 theaters, which means it will be playing in both suburban and urban neighborhoods. The book had a large white female following, but according to Horn, research shows that black moviegoers are showing roughly twice as much interest in seeing the film as whites.

Horn raises an intriguing political parallel:

"Pundits and election strategists have been deliberating feverishly whether white voters who tell interviewers they intend to vote for Sen. Barack Obama for president will really do so once they enter the polling booth. While the discrepancy known as the Bradley effect (named after former Los Angeles mayor Tom Bradley's 1982 loss in the California gubernatorial election, in which he consistently led in polling) may prove to be a minor factor in the year's presidential race, it is still a prominent concern within Hollywood, as movies made by and with African Americans often struggle to attract white supporters, both at the box office and within the studio's executive offices."

James Bond theme songs: What's the best one?

When I was young and fancy free, I once went out with a girl whose major criteria for granting a guy a second date (and trust me when I say there was always a long line of potential grant recipients) was whether we could offer a persuasive answer to the question: What is your favorite James Bond theme song? (I could identify--in high school, I once bailed on a girl after it became apparent that I was going to be subjected to a steady stream of Cat Stevens and Three Dog Night songs from her LP collection.)

But I digress. Outside of arguing over who's the best baseball player or the worst president of all time, what could be more emotionally satisfying than debating the merits of the amazing array of James Bond theme songs? So kudos to Drew Kerr at TotalMusicGeek, who came up with the great idea of doing a Top 20 ranking of the themes--along with a YouTube link allowing us to watch all of the film's title sequences while listening to the themes.

I'm not sure I agree with all of Drew's rankings--he puts Nancy Sinatra's steamy rendition of "You Only Live Twice" (covered not so long ago by Coldplay) at No. 1, which strikes me as a bit high. But puzzling over the entire Bond aesthetic is half of the fun of playing the game. I agree with Drew that the new Jack White-Alicia Keys theme, "Another Way to Die," is, well, dreadful, almost as bad as Madonna's dreary "Die Another Day" and Garbage's dismal "The World Is Not Enough." On the plus side, I'd forgotten how good Tina Turner sounds on "GoldenEye" (co-written by Bono and the Edge) or how classic Carly Simon's "Nobody Does It Better" feels today, perhaps because it was co-written by the one and only Marvin Hamlisch, who's still enough of a brand name to get name-checked in "Role Models."

Anyway, go see for yourself--and don't miss the wonderfully kitschy title sequence from "On Her Majesty's Secret Service." As for my favorite theme? If you must know, I'm going with Tom Jones' brassy gals-toss-your-panties-on-stage version of "Thunderball." But don't take my word for it. Watch it for yourself:

Photo of Eunice Gayson and Sean Connery in "Dr. No" from UPI

If you hang around Hollywood long enough, you learn not to believe everything you read in the trades. Still, it was pretty exciting to see the news this week that the indefatigable producer Avi Lerner had wooed Brett Ratner into directing Lerner's upcoming remake of "Conan," the iconic 1982 film that helped launch Arnold Schwarzenegger's long run as a Hollywood action hero. According to the original Hollywood Reporter headline, Ratner had committed to the project, though its latest version was a bit more circumspect, saying he was in "final negotiations" to do the film after working with the screenwriters, who were doing a quick polish to "incorporate" some of Ratner's ideas. The blogosphere wasn't quite so discerning, with some Web outlets simply saying that Ratner was "officially directing" the film.

One of Hollywood's most persuasive salesman, Lerner told me this morning that Ratner was the perfect director. "He has the passion and feeling for this project--he even wrote a story about Conan when he was 10 years old," Lerner explained. "He understands the character, he analyzed the script really well. He knows how to make this a really big movie. I like his childlike enthusiasm--he almost sees these movies as wonderful toys. What can I say, he's a nice, likable Jewish boy."

Lerner acknowledged that even though he sent out a press release announcing Ratner's involvement with the project, the deal wasn't actually done. "We still have a few obstacles," he said. "Brett is only committed if we agree on a budget, on how to do the special effects and exactly where we'd shoot the film." Lerner has a studio in Bulgaria, so he'd like to shoot most of the movie there, with some exterior work in China.

But is Ratner actually committed to doing the film? In two words: Not really. When I called him today, he sounded somewhat agitated, unhappy that news of his negotiations with Lerner had surfaced, especially since he is extremely close to getting a green light from Paramount to make "Beverly Hills Cop 4." "Let me make this very clear," he told me. "I am not doing 'Conan' now. This is totally premature. For now, 'Conan' is only a development deal. I have a deal at Paramount and I'm doing 'Beverly Hills Cop' first, no matter what. Avi shouldn't be telling you or anyone else in the press what I'm doing."

So what happened here? And how did Avi get the rights to "Conan" in the first place? Keep reading:

The blogosphere has been full of breathless tales that Baz Luhrmann has been forced to dump the unhappy ending he filmed for "Australia," his $130-million adventure epic (due out later this month) that stars Hugh Jackman and Nicole Kidman. Australia's Sunday Telegraph reports that 20th Century Fox executives forced Luhrmann to add a more upbeat ending after the film had "disastrous reviews" at early test screenings. Is it really possible that Fox would bully Luhrmann, a final-cut director, into giving his movie a happier ending?

Even though we've had some heated disagreements in recent months about my coverage of his studio, Fox Co-Chairman Tom Rothman graciously agreed to have lunch with me today at the Fox commissary, where we did see eye-to-eye on one important matter--it was very cool to be sitting two tables away from the legendary Hong Kong action movie star Chow Yun-Fat. (What he was doing at Fox was something of a mystery, since Rothman said he wasn't making a movie with the actor.) So what about "Australia"? Was there any truth to the Sunday Telegraph story?

"Everything in that story was patently nonsensical," Rothman said. "It's all too typical of the way the world works today that everybody picked up an unsourced, anonymous quote-filled story in a tabloid from Sydney and nobody ever bothered to check to see if it was accurate. The facts are--Baz is a final-cut director and we never pressured him in any way, shape or form. He wrote the movie, shot it and cut it all himself without any interference from us at all."

Rothman said that the movie "has probably had seven different endings at one time or another, none of them easily characterized as happy or sad." He said Luhrmann chose the ending the director thought worked best for the film. "But you couldn't possibly characterize the ending as happy or sad," he told me. "I'd call it deeply satisfying but that's because it's very complex. In fact, you could have a long conversation about whether it's happy or sad, which is actually part of what makes it a great movie."

I can't wait to see the film. And I couldn't agree more with Rothman about the gall of the Sunday Telegraph relying on such shoddy reporting. Maybe Tom can use his influence to improve the quality of journalism Down Under. All he has to do is pick up the phone, since the Telegraph is owned by ... his boss, Rupert Murdoch.

Photo of Hugh Jackman and Nicole Kidman in "Australia"  from Twentieth Century Fox / AFP / Getty Images

If you're like me, always hanging around producers, managers and agents, you frequently hear them groaning about the latest nutty studio rule dealing with the movies the studio will never, ever, ever make again. With "Soul Men" having tanked this weekend, it's a good bet that some studio chief somewhere is grumbling, "I don't want to ever see another script about soul singers!" (That dictum probably extends to college football players who get leukemia after the failure of "The Express" last month.)

Studio bosses do tend to make certain blanket pronouncements. Fox's Tom Rothman thinks sci-fi comedies are box-office poison, one key reason why he wouldn't make "Used Guys," a Jay Roach-directed sci-fi comedy that would have starred Ben Stiller and Jim Carrey (and cost a ton of money). Nikki Finke reported last year that after the failure of several female-starring comedies, Warners production chief Jeff Robinov told three different producers that WB was "no longer doing movies with women in the lead"--in fact, he supposedly didn't even want to see a script with a woman in a leading role. Everyone in town was talking about that one for weeks, even though I see that Warners is releasing a Cameron Diaz movie next spring ("The Box"), which didn't start filming till long after the supposed ban on female stars. So maybe Robinov had second thoughts--or never really said it in the first place.

I was reminded of all this the other day when an agent told me that they'd heard that Disney had put out the word that they didn't want to make any movies with young protagonists, which must mean really young protagonists, since the "High School Musical" series is such a box-office bonanza. So when I was having lunch with Sony chief Amy Pascal on Friday, I asked her--do you guys really say this stuff? Do you have crazy phobias too?

She laughed. "We all probably say things like that, but it's in the heat of the moment--everyone says things they don't really mean. So if there's a really young executive in a meeting and they hear you say something, even though you almost didn't mean it the minute it came out of your mouth, they sometimes take it seriously, when they should probably do what you do, which is forget all about it five minutes later."

But has she, in the heat of the moment, made crazy pronouncements too, like not wanting to make a movie whose title starts with the letter X? "I did say--I hate movies that begin with a bet," Pascal admits. "It's a bad idea, because it usually means that it's a fake story that revolves around a gimmick. But on the other hand, someone made 'My Fair Lady' and it was great. Rules are oversimplifications, which are bad no matter how you look at it. It would be like my saying, 'I'm so sick of Iraq movies, so I don't ever want to see another script about Iraq.' But that's just my reaction in the moment. Someone will make a phenomenal movie about Iraq and everyone's attitude will change."

According to Pascal, people simply overinterpret offhanded remarks. "I really don't think any studio has those kinds of rules. How could they? You have to open to hearing crazy, surprising ideas. One minute you have one of those rules, the next minute you'd want to break it."

Photo of Amy Pascal by Sony Pictures Entertainment

Sam Moore, the sole surviving half of soul legends Sam & Dave, is claiming that "Soul Men," which stars Samuel L. Jackson and Bernie Mac as long-estranged R&B backup singers who reunite for a last concert, is a rip-off of his life story. According to a story in the Independent today, Moore says the film--due out this weekend--is a "defamatory account" of a reunion he and the late Dave Prater attempted to pull off in 1982 after not speaking for several years. Moore claims the film has "bastardized" his life story, saying the comedy is "sexist, racist and embarrassing and that's not what Sam & Dave were about. It's so amateurish, so stupid and I'm surprised that Samuel L. Jackson is involved in this.... When you read the script, all you see is vulgarity. Every other word is the N-word or M-f and it's just not right."

Apparently Moore hasn't been going to the movies much lately, since there's nothing in "Soul Men" that's any more vulgar than the scatological jokes in "Zach and Miri Make a Porno" or the nauseating violence in "Saw 5," both of which just opened over the weekend. But does he have a point? Is "Soul Men" really a thinly disguised version of the Sam & Dave story? No way, says "Soul Men" producer David Friendly. "Our whole movie is a fiction, from start to finish," he told me. "We never got any life rights from anyone at any time because this was completely an invention. I'm a big-enough fan of Sam & Dave to know that it's a preposterous charge, since Sam & Dave were headliners, while our guys are backup singers."

Friendly laughed. "We haven't heard anything from the Pips [Gladys Knight's backup singers.] They'd at least have a stronger argument." Friendly said that he was asked to develop the project as a vehicle for Jackson and Mac, who wanted to work together in a comedy. He knew he had a hook for a movie when one of the film's writers posed the question--what if Bernie and Sam were backup singers who hadn't spoken in 30 years? The project was originally at New Regency, and then at New Line before ending up at the Weinstein Co., which is releasing the film through MGM this weekend.

Friendly said that, by coincidence, his offices were in the same building in Beverly Hills that housed Stax Records. "I literally took the elevator up one floor and talked to them about using wall-to-wall Stax music, which is how we came to license the music from them." Moore's lawyers are saying the Weinstein Co. has abused Moore's "Soul Man" trademark and are exploiting his reputation in order to make some dough. The Weinsteins' attorney, the always ferocious Bert Fields, insists Moore has no case, saying the movie tells a different story about different people. As Fields told the Independent: "If Mr. Moore decides to file a lawsuit, he will lose."

I'm no lawyer, but having seen the movie, I think Sam should rethink his position. The movie isn't racist, unless you want to contend that every Eddie Murphy and Chris Tucker comedy ever made is racist. It isn't more sexist than a thousand other Hollywood films. And guess what--it's pretty funny, largely thanks to some great chemistry between Jackson and Mac, who receives a nice, heartfelt tribute at the end of the film. As for the charge of unauthorized borrowing, someone should phone up Neil Simon. If the movie steals from anyone, it's from "The Sunshine Boys," which, as anyone could tell you, is stealing from the best.

See for yourself:

Photo of Bernie Mac and Samuel L. Jackson in "Soul Men" by Doug Hyun / The Weinstein Co.

Will white folks go to movie theaters to see black folks in a movie without any big white stars? That was the question some of us in the media were all asking before the release of "The Secret Life of Bees" earlier this month. Most old-fashioned movie marketers had said--not likely, based on past experience and long-held attitudes about white moviegoers. Some marketers cited the "Bradley Effect," the controversial analysis of a Tom Bradley 1982 election defeat in the California gubernatorial election where he'd led in polling before the election, prompting pundits to blame the loss on white voters who didn't tell pollsters how they really intended to vote. 

But guess what? "Bees" has quietly emerged as a minor hit, now projected to pass the $30-million mark at the box office. And as my colleague John Horn reports, it's doing even better in theaters catering to white moviegoers than in traditionally African American theaters. What gives? Here's John's report:

Fox Searchlight was confident that African American moviegoers would turn up for "The Secret Life of Bees," whose cast includes Queen Latifah, Jennifer Hudson and Alicia Keys. But the studio and the film's makers worried that white audiences, even after they embraced the bestselling Sue Monk Kidd novel on which the film was based, might stay away when the film premiered on Oct. 17.  After two weeks of release, it's clear that white ticket buyers are not only showing up for "Bees" but also are becoming the film's most loyal audience.

Last weekend, the film grossed more at Pacific's The Grove Stadium 14 than it did at the AMC Magic Johnson Crenshaw 15. In the rest of the country, theaters catering to black moviegoers reported strong opening weekend "Bee" sales but suffered steep declines last weekend. It's consistent with how movies with strong African American appeal--including Tyler Perry's efforts--tend to perform. For example, "Bee's" grosses at Georgia's AMC Southlake Pavilion 24 fell more than 61% last weekend, and sales at Maryland's Regal Bowie Crossing Cinema 14 collapsed almost as badly.

But in theaters that tend to cater to white audiences, support remained much stronger.  "Bee" sales at Oregon's Regal Cinemas Bridgeport Village Stadium 18 were down just 32.1%, and grosses at Northern California's Century 14 Downtown Walnut Creek dropped less than 18%. With total ticket sales of more than $21 million, "The Secret Life of Bees" will never catch "Beverly Hills Chihuahua." But "Bees" is not suffering from any "Bradley Effect" discrimination, and the very thing that scares off potential studio backing--an almost entirely black cast--has shown to be not a liability at all.

Photo of Queen Latifah, Jennifer Hudson and Alicia Keys in "The Secret Life of Bees" by Sidney Baldwin / Fox Searchlight

Since there's never been any doubt that Joaquin Phoenix was one of Hollywood's great modern-day eccentrics, it's hard to entirely take seriously the news that he has suddenly vowed to quit acting. After all, the oddball actor is always saying strange things. Working the press line at a fancy premiere for "Walk the Line," Phoenix asked a reporter, "Do I have a large frog in my hair?" When the reporter said no, Joaquin asked a new question: "Is there something crawling out of my scalp?" And how about this red-carpet story: Phoenix wrecked his car and was rescued by none other than ... Werner Herzog!

So I'm guessing the odds are pretty slim that Phoenix will stick to this pledge. Whatever has sidetracked him--playing in a cool band, learning how to cook, figuring out how to spot the moons of Jupiter without a telescope--will soon lose its appeal and he'll be back in action. But his pledge did spark the following idea: Who would make my list of the Top Ten actors we would like to see quit acting? (WARNING -- I'M JUST HAVING FUN HERE):

Click through to read my list, but please do feel free to offer your own suggestions:

When I was at an early screening of the upcoming comedy "Role Models" the other night, I found myself thinking about the Academy Awards, wondering what I always wonder when I see a good new comedy: Why on Earth shouldn't the Oscars recognize good work in comedy the same way they do in drama, animation, cinematography, editing and all the other great movie crafts? Shockingly, comedy is so thoroughly ignored by Oscar voters that it's been more than 30 years (yes, count 'em--thirty) since a true comedy--Woody Allen's "Annie Hall"--won the Oscar for best picture.

To say this is a disgrace would be an understatement. I hate to bore you with a recitation of film history, but movies began as a comic medium. A generation of Americans grew up falling in love with the cinema, largely thanks to Charlie Chaplin, Buster Keaton and Harold Lloyd and a host of other inspired silent movie comics. A second generation of moviegoers survived the Great Depression, thanks to the wonderful screwball comedies of the 1930s, from "My Man Godfrey" to "The Awful Truth" to "It Happened One Night" to "Midnight," not to mention the great Marx Brothers and W.C. Fields movies of the period.

The comedies of the '30s remain the true pillar of movie art from that era, immensely watchable even today, as many of the dramas and gangster films of the period have lost much of their thrill and allure. Comedy often tells us more about our time than the most acclaimed drama. In fact, I'd argue that if future cultural historians wanted the best window into the contemporary mores of the early 21st century, they wouldn't find much help from most of our recent Oscar winners ("Crash" aside), which tend to be set in the past, looking back in time for lessons about earlier eras. For the best analysis of people's anxieties, quirks and fears in 2008, you'd start by watching Judd Apatow movies, which have more to say about our time than "Beverly Hills Chihuahua," James Bond or even thoughtful art films like "Atonement" or "There Will Be Blood."

Directed by David Wain, who did 2001's "Wet Hot American Summer," "Role Models," which is being released by Universal Pictures Nov. 7, has no weighty message to deliver. It's simply loaded with shrewd comedy writing and slyly funny performances. Penned by a quartet of writers, including Wain, the film's costar Paul Rudd, Ken Marino (who plays a comically clueless stepdad in the film) and original writer Timothy Dowling, it follows the misadventures of two mismatched young guys--Rudd and Seann William Scott--who find themselves forced to become mentors to a pair of unhappy young boys in a Big Brothers-style community service program.

The Apatow influence is inescapable, since the film is populated with various actors, starting with Rudd and costar Elizabeth Banks, who are best known for their work in Apatow films. The project has an intriguing history. It was originally at Fox, which put it in turnaround. Producer Mary Parent, now MGM's  production chief but then a producing partner with Scott Stuber, picked it up, believing it was a timely comic premise. "I loved the concept of these two guys--one of them totally cynical, the other completely living in his imagination--who were forced to learn how to step out of themselves and help other people."

How did "Role Models" survive the loss of its director, its title and still make it to the finish line? And will the motion picture academy ever create a comedy category to honor all the great comedies being made? Keep reading:

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?"   

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.

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.

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.

"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.

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    

After an early screening of "Who Do You Love," one of the--count 'em--two new movies about 1950s powerhouse blues label Chess Records, a pair of women sought out Marshall Chess, whose dad, Leonard, was the driving force behind the record label. They were puzzled about one of the key story lines in the film. "Did your mother and father really make up after your father had that torrid affair with that beautiful singer?" one of them asked.

Marshall rolled his eyes. "No, they didn't make up," he said, "because there never was an affair. The filmmakers made that part up." When it comes to making movies about real-life people, Hollywood rarely lets the truth get in the way of a good story. No one knows that better now that Marshall Chess, who served as a technical consultant on the two competing Chess Records films, but discovered that while the actors and filmmakers were happy to listen to his recollections, it hardly meant that they would stick to the truth when it came time to film his family's story. Marshall knows the story intimately, having been behind the bar at his father's nightclub as a boy, seen his father hustle DJs on road tours and worked at Chess Records as a teenager.

He's delighted to see two films dramatizing his family history, but he's ambivalent about the results. "I guess I have a love-hate relationship with the movies," he told me recently. "They capture the spirit and the music wonderfully, but the truth isn't always there." He's especially upset over how "Cadillac Records," a film that stars Beyonce as Etta James and Oscar-winner Adrien Brody as Leonard Chess, cuts Leonard's brother, Phil, the co-founder of the record company, entirely out of the movie.

"It's a horrible distortion of history," says Marshall. "They started the company together. My uncle Phil was there every day. He recorded a lot of the best music we did. It wouldn't have happened without him and it's a real insult to our family. When I asked the producers, they simply said his character didn't work [in the script], so they cut him out."

When it comes to cutting people out of the Chess story, the rival "Who Do You Love" film has its own issues. The biggest-selling artist in Chess history is Chuck Berry, but his character was cut out of the movie. Why? Because the filmmakers couldn't make a deal for the rights to his music. The film's producer, Les Alexander, explains: "We made Chuck a spectacularly generous offer, but he wouldn't let us have anything. Our director, Jerry Zaks, even sent him a genuine fan note, saying how much his music meant to him. But it didn't matter--the answer was no."

Berry, who is still active as a touring act, is notoriously difficult when it comes to business matters. When Taylor Hackford, who directed the wonderful Berry concert film "Hail! Hail! Rock and Roll," recently ran into the performer, the first words out of Berry's mouth were, "You still owe me money." Mos Def plays Berry in "Cadillac Records," which managed to acquire some Berry songs that are owned by Marshall Chess. But dealing with Berry was so unbelievably arduous that when I asked the film's producer, Sofia Sondervan, about working with him, she replied in a hushed tone: "I can't talk about it. I can't say anything about Chuck Berry at all."

The "Who Do You Love" filmmakers defend their decision to show Leonard having an affair with a Chess artist who is clearly based on Etta James. "The question you always ask yourself is--are you illuminating who they were or are you assassinating their character?" says Zaks. "For me, the affair represents part of the seduction of success, which is a big part of the conflict in the movie's story. We did our own research and it seems evident that Leonard was a womanizer. Even his brother Phil says he had numerous affairs."

The filmmakers had less leeway in portraying Willie Dixon, the now-deceased songwriter (played by Chi McBride) who wrote most of Chess' biggest hits. Producer Les Alexander says, "We were prohibited by his estate as portraying him as someone who drank or smoked or sweared." Nonetheless, the film shows Dixon having two wives, who begrudgingly share his time together. "The estate didn't prohibit that," Alexander says.

Both films depict Chess giving his top artists a Cadillac after they had big chart-topping hits. It's a way for the films to capture the back-door way business was handled in the early days of the record industry, since the artists rarely realized that the expense of buying a Cadillac was deducted from their royalty statements. Marshall says it was a pragmatic way to reward a top artist, noting that few of the bluesmen had bank accounts at the time. "Getting a Cadillac in those days was a top of the line thing to have," he explains. "My father bought a new Cadillac every year too, because he was just like his artists--he wanted people to know he was a successful man."

Marshall laughs. "I guess he'd be happy to see two movies coming out about him at the same time. He'd definitely consider that a symbol of success too."

When I was a kid, I spent a lot of time in Chicago, home of two great baseball teams, a host of colorful politicians and the best blues in the world. Back in the day, you weren't anyone in the blues world unless you were signed to Chess Records, the label that made stars out of a generation of rough and tumble musicians, notably Muddy Waters, Little Walter, Willie Dixon and Howlin' Wolf.

So when I was at the recent Toronto Film Festival, I made a point of seeing "Who Do You Love," which stars Alessandro Nivola and Jon Abrahams as Leonard and Phil Chess, two hard-nosed immigrant entrepreneurs who ended up creating Chess Records, the 1950s record label that popularized urban blues and later, with the arrival of Chuck Berry and Bo Diddley, ushered in a brash new form of rock 'n' roll that was adopted by the Rolling Stones, the Beatles and thousands of other young white rock artists.

After the screening, I ran into a film executive, who whispered in my ear, "Do you know that there's another one?" Puzzled, I said, "Another what?" He laughed. "Another movie about Chess Records."

I really thought he was joking, but it's true. Against all odds and sound commercial judgment, the same crazy movie business that once made two asteroid movies and two movies about Truman Capote has now made two movies about the obscure icons of 1950s Chicago blues. What are the odds?

The second Chess film, made by Sony BMG Films, is "Cadillac Records," which will be released Dec. 5 through Sony's TriStar Pictures. Produced by Sofia Sondervan and Andy Lack, Sony BMG's former chairman (who just took a new job running Bloomberg's multimedia operations), the film has considerably more star power than its rival, featuring Beyonce Knowles as Chess' top songstress, Etta James; Adrien Brody as Leonard Chess; Mos Def as Chuck Berry; and Jeffrey Wright as Muddy Waters.

It's probably a misnomer to call the two pictures rivals, since "Who Do You Love," despite earning some good notices in Toronto, remains a long shot to land a theatrical release. "Cadillac Records" will be out in 800 theaters, with a Beyonce single and a soundtrack to help attract attention. Still, the question remains--what are the odds of two 1950s blues movies being made at the same time?

The answer, as always, is that making a movie isn't exactly a rational decision--passion trumps pragmatism. Neither film came out of today's increasingly timid studio system, which wouldn't dream of risking any loot on such obscure subject matter. "Cadillac Records" was championed by Lack, the former head of NBC News who ran Sony Music before being kicked upstairs after its BMG merger. According to Sondervan, Lack's family is from the Mississippi Delta, where he grew up listening to the blues, which gave him a strong interest in the story. "Who Do You Love" was financed by Jonathan Mitchell, a wealthy real estate developer with a love for the blues and directed by Jerry Zaks, who remembers singing to R&B records as a boy in his family basement.

"I was always drawn to black music," recalls Zaks, a four-time Tony Award-winning Broadway theater  director. "When I was in fifth grade, I was convinced I was Marvin Gaye. I'd put on the records I loved, everything from Gaye and Johnny Nash to Muddy Waters and Bo Diddley, and sing to the records in front of the mirror. I think that music had a powerful impact on a whole generation of kids."

But those kids are all nearing retirement age today and not especially regular moviegoers. So who's going to turn out for these films? When I asked Sondervan what made her think a blues movie could make a dent in today's marketplace, she offered an honest answer. "I don't really know," she said. "All I know is that Beyonce has a huge young following and a lot of people will come see the movie just because she's in it." She added that Beyonce has designed a clothing line of dresses inspired by the fashions in the film that are being launched later this fall at Bloomingdale's. "All the young people we've shown the film to really loved it," she says. "The blues is coming back. It's getting played at a lot of trendy restaurants, so there's a lot of new awareness out there."

Hhmm. Like I said, making movies isn't always a rational decision. Will Beyonce fans want to see her as a troubled '50s blues diva? Angelina Jolie fans do show up when she's trading gunfire with Brad Pitt, but they didn't bother to come when she played Mariane Pearl in "A Mighty Heart." And George Clooney fans, who loved him in "Oceans Eleven," turned up their noses at "Leatherheads" and "The Good German."

Music biopics have a pretty spotty track record. Taylor Hackford's "Ray" was a surprise hit (though it was also independently financed outside the studio system). But "She's Not There," Todd Haynes' impressionistic Bob Dylan biopic, never found an audience, despite a raft of rave reviews. Even "Dreamgirls," the Bill Condon film loosely based on the Supremes, was a box-office disappointment.

The real challenge for films that re-create the lives of real characters is--how true to life are they? Sony hasn't screened "Cadillac Records" yet, but the person who knows the story best of all--Leonard's son, Marshall Chess, who served as a technical consultant on both projects--says both movies took some dramatic liberties with many of the characters' personal lives. Which film took the most liberties? Which actor came the closest to capturing his real-life character? And which movie ended up cutting Chuck Berry entirely out of the story? We'll have Part 2 of our post up soon, so stay tuned.

Photo: Beyonce Knowles as Etta James in "Cadillac Records": photo credit: Eric Liebowitz

The one thing you can count on in Hollywood is that when a studio makes a sudden or unexpected decision, it is almost guaranteed that the official reason for the move is a smoke screen for what's really going on. I'm guessing that's the case with Paramount's surprise announcement late Thursday that it's knocking "The Soloist" out of the awards season scrum, "dashing any hopes," to use Variety's melodramatic phrase, for the film to win any Academy Award accolades in 2008. The film is of particular interest to those of us here at the LA Times, since it is based on a series of gripping columns by our own Steve Lopez about his relationship with a homeless musician grappling with schizophrenia.

The film, which stars Robert Downey Jr. as Lopez and Jamie Foxx as the musician, was slated for release Nov. 21st, a prime slot for a potential year-end Oscar campaign. The film, produced by Dreamworks and co-financed by Participant Media and Universal's Working Title, has now been bumped to March 13th, 2009. Why? According to a story in the LA Times, Paramount executives said the current economic collapse "might have made November an awkward time to release a movie about homelessness."

That's the kind of whopper you'd only hear in Hollywood. I think the appropriate response to that would be--when exactly would be a good time to release a film about homelessness? Halloween? The Fourth of July? Having read the script and seen the film being shot, I'm guessing that only a studio disguising its real motives would call "The Soloist" a film about homelessness, when in fact, it's a male-bonding love story about a crusading newspaper reporter and a musician with a troubled soul.

Paramount apparently told its partners, as well as top CAA brass, who represent most of the talent on the picture, that the studio was under pressure from Viacom superiors to cut costs, having recently acknowledged that it was thinning out its future release schedule. With even Sumner Redstone being forced to sell stock to keep his investments afloat, the studio was forced to take drastic measures. With four potential Oscar movies slated for year-end release, something had to give. It certainly wasn't going to be "The Curious Case of Benjamin Button," an expensive and much-anticipated Brad Pitt and David Fincher collaboration that studio chief Brad Grey has already publicly embraced as his ticket to a front-row seat Feb. 22nd at the Kodak Theater. And it certainly wasn't going to be "Revolutionary Road," a Scott Rudin-produced literary drama with a star too big to offend (Leonardo DiCaprio) and the kind of rarified subject matter that desperately needs Oscar buzz to sell tickets.

That left the studio's Ed Zwick-directed drama, "Defiance," which is a long-shot for Oscars, but still enough of a contender that while it's being pushed back to late December, is still getting an Oscar qualifying run before going wide in January. That made "The Soloist" the low man on the totem pole, since it conceivably has enough commercial potential to make a dent at the box office in the spring without the benefit of any Oscar coattails. Since the film was produced by Dreamworks, which just concluded an ugly divorce with Paramount, the inside chatter has focused on the idea that Paramount is somehow punishing Dreamworks by robbing the departing Spielberg team of any Oscar glory.

If anyone at Variety actually asked Paramount about all these complicated twists and turns involving "The Soloist," they didn't bother to mention it in their story, which credulously quotes Paramount vice chairman Rob Moore as simply saying "We decided it's a commercial movie that will play well in the spring." Like I said, studio executives almost never give the real reason for their moves. If they did, Paramount would acknowledge the obvious: These moves aren't so much about saving money--which is small potatoes in terms of the giant outlays studio make these days--as focusing the studio's marketing machinery on its biggest potential cash cow.

Even though it co-financed the film with Warners, Paramount has a huge bet down on "Benjamin Button," which is the one movie here that could be both an enormous commercial and critical hit. The studio has clearly decided to clear the decks. It can't do anything about potential Oscar rivals from other studios, but it doesn't want to compete with itself. My guess is that the studio is being uncharacteristically pragmatic. In an era where studios release all their quality films in the same 10 week time period--I call it the Oscar demolition derby--Paramount has decided to create some breathing room for its strongest contender. Only in Oscar-crazed Hollywood, where everyone lives and dies by awards glory, is the decision to move a quality movie to the spring viewed as an ignominious death sentence. If "The Soloist" gets a good reception in March, it will survive and flourish. I wish some of the industry's hand-ringers would realize there is actually life after the Oscars.

My colleague John Horn has a story in Thursday's Calendar section that grapples with the always touchy question--why do white moviegoers shy away from movies with largely African American casts? "Amistad," Steven Spielberg's 1997 slavery epic, was his lowest-grossing movie in 20 years. Even "Ray," Taylor Hackford's Oscar-nominated musical biography of Ray Charles, drew an overwhelmingly black audience.

Will the same thing happen to "The Secret Life of Bees," a highbrow literary adaptation from an African American filmmaker (Gina Prince-Bythewood) that features a largely black female cast (Queen Latifah, Jennifer Hudson and Alicia Keys)? The film, distributed by Fox Searchlight, is going wide Friday in nearly 1,600 theaters, which means it will be playing in both suburban and urban neighborhoods. The book had a large white female following, but according to Horn, research shows that black moviegoers are showing roughly twice as much interest in seeing the film as whites.

Horn raises an intriguing political parallel:

"Pundits and election strategists have been deliberating feverishly whether white voters who tell interviewers they intend to vote for Sen. Barack Obama for president will really do so once they enter the polling booth. While the discrepancy known as the Bradley effect (named after former Los Angeles mayor Tom Bradley's 1982 loss in the California gubernatorial election, in which he consistently led in polling) may prove to be a minor factor in the year's presidential race, it is still a prominent concern within Hollywood, as movies made by and with African Americans often struggle to attract white supporters, both at the box office and within the studio's executive offices."

Brett Ratner and 'Conan': Premature exhilaration?

If you hang around Hollywood long enough, you learn not to believe everything you read in the trades. Still, it was pretty exciting to see the news this week that the indefatigable producer Avi Lerner had wooed Brett Ratner into directing Lerner's upcoming remake of "Conan," the iconic 1982 film that helped launch Arnold Schwarzenegger's long run as a Hollywood action hero. According to the original Hollywood Reporter headline, Ratner had committed to the project, though its latest version was a bit more circumspect, saying he was in "final negotiations" to do the film after working with the screenwriters, who were doing a quick polish to "incorporate" some of Ratner's ideas. The blogosphere wasn't quite so discerning, with some Web outlets simply saying that Ratner was "officially directing" the film.

One of Hollywood's most persuasive salesman, Lerner told me this morning that Ratner was the perfect director. "He has the passion and feeling for this project--he even wrote a story about Conan when he was 10 years old," Lerner explained. "He understands the character, he analyzed the script really well. He knows how to make this a really big movie. I like his childlike enthusiasm--he almost sees these movies as wonderful toys. What can I say, he's a nice, likable Jewish boy."

Lerner acknowledged that even though he sent out a press release announcing Ratner's involvement with the project, the deal wasn't actually done. "We still have a few obstacles," he said. "Brett is only committed if we agree on a budget, on how to do the special effects and exactly where we'd shoot the film." Lerner has a studio in Bulgaria, so he'd like to shoot most of the movie there, with some exterior work in China.

But is Ratner actually committed to doing the film? In two words: Not really. When I called him today, he sounded somewhat agitated, unhappy that news of his negotiations with Lerner had surfaced, especially since he is extremely close to getting a green light from Paramount to make "Beverly Hills Cop 4." "Let me make this very clear," he told me. "I am not doing 'Conan' now. This is totally premature. For now, 'Conan' is only a development deal. I have a deal at Paramount and I'm doing 'Beverly Hills Cop' first, no matter what. Avi shouldn't be telling you or anyone else in the press what I'm doing."

So what happened here? And how did Avi get the rights to "Conan" in the first place? Keep reading:

The blogosphere has been full of breathless tales that Baz Luhrmann has been forced to dump the unhappy ending he filmed for "Australia," his $130-million adventure epic (due out later this month) that stars Hugh Jackman and Nicole Kidman. Australia's Sunday Telegraph reports that 20th Century Fox executives forced Luhrmann to add a more upbeat ending after the film had "disastrous reviews" at early test screenings. Is it really possible that Fox would bully Luhrmann, a final-cut director, into giving his movie a happier ending?

Even though we've had some heated disagreements in recent months about my coverage of his studio, Fox Co-Chairman Tom Rothman graciously agreed to have lunch with me today at the Fox commissary, where we did see eye-to-eye on one important matter--it was very cool to be sitting two tables away from the legendary Hong Kong action movie star Chow Yun-Fat. (What he was doing at Fox was something of a mystery, since Rothman said he wasn't making a movie with the actor.) So what about "Australia"? Was there any truth to the Sunday Telegraph story?

"Everything in that story was patently nonsensical," Rothman said. "It's all too typical of the way the world works today that everybody picked up an unsourced, anonymous quote-filled story in a tabloid from Sydney and nobody ever bothered to check to see if it was accurate. The facts are--Baz is a final-cut director and we never pressured him in any way, shape or form. He wrote the movie, shot it and cut it all himself without any interference from us at all."

Rothman said that the movie "has probably had seven different endings at one time or another, none of them easily characterized as happy or sad." He said Luhrmann chose the ending the director thought worked best for the film. "But you couldn't possibly characterize the ending as happy or sad," he told me. "I'd call it deeply satisfying but that's because it's very complex. In fact, you could have a long conversation about whether it's happy or sad, which is actually part of what makes it a great movie."

I can't wait to see the film. And I couldn't agree more with Rothman about the gall of the Sunday Telegraph relying on such shoddy reporting. Maybe Tom can use his influence to improve the quality of journalism Down Under. All he has to do is pick up the phone, since the Telegraph is owned by ... his boss, Rupert Murdoch.

Photo of Hugh Jackman and Nicole Kidman in "Australia"  from Twentieth Century Fox / AFP / Getty Images

If you're like me, always hanging around producers, managers and agents, you frequently hear them groaning about the latest nutty studio rule dealing with the movies the studio will never, ever, ever make again. With "Soul Men" having tanked this weekend, it's a good bet that some studio chief somewhere is grumbling, "I don't want to ever see another script about soul singers!" (That dictum probably extends to college football players who get leukemia after the failure of "The Express" last month.)

Studio bosses do tend to make certain blanket pronouncements. Fox's Tom Rothman thinks sci-fi comedies are box-office poison, one key reason why he wouldn't make "Used Guys," a Jay Roach-directed sci-fi comedy that would have starred Ben Stiller and Jim Carrey (and cost a ton of money). Nikki Finke reported last year that after the failure of several female-starring comedies, Warners production chief Jeff Robinov told three different producers that WB was "no longer doing movies with women in the lead"--in fact, he supposedly didn't even want to see a script with a woman in a leading role. Everyone in town was talking about that one for weeks, even though I see that Warners is releasing a Cameron Diaz movie next spring ("The Box"), which didn't start filming till long after the supposed ban on female stars. So maybe Robinov had second thoughts--or never really said it in the first place.

I was reminded of all this the other day when an agent told me that they'd heard that Disney had put out the word that they didn't want to make any movies with young protagonists, which must mean really young protagonists, since the "High School Musical" series is such a box-office bonanza. So when I was having lunch with Sony chief Amy Pascal on Friday, I asked her--do you guys really say this stuff? Do you have crazy phobias too?

She laughed. "We all probably say things like that, but it's in the heat of the moment--everyone says things they don't really mean. So if there's a really young executive in a meeting and they hear you say something, even though you almost didn't mean it the minute it came out of your mouth, they sometimes take it seriously, when they should probably do what you do, which is forget all about it five minutes later."

But has she, in the heat of the moment, made crazy pronouncements too, like not wanting to make a movie whose title starts with the letter X? "I did say--I hate movies that begin with a bet," Pascal admits. "It's a bad idea, because it usually means that it's a fake story that revolves around a gimmick. But on the other hand, someone made 'My Fair Lady' and it was great. Rules are oversimplifications, which are bad no matter how you look at it. It would be like my saying, 'I'm so sick of Iraq movies, so I don't ever want to see another script about Iraq.' But that's just my reaction in the moment. Someone will make a phenomenal movie about Iraq and everyone's attitude will change."

According to Pascal, people simply overinterpret offhanded remarks. "I really don't think any studio has those kinds of rules. How could they? You have to open to hearing crazy, surprising ideas. One minute you have one of those rules, the next minute you'd want to break it."

Photo of Amy Pascal by Sony Pictures Entertainment

Sam Moore, the sole surviving half of soul legends Sam & Dave, is claiming that "Soul Men," which stars Samuel L. Jackson and Bernie Mac as long-estranged R&B backup singers who reunite for a last concert, is a rip-off of his life story. According to a story in the Independent today, Moore says the film--due out this weekend--is a "defamatory account" of a reunion he and the late Dave Prater attempted to pull off in 1982 after not speaking for several years. Moore claims the film has "bastardized" his life story, saying the comedy is "sexist, racist and embarrassing and that's not what Sam & Dave were about. It's so amateurish, so stupid and I'm surprised that Samuel L. Jackson is involved in this.... When you read the script, all you see is vulgarity. Every other word is the N-word or M-f and it's just not right."

Apparently Moore hasn't been going to the movies much lately, since there's nothing in "Soul Men" that's any more vulgar than the scatological jokes in "Zach and Miri Make a Porno" or the nauseating violence in "Saw 5," both of which just opened over the weekend. But does he have a point? Is "Soul Men" really a thinly disguised version of the Sam & Dave story? No way, says "Soul Men" producer David Friendly. "Our whole movie is a fiction, from start to finish," he told me. "We never got any life rights from anyone at any time because this was completely an invention. I'm a big-enough fan of Sam & Dave to know that it's a preposterous charge, since Sam & Dave were headliners, while our guys are backup singers."

Friendly laughed. "We haven't heard anything from the Pips [Gladys Knight's backup singers.] They'd at least have a stronger argument." Friendly said that he was asked to develop the project as a vehicle for Jackson and Mac, who wanted to work together in a comedy. He knew he had a hook for a movie when one of the film's writers posed the question--what if Bernie and Sam were backup singers who hadn't spoken in 30 years? The project was originally at New Regency, and then at New Line before ending up at the Weinstein Co., which is releasing the film through MGM this weekend.

Friendly said that, by coincidence, his offices were in the same building in Beverly Hills that housed Stax Records. "I literally took the elevator up one floor and talked to them about using wall-to-wall Stax music, which is how we came to license the music from them." Moore's lawyers are saying the Weinstein Co. has abused Moore's "Soul Man" trademark and are exploiting his reputation in order to make some dough. The Weinsteins' attorney, the always ferocious Bert Fields, insists Moore has no case, saying the movie tells a different story about different people. As Fields told the Independent: "If Mr. Moore decides to file a lawsuit, he will lose."

I'm no lawyer, but having seen the movie, I think Sam should rethink his position. The movie isn't racist, unless you want to contend that every Eddie Murphy and Chris Tucker comedy ever made is racist. It isn't more sexist than a thousand other Hollywood films. And guess what--it's pretty funny, largely thanks to some great chemistry between Jackson and Mac, who receives a nice, heartfelt tribute at the end of the film. As for the charge of unauthorized borrowing, someone should phone up Neil Simon. If the movie steals from anyone, it's from "The Sunshine Boys," which, as anyone could tell you, is stealing from the best.

See for yourself:

Photo of Bernie Mac and Samuel L. Jackson in "Soul Men" by Doug Hyun / The Weinstein Co.

Will white folks go to movie theaters to see black folks in a movie without any big white stars? That was the question some of us in the media were all asking before the release of "The Secret Life of Bees" earlier this month. Most old-fashioned movie marketers had said--not likely, based on past experience and long-held attitudes about white moviegoers. Some marketers cited the "Bradley Effect," the controversial analysis of a Tom Bradley 1982 election defeat in the California gubernatorial election where he'd led in polling before the election, prompting pundits to blame the loss on white voters who didn't tell pollsters how they really intended to vote. 

But guess what? "Bees" has quietly emerged as a minor hit, now projected to pass the $30-million mark at the box office. And as my colleague John Horn reports, it's doing even better in theaters catering to white moviegoers than in traditionally African American theaters. What gives? Here's John's report:

Fox Searchlight was confident that African American moviegoers would turn up for "The Secret Life of Bees," whose cast includes Queen Latifah, Jennifer Hudson and Alicia Keys. But the studio and the film's makers worried that white audiences, even after they embraced the bestselling Sue Monk Kidd novel on which the film was based, might stay away when the film premiered on Oct. 17.  After two weeks of release, it's clear that white ticket buyers are not only showing up for "Bees" but also are becoming the film's most loyal audience.

Last weekend, the film grossed more at Pacific's The Grove Stadium 14 than it did at the AMC Magic Johnson Crenshaw 15. In the rest of the country, theaters catering to black moviegoers reported strong opening weekend "Bee" sales but suffered steep declines last weekend. It's consistent with how movies with strong African American appeal--including Tyler Perry's efforts--tend to perform. For example, "Bee's" grosses at Georgia's AMC Southlake Pavilion 24 fell more than 61% last weekend, and sales at Maryland's Regal Bowie Crossing Cinema 14 collapsed almost as badly.

But in theaters that tend to cater to white audiences, support remained much stronger.  "Bee" sales at Oregon's Regal Cinemas Bridgeport Village Stadium 18 were down just 32.1%, and grosses at Northern California's Century 14 Downtown Walnut Creek dropped less than 18%. With total ticket sales of more than $21 million, "The Secret Life of Bees" will never catch "Beverly Hills Chihuahua." But "Bees" is not suffering from any "Bradley Effect" discrimination, and the very thing that scares off potential studio backing--an almost entirely black cast--has shown to be not a liability at all.

Photo of Queen Latifah, Jennifer Hudson and Alicia Keys in "The Secret Life of Bees" by Sidney Baldwin / Fox Searchlight

Since there's never been any doubt that Joaquin Phoenix was one of Hollywood's great modern-day eccentrics, it's hard to entirely take seriously the news that he has suddenly vowed to quit acting. After all, the oddball actor is always saying strange things. Working the press line at a fancy premiere for "Walk the Line," Phoenix asked a reporter, "Do I have a large frog in my hair?" When the reporter said no, Joaquin asked a new question: "Is there something crawling out of my scalp?" And how about this red-carpet story: Phoenix wrecked his car and was rescued by none other than ... Werner Herzog!

So I'm guessing the odds are pretty slim that Phoenix will stick to this pledge. Whatever has sidetracked him--playing in a cool band, learning how to cook, figuring out how to spot the moons of Jupiter without a telescope--will soon lose its appeal and he'll be back in action. But his pledge did spark the following idea: Who would make my list of the Top Ten actors we would like to see quit acting? (WARNING -- I'M JUST HAVING FUN HERE):

Click through to read my list, but please do feel free to offer your own suggestions:

When I was at an early screening of the upcoming comedy "Role Models" the other night, I found myself thinking about the Academy Awards, wondering what I always wonder when I see a good new comedy: Why on Earth shouldn't the Oscars recognize good work in comedy the same way they do in drama, animation, cinematography, editing and all the other great movie crafts? Shockingly, comedy is so thoroughly ignored by Oscar voters that it's been more than 30 years (yes, count 'em--thirty) since a true comedy--Woody Allen's "Annie Hall"--won the Oscar for best picture.

To say this is a disgrace would be an understatement. I hate to bore you with a recitation of film history, but movies began as a comic medium. A generation of Americans grew up falling in love with the cinema, largely thanks to Charlie Chaplin, Buster Keaton and Harold Lloyd and a host of other inspired silent movie comics. A second generation of moviegoers survived the Great Depression, thanks to the wonderful screwball comedies of the 1930s, from "My Man Godfrey" to "The Awful Truth" to "It Happened One Night" to "Midnight," not to mention the great Marx Brothers and W.C. Fields movies of the period.

The comedies of the '30s remain the true pillar of movie art from that era, immensely watchable even today, as many of the dramas and gangster films of the period have lost much of their thrill and allure. Comedy often tells us more about our time than the most acclaimed drama. In fact, I'd argue that if future cultural historians wanted the best window into the contemporary mores of the early 21st century, they wouldn't find much help from most of our recent Oscar winners ("Crash" aside), which tend to be set in the past, looking back in time for lessons about earlier eras. For the best analysis of people's anxieties, quirks and fears in 2008, you'd start by watching Judd Apatow movies, which have more to say about our time than "Beverly Hills Chihuahua," James Bond or even thoughtful art films like "Atonement" or "There Will Be Blood."

Directed by David Wain, who did 2001's "Wet Hot American Summer," "Role Models," which is being released by Universal Pictures Nov. 7, has no weighty message to deliver. It's simply loaded with shrewd comedy writing and slyly funny performances. Penned by a quartet of writers, including Wain, the film's costar Paul Rudd, Ken Marino (who plays a comically clueless stepdad in the film) and original writer Timothy Dowling, it follows the misadventures of two mismatched young guys--Rudd and Seann William Scott--who find themselves forced to become mentors to a pair of unhappy young boys in a Big Brothers-style community service program.

The Apatow influence is inescapable, since the film is populated with various actors, starting with Rudd and costar Elizabeth Banks, who are best known for their work in Apatow films. The project has an intriguing history. It was originally at Fox, which put it in turnaround. Producer Mary Parent, now MGM's  production chief but then a producing partner with Scott Stuber, picked it up, believing it was a timely comic premise. "I loved the concept of these two guys--one of them totally cynical, the other completely living in his imagination--who were forced to learn how to step out of themselves and help other people."

How did "Role Models" survive the loss of its director, its title and still make it to the finish line? And will the motion picture academy ever create a comedy category to honor all the great comedies being made? Keep reading:

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?"   

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.

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.

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.

"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.

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    

After an early screening of "Who Do You Love," one of the--count 'em--two new movies about 1950s powerhouse blues label Chess Records, a pair of women sought out Marshall Chess, whose dad, Leonard, was the driving force behind the record label. They were puzzled about one of the key story lines in the film. "Did your mother and father really make up after your father had that torrid affair with that beautiful singer?" one of them asked.

Marshall rolled his eyes. "No, they didn't make up," he said, "because there never was an affair. The filmmakers made that part up." When it comes to making movies about real-life people, Hollywood rarely lets the truth get in the way of a good story. No one knows that better now that Marshall Chess, who served as a technical consultant on the two competing Chess Records films, but discovered that while the actors and filmmakers were happy to listen to his recollections, it hardly meant that they would stick to the truth when it came time to film his family's story. Marshall knows the story intimately, having been behind the bar at his father's nightclub as a boy, seen his father hustle DJs on road tours and worked at Chess Records as a teenager.

He's delighted to see two films dramatizing his family history, but he's ambivalent about the results. "I guess I have a love-hate relationship with the movies," he told me recently. "They capture the spirit and the music wonderfully, but the truth isn't always there." He's especially upset over how "Cadillac Records," a film that stars Beyonce as Etta James and Oscar-winner Adrien Brody as Leonard Chess, cuts Leonard's brother, Phil, the co-founder of the record company, entirely out of the movie.

"It's a horrible distortion of history," says Marshall. "They started the company together. My uncle Phil was there every day. He recorded a lot of the best music we did. It wouldn't have happened without him and it's a real insult to our family. When I asked the producers, they simply said his character didn't work [in the script], so they cut him out."

When it comes to cutting people out of the Chess story, the rival "Who Do You Love" film has its own issues. The biggest-selling artist in Chess history is Chuck Berry, but his character was cut out of the movie. Why? Because the filmmakers couldn't make a deal for the rights to his music. The film's producer, Les Alexander, explains: "We made Chuck a spectacularly generous offer, but he wouldn't let us have anything. Our director, Jerry Zaks, even sent him a genuine fan note, saying how much his music meant to him. But it didn't matter--the answer was no."

Berry, who is still active as a touring act, is notoriously difficult when it comes to business matters. When Taylor Hackford, who directed the wonderful Berry concert film "Hail! Hail! Rock and Roll," recently ran into the performer, the first words out of Berry's mouth were, "You still owe me money." Mos Def plays Berry in "Cadillac Records," which managed to acquire some Berry songs that are owned by Marshall Chess. But dealing with Berry was so unbelievably arduous that when I asked the film's producer, Sofia Sondervan, about working with him, she replied in a hushed tone: "I can't talk about it. I can't say anything about Chuck Berry at all."

The "Who Do You Love" filmmakers defend their decision to show Leonard having an affair with a Chess artist who is clearly based on Etta James. "The question you always ask yourself is--are you illuminating who they were or are you assassinating their character?" says Zaks. "For me, the affair represents part of the seduction of success, which is a big part of the conflict in the movie's story. We did our own research and it seems evident that Leonard was a womanizer. Even his brother Phil says he had numerous affairs."

The filmmakers had less leeway in portraying Willie Dixon, the now-deceased songwriter (played by Chi McBride) who wrote most of Chess' biggest hits. Producer Les Alexander says, "We were prohibited by his estate as portraying him as someone who drank or smoked or sweared." Nonetheless, the film shows Dixon having two wives, who begrudgingly share his time together. "The estate didn't prohibit that," Alexander says.

Both films depict Chess giving his top artists a Cadillac after they had big chart-topping hits. It's a way for the films to capture the back-door way business was handled in the early days of the record industry, since the artists rarely realized that the expense of buying a Cadillac was deducted from their royalty statements. Marshall says it was a pragmatic way to reward a top artist, noting that few of the bluesmen had bank accounts at the time. "Getting a Cadillac in those days was a top of the line thing to have," he explains. "My father bought a new Cadillac every year too, because he was just like his artists--he wanted people to know he was a successful man."

Marshall laughs. "I guess he'd be happy to see two movies coming out about him at the same time. He'd definitely consider that a symbol of success too."

When I was a kid, I spent a lot of time in Chicago, home of two great baseball teams, a host of colorful politicians and the best blues in the world. Back in the day, you weren't anyone in the blues world unless you were signed to Chess Records, the label that made stars out of a generation of rough and tumble musicians, notably Muddy Waters, Little Walter, Willie Dixon and Howlin' Wolf.

So when I was at the recent Toronto Film Festival, I made a point of seeing "Who Do You Love," which stars Alessandro Nivola and Jon Abrahams as Leonard and Phil Chess, two hard-nosed immigrant entrepreneurs who ended up creating Chess Records, the 1950s record label that popularized urban blues and later, with the arrival of Chuck Berry and Bo Diddley, ushered in a brash new form of rock 'n' roll that was adopted by the Rolling Stones, the Beatles and thousands of other young white rock artists.

After the screening, I ran into a film executive, who whispered in my ear, "Do you know that there's another one?" Puzzled, I said, "Another what?" He laughed. "Another movie about Chess Records."

I really thought he was joking, but it's true. Against all odds and sound commercial judgment, the same crazy movie business that once made two asteroid movies and two movies about Truman Capote has now made two movies about the obscure icons of 1950s Chicago blues. What are the odds?

The second Chess film, made by Sony BMG Films, is "Cadillac Records," which will be released Dec. 5 through Sony's TriStar Pictures. Produced by Sofia Sondervan and Andy Lack, Sony BMG's former chairman (who just took a new job running Bloomberg's multimedia operations), the film has considerably more star power than its rival, featuring Beyonce Knowles as Chess' top songstress, Etta James; Adrien Brody as Leonard Chess; Mos Def as Chuck Berry; and Jeffrey Wright as Muddy Waters.

It's probably a misnomer to call the two pictures rivals, since "Who Do You Love," despite earning some good notices in Toronto, remains a long shot to land a theatrical release. "Cadillac Records" will be out in 800 theaters, with a Beyonce single and a soundtrack to help attract attention. Still, the question remains--what are the odds of two 1950s blues movies being made at the same time?

The answer, as always, is that making a movie isn't exactly a rational decision--passion trumps pragmatism. Neither film came out of today's increasingly timid studio system, which wouldn't dream of risking any loot on such obscure subject matter. "Cadillac Records" was championed by Lack, the former head of NBC News who ran Sony Music before being kicked upstairs after its BMG merger. According to Sondervan, Lack's family is from the Mississippi Delta, where he grew up listening to the blues, which gave him a strong interest in the story. "Who Do You Love" was financed by Jonathan Mitchell, a wealthy real estate developer with a love for the blues and directed by Jerry Zaks, who remembers singing to R&B records as a boy in his family basement.

"I was always drawn to black music," recalls Zaks, a four-time Tony Award-winning Broadway theater  director. "When I was in fifth grade, I was convinced I was Marvin Gaye. I'd put on the records I loved, everything from Gaye and Johnny Nash to Muddy Waters and Bo Diddley, and sing to the records in front of the mirror. I think that music had a powerful impact on a whole generation of kids."

But those kids are all nearing retirement age today and not especially regular moviegoers. So who's going to turn out for these films? When I asked Sondervan what made her think a blues movie could make a dent in today's marketplace, she offered an honest answer. "I don't really know," she said. "All I know is that Beyonce has a huge young following and a lot of people will come see the movie just because she's in it." She added that Beyonce has designed a clothing line of dresses inspired by the fashions in the film that are being launched later this fall at Bloomingdale's. "All the young people we've shown the film to really loved it," she says. "The blues is coming back. It's getting played at a lot of trendy restaurants, so there's a lot of new awareness out there."

Hhmm. Like I said, making movies isn't always a rational decision. Will Beyonce fans want to see her as a troubled '50s blues diva? Angelina Jolie fans do show up when she's trading gunfire with Brad Pitt, but they didn't bother to come when she played Mariane Pearl in "A Mighty Heart." And George Clooney fans, who loved him in "Oceans Eleven," turned up their noses at "Leatherheads" and "The Good German."

Music biopics have a pretty spotty track record. Taylor Hackford's "Ray" was a surprise hit (though it was also independently financed outside the studio system). But "She's Not There," Todd Haynes' impressionistic Bob Dylan biopic, never found an audience, despite a raft of rave reviews. Even "Dreamgirls," the Bill Condon film loosely based on the Supremes, was a box-office disappointment.

The real challenge for films that re-create the lives of real characters is--how true to life are they? Sony hasn't screened "Cadillac Records" yet, but the person who knows the story best of all--Leonard's son, Marshall Chess, who served as a technical consultant on both projects--says both movies took some dramatic liberties with many of the characters' personal lives. Which film took the most liberties? Which actor came the closest to capturing his real-life character? And which movie ended up cutting Chuck Berry entirely out of the story? We'll have Part 2 of our post up soon, so stay tuned.

Photo: Beyonce Knowles as Etta James in "Cadillac Records": photo credit: Eric Liebowitz

The one thing you can count on in Hollywood is that when a studio makes a sudden or unexpected decision, it is almost guaranteed that the official reason for the move is a smoke screen for what's really going on. I'm guessing that's the case with Paramount's surprise announcement late Thursday that it's knocking "The Soloist" out of the awards season scrum, "dashing any hopes," to use Variety's melodramatic phrase, for the film to win any Academy Award accolades in 2008. The film is of particular interest to those of us here at the LA Times, since it is based on a series of gripping columns by our own Steve Lopez about his relationship with a homeless musician grappling with schizophrenia.

The film, which stars Robert Downey Jr. as Lopez and Jamie Foxx as the musician, was slated for release Nov. 21st, a prime slot for a potential year-end Oscar campaign. The film, produced by Dreamworks and co-financed by Participant Media and Universal's Working Title, has now been bumped to March 13th, 2009. Why? According to a story in the LA Times, Paramount executives said the current economic collapse "might have made November an awkward time to release a movie about homelessness."

That's the kind of whopper you'd only hear in Hollywood. I think the appropriate response to that would be--when exactly would be a good time to release a film about homelessness? Halloween? The Fourth of July? Having read the script and seen the film being shot, I'm guessing that only a studio disguising its real motives would call "The Soloist" a film about homelessness, when in fact, it's a male-bonding love story about a crusading newspaper reporter and a musician with a troubled soul.

Paramount apparently told its partners, as well as top CAA brass, who represent most of the talent on the picture, that the studio was under pressure from Viacom superiors to cut costs, having recently acknowledged that it was thinning out its future release schedule. With even Sumner Redstone being forced to sell stock to keep his investments afloat, the studio was forced to take drastic measures. With four potential Oscar movies slated for year-end release, something had to give. It certainly wasn't going to be "The Curious Case of Benjamin Button," an expensive and much-anticipated Brad Pitt and David Fincher collaboration that studio chief Brad Grey has already publicly embraced as his ticket to a front-row seat Feb. 22nd at the Kodak Theater. And it certainly wasn't going to be "Revolutionary Road," a Scott Rudin-produced literary drama with a star too big to offend (Leonardo DiCaprio) and the kind of rarified subject matter that desperately needs Oscar buzz to sell tickets.

That left the studio's Ed Zwick-directed drama, "Defiance," which is a long-shot for Oscars, but still enough of a contender that while it's being pushed back to late December, is still getting an Oscar qualifying run before going wide in January. That made "The Soloist" the low man on the totem pole, since it conceivably has enough commercial potential to make a dent at the box office in the spring without the benefit of any Oscar coattails. Since the film was produced by Dreamworks, which just concluded an ugly divorce with Paramount, the inside chatter has focused on the idea that Paramount is somehow punishing Dreamworks by robbing the departing Spielberg team of any Oscar glory.

If anyone at Variety actually asked Paramount about all these complicated twists and turns involving "The Soloist," they didn't bother to mention it in their story, which credulously quotes Paramount vice chairman Rob Moore as simply saying "We decided it's a commercial movie that will play well in the spring." Like I said, studio executives almost never give the real reason for their moves. If they did, Paramount would acknowledge the obvious: These moves aren't so much about saving money--which is small potatoes in terms of the giant outlays studio make these days--as focusing the studio's marketing machinery on its biggest potential cash cow.

Even though it co-financed the film with Warners, Paramount has a huge bet down on "Benjamin Button," which is the one movie here that could be both an enormous commercial and critical hit. The studio has clearly decided to clear the decks. It can't do anything about potential Oscar rivals from other studios, but it doesn't want to compete with itself. My guess is that the studio is being uncharacteristically pragmatic. In an era where studios release all their quality films in the same 10 week time period--I call it the Oscar demolition derby--Paramount has decided to create some breathing room for its strongest contender. Only in Oscar-crazed Hollywood, where everyone lives and dies by awards glory, is the decision to move a quality movie to the spring viewed as an ignominious death sentence. If "The Soloist" gets a good reception in March, it will survive and flourish. I wish some of the industry's hand-ringers would realize there is actually life after the Oscars.

My colleague John Horn has a story in Thursday's Calendar section that grapples with the always touchy question--why do white moviegoers shy away from movies with largely African American casts? "Amistad," Steven Spielberg's 1997 slavery epic, was his lowest-grossing movie in 20 years. Even "Ray," Taylor Hackford's Oscar-nominated musical biography of Ray Charles, drew an overwhelmingly black audience.

Will the same thing happen to "The Secret Life of Bees," a highbrow literary adaptation from an African American filmmaker (Gina Prince-Bythewood) that features a largely black female cast (Queen Latifah, Jennifer Hudson and Alicia Keys)? The film, distributed by Fox Searchlight, is going wide Friday in nearly 1,600 theaters, which means it will be playing in both suburban and urban neighborhoods. The book had a large white female following, but according to Horn, research shows that black moviegoers are showing roughly twice as much interest in seeing the film as whites.

Horn raises an intriguing political parallel:

"Pundits and election strategists have been deliberating feverishly whether white voters who tell interviewers they intend to vote for Sen. Barack Obama for president will really do so once they enter the polling booth. While the discrepancy known as the Bradley effect (named after former Los Angeles mayor Tom Bradley's 1982 loss in the California gubernatorial election, in which he consistently led in polling) may prove to be a minor factor in the year's presidential race, it is still a prominent concern within Hollywood, as movies made by and with African Americans often struggle to attract white supporters, both at the box office and within the studio's executive offices."

Fox says it hasn't tampered with 'Australia'

The blogosphere has been full of breathless tales that Baz Luhrmann has been forced to dump the unhappy ending he filmed for "Australia," his $130-million adventure epic (due out later this month) that stars Hugh Jackman and Nicole Kidman. Australia's Sunday Telegraph reports that 20th Century Fox executives forced Luhrmann to add a more upbeat ending after the film had "disastrous reviews" at early test screenings. Is it really possible that Fox would bully Luhrmann, a final-cut director, into giving his movie a happier ending?

Even though we've had some heated disagreements in recent months about my coverage of his studio, Fox Co-Chairman Tom Rothman graciously agreed to have lunch with me today at the Fox commissary, where we did see eye-to-eye on one important matter--it was very cool to be sitting two tables away from the legendary Hong Kong action movie star Chow Yun-Fat. (What he was doing at Fox was something of a mystery, since Rothman said he wasn't making a movie with the actor.) So what about "Australia"? Was there any truth to the Sunday Telegraph story?

"Everything in that story was patently nonsensical," Rothman said. "It's all too typical of the way the world works today that everybody picked up an unsourced, anonymous quote-filled story in a tabloid from Sydney and nobody ever bothered to check to see if it was accurate. The facts are--Baz is a final-cut director and we never pressured him in any way, shape or form. He wrote the movie, shot it and cut it all himself without any interference from us at all."

Rothman said that the movie "has probably had seven different endings at one time or another, none of them easily characterized as happy or sad." He said Luhrmann chose the ending the director thought worked best for the film. "But you couldn't possibly characterize the ending as happy or sad," he told me. "I'd call it deeply satisfying but that's because it's very complex. In fact, you could have a long conversation about whether it's happy or sad, which is actually part of what makes it a great movie."

I can't wait to see the film. And I couldn't agree more with Rothman about the gall of the Sunday Telegraph relying on such shoddy reporting. Maybe Tom can use his influence to improve the quality of journalism Down Under. All he has to do is pick up the phone, since the Telegraph is owned by ... his boss, Rupert Murdoch.

Photo of Hugh Jackman and Nicole Kidman in "Australia"  from Twentieth Century Fox / AFP / Getty Images

If you're like me, always hanging around producers, managers and agents, you frequently hear them groaning about the latest nutty studio rule dealing with the movies the studio will never, ever, ever make again. With "Soul Men" having tanked this weekend, it's a good bet that some studio chief somewhere is grumbling, "I don't want to ever see another script about soul singers!" (That dictum probably extends to college football players who get leukemia after the failure of "The Express" last month.)

Studio bosses do tend to make certain blanket pronouncements. Fox's Tom Rothman thinks sci-fi comedies are box-office poison, one key reason why he wouldn't make "Used Guys," a Jay Roach-directed sci-fi comedy that would have starred Ben Stiller and Jim Carrey (and cost a ton of money). Nikki Finke reported last year that after the failure of several female-starring comedies, Warners production chief Jeff Robinov told three different producers that WB was "no longer doing movies with women in the lead"--in fact, he supposedly didn't even want to see a script with a woman in a leading role. Everyone in town was talking about that one for weeks, even though I see that Warners is releasing a Cameron Diaz movie next spring ("The Box"), which didn't start filming till long after the supposed ban on female stars. So maybe Robinov had second thoughts--or never really said it in the first place.

I was reminded of all this the other day when an agent told me that they'd heard that Disney had put out the word that they didn't want to make any movies with young protagonists, which must mean really young protagonists, since the "High School Musical" series is such a box-office bonanza. So when I was having lunch with Sony chief Amy Pascal on Friday, I asked her--do you guys really say this stuff? Do you have crazy phobias too?

She laughed. "We all probably say things like that, but it's in the heat of the moment--everyone says things they don't really mean. So if there's a really young executive in a meeting and they hear you say something, even though you almost didn't mean it the minute it came out of your mouth, they sometimes take it seriously, when they should probably do what you do, which is forget all about it five minutes later."

But has she, in the heat of the moment, made crazy pronouncements too, like not wanting to make a movie whose title starts with the letter X? "I did say--I hate movies that begin with a bet," Pascal admits. "It's a bad idea, because it usually means that it's a fake story that revolves around a gimmick. But on the other hand, someone made 'My Fair Lady' and it was great. Rules are oversimplifications, which are bad no matter how you look at it. It would be like my saying, 'I'm so sick of Iraq movies, so I don't ever want to see another script about Iraq.' But that's just my reaction in the moment. Someone will make a phenomenal movie about Iraq and everyone's attitude will change."

According to Pascal, people simply overinterpret offhanded remarks. "I really don't think any studio has those kinds of rules. How could they? You have to open to hearing crazy, surprising ideas. One minute you have one of those rules, the next minute you'd want to break it."

Photo of Amy Pascal by Sony Pictures Entertainment

Sam Moore, the sole surviving half of soul legends Sam & Dave, is claiming that "Soul Men," which stars Samuel L. Jackson and Bernie Mac as long-estranged R&B backup singers who reunite for a last concert, is a rip-off of his life story. According to a story in the Independent today, Moore says the film--due out this weekend--is a "defamatory account" of a reunion he and the late Dave Prater attempted to pull off in 1982 after not speaking for several years. Moore claims the film has "bastardized" his life story, saying the comedy is "sexist, racist and embarrassing and that's not what Sam & Dave were about. It's so amateurish, so stupid and I'm surprised that Samuel L. Jackson is involved in this.... When you read the script, all you see is vulgarity. Every other word is the N-word or M-f and it's just not right."

Apparently Moore hasn't been going to the movies much lately, since there's nothing in "Soul Men" that's any more vulgar than the scatological jokes in "Zach and Miri Make a Porno" or the nauseating violence in "Saw 5," both of which just opened over the weekend. But does he have a point? Is "Soul Men" really a thinly disguised version of the Sam & Dave story? No way, says "Soul Men" producer David Friendly. "Our whole movie is a fiction, from start to finish," he told me. "We never got any life rights from anyone at any time because this was completely an invention. I'm a big-enough fan of Sam & Dave to know that it's a preposterous charge, since Sam & Dave were headliners, while our guys are backup singers."

Friendly laughed. "We haven't heard anything from the Pips [Gladys Knight's backup singers.] They'd at least have a stronger argument." Friendly said that he was asked to develop the project as a vehicle for Jackson and Mac, who wanted to work together in a comedy. He knew he had a hook for a movie when one of the film's writers posed the question--what if Bernie and Sam were backup singers who hadn't spoken in 30 years? The project was originally at New Regency, and then at New Line before ending up at the Weinstein Co., which is releasing the film through MGM this weekend.

Friendly said that, by coincidence, his offices were in the same building in Beverly Hills that housed Stax Records. "I literally took the elevator up one floor and talked to them about using wall-to-wall Stax music, which is how we came to license the music from them." Moore's lawyers are saying the Weinstein Co. has abused Moore's "Soul Man" trademark and are exploiting his reputation in order to make some dough. The Weinsteins' attorney, the always ferocious Bert Fields, insists Moore has no case, saying the movie tells a different story about different people. As Fields told the Independent: "If Mr. Moore decides to file a lawsuit, he will lose."

I'm no lawyer, but having seen the movie, I think Sam should rethink his position. The movie isn't racist, unless you want to contend that every Eddie Murphy and Chris Tucker comedy ever made is racist. It isn't more sexist than a thousand other Hollywood films. And guess what--it's pretty funny, largely thanks to some great chemistry between Jackson and Mac, who receives a nice, heartfelt tribute at the end of the film. As for the charge of unauthorized borrowing, someone should phone up Neil Simon. If the movie steals from anyone, it's from "The Sunshine Boys," which, as anyone could tell you, is stealing from the best.

See for yourself:

Photo of Bernie Mac and Samuel L. Jackson in "Soul Men" by Doug Hyun / The Weinstein Co.

Will white folks go to movie theaters to see black folks in a movie without any big white stars? That was the question some of us in the media were all asking before the release of "The Secret Life of Bees" earlier this month. Most old-fashioned movie marketers had said--not likely, based on past experience and long-held attitudes about white moviegoers. Some marketers cited the "Bradley Effect," the controversial analysis of a Tom Bradley 1982 election defeat in the California gubernatorial election where he'd led in polling before the election, prompting pundits to blame the loss on white voters who didn't tell pollsters how they really intended to vote. 

But guess what? "Bees" has quietly emerged as a minor hit, now projected to pass the $30-million mark at the box office. And as my colleague John Horn reports, it's doing even better in theaters catering to white moviegoers than in traditionally African American theaters. What gives? Here's John's report:

Fox Searchlight was confident that African American moviegoers would turn up for "The Secret Life of Bees," whose cast includes Queen Latifah, Jennifer Hudson and Alicia Keys. But the studio and the film's makers worried that white audiences, even after they embraced the bestselling Sue Monk Kidd novel on which the film was based, might stay away when the film premiered on Oct. 17.  After two weeks of release, it's clear that white ticket buyers are not only showing up for "Bees" but also are becoming the film's most loyal audience.

Last weekend, the film grossed more at Pacific's The Grove Stadium 14 than it did at the AMC Magic Johnson Crenshaw 15. In the rest of the country, theaters catering to black moviegoers reported strong opening weekend "Bee" sales but suffered steep declines last weekend. It's consistent with how movies with strong African American appeal--including Tyler Perry's efforts--tend to perform. For example, "Bee's" grosses at Georgia's AMC Southlake Pavilion 24 fell more than 61% last weekend, and sales at Maryland's Regal Bowie Crossing Cinema 14 collapsed almost as badly.

But in theaters that tend to cater to white audiences, support remained much stronger.  "Bee" sales at Oregon's Regal Cinemas Bridgeport Village Stadium 18 were down just 32.1%, and grosses at Northern California's Century 14 Downtown Walnut Creek dropped less than 18%. With total ticket sales of more than $21 million, "The Secret Life of Bees" will never catch "Beverly Hills Chihuahua." But "Bees" is not suffering from any "Bradley Effect" discrimination, and the very thing that scares off potential studio backing--an almost entirely black cast--has shown to be not a liability at all.

Photo of Queen Latifah, Jennifer Hudson and Alicia Keys in "The Secret Life of Bees" by Sidney Baldwin / Fox Searchlight

Since there's never been any doubt that Joaquin Phoenix was one of Hollywood's great modern-day eccentrics, it's hard to entirely take seriously the news that he has suddenly vowed to quit acting. After all, the oddball actor is always saying strange things. Working the press line at a fancy premiere for "Walk the Line," Phoenix asked a reporter, "Do I have a large frog in my hair?" When the reporter said no, Joaquin asked a new question: "Is there something crawling out of my scalp?" And how about this red-carpet story: Phoenix wrecked his car and was rescued by none other than ... Werner Herzog!

So I'm guessing the odds are pretty slim that Phoenix will stick to this pledge. Whatever has sidetracked him--playing in a cool band, learning how to cook, figuring out how to spot the moons of Jupiter without a telescope--will soon lose its appeal and he'll be back in action. But his pledge did spark the following idea: Who would make my list of the Top Ten actors we would like to see quit acting? (WARNING -- I'M JUST HAVING FUN HERE):

Click through to read my list, but please do feel free to offer your own suggestions:

When I was at an early screening of the upcoming comedy "Role Models" the other night, I found myself thinking about the Academy Awards, wondering what I always wonder when I see a good new comedy: Why on Earth shouldn't the Oscars recognize good work in comedy the same way they do in drama, animation, cinematography, editing and all the other great movie crafts? Shockingly, comedy is so thoroughly ignored by Oscar voters that it's been more than 30 years (yes, count 'em--thirty) since a true comedy--Woody Allen's "Annie Hall"--won the Oscar for best picture.

To say this is a disgrace would be an understatement. I hate to bore you with a recitation of film history, but movies began as a comic medium. A generation of Americans grew up falling in love with the cinema, largely thanks to Charlie Chaplin, Buster Keaton and Harold Lloyd and a host of other inspired silent movie comics. A second generation of moviegoers survived the Great Depression, thanks to the wonderful screwball comedies of the 1930s, from "My Man Godfrey" to "The Awful Truth" to "It Happened One Night" to "Midnight," not to mention the great Marx Brothers and W.C. Fields movies of the period.

The comedies of the '30s remain the true pillar of movie art from that era, immensely watchable even today, as many of the dramas and gangster films of the period have lost much of their thrill and allure. Comedy often tells us more about our time than the most acclaimed drama. In fact, I'd argue that if future cultural historians wanted the best window into the contemporary mores of the early 21st century, they wouldn't find much help from most of our recent Oscar winners ("Crash" aside), which tend to be set in the past, looking back in time for lessons about earlier eras. For the best analysis of people's anxieties, quirks and fears in 2008, you'd start by watching Judd Apatow movies, which have more to say about our time than "Beverly Hills Chihuahua," James Bond or even thoughtful art films like "Atonement" or "There Will Be Blood."

Directed by David Wain, who did 2001's "Wet Hot American Summer," "Role Models," which is being released by Universal Pictures Nov. 7, has no weighty message to deliver. It's simply loaded with shrewd comedy writing and slyly funny performances. Penned by a quartet of writers, including Wain, the film's costar Paul Rudd, Ken Marino (who plays a comically clueless stepdad in the film) and original writer Timothy Dowling, it follows the misadventures of two mismatched young guys--Rudd and Seann William Scott--who find themselves forced to become mentors to a pair of unhappy young boys in a Big Brothers-style community service program.

The Apatow influence is inescapable, since the film is populated with various actors, starting with Rudd and costar Elizabeth Banks, who are best known for their work in Apatow films. The project has an intriguing history. It was originally at Fox, which put it in turnaround. Producer Mary Parent, now MGM's  production chief but then a producing partner with Scott Stuber, picked it up, believing it was a timely comic premise. "I loved the concept of these two guys--one of them totally cynical, the other completely living in his imagination--who were forced to learn how to step out of themselves and help other people."

How did "Role Models" survive the loss of its director, its title and still make it to the finish line? And will the motion picture academy ever create a comedy category to honor all the great comedies being made? Keep reading:

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?"   

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.

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.

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.

"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.

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    

After an early screening of "Who Do You Love," one of the--count 'em--two new movies about 1950s powerhouse blues label Chess Records, a pair of women sought out Marshall Chess, whose dad, Leonard, was the driving force behind the record label. They were puzzled about one of the key story lines in the film. "Did your mother and father really make up after your father had that torrid affair with that beautiful singer?" one of them asked.

Marshall rolled his eyes. "No, they didn't make up," he said, "because there never was an affair. The filmmakers made that part up." When it comes to making movies about real-life people, Hollywood rarely lets the truth get in the way of a good story. No one knows that better now that Marshall Chess, who served as a technical consultant on the two competing Chess Records films, but discovered that while the actors and filmmakers were happy to listen to his recollections, it hardly meant that they would stick to the truth when it came time to film his family's story. Marshall knows the story intimately, having been behind the bar at his father's nightclub as a boy, seen his father hustle DJs on road tours and worked at Chess Records as a teenager.

He's delighted to see two films dramatizing his family history, but he's ambivalent about the results. "I guess I have a love-hate relationship with the movies," he told me recently. "They capture the spirit and the music wonderfully, but the truth isn't always there." He's especially upset over how "Cadillac Records," a film that stars Beyonce as Etta James and Oscar-winner Adrien Brody as Leonard Chess, cuts Leonard's brother, Phil, the co-founder of the record company, entirely out of the movie.

"It's a horrible distortion of history," says Marshall. "They started the company together. My uncle Phil was there every day. He recorded a lot of the best music we did. It wouldn't have happened without him and it's a real insult to our family. When I asked the producers, they simply said his character didn't work [in the script], so they cut him out."

When it comes to cutting people out of the Chess story, the rival "Who Do You Love" film has its own issues. The biggest-selling artist in Chess history is Chuck Berry, but his character was cut out of the movie. Why? Because the filmmakers couldn't make a deal for the rights to his music. The film's producer, Les Alexander, explains: "We made Chuck a spectacularly generous offer, but he wouldn't let us have anything. Our director, Jerry Zaks, even sent him a genuine fan note, saying how much his music meant to him. But it didn't matter--the answer was no."

Berry, who is still active as a touring act, is notoriously difficult when it comes to business matters. When Taylor Hackford, who directed the wonderful Berry concert film "Hail! Hail! Rock and Roll," recently ran into the performer, the first words out of Berry's mouth were, "You still owe me money." Mos Def plays Berry in "Cadillac Records," which managed to acquire some Berry songs that are owned by Marshall Chess. But dealing with Berry was so unbelievably arduous that when I asked the film's producer, Sofia Sondervan, about working with him, she replied in a hushed tone: "I can't talk about it. I can't say anything about Chuck Berry at all."

The "Who Do You Love" filmmakers defend their decision to show Leonard having an affair with a Chess artist who is clearly based on Etta James. "The question you always ask yourself is--are you illuminating who they were or are you assassinating their character?" says Zaks. "For me, the affair represents part of the seduction of success, which is a big part of the conflict in the movie's story. We did our own research and it seems evident that Leonard was a womanizer. Even his brother Phil says he had numerous affairs."

The filmmakers had less leeway in portraying Willie Dixon, the now-deceased songwriter (played by Chi McBride) who wrote most of Chess' biggest hits. Producer Les Alexander says, "We were prohibited by his estate as portraying him as someone who drank or smoked or sweared." Nonetheless, the film shows Dixon having two wives, who begrudgingly share his time together. "The estate didn't prohibit that," Alexander says.

Both films depict Chess giving his top artists a Cadillac after they had big chart-topping hits. It's a way for the films to capture the back-door way business was handled in the early days of the record industry, since the artists rarely realized that the expense of buying a Cadillac was deducted from their royalty statements. Marshall says it was a pragmatic way to reward a top artist, noting that few of the bluesmen had bank accounts at the time. "Getting a Cadillac in those days was a top of the line thing to have," he explains. "My father bought a new Cadillac every year too, because he was just like his artists--he wanted people to know he was a successful man."

Marshall laughs. "I guess he'd be happy to see two movies coming out about him at the same time. He'd definitely consider that a symbol of success too."

When I was a kid, I spent a lot of time in Chicago, home of two great baseball teams, a host of colorful politicians and the best blues in the world. Back in the day, you weren't anyone in the blues world unless you were signed to Chess Records, the label that made stars out of a generation of rough and tumble musicians, notably Muddy Waters, Little Walter, Willie Dixon and Howlin' Wolf.

So when I was at the recent Toronto Film Festival, I made a point of seeing "Who Do You Love," which stars Alessandro Nivola and Jon Abrahams as Leonard and Phil Chess, two hard-nosed immigrant entrepreneurs who ended up creating Chess Records, the 1950s record label that popularized urban blues and later, with the arrival of Chuck Berry and Bo Diddley, ushered in a brash new form of rock 'n' roll that was adopted by the Rolling Stones, the Beatles and thousands of other young white rock artists.

After the screening, I ran into a film executive, who whispered in my ear, "Do you know that there's another one?" Puzzled, I said, "Another what?" He laughed. "Another movie about Chess Records."

I really thought he was joking, but it's true. Against all odds and sound commercial judgment, the same crazy movie business that once made two asteroid movies and two movies about Truman Capote has now made two movies about the obscure icons of 1950s Chicago blues. What are the odds?

The second Chess film, made by Sony BMG Films, is "Cadillac Records," which will be released Dec. 5 through Sony's TriStar Pictures. Produced by Sofia Sondervan and Andy Lack, Sony BMG's former chairman (who just took a new job running Bloomberg's multimedia operations), the film has considerably more star power than its rival, featuring Beyonce Knowles as Chess' top songstress, Etta James; Adrien Brody as Leonard Chess; Mos Def as Chuck Berry; and Jeffrey Wright as Muddy Waters.

It's probably a misnomer to call the two pictures rivals, since "Who Do You Love," despite earning some good notices in Toronto, remains a long shot to land a theatrical release. "Cadillac Records" will be out in 800 theaters, with a Beyonce single and a soundtrack to help attract attention. Still, the question remains--what are the odds of two 1950s blues movies being made at the same time?

The answer, as always, is that making a movie isn't exactly a rational decision--passion trumps pragmatism. Neither film came out of today's increasingly timid studio system, which wouldn't dream of risking any loot on such obscure subject matter. "Cadillac Records" was championed by Lack, the former head of NBC News who ran Sony Music before being kicked upstairs after its BMG merger. According to Sondervan, Lack's family is from the Mississippi Delta, where he grew up listening to the blues, which gave him a strong interest in the story. "Who Do You Love" was financed by Jonathan Mitchell, a wealthy real estate developer with a love for the blues and directed by Jerry Zaks, who remembers singing to R&B records as a boy in his family basement.

"I was always drawn to black music," recalls Zaks, a four-time Tony Award-winning Broadway theater  director. "When I was in fifth grade, I was convinced I was Marvin Gaye. I'd put on the records I loved, everything from Gaye and Johnny Nash to Muddy Waters and Bo Diddley, and sing to the records in front of the mirror. I think that music had a powerful impact on a whole generation of kids."

But those kids are all nearing retirement age today and not especially regular moviegoers. So who's going to turn out for these films? When I asked Sondervan what made her think a blues movie could make a dent in today's marketplace, she offered an honest answer. "I don't really know," she said. "All I know is that Beyonce has a huge young following and a lot of people will come see the movie just because she's in it." She added that Beyonce has designed a clothing line of dresses inspired by the fashions in the film that are being launched later this fall at Bloomingdale's. "All the young people we've shown the film to really loved it," she says. "The blues is coming back. It's getting played at a lot of trendy restaurants, so there's a lot of new awareness out there."

Hhmm. Like I said, making movies isn't always a rational decision. Will Beyonce fans want to see her as a troubled '50s blues diva? Angelina Jolie fans do show up when she's trading gunfire with Brad Pitt, but they didn't bother to come when she played Mariane Pearl in "A Mighty Heart." And George Clooney fans, who loved him in "Oceans Eleven," turned up their noses at "Leatherheads" and "The Good German."

Music biopics have a pretty spotty track record. Taylor Hackford's "Ray" was a surprise hit (though it was also independently financed outside the studio system). But "She's Not There," Todd Haynes' impressionistic Bob Dylan biopic, never found an audience, despite a raft of rave reviews. Even "Dreamgirls," the Bill Condon film loosely based on the Supremes, was a box-office disappointment.

The real challenge for films that re-create the lives of real characters is--how true to life are they? Sony hasn't screened "Cadillac Records" yet, but the person who knows the story best of all--Leonard's son, Marshall Chess, who served as a technical consultant on both projects--says both movies took some dramatic liberties with many of the characters' personal lives. Which film took the most liberties? Which actor came the closest to capturing his real-life character? And which movie ended up cutting Chuck Berry entirely out of the story? We'll have Part 2 of our post up soon, so stay tuned.

Photo: Beyonce Knowles as Etta James in "Cadillac Records": photo credit: Eric Liebowitz

The one thing you can count on in Hollywood is that when a studio makes a sudden or unexpected decision, it is almost guaranteed that the official reason for the move is a smoke screen for what's really going on. I'm guessing that's the case with Paramount's surprise announcement late Thursday that it's knocking "The Soloist" out of the awards season scrum, "dashing any hopes," to use Variety's melodramatic phrase, for the film to win any Academy Award accolades in 2008. The film is of particular interest to those of us here at the LA Times, since it is based on a series of gripping columns by our own Steve Lopez about his relationship with a homeless musician grappling with schizophrenia.

The film, which stars Robert Downey Jr. as Lopez and Jamie Foxx as the musician, was slated for release Nov. 21st, a prime slot for a potential year-end Oscar campaign. The film, produced by Dreamworks and co-financed by Participant Media and Universal's Working Title, has now been bumped to March 13th, 2009. Why? According to a story in the LA Times, Paramount executives said the current economic collapse "might have made November an awkward time to release a movie about homelessness."

That's the kind of whopper you'd only hear in Hollywood. I think the appropriate response to that would be--when exactly would be a good time to release a film about homelessness? Halloween? The Fourth of July? Having read the script and seen the film being shot, I'm guessing that only a studio disguising its real motives would call "The Soloist" a film about homelessness, when in fact, it's a male-bonding love story about a crusading newspaper reporter and a musician with a troubled soul.

Paramount apparently told its partners, as well as top CAA brass, who represent most of the talent on the picture, that the studio was under pressure from Viacom superiors to cut costs, having recently acknowledged that it was thinning out its future release schedule. With even Sumner Redstone being forced to sell stock to keep his investments afloat, the studio was forced to take drastic measures. With four potential Oscar movies slated for year-end release, something had to give. It certainly wasn't going to be "The Curious Case of Benjamin Button," an expensive and much-anticipated Brad Pitt and David Fincher collaboration that studio chief Brad Grey has already publicly embraced as his ticket to a front-row seat Feb. 22nd at the Kodak Theater. And it certainly wasn't going to be "Revolutionary Road," a Scott Rudin-produced literary drama with a star too big to offend (Leonardo DiCaprio) and the kind of rarified subject matter that desperately needs Oscar buzz to sell tickets.

That left the studio's Ed Zwick-directed drama, "Defiance," which is a long-shot for Oscars, but still enough of a contender that while it's being pushed back to late December, is still getting an Oscar qualifying run before going wide in January. That made "The Soloist" the low man on the totem pole, since it conceivably has enough commercial potential to make a dent at the box office in the spring without the benefit of any Oscar coattails. Since the film was produced by Dreamworks, which just concluded an ugly divorce with Paramount, the inside chatter has focused on the idea that Paramount is somehow punishing Dreamworks by robbing the departing Spielberg team of any Oscar glory.

If anyone at Variety actually asked Paramount about all these complicated twists and turns involving "The Soloist," they didn't bother to mention it in their story, which credulously quotes Paramount vice chairman Rob Moore as simply saying "We decided it's a commercial movie that will play well in the spring." Like I said, studio executives almost never give the real reason for their moves. If they did, Paramount would acknowledge the obvious: These moves aren't so much about saving money--which is small potatoes in terms of the giant outlays studio make these days--as focusing the studio's marketing machinery on its biggest potential cash cow.

Even though it co-financed the film with Warners, Paramount has a huge bet down on "Benjamin Button," which is the one movie here that could be both an enormous commercial and critical hit. The studio has clearly decided to clear the decks. It can't do anything about potential Oscar rivals from other studios, but it doesn't want to compete with itself. My guess is that the studio is being uncharacteristically pragmatic. In an era where studios release all their quality films in the same 10 week time period--I call it the Oscar demolition derby--Paramount has decided to create some breathing room for its strongest contender. Only in Oscar-crazed Hollywood, where everyone lives and dies by awards glory, is the decision to move a quality movie to the spring viewed as an ignominious death sentence. If "The Soloist" gets a good reception in March, it will survive and flourish. I wish some of the industry's hand-ringers would realize there is actually life after the Oscars.

My colleague John Horn has a story in Thursday's Calendar section that grapples with the always touchy question--why do white moviegoers shy away from movies with largely African American casts? "Amistad," Steven Spielberg's 1997 slavery epic, was his lowest-grossing movie in 20 years. Even "Ray," Taylor Hackford's Oscar-nominated musical biography of Ray Charles, drew an overwhelmingly black audience.

Will the same thing happen to "The Secret Life of Bees," a highbrow literary adaptation from an African American filmmaker (Gina Prince-Bythewood) that features a largely black female cast (Queen Latifah, Jennifer Hudson and Alicia Keys)? The film, distributed by Fox Searchlight, is going wide Friday in nearly 1,600 theaters, which means it will be playing in both suburban and urban neighborhoods. The book had a large white female following, but according to Horn, research shows that black moviegoers are showing roughly twice as much interest in seeing the film as whites.

Horn raises an intriguing political parallel:

"Pundits and election strategists have been deliberating feverishly whether white voters who tell interviewers they intend to vote for Sen. Barack Obama for president will really do so once they enter the polling booth. While the discrepancy known as the Bradley effect (named after former Los Angeles mayor Tom Bradley's 1982 loss in the California gubernatorial election, in which he consistently led in polling) may prove to be a minor factor in the year's presidential race, it is still a prominent concern within Hollywood, as movies made by and with African Americans often struggle to attract white supporters, both at the box office and within the studio's executive offices."

New studio rule: No more movies about soul singers!

If you're like me, always hanging around producers, managers and agents, you frequently hear them groaning about the latest nutty studio rule dealing with the movies the studio will never, ever, ever make again. With "Soul Men" having tanked this weekend, it's a good bet that some studio chief somewhere is grumbling, "I don't want to ever see another script about soul singers!" (That dictum probably extends to college football players who get leukemia after the failure of "The Express" last month.)

Studio bosses do tend to make certain blanket pronouncements. Fox's Tom Rothman thinks sci-fi comedies are box-office poison, one key reason why he wouldn't make "Used Guys," a Jay Roach-directed sci-fi comedy that would have starred Ben Stiller and Jim Carrey (and cost a ton of money). Nikki Finke reported last year that after the failure of several female-starring comedies, Warners production chief Jeff Robinov told three different producers that WB was "no longer doing movies with women in the lead"--in fact, he supposedly didn't even want to see a script with a woman in a leading role. Everyone in town was talking about that one for weeks, even though I see that Warners is releasing a Cameron Diaz movie next spring ("The Box"), which didn't start filming till long after the supposed ban on female stars. So maybe Robinov had second thoughts--or never really said it in the first place.

I was reminded of all this the other day when an agent told me that they'd heard that Disney had put out the word that they didn't want to make any movies with young protagonists, which must mean really young protagonists, since the "High School Musical" series is such a box-office bonanza. So when I was having lunch with Sony chief Amy Pascal on Friday, I asked her--do you guys really say this stuff? Do you have crazy phobias too?

She laughed. "We all probably say things like that, but it's in the heat of the moment--everyone says things they don't really mean. So if there's a really young executive in a meeting and they hear you say something, even though you almost didn't mean it the minute it came out of your mouth, they sometimes take it seriously, when they should probably do what you do, which is forget all about it five minutes later."

But has she, in the heat of the moment, made crazy pronouncements too, like not wanting to make a movie whose title starts with the letter X? "I did say--I hate movies that begin with a bet," Pascal admits. "It's a bad idea, because it usually means that it's a fake story that revolves around a gimmick. But on the other hand, someone made 'My Fair Lady' and it was great. Rules are oversimplifications, which are bad no matter how you look at it. It would be like my saying, 'I'm so sick of Iraq movies, so I don't ever want to see another script about Iraq.' But that's just my reaction in the moment. Someone will make a phenomenal movie about Iraq and everyone's attitude will change."

According to Pascal, people simply overinterpret offhanded remarks. "I really don't think any studio has those kinds of rules. How could they? You have to open to hearing crazy, surprising ideas. One minute you have one of those rules, the next minute you'd want to break it."

Photo of Amy Pascal by Sony Pictures Entertainment

Sam Moore, the sole surviving half of soul legends Sam & Dave, is claiming that "Soul Men," which stars Samuel L. Jackson and Bernie Mac as long-estranged R&B backup singers who reunite for a last concert, is a rip-off of his life story. According to a story in the Independent today, Moore says the film--due out this weekend--is a "defamatory account" of a reunion he and the late Dave Prater attempted to pull off in 1982 after not speaking for several years. Moore claims the film has "bastardized" his life story, saying the comedy is "sexist, racist and embarrassing and that's not what Sam & Dave were about. It's so amateurish, so stupid and I'm surprised that Samuel L. Jackson is involved in this.... When you read the script, all you see is vulgarity. Every other word is the N-word or M-f and it's just not right."

Apparently Moore hasn't been going to the movies much lately, since there's nothing in "Soul Men" that's any more vulgar than the scatological jokes in "Zach and Miri Make a Porno" or the nauseating violence in "Saw 5," both of which just opened over the weekend. But does he have a point? Is "Soul Men" really a thinly disguised version of the Sam & Dave story? No way, says "Soul Men" producer David Friendly. "Our whole movie is a fiction, from start to finish," he told me. "We never got any life rights from anyone at any time because this was completely an invention. I'm a big-enough fan of Sam & Dave to know that it's a preposterous charge, since Sam & Dave were headliners, while our guys are backup singers."

Friendly laughed. "We haven't heard anything from the Pips [Gladys Knight's backup singers.] They'd at least have a stronger argument." Friendly said that he was asked to develop the project as a vehicle for Jackson and Mac, who wanted to work together in a comedy. He knew he had a hook for a movie when one of the film's writers posed the question--what if Bernie and Sam were backup singers who hadn't spoken in 30 years? The project was originally at New Regency, and then at New Line before ending up at the Weinstein Co., which is releasing the film through MGM this weekend.

Friendly said that, by coincidence, his offices were in the same building in Beverly Hills that housed Stax Records. "I literally took the elevator up one floor and talked to them about using wall-to-wall Stax music, which is how we came to license the music from them." Moore's lawyers are saying the Weinstein Co. has abused Moore's "Soul Man" trademark and are exploiting his reputation in order to make some dough. The Weinsteins' attorney, the always ferocious Bert Fields, insists Moore has no case, saying the movie tells a different story about different people. As Fields told the Independent: "If Mr. Moore decides to file a lawsuit, he will lose."

I'm no lawyer, but having seen the movie, I think Sam should rethink his position. The movie isn't racist, unless you want to contend that every Eddie Murphy and Chris Tucker comedy ever made is racist. It isn't more sexist than a thousand other Hollywood films. And guess what--it's pretty funny, largely thanks to some great chemistry between Jackson and Mac, who receives a nice, heartfelt tribute at the end of the film. As for the charge of unauthorized borrowing, someone should phone up Neil Simon. If the movie steals from anyone, it's from "The Sunshine Boys," which, as anyone could tell you, is stealing from the best.

See for yourself:

Photo of Bernie Mac and Samuel L. Jackson in "Soul Men" by Doug Hyun / The Weinstein Co.

Will white folks go to movie theaters to see black folks in a movie without any big white stars? That was the question some of us in the media were all asking before the release of "The Secret Life of Bees" earlier this month. Most old-fashioned movie marketers had said--not likely, based on past experience and long-held attitudes about white moviegoers. Some marketers cited the "Bradley Effect," the controversial analysis of a Tom Bradley 1982 election defeat in the California gubernatorial election where he'd led in polling before the election, prompting pundits to blame the loss on white voters who didn't tell pollsters how they really intended to vote. 

But guess what? "Bees" has quietly emerged as a minor hit, now projected to pass the $30-million mark at the box office. And as my colleague John Horn reports, it's doing even better in theaters catering to white moviegoers than in traditionally African American theaters. What gives? Here's John's report:

Fox Searchlight was confident that African American moviegoers would turn up for "The Secret Life of Bees," whose cast includes Queen Latifah, Jennifer Hudson and Alicia Keys. But the studio and the film's makers worried that white audiences, even after they embraced the bestselling Sue Monk Kidd novel on which the film was based, might stay away when the film premiered on Oct. 17.  After two weeks of release, it's clear that white ticket buyers are not only showing up for "Bees" but also are becoming the film's most loyal audience.

Last weekend, the film grossed more at Pacific's The Grove Stadium 14 than it did at the AMC Magic Johnson Crenshaw 15. In the rest of the country, theaters catering to black moviegoers reported strong opening weekend "Bee" sales but suffered steep declines last weekend. It's consistent with how movies with strong African American appeal--including Tyler Perry's efforts--tend to perform. For example, "Bee's" grosses at Georgia's AMC Southlake Pavilion 24 fell more than 61% last weekend, and sales at Maryland's Regal Bowie Crossing Cinema 14 collapsed almost as badly.

But in theaters that tend to cater to white audiences, support remained much stronger.  "Bee" sales at Oregon's Regal Cinemas Bridgeport Village Stadium 18 were down just 32.1%, and grosses at Northern California's Century 14 Downtown Walnut Creek dropped less than 18%. With total ticket sales of more than $21 million, "The Secret Life of Bees" will never catch "Beverly Hills Chihuahua." But "Bees" is not suffering from any "Bradley Effect" discrimination, and the very thing that scares off potential studio backing--an almost entirely black cast--has shown to be not a liability at all.

Photo of Queen Latifah, Jennifer Hudson and Alicia Keys in "The Secret Life of Bees" by Sidney Baldwin / Fox Searchlight

Since there's never been any doubt that Joaquin Phoenix was one of Hollywood's great modern-day eccentrics, it's hard to entirely take seriously the news that he has suddenly vowed to quit acting. After all, the oddball actor is always saying strange things. Working the press line at a fancy premiere for "Walk the Line," Phoenix asked a reporter, "Do I have a large frog in my hair?" When the reporter said no, Joaquin asked a new question: "Is there something crawling out of my scalp?" And how about this red-carpet story: Phoenix wrecked his car and was rescued by none other than ... Werner Herzog!

So I'm guessing the odds are pretty slim that Phoenix will stick to this pledge. Whatever has sidetracked him--playing in a cool band, learning how to cook, figuring out how to spot the moons of Jupiter without a telescope--will soon lose its appeal and he'll be back in action. But his pledge did spark the following idea: Who would make my list of the Top Ten actors we would like to see quit acting? (WARNING -- I'M JUST HAVING FUN HERE):

Click through to read my list, but please do feel free to offer your own suggestions:

When I was at an early screening of the upcoming comedy "Role Models" the other night, I found myself thinking about the Academy Awards, wondering what I always wonder when I see a good new comedy: Why on Earth shouldn't the Oscars recognize good work in comedy the same way they do in drama, animation, cinematography, editing and all the other great movie crafts? Shockingly, comedy is so thoroughly ignored by Oscar voters that it's been more than 30 years (yes, count 'em--thirty) since a true comedy--Woody Allen's "Annie Hall"--won the Oscar for best picture.

To say this is a disgrace would be an understatement. I hate to bore you with a recitation of film history, but movies began as a comic medium. A generation of Americans grew up falling in love with the cinema, largely thanks to Charlie Chaplin, Buster Keaton and Harold Lloyd and a host of other inspired silent movie comics. A second generation of moviegoers survived the Great Depression, thanks to the wonderful screwball comedies of the 1930s, from "My Man Godfrey" to "The Awful Truth" to "It Happened One Night" to "Midnight," not to mention the great Marx Brothers and W.C. Fields movies of the period.

The comedies of the '30s remain the true pillar of movie art from that era, immensely watchable even today, as many of the dramas and gangster films of the period have lost much of their thrill and allure. Comedy often tells us more about our time than the most acclaimed drama. In fact, I'd argue that if future cultural historians wanted the best window into the contemporary mores of the early 21st century, they wouldn't find much help from most of our recent Oscar winners ("Crash" aside), which tend to be set in the past, looking back in time for lessons about earlier eras. For the best analysis of people's anxieties, quirks and fears in 2008, you'd start by watching Judd Apatow movies, which have more to say about our time than "Beverly Hills Chihuahua," James Bond or even thoughtful art films like "Atonement" or "There Will Be Blood."

Directed by David Wain, who did 2001's "Wet Hot American Summer," "Role Models," which is being released by Universal Pictures Nov. 7, has no weighty message to deliver. It's simply loaded with shrewd comedy writing and slyly funny performances. Penned by a quartet of writers, including Wain, the film's costar Paul Rudd, Ken Marino (who plays a comically clueless stepdad in the film) and original writer Timothy Dowling, it follows the misadventures of two mismatched young guys--Rudd and Seann William Scott--who find themselves forced to become mentors to a pair of unhappy young boys in a Big Brothers-style community service program.

The Apatow influence is inescapable, since the film is populated with various actors, starting with Rudd and costar Elizabeth Banks, who are best known for their work in Apatow films. The project has an intriguing history. It was originally at Fox, which put it in turnaround. Producer Mary Parent, now MGM's  production chief but then a producing partner with Scott Stuber, picked it up, believing it was a timely comic premise. "I loved the concept of these two guys--one of them totally cynical, the other completely living in his imagination--who were forced to learn how to step out of themselves and help other people."

How did "Role Models" survive the loss of its director, its title and still make it to the finish line? And will the motion picture academy ever create a comedy category to honor all the great comedies being made? Keep reading:

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?"   

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.

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.

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.

"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.

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    

After an early screening of "Who Do You Love," one of the--count 'em--two new movies about 1950s powerhouse blues label Chess Records, a pair of women sought out Marshall Chess, whose dad, Leonard, was the driving force behind the record label. They were puzzled about one of the key story lines in the film. "Did your mother and father really make up after your father had that torrid affair with that beautiful singer?" one of them asked.

Marshall rolled his eyes. "No, they didn't make up," he said, "because there never was an affair. The filmmakers made that part up." When it comes to making movies about real-life people, Hollywood rarely lets the truth get in the way of a good story. No one knows that better now that Marshall Chess, who served as a technical consultant on the two competing Chess Records films, but discovered that while the actors and filmmakers were happy to listen to his recollections, it hardly meant that they would stick to the truth when it came time to film his family's story. Marshall knows the story intimately, having been behind the bar at his father's nightclub as a boy, seen his father hustle DJs on road tours and worked at Chess Records as a teenager.

He's delighted to see two films dramatizing his family history, but he's ambivalent about the results. "I guess I have a love-hate relationship with the movies," he told me recently. "They capture the spirit and the music wonderfully, but the truth isn't always there." He's especially upset over how "Cadillac Records," a film that stars Beyonce as Etta James and Oscar-winner Adrien Brody as Leonard Chess, cuts Leonard's brother, Phil, the co-founder of the record company, entirely out of the movie.

"It's a horrible distortion of history," says Marshall. "They started the company together. My uncle Phil was there every day. He recorded a lot of the best music we did. It wouldn't have happened without him and it's a real insult to our family. When I asked the producers, they simply said his character didn't work [in the script], so they cut him out."

When it comes to cutting people out of the Chess story, the rival "Who Do You Love" film has its own issues. The biggest-selling artist in Chess history is Chuck Berry, but his character was cut out of the movie. Why? Because the filmmakers couldn't make a deal for the rights to his music. The film's producer, Les Alexander, explains: "We made Chuck a spectacularly generous offer, but he wouldn't let us have anything. Our director, Jerry Zaks, even sent him a genuine fan note, saying how much his music meant to him. But it didn't matter--the answer was no."

Berry, who is still active as a touring act, is notoriously difficult when it comes to business matters. When Taylor Hackford, who directed the wonderful Berry concert film "Hail! Hail! Rock and Roll," recently ran into the performer, the first words out of Berry's mouth were, "You still owe me money." Mos Def plays Berry in "Cadillac Records," which managed to acquire some Berry songs that are owned by Marshall Chess. But dealing with Berry was so unbelievably arduous that when I asked the film's producer, Sofia Sondervan, about working with him, she replied in a hushed tone: "I can't talk about it. I can't say anything about Chuck Berry at all."

The "Who Do You Love" filmmakers defend their decision to show Leonard having an affair with a Chess artist who is clearly based on Etta James. "The question you always ask yourself is--are you illuminating who they were or are you assassinating their character?" says Zaks. "For me, the affair represents part of the seduction of success, which is a big part of the conflict in the movie's story. We did our own research and it seems evident that Leonard was a womanizer. Even his brother Phil says he had numerous affairs."

The filmmakers had less leeway in portraying Willie Dixon, the now-deceased songwriter (played by Chi McBride) who wrote most of Chess' biggest hits. Producer Les Alexander says, "We were prohibited by his estate as portraying him as someone who drank or smoked or sweared." Nonetheless, the film shows Dixon having two wives, who begrudgingly share his time together. "The estate didn't prohibit that," Alexander says.

Both films depict Chess giving his top artists a Cadillac after they had big chart-topping hits. It's a way for the films to capture the back-door way business was handled in the early days of the record industry, since the artists rarely realized that the expense of buying a Cadillac was deducted from their royalty statements. Marshall says it was a pragmatic way to reward a top artist, noting that few of the bluesmen had bank accounts at the time. "Getting a Cadillac in those days was a top of the line thing to have," he explains. "My father bought a new Cadillac every year too, because he was just like his artists--he wanted people to know he was a successful man."

Marshall laughs. "I guess he'd be happy to see two movies coming out about him at the same time. He'd definitely consider that a symbol of success too."

When I was a kid, I spent a lot of time in Chicago, home of two great baseball teams, a host of colorful politicians and the best blues in the world. Back in the day, you weren't anyone in the blues world unless you were signed to Chess Records, the label that made stars out of a generation of rough and tumble musicians, notably Muddy Waters, Little Walter, Willie Dixon and Howlin' Wolf.

So when I was at the recent Toronto Film Festival, I made a point of seeing "Who Do You Love," which stars Alessandro Nivola and Jon Abrahams as Leonard and Phil Chess, two hard-nosed immigrant entrepreneurs who ended up creating Chess Records, the 1950s record label that popularized urban blues and later, with the arrival of Chuck Berry and Bo Diddley, ushered in a brash new form of rock 'n' roll that was adopted by the Rolling Stones, the Beatles and thousands of other young white rock artists.

After the screening, I ran into a film executive, who whispered in my ear, "Do you know that there's another one?" Puzzled, I said, "Another what?" He laughed. "Another movie about Chess Records."

I really thought he was joking, but it's true. Against all odds and sound commercial judgment, the same crazy movie business that once made two asteroid movies and two movies about Truman Capote has now made two movies about the obscure icons of 1950s Chicago blues. What are the odds?

The second Chess film, made by Sony BMG Films, is "Cadillac Records," which will be released Dec. 5 through Sony's TriStar Pictures. Produced by Sofia Sondervan and Andy Lack, Sony BMG's former chairman (who just took a new job running Bloomberg's multimedia operations), the film has considerably more star power than its rival, featuring Beyonce Knowles as Chess' top songstress, Etta James; Adrien Brody as Leonard Chess; Mos Def as Chuck Berry; and Jeffrey Wright as Muddy Waters.

It's probably a misnomer to call the two pictures rivals, since "Who Do You Love," despite earning some good notices in Toronto, remains a long shot to land a theatrical release. "Cadillac Records" will be out in 800 theaters, with a Beyonce single and a soundtrack to help attract attention. Still, the question remains--what are the odds of two 1950s blues movies being made at the same time?

The answer, as always, is that making a movie isn't exactly a rational decision--passion trumps pragmatism. Neither film came out of today's increasingly timid studio system, which wouldn't dream of risking any loot on such obscure subject matter. "Cadillac Records" was championed by Lack, the former head of NBC News who ran Sony Music before being kicked upstairs after its BMG merger. According to Sondervan, Lack's family is from the Mississippi Delta, where he grew up listening to the blues, which gave him a strong interest in the story. "Who Do You Love" was financed by Jonathan Mitchell, a wealthy real estate developer with a love for the blues and directed by Jerry Zaks, who remembers singing to R&B records as a boy in his family basement.

"I was always drawn to black music," recalls Zaks, a four-time Tony Award-winning Broadway theater  director. "When I was in fifth grade, I was convinced I was Marvin Gaye. I'd put on the records I loved, everything from Gaye and Johnny Nash to Muddy Waters and Bo Diddley, and sing to the records in front of the mirror. I think that music had a powerful impact on a whole generation of kids."

But those kids are all nearing retirement age today and not especially regular moviegoers. So who's going to turn out for these films? When I asked Sondervan what made her think a blues movie could make a dent in today's marketplace, she offered an honest answer. "I don't really know," she said. "All I know is that Beyonce has a huge young following and a lot of people will come see the movie just because she's in it." She added that Beyonce has designed a clothing line of dresses inspired by the fashions in the film that are being launched later this fall at Bloomingdale's. "All the young people we've shown the film to really loved it," she says. "The blues is coming back. It's getting played at a lot of trendy restaurants, so there's a lot of new awareness out there."

Hhmm. Like I said, making movies isn't always a rational decision. Will Beyonce fans want to see her as a troubled '50s blues diva? Angelina Jolie fans do show up when she's trading gunfire with Brad Pitt, but they didn't bother to come when she played Mariane Pearl in "A Mighty Heart." And George Clooney fans, who loved him in "Oceans Eleven," turned up their noses at "Leatherheads" and "The Good German."

Music biopics have a pretty spotty track record. Taylor Hackford's "Ray" was a surprise hit (though it was also independently financed outside the studio system). But "She's Not There," Todd Haynes' impressionistic Bob Dylan biopic, never found an audience, despite a raft of rave reviews. Even "Dreamgirls," the Bill Condon film loosely based on the Supremes, was a box-office disappointment.

The real challenge for films that re-create the lives of real characters is--how true to life are they? Sony hasn't screened "Cadillac Records" yet, but the person who knows the story best of all--Leonard's son, Marshall Chess, who served as a technical consultant on both projects--says both movies took some dramatic liberties with many of the characters' personal lives. Which film took the most liberties? Which actor came the closest to capturing his real-life character? And which movie ended up cutting Chuck Berry entirely out of the story? We'll have Part 2 of our post up soon, so stay tuned.

Photo: Beyonce Knowles as Etta James in "Cadillac Records": photo credit: Eric Liebowitz

The one thing you can count on in Hollywood is that when a studio makes a sudden or unexpected decision, it is almost guaranteed that the official reason for the move is a smoke screen for what's really going on. I'm guessing that's the case with Paramount's surprise announcement late Thursday that it's knocking "The Soloist" out of the awards season scrum, "dashing any hopes," to use Variety's melodramatic phrase, for the film to win any Academy Award accolades in 2008. The film is of particular interest to those of us here at the LA Times, since it is based on a series of gripping columns by our own Steve Lopez about his relationship with a homeless musician grappling with schizophrenia.

The film, which stars Robert Downey Jr. as Lopez and Jamie Foxx as the musician, was slated for release Nov. 21st, a prime slot for a potential year-end Oscar campaign. The film, produced by Dreamworks and co-financed by Participant Media and Universal's Working Title, has now been bumped to March 13th, 2009. Why? According to a story in the LA Times, Paramount executives said the current economic collapse "might have made November an awkward time to release a movie about homelessness."

That's the kind of whopper you'd only hear in Hollywood. I think the appropriate response to that would be--when exactly would be a good time to release a film about homelessness? Halloween? The Fourth of July? Having read the script and seen the film being shot, I'm guessing that only a studio disguising its real motives would call "The Soloist" a film about homelessness, when in fact, it's a male-bonding love story about a crusading newspaper reporter and a musician with a troubled soul.

Paramount apparently told its partners, as well as top CAA brass, who represent most of the talent on the picture, that the studio was under pressure from Viacom superiors to cut costs, having recently acknowledged that it was thinning out its future release schedule. With even Sumner Redstone being forced to sell stock to keep his investments afloat, the studio was forced to take drastic measures. With four potential Oscar movies slated for year-end release, something had to give. It certainly wasn't going to be "The Curious Case of Benjamin Button," an expensive and much-anticipated Brad Pitt and David Fincher collaboration that studio chief Brad Grey has already publicly embraced as his ticket to a front-row seat Feb. 22nd at the Kodak Theater. And it certainly wasn't going to be "Revolutionary Road," a Scott Rudin-produced literary drama with a star too big to offend (Leonardo DiCaprio) and the kind of rarified subject matter that desperately needs Oscar buzz to sell tickets.

That left the studio's Ed Zwick-directed drama, "Defiance," which is a long-shot for Oscars, but still enough of a contender that while it's being pushed back to late December, is still getting an Oscar qualifying run before going wide in January. That made "The Soloist" the low man on the totem pole, since it conceivably has enough commercial potential to make a dent at the box office in the spring without the benefit of any Oscar coattails. Since the film was produced by Dreamworks, which just concluded an ugly divorce with Paramount, the inside chatter has focused on the idea that Paramount is somehow punishing Dreamworks by robbing the departing Spielberg team of any Oscar glory.

If anyone at Variety actually asked Paramount about all these complicated twists and turns involving "The Soloist," they didn't bother to mention it in their story, which credulously quotes Paramount vice chairman Rob Moore as simply saying "We decided it's a commercial movie that will play well in the spring." Like I said, studio executives almost never give the real reason for their moves. If they did, Paramount would acknowledge the obvious: These moves aren't so much about saving money--which is small potatoes in terms of the giant outlays studio make these days--as focusing the studio's marketing machinery on its biggest potential cash cow.

Even though it co-financed the film with Warners, Paramount has a huge bet down on "Benjamin Button," which is the one movie here that could be both an enormous commercial and critical hit. The studio has clearly decided to clear the decks. It can't do anything about potential Oscar rivals from other studios, but it doesn't want to compete with itself. My guess is that the studio is being uncharacteristically pragmatic. In an era where studios release all their quality films in the same 10 week time period--I call it the Oscar demolition derby--Paramount has decided to create some breathing room for its strongest contender. Only in Oscar-crazed Hollywood, where everyone lives and dies by awards glory, is the decision to move a quality movie to the spring viewed as an ignominious death sentence. If "The Soloist" gets a good reception in March, it will survive and flourish. I wish some of the industry's hand-ringers would realize there is actually life after the Oscars.

My colleague John Horn has a story in Thursday's Calendar section that grapples with the always touchy question--why do white moviegoers shy away from movies with largely African American casts? "Amistad," Steven Spielberg's 1997 slavery epic, was his lowest-grossing movie in 20 years. Even "Ray," Taylor Hackford's Oscar-nominated musical biography of Ray Charles, drew an overwhelmingly black audience.

Will the same thing happen to "The Secret Life of Bees," a highbrow literary adaptation from an African American filmmaker (Gina Prince-Bythewood) that features a largely black female cast (Queen Latifah, Jennifer Hudson and Alicia Keys)? The film, distributed by Fox Searchlight, is going wide Friday in nearly 1,600 theaters, which means it will be playing in both suburban and urban neighborhoods. The book had a large white female following, but according to Horn, research shows that black moviegoers are showing roughly twice as much interest in seeing the film as whites.

Horn raises an intriguing political parallel:

"Pundits and election strategists have been deliberating feverishly whether white voters who tell interviewers they intend to vote for Sen. Barack Obama for president will really do so once they enter the polling booth. While the discrepancy known as the Bradley effect (named after former Los Angeles mayor Tom Bradley's 1982 loss in the California gubernatorial election, in which he consistently led in polling) may prove to be a minor factor in the year's presidential race, it is still a prominent concern within Hollywood, as movies made by and with African Americans often struggle to attract white supporters, both at the box office and within the studio's executive offices."

Is 'Soul Men' racist, sexist and embarrassing?

Sam Moore, the sole surviving half of soul legends Sam & Dave, is claiming that "Soul Men," which stars Samuel L. Jackson and Bernie Mac as long-estranged R&B backup singers who reunite for a last concert, is a rip-off of his life story. According to a story in the Independent today, Moore says the film--due out this weekend--is a "defamatory account" of a reunion he and the late Dave Prater attempted to pull off in 1982 after not speaking for several years. Moore claims the film has "bastardized" his life story, saying the comedy is "sexist, racist and embarrassing and that's not what Sam & Dave were about. It's so amateurish, so stupid and I'm surprised that Samuel L. Jackson is involved in this.... When you read the script, all you see is vulgarity. Every other word is the N-word or M-f and it's just not right."

Apparently Moore hasn't been going to the movies much lately, since there's nothing in "Soul Men" that's any more vulgar than the scatological jokes in "Zach and Miri Make a Porno" or the nauseating violence in "Saw 5," both of which just opened over the weekend. But does he have a point? Is "Soul Men" really a thinly disguised version of the Sam & Dave story? No way, says "Soul Men" producer David Friendly. "Our whole movie is a fiction, from start to finish," he told me. "We never got any life rights from anyone at any time because this was completely an invention. I'm a big-enough fan of Sam & Dave to know that it's a preposterous charge, since Sam & Dave were headliners, while our guys are backup singers."

Friendly laughed. "We haven't heard anything from the Pips [Gladys Knight's backup singers.] They'd at least have a stronger argument." Friendly said that he was asked to develop the project as a vehicle for Jackson and Mac, who wanted to work together in a comedy. He knew he had a hook for a movie when one of the film's writers posed the question--what if Bernie and Sam were backup singers who hadn't spoken in 30 years? The project was originally at New Regency, and then at New Line before ending up at the Weinstein Co., which is releasing the film through MGM this weekend.

Friendly said that, by coincidence, his offices were in the same building in Beverly Hills that housed Stax Records. "I literally took the elevator up one floor and talked to them about using wall-to-wall Stax music, which is how we came to license the music from them." Moore's lawyers are saying the Weinstein Co. has abused Moore's "Soul Man" trademark and are exploiting his reputation in order to make some dough. The Weinsteins' attorney, the always ferocious Bert Fields, insists Moore has no case, saying the movie tells a different story about different people. As Fields told the Independent: "If Mr. Moore decides to file a lawsuit, he will lose."

I'm no lawyer, but having seen the movie, I think Sam should rethink his position. The movie isn't racist, unless you want to contend that every Eddie Murphy and Chris Tucker comedy ever made is racist. It isn't more sexist than a thousand other Hollywood films. And guess what--it's pretty funny, largely thanks to some great chemistry between Jackson and Mac, who receives a nice, heartfelt tribute at the end of the film. As for the charge of unauthorized borrowing, someone should phone up Neil Simon. If the movie steals from anyone, it's from "The Sunshine Boys," which, as anyone could tell you, is stealing from the best.

See for yourself:

Photo of Bernie Mac and Samuel L. Jackson in "Soul Men" by Doug Hyun / The Weinstein Co.

Will white folks go to movie theaters to see black folks in a movie without any big white stars? That was the question some of us in the media were all asking before the release of "The Secret Life of Bees" earlier this month. Most old-fashioned movie marketers had said--not likely, based on past experience and long-held attitudes about white moviegoers. Some marketers cited the "Bradley Effect," the controversial analysis of a Tom Bradley 1982 election defeat in the California gubernatorial election where he'd led in polling before the election, prompting pundits to blame the loss on white voters who didn't tell pollsters how they really intended to vote. 

But guess what? "Bees" has quietly emerged as a minor hit, now projected to pass the $30-million mark at the box office. And as my colleague John Horn reports, it's doing even better in theaters catering to white moviegoers than in traditionally African American theaters. What gives? Here's John's report:

Fox Searchlight was confident that African American moviegoers would turn up for "The Secret Life of Bees," whose cast includes Queen Latifah, Jennifer Hudson and Alicia Keys. But the studio and the film's makers worried that white audiences, even after they embraced the bestselling Sue Monk Kidd novel on which the film was based, might stay away when the film premiered on Oct. 17.  After two weeks of release, it's clear that white ticket buyers are not only showing up for "Bees" but also are becoming the film's most loyal audience.

Last weekend, the film grossed more at Pacific's The Grove Stadium 14 than it did at the AMC Magic Johnson Crenshaw 15. In the rest of the country, theaters catering to black moviegoers reported strong opening weekend "Bee" sales but suffered steep declines last weekend. It's consistent with how movies with strong African American appeal--including Tyler Perry's efforts--tend to perform. For example, "Bee's" grosses at Georgia's AMC Southlake Pavilion 24 fell more than 61% last weekend, and sales at Maryland's Regal Bowie Crossing Cinema 14 collapsed almost as badly.

But in theaters that tend to cater to white audiences, support remained much stronger.  "Bee" sales at Oregon's Regal Cinemas Bridgeport Village Stadium 18 were down just 32.1%, and grosses at Northern California's Century 14 Downtown Walnut Creek dropped less than 18%. With total ticket sales of more than $21 million, "The Secret Life of Bees" will never catch "Beverly Hills Chihuahua." But "Bees" is not suffering from any "Bradley Effect" discrimination, and the very thing that scares off potential studio backing--an almost entirely black cast--has shown to be not a liability at all.

Photo of Queen Latifah, Jennifer Hudson and Alicia Keys in "The Secret Life of Bees" by Sidney Baldwin / Fox Searchlight

Since there's never been any doubt that Joaquin Phoenix was one of Hollywood's great modern-day eccentrics, it's hard to entirely take seriously the news that he has suddenly vowed to quit acting. After all, the oddball actor is always saying strange things. Working the press line at a fancy premiere for "Walk the Line," Phoenix asked a reporter, "Do I have a large frog in my hair?" When the reporter said no, Joaquin asked a new question: "Is there something crawling out of my scalp?" And how about this red-carpet story: Phoenix wrecked his car and was rescued by none other than ... Werner Herzog!

So I'm guessing the odds are pretty slim that Phoenix will stick to this pledge. Whatever has sidetracked him--playing in a cool band, learning how to cook, figuring out how to spot the moons of Jupiter without a telescope--will soon lose its appeal and he'll be back in action. But his pledge did spark the following idea: Who would make my list of the Top Ten actors we would like to see quit acting? (WARNING -- I'M JUST HAVING FUN HERE):

Click through to read my list, but please do feel free to offer your own suggestions:

When I was at an early screening of the upcoming comedy "Role Models" the other night, I found myself thinking about the Academy Awards, wondering what I always wonder when I see a good new comedy: Why on Earth shouldn't the Oscars recognize good work in comedy the same way they do in drama, animation, cinematography, editing and all the other great movie crafts? Shockingly, comedy is so thoroughly ignored by Oscar voters that it's been more than 30 years (yes, count 'em--thirty) since a true comedy--Woody Allen's "Annie Hall"--won the Oscar for best picture.

To say this is a disgrace would be an understatement. I hate to bore you with a recitation of film history, but movies began as a comic medium. A generation of Americans grew up falling in love with the cinema, largely thanks to Charlie Chaplin, Buster Keaton and Harold Lloyd and a host of other inspired silent movie comics. A second generation of moviegoers survived the Great Depression, thanks to the wonderful screwball comedies of the 1930s, from "My Man Godfrey" to "The Awful Truth" to "It Happened One Night" to "Midnight," not to mention the great Marx Brothers and W.C. Fields movies of the period.

The comedies of the '30s remain the true pillar of movie art from that era, immensely watchable even today, as many of the dramas and gangster films of the period have lost much of their thrill and allure. Comedy often tells us more about our time than the most acclaimed drama. In fact, I'd argue that if future cultural historians wanted the best window into the contemporary mores of the early 21st century, they wouldn't find much help from most of our recent Oscar winners ("Crash" aside), which tend to be set in the past, looking back in time for lessons about earlier eras. For the best analysis of people's anxieties, quirks and fears in 2008, you'd start by watching Judd Apatow movies, which have more to say about our time than "Beverly Hills Chihuahua," James Bond or even thoughtful art films like "Atonement" or "There Will Be Blood."

Directed by David Wain, who did 2001's "Wet Hot American Summer," "Role Models," which is being released by Universal Pictures Nov. 7, has no weighty message to deliver. It's simply loaded with shrewd comedy writing and slyly funny performances. Penned by a quartet of writers, including Wain, the film's costar Paul Rudd, Ken Marino (who plays a comically clueless stepdad in the film) and original writer Timothy Dowling, it follows the misadventures of two mismatched young guys--Rudd and Seann William Scott--who find themselves forced to become mentors to a pair of unhappy young boys in a Big Brothers-style community service program.

The Apatow influence is inescapable, since the film is populated with various actors, starting with Rudd and costar Elizabeth Banks, who are best known for their work in Apatow films. The project has an intriguing history. It was originally at Fox, which put it in turnaround. Producer Mary Parent, now MGM's  production chief but then a producing partner with Scott Stuber, picked it up, believing it was a timely comic premise. "I loved the concept of these two guys--one of them totally cynical, the other completely living in his imagination--who were forced to learn how to step out of themselves and help other people."

How did "Role Models" survive the loss of its director, its title and still make it to the finish line? And will the motion picture academy ever create a comedy category to honor all the great comedies being made? Keep reading:

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?"   

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.

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.

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.

"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.

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    

After an early screening of "Who Do You Love," one of the--count 'em--two new movies about 1950s powerhouse blues label Chess Records, a pair of women sought out Marshall Chess, whose dad, Leonard, was the driving force behind the record label. They were puzzled about one of the key story lines in the film. "Did your mother and father really make up after your father had that torrid affair with that beautiful singer?" one of them asked.

Marshall rolled his eyes. "No, they didn't make up," he said, "because there never was an affair. The filmmakers made that part up." When it comes to making movies about real-life people, Hollywood rarely lets the truth get in the way of a good story. No one knows that better now that Marshall Chess, who served as a technical consultant on the two competing Chess Records films, but discovered that while the actors and filmmakers were happy to listen to his recollections, it hardly meant that they would stick to the truth when it came time to film his family's story. Marshall knows the story intimately, having been behind the bar at his father's nightclub as a boy, seen his father hustle DJs on road tours and worked at Chess Records as a teenager.

He's delighted to see two films dramatizing his family history, but he's ambivalent about the results. "I guess I have a love-hate relationship with the movies," he told me recently. "They capture the spirit and the music wonderfully, but the truth isn't always there." He's especially upset over how "Cadillac Records," a film that stars Beyonce as Etta James and Oscar-winner Adrien Brody as Leonard Chess, cuts Leonard's brother, Phil, the co-founder of the record company, entirely out of the movie.

"It's a horrible distortion of history," says Marshall. "They started the company together. My uncle Phil was there every day. He recorded a lot of the best music we did. It wouldn't have happened without him and it's a real insult to our family. When I asked the producers, they simply said his character didn't work [in the script], so they cut him out."

When it comes to cutting people out of the Chess story, the rival "Who Do You Love" film has its own issues. The biggest-selling artist in Chess history is Chuck Berry, but his character was cut out of the movie. Why? Because the filmmakers couldn't make a deal for the rights to his music. The film's producer, Les Alexander, explains: "We made Chuck a spectacularly generous offer, but he wouldn't let us have anything. Our director, Jerry Zaks, even sent him a genuine fan note, saying how much his music meant to him. But it didn't matter--the answer was no."

Berry, who is still active as a touring act, is notoriously difficult when it comes to business matters. When Taylor Hackford, who directed the wonderful Berry concert film "Hail! Hail! Rock and Roll," recently ran into the performer, the first words out of Berry's mouth were, "You still owe me money." Mos Def plays Berry in "Cadillac Records," which managed to acquire some Berry songs that are owned by Marshall Chess. But dealing with Berry was so unbelievably arduous that when I asked the film's producer, Sofia Sondervan, about working with him, she replied in a hushed tone: "I can't talk about it. I can't say anything about Chuck Berry at all."

The "Who Do You Love" filmmakers defend their decision to show Leonard having an affair with a Chess artist who is clearly based on Etta James. "The question you always ask yourself is--are you illuminating who they were or are you assassinating their character?" says Zaks. "For me, the affair represents part of the seduction of success, which is a big part of the conflict in the movie's story. We did our own research and it seems evident that Leonard was a womanizer. Even his brother Phil says he had numerous affairs."

The filmmakers had less leeway in portraying Willie Dixon, the now-deceased songwriter (played by Chi McBride) who wrote most of Chess' biggest hits. Producer Les Alexander says, "We were prohibited by his estate as portraying him as someone who drank or smoked or sweared." Nonetheless, the film shows Dixon having two wives, who begrudgingly share his time together. "The estate didn't prohibit that," Alexander says.

Both films depict Chess giving his top artists a Cadillac after they had big chart-topping hits. It's a way for the films to capture the back-door way business was handled in the early days of the record industry, since the artists rarely realized that the expense of buying a Cadillac was deducted from their royalty statements. Marshall says it was a pragmatic way to reward a top artist, noting that few of the bluesmen had bank accounts at the time. "Getting a Cadillac in those days was a top of the line thing to have," he explains. "My father bought a new Cadillac every year too, because he was just like his artists--he wanted people to know he was a successful man."

Marshall laughs. "I guess he'd be happy to see two movies coming out about him at the same time. He'd definitely consider that a symbol of success too."

When I was a kid, I spent a lot of time in Chicago, home of two great baseball teams, a host of colorful politicians and the best blues in the world. Back in the day, you weren't anyone in the blues world unless you were signed to Chess Records, the label that made stars out of a generation of rough and tumble musicians, notably Muddy Waters, Little Walter, Willie Dixon and Howlin' Wolf.

So when I was at the recent Toronto Film Festival, I made a point of seeing "Who Do You Love," which stars Alessandro Nivola and Jon Abrahams as Leonard and Phil Chess, two hard-nosed immigrant entrepreneurs who ended up creating Chess Records, the 1950s record label that popularized urban blues and later, with the arrival of Chuck Berry and Bo Diddley, ushered in a brash new form of rock 'n' roll that was adopted by the Rolling Stones, the Beatles and thousands of other young white rock artists.

After the screening, I ran into a film executive, who whispered in my ear, "Do you know that there's another one?" Puzzled, I said, "Another what?" He laughed. "Another movie about Chess Records."

I really thought he was joking, but it's true. Against all odds and sound commercial judgment, the same crazy movie business that once made two asteroid movies and two movies about Truman Capote has now made two movies about the obscure icons of 1950s Chicago blues. What are the odds?

The second Chess film, made by Sony BMG Films, is "Cadillac Records," which will be released Dec. 5 through Sony's TriStar Pictures. Produced by Sofia Sondervan and Andy Lack, Sony BMG's former chairman (who just took a new job running Bloomberg's multimedia operations), the film has considerably more star power than its rival, featuring Beyonce Knowles as Chess' top songstress, Etta James; Adrien Brody as Leonard Chess; Mos Def as Chuck Berry; and Jeffrey Wright as Muddy Waters.

It's probably a misnomer to call the two pictures rivals, since "Who Do You Love," despite earning some good notices in Toronto, remains a long shot to land a theatrical release. "Cadillac Records" will be out in 800 theaters, with a Beyonce single and a soundtrack to help attract attention. Still, the question remains--what are the odds of two 1950s blues movies being made at the same time?

The answer, as always, is that making a movie isn't exactly a rational decision--passion trumps pragmatism. Neither film came out of today's increasingly timid studio system, which wouldn't dream of risking any loot on such obscure subject matter. "Cadillac Records" was championed by Lack, the former head of NBC News who ran Sony Music before being kicked upstairs after its BMG merger. According to Sondervan, Lack's family is from the Mississippi Delta, where he grew up listening to the blues, which gave him a strong interest in the story. "Who Do You Love" was financed by Jonathan Mitchell, a wealthy real estate developer with a love for the blues and directed by Jerry Zaks, who remembers singing to R&B records as a boy in his family basement.

"I was always drawn to black music," recalls Zaks, a four-time Tony Award-winning Broadway theater  director. "When I was in fifth grade, I was convinced I was Marvin Gaye. I'd put on the records I loved, everything from Gaye and Johnny Nash to Muddy Waters and Bo Diddley, and sing to the records in front of the mirror. I think that music had a powerful impact on a whole generation of kids."

But those kids are all nearing retirement age today and not especially regular moviegoers. So who's going to turn out for these films? When I asked Sondervan what made her think a blues movie could make a dent in today's marketplace, she offered an honest answer. "I don't really know," she said. "All I know is that Beyonce has a huge young following and a lot of people will come see the movie just because she's in it." She added that Beyonce has designed a clothing line of dresses inspired by the fashions in the film that are being launched later this fall at Bloomingdale's. "All the young people we've shown the film to really loved it," she says. "The blues is coming back. It's getting played at a lot of trendy restaurants, so there's a lot of new awareness out there."

Hhmm. Like I said, making movies isn't always a rational decision. Will Beyonce fans want to see her as a troubled '50s blues diva? Angelina Jolie fans do show up when she's trading gunfire with Brad Pitt, but they didn't bother to come when she played Mariane Pearl in "A Mighty Heart." And George Clooney fans, who loved him in "Oceans Eleven," turned up their noses at "Leatherheads" and "The Good German."

Music biopics have a pretty spotty track record. Taylor Hackford's "Ray" was a surprise hit (though it was also independently financed outside the studio system). But "She's Not There," Todd Haynes' impressionistic Bob Dylan biopic, never found an audience, despite a raft of rave reviews. Even "Dreamgirls," the Bill Condon film loosely based on the Supremes, was a box-office disappointment.

The real challenge for films that re-create the lives of real characters is--how true to life are they? Sony hasn't screened "Cadillac Records" yet, but the person who knows the story best of all--Leonard's son, Marshall Chess, who served as a technical consultant on both projects--says both movies took some dramatic liberties with many of the characters' personal lives. Which film took the most liberties? Which actor came the closest to capturing his real-life character? And which movie ended up cutting Chuck Berry entirely out of the story? We'll have Part 2 of our post up soon, so stay tuned.

Photo: Beyonce Knowles as Etta James in "Cadillac Records": photo credit: Eric Liebowitz

The one thing you can count on in Hollywood is that when a studio makes a sudden or unexpected decision, it is almost guaranteed that the official reason for the move is a smoke screen for what's really going on. I'm guessing that's the case with Paramount's surprise announcement late Thursday that it's knocking "The Soloist" out of the awards season scrum, "dashing any hopes," to use Variety's melodramatic phrase, for the film to win any Academy Award accolades in 2008. The film is of particular interest to those of us here at the LA Times, since it is based on a series of gripping columns by our own Steve Lopez about his relationship with a homeless musician grappling with schizophrenia.

The film, which stars Robert Downey Jr. as Lopez and Jamie Foxx as the musician, was slated for release Nov. 21st, a prime slot for a potential year-end Oscar campaign. The film, produced by Dreamworks and co-financed by Participant Media and Universal's Working Title, has now been bumped to March 13th, 2009. Why? According to a story in the LA Times, Paramount executives said the current economic collapse "might have made November an awkward time to release a movie about homelessness."

That's the kind of whopper you'd only hear in Hollywood. I think the appropriate response to that would be--when exactly would be a good time to release a film about homelessness? Halloween? The Fourth of July? Having read the script and seen the film being shot, I'm guessing that only a studio disguising its real motives would call "The Soloist" a film about homelessness, when in fact, it's a male-bonding love story about a crusading newspaper reporter and a musician with a troubled soul.

Paramount apparently told its partners, as well as top CAA brass, who represent most of the talent on the picture, that the studio was under pressure from Viacom superiors to cut costs, having recently acknowledged that it was thinning out its future release schedule. With even Sumner Redstone being forced to sell stock to keep his investments afloat, the studio was forced to take drastic measures. With four potential Oscar movies slated for year-end release, something had to give. It certainly wasn't going to be "The Curious Case of Benjamin Button," an expensive and much-anticipated Brad Pitt and David Fincher collaboration that studio chief Brad Grey has already publicly embraced as his ticket to a front-row seat Feb. 22nd at the Kodak Theater. And it certainly wasn't going to be "Revolutionary Road," a Scott Rudin-produced literary drama with a star too big to offend (Leonardo DiCaprio) and the kind of rarified subject matter that desperately needs Oscar buzz to sell tickets.

That left the studio's Ed Zwick-directed drama, "Defiance," which is a long-shot for Oscars, but still enough of a contender that while it's being pushed back to late December, is still getting an Oscar qualifying run before going wide in January. That made "The Soloist" the low man on the totem pole, since it conceivably has enough commercial potential to make a dent at the box office in the spring without the benefit of any Oscar coattails. Since the film was produced by Dreamworks, which just concluded an ugly divorce with Paramount, the inside chatter has focused on the idea that Paramount is somehow punishing Dreamworks by robbing the departing Spielberg team of any Oscar glory.

If anyone at Variety actually asked Paramount about all these complicated twists and turns involving "The Soloist," they didn't bother to mention it in their story, which credulously quotes Paramount vice chairman Rob Moore as simply saying "We decided it's a commercial movie that will play well in the spring." Like I said, studio executives almost never give the real reason for their moves. If they did, Paramount would acknowledge the obvious: These moves aren't so much about saving money--which is small potatoes in terms of the giant outlays studio make these days--as focusing the studio's marketing machinery on its biggest potential cash cow.

Even though it co-financed the film with Warners, Paramount has a huge bet down on "Benjamin Button," which is the one movie here that could be both an enormous commercial and critical hit. The studio has clearly decided to clear the decks. It can't do anything about potential Oscar rivals from other studios, but it doesn't want to compete with itself. My guess is that the studio is being uncharacteristically pragmatic. In an era where studios release all their quality films in the same 10 week time period--I call it the Oscar demolition derby--Paramount has decided to create some breathing room for its strongest contender. Only in Oscar-crazed Hollywood, where everyone lives and dies by awards glory, is the decision to move a quality movie to the spring viewed as an ignominious death sentence. If "The Soloist" gets a good reception in March, it will survive and flourish. I wish some of the industry's hand-ringers would realize there is actually life after the Oscars.

My colleague John Horn has a story in Thursday's Calendar section that grapples with the always touchy question--why do white moviegoers shy away from movies with largely African American casts? "Amistad," Steven Spielberg's 1997 slavery epic, was his lowest-grossing movie in 20 years. Even "Ray," Taylor Hackford's Oscar-nominated musical biography of Ray Charles, drew an overwhelmingly black audience.

Will the same thing happen to "The Secret Life of Bees," a highbrow literary adaptation from an African American filmmaker (Gina Prince-Bythewood) that features a largely black female cast (Queen Latifah, Jennifer Hudson and Alicia Keys)? The film, distributed by Fox Searchlight, is going wide Friday in nearly 1,600 theaters, which means it will be playing in both suburban and urban neighborhoods. The book had a large white female following, but according to Horn, research shows that black moviegoers are showing roughly twice as much interest in seeing the film as whites.

Horn raises an intriguing political parallel:

"Pundits and election strategists have been deliberating feverishly whether white voters who tell interviewers they intend to vote for Sen. Barack Obama for president will really do so once they enter the polling booth. While the discrepancy known as the Bradley effect (named after former Los Angeles mayor Tom Bradley's 1982 loss in the California gubernatorial election, in which he consistently led in polling) may prove to be a minor factor in the year's presidential race, it is still a prominent concern within Hollywood, as movies made by and with African Americans often struggle to attract white supporters, both at the box office and within the studio's executive offices."

'Secret Life of Bees' buries the 'Bradley Effect'

Will white folks go to movie theaters to see black folks in a movie without any big white stars? That was the question some of us in the media were all asking before the release of "The Secret Life of Bees" earlier this month. Most old-fashioned movie marketers had said--not likely, based on past experience and long-held attitudes about white moviegoers. Some marketers cited the "Bradley Effect," the controversial analysis of a Tom Bradley 1982 election defeat in the California gubernatorial election where he'd led in polling before the election, prompting pundits to blame the loss on white voters who didn't tell pollsters how they really intended to vote. 

But guess what? "Bees" has quietly emerged as a minor hit, now projected to pass the $30-million mark at the box office. And as my colleague John Horn reports, it's doing even better in theaters catering to white moviegoers than in traditionally African American theaters. What gives? Here's John's report:

Fox Searchlight was confident that African American moviegoers would turn up for "The Secret Life of Bees," whose cast includes Queen Latifah, Jennifer Hudson and Alicia Keys. But the studio and the film's makers worried that white audiences, even after they embraced the bestselling Sue Monk Kidd novel on which the film was based, might stay away when the film premiered on Oct. 17.  After two weeks of release, it's clear that white ticket buyers are not only showing up for "Bees" but also are becoming the film's most loyal audience.

Last weekend, the film grossed more at Pacific's The Grove Stadium 14 than it did at the AMC Magic Johnson Crenshaw 15. In the rest of the country, theaters catering to black moviegoers reported strong opening weekend "Bee" sales but suffered steep declines last weekend. It's consistent with how movies with strong African American appeal--including Tyler Perry's efforts--tend to perform. For example, "Bee's" grosses at Georgia's AMC Southlake Pavilion 24 fell more than 61% last weekend, and sales at Maryland's Regal Bowie Crossing Cinema 14 collapsed almost as badly.

But in theaters that tend to cater to white audiences, support remained much stronger.  "Bee" sales at Oregon's Regal Cinemas Bridgeport Village Stadium 18 were down just 32.1%, and grosses at Northern California's Century 14 Downtown Walnut Creek dropped less than 18%. With total ticket sales of more than $21 million, "The Secret Life of Bees" will never catch "Beverly Hills Chihuahua." But "Bees" is not suffering from any "Bradley Effect" discrimination, and the very thing that scares off potential studio backing--an almost entirely black cast--has shown to be not a liability at all.

Photo of Queen Latifah, Jennifer Hudson and Alicia Keys in "The Secret Life of Bees" by Sidney Baldwin / Fox Searchlight

Since there's never been any doubt that Joaquin Phoenix was one of Hollywood's great modern-day eccentrics, it's hard to entirely take seriously the news that he has suddenly vowed to quit acting. After all, the oddball actor is always saying strange things. Working the press line at a fancy premiere for "Walk the Line," Phoenix asked a reporter, "Do I have a large frog in my hair?" When the reporter said no, Joaquin asked a new question: "Is there something crawling out of my scalp?" And how about this red-carpet story: Phoenix wrecked his car and was rescued by none other than ... Werner Herzog!

So I'm guessing the odds are pretty slim that Phoenix will stick to this pledge. Whatever has sidetracked him--playing in a cool band, learning how to cook, figuring out how to spot the moons of Jupiter without a telescope--will soon lose its appeal and he'll be back in action. But his pledge did spark the following idea: Who would make my list of the Top Ten actors we would like to see quit acting? (WARNING -- I'M JUST HAVING FUN HERE):

Click through to read my list, but please do feel free to offer your own suggestions:

When I was at an early screening of the upcoming comedy "Role Models" the other night, I found myself thinking about the Academy Awards, wondering what I always wonder when I see a good new comedy: Why on Earth shouldn't the Oscars recognize good work in comedy the same way they do in drama, animation, cinematography, editing and all the other great movie crafts? Shockingly, comedy is so thoroughly ignored by Oscar voters that it's been more than 30 years (yes, count 'em--thirty) since a true comedy--Woody Allen's "Annie Hall"--won the Oscar for best picture.

To say this is a disgrace would be an understatement. I hate to bore you with a recitation of film history, but movies began as a comic medium. A generation of Americans grew up falling in love with the cinema, largely thanks to Charlie Chaplin, Buster Keaton and Harold Lloyd and a host of other inspired silent movie comics. A second generation of moviegoers survived the Great Depression, thanks to the wonderful screwball comedies of the 1930s, from "My Man Godfrey" to "The Awful Truth" to "It Happened One Night" to "Midnight," not to mention the great Marx Brothers and W.C. Fields movies of the period.

The comedies of the '30s remain the true pillar of movie art from that era, immensely watchable even today, as many of the dramas and gangster films of the period have lost much of their thrill and allure. Comedy often tells us more about our time than the most acclaimed drama. In fact, I'd argue that if future cultural historians wanted the best window into the contemporary mores of the early 21st century, they wouldn't find much help from most of our recent Oscar winners ("Crash" aside), which tend to be set in the past, looking back in time for lessons about earlier eras. For the best analysis of people's anxieties, quirks and fears in 2008, you'd start by watching Judd Apatow movies, which have more to say about our time than "Beverly Hills Chihuahua," James Bond or even thoughtful art films like "Atonement" or "There Will Be Blood."

Directed by David Wain, who did 2001's "Wet Hot American Summer," "Role Models," which is being released by Universal Pictures Nov. 7, has no weighty message to deliver. It's simply loaded with shrewd comedy writing and slyly funny performances. Penned by a quartet of writers, including Wain, the film's costar Paul Rudd, Ken Marino (who plays a comically clueless stepdad in the film) and original writer Timothy Dowling, it follows the misadventures of two mismatched young guys--Rudd and Seann William Scott--who find themselves forced to become mentors to a pair of unhappy young boys in a Big Brothers-style community service program.

The Apatow influence is inescapable, since the film is populated with various actors, starting with Rudd and costar Elizabeth Banks, who are best known for their work in Apatow films. The project has an intriguing history. It was originally at Fox, which put it in turnaround. Producer Mary Parent, now MGM's  production chief but then a producing partner with Scott Stuber, picked it up, believing it was a timely comic premise. "I loved the concept of these two guys--one of them totally cynical, the other completely living in his imagination--who were forced to learn how to step out of themselves and help other people."

How did "Role Models" survive the loss of its director, its title and still make it to the finish line? And will the motion picture academy ever create a comedy category to honor all the great comedies being made? Keep reading:

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?"   

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.

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.

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.

"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.

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    

After an early screening of "Who Do You Love," one of the--count 'em--two new movies about 1950s powerhouse blues label Chess Records, a pair of women sought out Marshall Chess, whose dad, Leonard, was the driving force behind the record label. They were puzzled about one of the key story lines in the film. "Did your mother and father really make up after your father had that torrid affair with that beautiful singer?" one of them asked.

Marshall rolled his eyes. "No, they didn't make up," he said, "because there never was an affair. The filmmakers made that part up." When it comes to making movies about real-life people, Hollywood rarely lets the truth get in the way of a good story. No one knows that better now that Marshall Chess, who served as a technical consultant on the two competing Chess Records films, but discovered that while the actors and filmmakers were happy to listen to his recollections, it hardly meant that they would stick to the truth when it came time to film his family's story. Marshall knows the story intimately, having been behind the bar at his father's nightclub as a boy, seen his father hustle DJs on road tours and worked at Chess Records as a teenager.

He's delighted to see two films dramatizing his family history, but he's ambivalent about the results. "I guess I have a love-hate relationship with the movies," he told me recently. "They capture the spirit and the music wonderfully, but the truth isn't always there." He's especially upset over how "Cadillac Records," a film that stars Beyonce as Etta James and Oscar-winner Adrien Brody as Leonard Chess, cuts Leonard's brother, Phil, the co-founder of the record company, entirely out of the movie.

"It's a horrible distortion of history," says Marshall. "They started the company together. My uncle Phil was there every day. He recorded a lot of the best music we did. It wouldn't have happened without him and it's a real insult to our family. When I asked the producers, they simply said his character didn't work [in the script], so they cut him out."

When it comes to cutting people out of the Chess story, the rival "Who Do You Love" film has its own issues. The biggest-selling artist in Chess history is Chuck Berry, but his character was cut out of the movie. Why? Because the filmmakers couldn't make a deal for the rights to his music. The film's producer, Les Alexander, explains: "We made Chuck a spectacularly generous offer, but he wouldn't let us have anything. Our director, Jerry Zaks, even sent him a genuine fan note, saying how much his music meant to him. But it didn't matter--the answer was no."

Berry, who is still active as a touring act, is notoriously difficult when it comes to business matters. When Taylor Hackford, who directed the wonderful Berry concert film "Hail! Hail! Rock and Roll," recently ran into the performer, the first words out of Berry's mouth were, "You still owe me money." Mos Def plays Berry in "Cadillac Records," which managed to acquire some Berry songs that are owned by Marshall Chess. But dealing with Berry was so unbelievably arduous that when I asked the film's producer, Sofia Sondervan, about working with him, she replied in a hushed tone: "I can't talk about it. I can't say anything about Chuck Berry at all."

The "Who Do You Love" filmmakers defend their decision to show Leonard having an affair with a Chess artist who is clearly based on Etta James. "The question you always ask yourself is--are you illuminating who they were or are you assassinating their character?" says Zaks. "For me, the affair represents part of the seduction of success, which is a big part of the conflict in the movie's story. We did our own research and it seems evident that Leonard was a womanizer. Even his brother Phil says he had numerous affairs."

The filmmakers had less leeway in portraying Willie Dixon, the now-deceased songwriter (played by Chi McBride) who wrote most of Chess' biggest hits. Producer Les Alexander says, "We were prohibited by his estate as portraying him as someone who drank or smoked or sweared." Nonetheless, the film shows Dixon having two wives, who begrudgingly share his time together. "The estate didn't prohibit that," Alexander says.

Both films depict Chess giving his top artists a Cadillac after they had big chart-topping hits. It's a way for the films to capture the back-door way business was handled in the early days of the record industry, since the artists rarely realized that the expense of buying a Cadillac was deducted from their royalty statements. Marshall says it was a pragmatic way to reward a top artist, noting that few of the bluesmen had bank accounts at the time. "Getting a Cadillac in those days was a top of the line thing to have," he explains. "My father bought a new Cadillac every year too, because he was just like his artists--he wanted people to know he was a successful man."

Marshall laughs. "I guess he'd be happy to see two movies coming out about him at the same time. He'd definitely consider that a symbol of success too."

When I was a kid, I spent a lot of time in Chicago, home of two great baseball teams, a host of colorful politicians and the best blues in the world. Back in the day, you weren't anyone in the blues world unless you were signed to Chess Records, the label that made stars out of a generation of rough and tumble musicians, notably Muddy Waters, Little Walter, Willie Dixon and Howlin' Wolf.

So when I was at the recent Toronto Film Festival, I made a point of seeing "Who Do You Love," which stars Alessandro Nivola and Jon Abrahams as Leonard and Phil Chess, two hard-nosed immigrant entrepreneurs who ended up creating Chess Records, the 1950s record label that popularized urban blues and later, with the arrival of Chuck Berry and Bo Diddley, ushered in a brash new form of rock 'n' roll that was adopted by the Rolling Stones, the Beatles and thousands of other young white rock artists.

After the screening, I ran into a film executive, who whispered in my ear, "Do you know that there's another one?" Puzzled, I said, "Another what?" He laughed. "Another movie about Chess Records."

I really thought he was joking, but it's true. Against all odds and sound commercial judgment, the same crazy movie business that once made two asteroid movies and two movies about Truman Capote has now made two movies about the obscure icons of 1950s Chicago blues. What are the odds?

The second Chess film, made by Sony BMG Films, is "Cadillac Records," which will be released Dec. 5 through Sony's TriStar Pictures. Produced by Sofia Sondervan and Andy Lack, Sony BMG's former chairman (who just took a new job running Bloomberg's multimedia operations), the film has considerably more star power than its rival, featuring Beyonce Knowles as Chess' top songstress, Etta James; Adrien Brody as Leonard Chess; Mos Def as Chuck Berry; and Jeffrey Wright as Muddy Waters.

It's probably a misnomer to call the two pictures rivals, since "Who Do You Love," despite earning some good notices in Toronto, remains a long shot to land a theatrical release. "Cadillac Records" will be out in 800 theaters, with a Beyonce single and a soundtrack to help attract attention. Still, the question remains--what are the odds of two 1950s blues movies being made at the same time?

The answer, as always, is that making a movie isn't exactly a rational decision--passion trumps pragmatism. Neither film came out of today's increasingly timid studio system, which wouldn't dream of risking any loot on such obscure subject matter. "Cadillac Records" was championed by Lack, the former head of NBC News who ran Sony Music before being kicked upstairs after its BMG merger. According to Sondervan, Lack's family is from the Mississippi Delta, where he grew up listening to the blues, which gave him a strong interest in the story. "Who Do You Love" was financed by Jonathan Mitchell, a wealthy real estate developer with a love for the blues and directed by Jerry Zaks, who remembers singing to R&B records as a boy in his family basement.

"I was always drawn to black music," recalls Zaks, a four-time Tony Award-winning Broadway theater  director. "When I was in fifth grade, I was convinced I was Marvin Gaye. I'd put on the records I loved, everything from Gaye and Johnny Nash to Muddy Waters and Bo Diddley, and sing to the records in front of the mirror. I think that music had a powerful impact on a whole generation of kids."

But those kids are all nearing retirement age today and not especially regular moviegoers. So who's going to turn out for these films? When I asked Sondervan what made her think a blues movie could make a dent in today's marketplace, she offered an honest answer. "I don't really know," she said. "All I know is that Beyonce has a huge young following and a lot of people will come see the movie just because she's in it." She added that Beyonce has designed a clothing line of dresses inspired by the fashions in the film that are being launched later this fall at Bloomingdale's. "All the young people we've shown the film to really loved it," she says. "The blues is coming back. It's getting played at a lot of trendy restaurants, so there's a lot of new awareness out there."

Hhmm. Like I said, making movies isn't always a rational decision. Will Beyonce fans want to see her as a troubled '50s blues diva? Angelina Jolie fans do show up when she's trading gunfire with Brad Pitt, but they didn't bother to come when she played Mariane Pearl in "A Mighty Heart." And George Clooney fans, who loved him in "Oceans Eleven," turned up their noses at "Leatherheads" and "The Good German."

Music biopics have a pretty spotty track record. Taylor Hackford's "Ray" was a surprise hit (though it was also independently financed outside the studio system). But "She's Not There," Todd Haynes' impressionistic Bob Dylan biopic, never found an audience, despite a raft of rave reviews. Even "Dreamgirls," the Bill Condon film loosely based on the Supremes, was a box-office disappointment.

The real challenge for films that re-create the lives of real characters is--how true to life are they? Sony hasn't screened "Cadillac Records" yet, but the person who knows the story best of all--Leonard's son, Marshall Chess, who served as a technical consultant on both projects--says both movies took some dramatic liberties with many of the characters' personal lives. Which film took the most liberties? Which actor came the closest to capturing his real-life character? And which movie ended up cutting Chuck Berry entirely out of the story? We'll have Part 2 of our post up soon, so stay tuned.

Photo: Beyonce Knowles as Etta James in "Cadillac Records": photo credit: Eric Liebowitz

The one thing you can count on in Hollywood is that when a studio makes a sudden or unexpected decision, it is almost guaranteed that the official reason for the move is a smoke screen for what's really going on. I'm guessing that's the case with Paramount's surprise announcement late Thursday that it's knocking "The Soloist" out of the awards season scrum, "dashing any hopes," to use Variety's melodramatic phrase, for the film to win any Academy Award accolades in 2008. The film is of particular interest to those of us here at the LA Times, since it is based on a series of gripping columns by our own Steve Lopez about his relationship with a homeless musician grappling with schizophrenia.

The film, which stars Robert Downey Jr. as Lopez and Jamie Foxx as the musician, was slated for release Nov. 21st, a prime slot for a potential year-end Oscar campaign. The film, produced by Dreamworks and co-financed by Participant Media and Universal's Working Title, has now been bumped to March 13th, 2009. Why? According to a story in the LA Times, Paramount executives said the current economic collapse "might have made November an awkward time to release a movie about homelessness."

That's the kind of whopper you'd only hear in Hollywood. I think the appropriate response to that would be--when exactly would be a good time to release a film about homelessness? Halloween? The Fourth of July? Having read the script and seen the film being shot, I'm guessing that only a studio disguising its real motives would call "The Soloist" a film about homelessness, when in fact, it's a male-bonding love story about a crusading newspaper reporter and a musician with a troubled soul.

Paramount apparently told its partners, as well as top CAA brass, who represent most of the talent on the picture, that the studio was under pressure from Viacom superiors to cut costs, having recently acknowledged that it was thinning out its future release schedule. With even Sumner Redstone being forced to sell stock to keep his investments afloat, the studio was forced to take drastic measures. With four potential Oscar movies slated for year-end release, something had to give. It certainly wasn't going to be "The Curious Case of Benjamin Button," an expensive and much-anticipated Brad Pitt and David Fincher collaboration that studio chief Brad Grey has already publicly embraced as his ticket to a front-row seat Feb. 22nd at the Kodak Theater. And it certainly wasn't going to be "Revolutionary Road," a Scott Rudin-produced literary drama with a star too big to offend (Leonardo DiCaprio) and the kind of rarified subject matter that desperately needs Oscar buzz to sell tickets.

That left the studio's Ed Zwick-directed drama, "Defiance," which is a long-shot for Oscars, but still enough of a contender that while it's being pushed back to late December, is still getting an Oscar qualifying run before going wide in January. That made "The Soloist" the low man on the totem pole, since it conceivably has enough commercial potential to make a dent at the box office in the spring without the benefit of any Oscar coattails. Since the film was produced by Dreamworks, which just concluded an ugly divorce with Paramount, the inside chatter has focused on the idea that Paramount is somehow punishing Dreamworks by robbing the departing Spielberg team of any Oscar glory.

If anyone at Variety actually asked Paramount about all these complicated twists and turns involving "The Soloist," they didn't bother to mention it in their story, which credulously quotes Paramount vice chairman Rob Moore as simply saying "We decided it's a commercial movie that will play well in the spring." Like I said, studio executives almost never give the real reason for their moves. If they did, Paramount would acknowledge the obvious: These moves aren't so much about saving money--which is small potatoes in terms of the giant outlays studio make these days--as focusing the studio's marketing machinery on its biggest potential cash cow.

Even though it co-financed the film with Warners, Paramount has a huge bet down on "Benjamin Button," which is the one movie here that could be both an enormous commercial and critical hit. The studio has clearly decided to clear the decks. It can't do anything about potential Oscar rivals from other studios, but it doesn't want to compete with itself. My guess is that the studio is being uncharacteristically pragmatic. In an era where studios release all their quality films in the same 10 week time period--I call it the Oscar demolition derby--Paramount has decided to create some breathing room for its strongest contender. Only in Oscar-crazed Hollywood, where everyone lives and dies by awards glory, is the decision to move a quality movie to the spring viewed as an ignominious death sentence. If "The Soloist" gets a good reception in March, it will survive and flourish. I wish some of the industry's hand-ringers would realize there is actually life after the Oscars.

My colleague John Horn has a story in Thursday's Calendar section that grapples with the always touchy question--why do white moviegoers shy away from movies with largely African American casts? "Amistad," Steven Spielberg's 1997 slavery epic, was his lowest-grossing movie in 20 years. Even "Ray," Taylor Hackford's Oscar-nominated musical biography of Ray Charles, drew an overwhelmingly black audience.

Will the same thing happen to "The Secret Life of Bees," a highbrow literary adaptation from an African American filmmaker (Gina Prince-Bythewood) that features a largely black female cast (Queen Latifah, Jennifer Hudson and Alicia Keys)? The film, distributed by Fox Searchlight, is going wide Friday in nearly 1,600 theaters, which means it will be playing in both suburban and urban neighborhoods. The book had a large white female following, but according to Horn, research shows that black moviegoers are showing roughly twice as much interest in seeing the film as whites.

Horn raises an intriguing political parallel:

"Pundits and election strategists have been deliberating feverishly whether white voters who tell interviewers they intend to vote for Sen. Barack Obama for president will really do so once they enter the polling booth. While the discrepancy known as the Bradley effect (named after former Los Angeles mayor Tom Bradley's 1982 loss in the California gubernatorial election, in which he consistently led in polling) may prove to be a minor factor in the year's presidential race, it is still a prominent concern within Hollywood, as movies made by and with African Americans often struggle to attract white supporters, both at the box office and within the studio's executive offices."

Joaquin Phoenix: Quitting acting or just acting like he's quitting?

Since there's never been any doubt that Joaquin Phoenix was one of Hollywood's great modern-day eccentrics, it's hard to entirely take seriously the news that he has suddenly vowed to quit acting. After all, the oddball actor is always saying strange things. Working the press line at a fancy premiere for "Walk the Line," Phoenix asked a reporter, "Do I have a large frog in my hair?" When the reporter said no, Joaquin asked a new question: "Is there something crawling out of my scalp?" And how about this red-carpet story: Phoenix wrecked his car and was rescued by none other than ... Werner Herzog!

So I'm guessing the odds are pretty slim that Phoenix will stick to this pledge. Whatever has sidetracked him--playing in a cool band, learning how to cook, figuring out how to spot the moons of Jupiter without a telescope--will soon lose its appeal and he'll be back in action. But his pledge did spark the following idea: Who would make my list of the Top Ten actors we would like to see quit acting? (WARNING -- I'M JUST HAVING FUN HERE):

Click through to read my list, but please do feel free to offer your own suggestions:

When I was at an early screening of the upcoming comedy "Role Models" the other night, I found myself thinking about the Academy Awards, wondering what I always wonder when I see a good new comedy: Why on Earth shouldn't the Oscars recognize good work in comedy the same way they do in drama, animation, cinematography, editing and all the other great movie crafts? Shockingly, comedy is so thoroughly ignored by Oscar voters that it's been more than 30 years (yes, count 'em--thirty) since a true comedy--Woody Allen's "Annie Hall"--won the Oscar for best picture.

To say this is a disgrace would be an understatement. I hate to bore you with a recitation of film history, but movies began as a comic medium. A generation of Americans grew up falling in love with the cinema, largely thanks to Charlie Chaplin, Buster Keaton and Harold Lloyd and a host of other inspired silent movie comics. A second generation of moviegoers survived the Great Depression, thanks to the wonderful screwball comedies of the 1930s, from "My Man Godfrey" to "The Awful Truth" to "It Happened One Night" to "Midnight," not to mention the great Marx Brothers and W.C. Fields movies of the period.

The comedies of the '30s remain the true pillar of movie art from that era, immensely watchable even today, as many of the dramas and gangster films of the period have lost much of their thrill and allure. Comedy often tells us more about our time than the most acclaimed drama. In fact, I'd argue that if future cultural historians wanted the best window into the contemporary mores of the early 21st century, they wouldn't find much help from most of our recent Oscar winners ("Crash" aside), which tend to be set in the past, looking back in time for lessons about earlier eras. For the best analysis of people's anxieties, quirks and fears in 2008, you'd start by watching Judd Apatow movies, which have more to say about our time than "Beverly Hills Chihuahua," James Bond or even thoughtful art films like "Atonement" or "There Will Be Blood."

Directed by David Wain, who did 2001's "Wet Hot American Summer," "Role Models," which is being released by Universal Pictures Nov. 7, has no weighty message to deliver. It's simply loaded with shrewd comedy writing and slyly funny performances. Penned by a quartet of writers, including Wain, the film's costar Paul Rudd, Ken Marino (who plays a comically clueless stepdad in the film) and original writer Timothy Dowling, it follows the misadventures of two mismatched young guys--Rudd and Seann William Scott--who find themselves forced to become mentors to a pair of unhappy young boys in a Big Brothers-style community service program.

The Apatow influence is inescapable, since the film is populated with various actors, starting with Rudd and costar Elizabeth Banks, who are best known for their work in Apatow films. The project has an intriguing history. It was originally at Fox, which put it in turnaround. Producer Mary Parent, now MGM's  production chief but then a producing partner with Scott Stuber, picked it up, believing it was a timely comic premise. "I loved the concept of these two guys--one of them totally cynical, the other completely living in his imagination--who were forced to learn how to step out of themselves and help other people."

How did "Role Models" survive the loss of its director, its title and still make it to the finish line? And will the motion picture academy ever create a comedy category to honor all the great comedies being made? Keep reading:

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?"   

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.

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.

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.

"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.

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    

After an early screening of "Who Do You Love," one of the--count 'em--two new movies about 1950s powerhouse blues label Chess Records, a pair of women sought out Marshall Chess, whose dad, Leonard, was the driving force behind the record label. They were puzzled about one of the key story lines in the film. "Did your mother and father really make up after your father had that torrid affair with that beautiful singer?" one of them asked.

Marshall rolled his eyes. "No, they didn't make up," he said, "because there never was an affair. The filmmakers made that part up." When it comes to making movies about real-life people, Hollywood rarely lets the truth get in the way of a good story. No one knows that better now that Marshall Chess, who served as a technical consultant on the two competing Chess Records films, but discovered that while the actors and filmmakers were happy to listen to his recollections, it hardly meant that they would stick to the truth when it came time to film his family's story. Marshall knows the story intimately, having been behind the bar at his father's nightclub as a boy, seen his father hustle DJs on road tours and worked at Chess Records as a teenager.

He's delighted to see two films dramatizing his family history, but he's ambivalent about the results. "I guess I have a love-hate relationship with the movies," he told me recently. "They capture the spirit and the music wonderfully, but the truth isn't always there." He's especially upset over how "Cadillac Records," a film that stars Beyonce as Etta James and Oscar-winner Adrien Brody as Leonard Chess, cuts Leonard's brother, Phil, the co-founder of the record company, entirely out of the movie.

"It's a horrible distortion of history," says Marshall. "They started the company together. My uncle Phil was there every day. He recorded a lot of the best music we did. It wouldn't have happened without him and it's a real insult to our family. When I asked the producers, they simply said his character didn't work [in the script], so they cut him out."

When it comes to cutting people out of the Chess story, the rival "Who Do You Love" film has its own issues. The biggest-selling artist in Chess history is Chuck Berry, but his character was cut out of the movie. Why? Because the filmmakers couldn't make a deal for the rights to his music. The film's producer, Les Alexander, explains: "We made Chuck a spectacularly generous offer, but he wouldn't let us have anything. Our director, Jerry Zaks, even sent him a genuine fan note, saying how much his music meant to him. But it didn't matter--the answer was no."

Berry, who is still active as a touring act, is notoriously difficult when it comes to business matters. When Taylor Hackford, who directed the wonderful Berry concert film "Hail! Hail! Rock and Roll," recently ran into the performer, the first words out of Berry's mouth were, "You still owe me money." Mos Def plays Berry in "Cadillac Records," which managed to acquire some Berry songs that are owned by Marshall Chess. But dealing with Berry was so unbelievably arduous that when I asked the film's producer, Sofia Sondervan, about working with him, she replied in a hushed tone: "I can't talk about it. I can't say anything about Chuck Berry at all."

The "Who Do You Love" filmmakers defend their decision to show Leonard having an affair with a Chess artist who is clearly based on Etta James. "The question you always ask yourself is--are you illuminating who they were or are you assassinating their character?" says Zaks. "For me, the affair represents part of the seduction of success, which is a big part of the conflict in the movie's story. We did our own research and it seems evident that Leonard was a womanizer. Even his brother Phil says he had numerous affairs."

The filmmakers had less leeway in portraying Willie Dixon, the now-deceased songwriter (played by Chi McBride) who wrote most of Chess' biggest hits. Producer Les Alexander says, "We were prohibited by his estate as portraying him as someone who drank or smoked or sweared." Nonetheless, the film shows Dixon having two wives, who begrudgingly share his time together. "The estate didn't prohibit that," Alexander says.

Both films depict Chess giving his top artists a Cadillac after they had big chart-topping hits. It's a way for the films to capture the back-door way business was handled in the early days of the record industry, since the artists rarely realized that the expense of buying a Cadillac was deducted from their royalty statements. Marshall says it was a pragmatic way to reward a top artist, noting that few of the bluesmen had bank accounts at the time. "Getting a Cadillac in those days was a top of the line thing to have," he explains. "My father bought a new Cadillac every year too, because he was just like his artists--he wanted people to know he was a successful man."

Marshall laughs. "I guess he'd be happy to see two movies coming out about him at the same time. He'd definitely consider that a symbol of success too."

When I was a kid, I spent a lot of time in Chicago, home of two great baseball teams, a host of colorful politicians and the best blues in the world. Back in the day, you weren't anyone in the blues world unless you were signed to Chess Records, the label that made stars out of a generation of rough and tumble musicians, notably Muddy Waters, Little Walter, Willie Dixon and Howlin' Wolf.

So when I was at the recent Toronto Film Festival, I made a point of seeing "Who Do You Love," which stars Alessandro Nivola and Jon Abrahams as Leonard and Phil Chess, two hard-nosed immigrant entrepreneurs who ended up creating Chess Records, the 1950s record label that popularized urban blues and later, with the arrival of Chuck Berry and Bo Diddley, ushered in a brash new form of rock 'n' roll that was adopted by the Rolling Stones, the Beatles and thousands of other young white rock artists.

After the screening, I ran into a film executive, who whispered in my ear, "Do you know that there's another one?" Puzzled, I said, "Another what?" He laughed. "Another movie about Chess Records."

I really thought he was joking, but it's true. Against all odds and sound commercial judgment, the same crazy movie business that once made two asteroid movies and two movies about Truman Capote has now made two movies about the obscure icons of 1950s Chicago blues. What are the odds?

The second Chess film, made by Sony BMG Films, is "Cadillac Records," which will be released Dec. 5 through Sony's TriStar Pictures. Produced by Sofia Sondervan and Andy Lack, Sony BMG's former chairman (who just took a new job running Bloomberg's multimedia operations), the film has considerably more star power than its rival, featuring Beyonce Knowles as Chess' top songstress, Etta James; Adrien Brody as Leonard Chess; Mos Def as Chuck Berry; and Jeffrey Wright as Muddy Waters.

It's probably a misnomer to call the two pictures rivals, since "Who Do You Love," despite earning some good notices in Toronto, remains a long shot to land a theatrical release. "Cadillac Records" will be out in 800 theaters, with a Beyonce single and a soundtrack to help attract attention. Still, the question remains--what are the odds of two 1950s blues movies being made at the same time?

The answer, as always, is that making a movie isn't exactly a rational decision--passion trumps pragmatism. Neither film came out of today's increasingly timid studio system, which wouldn't dream of risking any loot on such obscure subject matter. "Cadillac Records" was championed by Lack, the former head of NBC News who ran Sony Music before being kicked upstairs after its BMG merger. According to Sondervan, Lack's family is from the Mississippi Delta, where he grew up listening to the blues, which gave him a strong interest in the story. "Who Do You Love" was financed by Jonathan Mitchell, a wealthy real estate developer with a love for the blues and directed by Jerry Zaks, who remembers singing to R&B records as a boy in his family basement.

"I was always drawn to black music," recalls Zaks, a four-time Tony Award-winning Broadway theater  director. "When I was in fifth grade, I was convinced I was Marvin Gaye. I'd put on the records I loved, everything from Gaye and Johnny Nash to Muddy Waters and Bo Diddley, and sing to the records in front of the mirror. I think that music had a powerful impact on a whole generation of kids."

But those kids are all nearing retirement age today and not especially regular moviegoers. So who's going to turn out for these films? When I asked Sondervan what made her think a blues movie could make a dent in today's marketplace, she offered an honest answer. "I don't really know," she said. "All I know is that Beyonce has a huge young following and a lot of people will come see the movie just because she's in it." She added that Beyonce has designed a clothing line of dresses inspired by the fashions in the film that are being launched later this fall at Bloomingdale's. "All the young people we've shown the film to really loved it," she says. "The blues is coming back. It's getting played at a lot of trendy restaurants, so there's a lot of new awareness out there."

Hhmm. Like I said, making movies isn't always a rational decision. Will Beyonce fans want to see her as a troubled '50s blues diva? Angelina Jolie fans do show up when she's trading gunfire with Brad Pitt, but they didn't bother to come when she played Mariane Pearl in "A Mighty Heart." And George Clooney fans, who loved him in "Oceans Eleven," turned up their noses at "Leatherheads" and "The Good German."

Music biopics have a pretty spotty track record. Taylor Hackford's "Ray" was a surprise hit (though it was also independently financed outside the studio system). But "She's Not There," Todd Haynes' impressionistic Bob Dylan biopic, never found an audience, despite a raft of rave reviews. Even "Dreamgirls," the Bill Condon film loosely based on the Supremes, was a box-office disappointment.

The real challenge for films that re-create the lives of real characters is--how true to life are they? Sony hasn't screened "Cadillac Records" yet, but the person who knows the story best of all--Leonard's son, Marshall Chess, who served as a technical consultant on both projects--says both movies took some dramatic liberties with many of the characters' personal lives. Which film took the most liberties? Which actor came the closest to capturing his real-life character? And which movie ended up cutting Chuck Berry entirely out of the story? We'll have Part 2 of our post up soon, so stay tuned.

Photo: Beyonce Knowles as Etta James in "Cadillac Records": photo credit: Eric Liebowitz

The one thing you can count on in Hollywood is that when a studio makes a sudden or unexpected decision, it is almost guaranteed that the official reason for the move is a smoke screen for what's really going on. I'm guessing that's the case with Paramount's surprise announcement late Thursday that it's knocking "The Soloist" out of the awards season scrum, "dashing any hopes," to use Variety's melodramatic phrase, for the film to win any Academy Award accolades in 2008. The film is of particular interest to those of us here at the LA Times, since it is based on a series of gripping columns by our own Steve Lopez about his relationship with a homeless musician grappling with schizophrenia.

The film, which stars Robert Downey Jr. as Lopez and Jamie Foxx as the musician, was slated for release Nov. 21st, a prime slot for a potential year-end Oscar campaign. The film, produced by Dreamworks and co-financed by Participant Media and Universal's Working Title, has now been bumped to March 13th, 2009. Why? According to a story in the LA Times, Paramount executives said the current economic collapse "might have made November an awkward time to release a movie about homelessness."

That's the kind of whopper you'd only hear in Hollywood. I think the appropriate response to that would be--when exactly would be a good time to release a film about homelessness? Halloween? The Fourth of July? Having read the script and seen the film being shot, I'm guessing that only a studio disguising its real motives would call "The Soloist" a film about homelessness, when in fact, it's a male-bonding love story about a crusading newspaper reporter and a musician with a troubled soul.

Paramount apparently told its partners, as well as top CAA brass, who represent most of the talent on the picture, that the studio was under pressure from Viacom superiors to cut costs, having recently acknowledged that it was thinning out its future release schedule. With even Sumner Redstone being forced to sell stock to keep his investments afloat, the studio was forced to take drastic measures. With four potential Oscar movies slated for year-end release, something had to give. It certainly wasn't going to be "The Curious Case of Benjamin Button," an expensive and much-anticipated Brad Pitt and David Fincher collaboration that studio chief Brad Grey has already publicly embraced as his ticket to a front-row seat Feb. 22nd at the Kodak Theater. And it certainly wasn't going to be "Revolutionary Road," a Scott Rudin-produced literary drama with a star too big to offend (Leonardo DiCaprio) and the kind of rarified subject matter that desperately needs Oscar buzz to sell tickets.

That left the studio's Ed Zwick-directed drama, "Defiance," which is a long-shot for Oscars, but still enough of a contender that while it's being pushed back to late December, is still getting an Oscar qualifying run before going wide in January. That made "The Soloist" the low man on the totem pole, since it conceivably has enough commercial potential to make a dent at the box office in the spring without the benefit of any Oscar coattails. Since the film was produced by Dreamworks, which just concluded an ugly divorce with Paramount, the inside chatter has focused on the idea that Paramount is somehow punishing Dreamworks by robbing the departing Spielberg team of any Oscar glory.

If anyone at Variety actually asked Paramount about all these complicated twists and turns involving "The Soloist," they didn't bother to mention it in their story, which credulously quotes Paramount vice chairman Rob Moore as simply saying "We decided it's a commercial movie that will play well in the spring." Like I said, studio executives almost never give the real reason for their moves. If they did, Paramount would acknowledge the obvious: These moves aren't so much about saving money--which is small potatoes in terms of the giant outlays studio make these days--as focusing the studio's marketing machinery on its biggest potential cash cow.

Even though it co-financed the film with Warners, Paramount has a huge bet down on "Benjamin Button," which is the one movie here that could be both an enormous commercial and critical hit. The studio has clearly decided to clear the decks. It can't do anything about potential Oscar rivals from other studios, but it doesn't want to compete with itself. My guess is that the studio is being uncharacteristically pragmatic. In an era where studios release all their quality films in the same 10 week time period--I call it the Oscar demolition derby--Paramount has decided to create some breathing room for its strongest contender. Only in Oscar-crazed Hollywood, where everyone lives and dies by awards glory, is the decision to move a quality movie to the spring viewed as an ignominious death sentence. If "The Soloist" gets a good reception in March, it will survive and flourish. I wish some of the industry's hand-ringers would realize there is actually life after the Oscars.

My colleague John Horn has a story in Thursday's Calendar section that grapples with the always touchy question--why do white moviegoers shy away from movies with largely African American casts? "Amistad," Steven Spielberg's 1997 slavery epic, was his lowest-grossing movie in 20 years. Even "Ray," Taylor Hackford's Oscar-nominated musical biography of Ray Charles, drew an overwhelmingly black audience.

Will the same thing happen to "The Secret Life of Bees," a highbrow literary adaptation from an African American filmmaker (Gina Prince-Bythewood) that features a largely black female cast (Queen Latifah, Jennifer Hudson and Alicia Keys)? The film, distributed by Fox Searchlight, is going wide Friday in nearly 1,600 theaters, which means it will be playing in both suburban and urban neighborhoods. The book had a large white female following, but according to Horn, research shows that black moviegoers are showing roughly twice as much interest in seeing the film as whites.

Horn raises an intriguing political parallel:

"Pundits and election strategists have been deliberating feverishly whether white voters who tell interviewers they intend to vote for Sen. Barack Obama for president will really do so once they enter the polling booth. While the discrepancy known as the Bradley effect (named after former Los Angeles mayor Tom Bradley's 1982 loss in the California gubernatorial election, in which he consistently led in polling) may prove to be a minor factor in the year's presidential race, it is still a prominent concern within Hollywood, as movies made by and with African Americans often struggle to attract white supporters, both at the box office and within the studio's executive offices."

Why are the Oscars a comedy-free zone?

When I was at an early screening of the upcoming comedy "Role Models" the other night, I found myself thinking about the Academy Awards, wondering what I always wonder when I see a good new comedy: Why on Earth shouldn't the Oscars recognize good work in comedy the same way they do in drama, animation, cinematography, editing and all the other great movie crafts? Shockingly, comedy is so thoroughly ignored by Oscar voters that it's been more than 30 years (yes, count 'em--thirty) since a true comedy--Woody Allen's "Annie Hall"--won the Oscar for best picture.

To say this is a disgrace would be an understatement. I hate to bore you with a recitation of film history, but movies began as a comic medium. A generation of Americans grew up falling in love with the cinema, largely thanks to Charlie Chaplin, Buster Keaton and Harold Lloyd and a host of other inspired silent movie comics. A second generation of moviegoers survived the Great Depression, thanks to the wonderful screwball comedies of the 1930s, from "My Man Godfrey" to "The Awful Truth" to "It Happened One Night" to "Midnight," not to mention the great Marx Brothers and W.C. Fields movies of the period.

The comedies of the '30s remain the true pillar of movie art from that era, immensely watchable even today, as many of the dramas and gangster films of the period have lost much of their thrill and allure. Comedy often tells us more about our time than the most acclaimed drama. In fact, I'd argue that if future cultural historians wanted the best window into the contemporary mores of the early 21st century, they wouldn't find much help from most of our recent Oscar winners ("Crash" aside), which tend to be set in the past, looking back in time for lessons about earlier eras. For the best analysis of people's anxieties, quirks and fears in 2008, you'd start by watching Judd Apatow movies, which have more to say about our time than "Beverly Hills Chihuahua," James Bond or even thoughtful art films like "Atonement" or "There Will Be Blood."

Directed by David Wain, who did 2001's "Wet Hot American Summer," "Role Models," which is being released by Universal Pictures Nov. 7, has no weighty message to deliver. It's simply loaded with shrewd comedy writing and slyly funny performances. Penned by a quartet of writers, including Wain, the film's costar Paul Rudd, Ken Marino (who plays a comically clueless stepdad in the film) and original writer Timothy Dowling, it follows the misadventures of two mismatched young guys--Rudd and Seann William Scott--who find themselves forced to become mentors to a pair of unhappy young boys in a Big Brothers-style community service program.

The Apatow influence is inescapable, since the film is populated with various actors, starting with Rudd and costar Elizabeth Banks, who are best known for their work in Apatow films. The project has an intriguing history. It was originally at Fox, which put it in turnaround. Producer Mary Parent, now MGM's  production chief but then a producing partner with Scott Stuber, picked it up, believing it was a timely comic premise. "I loved the concept of these two guys--one of them totally cynical, the other completely living in his imagination--who were forced to learn how to step out of themselves and help other people."

How did "Role Models" survive the loss of its director, its title and still make it to the finish line? And will the motion picture academy ever create a comedy category to honor all the great comedies being made? Keep reading:

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?"   

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.

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.

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.

"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.

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    

After an early screening of "Who Do You Love," one of the--count 'em--two new movies about 1950s powerhouse blues label Chess Records, a pair of women sought out Marshall Chess, whose dad, Leonard, was the driving force behind the record label. They were puzzled about one of the key story lines in the film. "Did your mother and father really make up after your father had that torrid affair with that beautiful singer?" one of them asked.

Marshall rolled his eyes. "No, they didn't make up," he said, "because there never was an affair. The filmmakers made that part up." When it comes to making movies about real-life people, Hollywood rarely lets the truth get in the way of a good story. No one knows that better now that Marshall Chess, who served as a technical consultant on the two competing Chess Records films, but discovered that while the actors and filmmakers were happy to listen to his recollections, it hardly meant that they would stick to the truth when it came time to film his family's story. Marshall knows the story intimately, having been behind the bar at his father's nightclub as a boy, seen his father hustle DJs on road tours and worked at Chess Records as a teenager.

He's delighted to see two films dramatizing his family history, but he's ambivalent about the results. "I guess I have a love-hate relationship with the movies," he told me recently. "They capture the spirit and the music wonderfully, but the truth isn't always there." He's especially upset over how "Cadillac Records," a film that stars Beyonce as Etta James and Oscar-winner Adrien Brody as Leonard Chess, cuts Leonard's brother, Phil, the co-founder of the record company, entirely out of the movie.

"It's a horrible distortion of history," says Marshall. "They started the company together. My uncle Phil was there every day. He recorded a lot of the best music we did. It wouldn't have happened without him and it's a real insult to our family. When I asked the producers, they simply said his character didn't work [in the script], so they cut him out."

When it comes to cutting people out of the Chess story, the rival "Who Do You Love" film has its own issues. The biggest-selling artist in Chess history is Chuck Berry, but his character was cut out of the movie. Why? Because the filmmakers couldn't make a deal for the rights to his music. The film's producer, Les Alexander, explains: "We made Chuck a spectacularly generous offer, but he wouldn't let us have anything. Our director, Jerry Zaks, even sent him a genuine fan note, saying how much his music meant to him. But it didn't matter--the answer was no."

Berry, who is still active as a touring act, is notoriously difficult when it comes to business matters. When Taylor Hackford, who directed the wonderful Berry concert film "Hail! Hail! Rock and Roll," recently ran into the performer, the first words out of Berry's mouth were, "You still owe me money." Mos Def plays Berry in "Cadillac Records," which managed to acquire some Berry songs that are owned by Marshall Chess. But dealing with Berry was so unbelievably arduous that when I asked the film's producer, Sofia Sondervan, about working with him, she replied in a hushed tone: "I can't talk about it. I can't say anything about Chuck Berry at all."

The "Who Do You Love" filmmakers defend their decision to show Leonard having an affair with a Chess artist who is clearly based on Etta James. "The question you always ask yourself is--are you illuminating who they were or are you assassinating their character?" says Zaks. "For me, the affair represents part of the seduction of success, which is a big part of the conflict in the movie's story. We did our own research and it seems evident that Leonard was a womanizer. Even his brother Phil says he had numerous affairs."

The filmmakers had less leeway in portraying Willie Dixon, the now-deceased songwriter (played by Chi McBride) who wrote most of Chess' biggest hits. Producer Les Alexander says, "We were prohibited by his estate as portraying him as someone who drank or smoked or sweared." Nonetheless, the film shows Dixon having two wives, who begrudgingly share his time together. "The estate didn't prohibit that," Alexander says.

Both films depict Chess giving his top artists a Cadillac after they had big chart-topping hits. It's a way for the films to capture the back-door way business was handled in the early days of the record industry, since the artists rarely realized that the expense of buying a Cadillac was deducted from their royalty statements. Marshall says it was a pragmatic way to reward a top artist, noting that few of the bluesmen had bank accounts at the time. "Getting a Cadillac in those days was a top of the line thing to have," he explains. "My father bought a new Cadillac every year too, because he was just like his artists--he wanted people to know he was a successful man."

Marshall laughs. "I guess he'd be happy to see two movies coming out about him at the same time. He'd definitely consider that a symbol of success too."

When I was a kid, I spent a lot of time in Chicago, home of two great baseball teams, a host of colorful politicians and the best blues in the world. Back in the day, you weren't anyone in the blues world unless you were signed to Chess Records, the label that made stars out of a generation of rough and tumble musicians, notably Muddy Waters, Little Walter, Willie Dixon and Howlin' Wolf.

So when I was at the recent Toronto Film Festival, I made a point of seeing "Who Do You Love," which stars Alessandro Nivola and Jon Abrahams as Leonard and Phil Chess, two hard-nosed immigrant entrepreneurs who ended up creating Chess Records, the 1950s record label that popularized urban blues and later, with the arrival of Chuck Berry and Bo Diddley, ushered in a brash new form of rock 'n' roll that was adopted by the Rolling Stones, the Beatles and thousands of other young white rock artists.

After the screening, I ran into a film executive, who whispered in my ear, "Do you know that there's another one?" Puzzled, I said, "Another what?" He laughed. "Another movie about Chess Records."

I really thought he was joking, but it's true. Against all odds and sound commercial judgment, the same crazy movie business that once made two asteroid movies and two movies about Truman Capote has now made two movies about the obscure icons of 1950s Chicago blues. What are the odds?

The second Chess film, made by Sony BMG Films, is "Cadillac Records," which will be released Dec. 5 through Sony's TriStar Pictures. Produced by Sofia Sondervan and Andy Lack, Sony BMG's former chairman (who just took a new job running Bloomberg's multimedia operations), the film has considerably more star power than its rival, featuring Beyonce Knowles as Chess' top songstress, Etta James; Adrien Brody as Leonard Chess; Mos Def as Chuck Berry; and Jeffrey Wright as Muddy Waters.

It's probably a misnomer to call the two pictures rivals, since "Who Do You Love," despite earning some good notices in Toronto, remains a long shot to land a theatrical release. "Cadillac Records" will be out in 800 theaters, with a Beyonce single and a soundtrack to help attract attention. Still, the question remains--what are the odds of two 1950s blues movies being made at the same time?

The answer, as always, is that making a movie isn't exactly a rational decision--passion trumps pragmatism. Neither film came out of today's increasingly timid studio system, which wouldn't dream of risking any loot on such obscure subject matter. "Cadillac Records" was championed by Lack, the former head of NBC News who ran Sony Music before being kicked upstairs after its BMG merger. According to Sondervan, Lack's family is from the Mississippi Delta, where he grew up listening to the blues, which gave him a strong interest in the story. "Who Do You Love" was financed by Jonathan Mitchell, a wealthy real estate developer with a love for the blues and directed by Jerry Zaks, who remembers singing to R&B records as a boy in his family basement.

"I was always drawn to black music," recalls Zaks, a four-time Tony Award-winning Broadway theater  director. "When I was in fifth grade, I was convinced I was Marvin Gaye. I'd put on the records I loved, everything from Gaye and Johnny Nash to Muddy Waters and Bo Diddley, and sing to the records in front of the mirror. I think that music had a powerful impact on a whole generation of kids."

But those kids are all nearing retirement age today and not especially regular moviegoers. So who's going to turn out for these films? When I asked Sondervan what made her think a blues movie could make a dent in today's marketplace, she offered an honest answer. "I don't really know," she said. "All I know is that Beyonce has a huge young following and a lot of people will come see the movie just because she's in it." She added that Beyonce has designed a clothing line of dresses inspired by the fashions in the film that are being launched later this fall at Bloomingdale's. "All the young people we've shown the film to really loved it," she says. "The blues is coming back. It's getting played at a lot of trendy restaurants, so there's a lot of new awareness out there."

Hhmm. Like I said, making movies isn't always a rational decision. Will Beyonce fans want to see her as a troubled '50s blues diva? Angelina Jolie fans do show up when she's trading gunfire with Brad Pitt, but they didn't bother to come when she played Mariane Pearl in "A Mighty Heart." And George Clooney fans, who loved him in "Oceans Eleven," turned up their noses at "Leatherheads" and "The Good German."

Music biopics have a pretty spotty track record. Taylor Hackford's "Ray" was a surprise hit (though it was also independently financed outside the studio system). But "She's Not There," Todd Haynes' impressionistic Bob Dylan biopic, never found an audience, despite a raft of rave reviews. Even "Dreamgirls," the Bill Condon film loosely based on the Supremes, was a box-office disappointment.

The real challenge for films that re-create the lives of real characters is--how true to life are they? Sony hasn't screened "Cadillac Records" yet, but the person who knows the story best of all--Leonard's son, Marshall Chess, who served as a technical consultant on both projects--says both movies took some dramatic liberties with many of the characters' personal lives. Which film took the most liberties? Which actor came the closest to capturing his real-life character? And which movie ended up cutting Chuck Berry entirely out of the story? We'll have Part 2 of our post up soon, so stay tuned.

Photo: Beyonce Knowles as Etta James in "Cadillac Records": photo credit: Eric Liebowitz

The one thing you can count on in Hollywood is that when a studio makes a sudden or unexpected decision, it is almost guaranteed that the official reason for the move is a smoke screen for what's really going on. I'm guessing that's the case with Paramount's surprise announcement late Thursday that it's knocking "The Soloist" out of the awards season scrum, "dashing any hopes," to use Variety's melodramatic phrase, for the film to win any Academy Award accolades in 2008. The film is of particular interest to those of us here at the LA Times, since it is based on a series of gripping columns by our own Steve Lopez about his relationship with a homeless musician grappling with schizophrenia.

The film, which stars Robert Downey Jr. as Lopez and Jamie Foxx as the musician, was slated for release Nov. 21st, a prime slot for a potential year-end Oscar campaign. The film, produced by Dreamworks and co-financed by Participant Media and Universal's Working Title, has now been bumped to March 13th, 2009. Why? According to a story in the LA Times, Paramount executives said the current economic collapse "might have made November an awkward time to release a movie about homelessness."

That's the kind of whopper you'd only hear in Hollywood. I think the appropriate response to that would be--when exactly would be a good time to release a film about homelessness? Halloween? The Fourth of July? Having read the script and seen the film being shot, I'm guessing that only a studio disguising its real motives would call "The Soloist" a film about homelessness, when in fact, it's a male-bonding love story about a crusading newspaper reporter and a musician with a troubled soul.

Paramount apparently told its partners, as well as top CAA brass, who represent most of the talent on the picture, that the studio was under pressure from Viacom superiors to cut costs, having recently acknowledged that it was thinning out its future release schedule. With even Sumner Redstone being forced to sell stock to keep his investments afloat, the studio was forced to take drastic measures. With four potential Oscar movies slated for year-end release, something had to give. It certainly wasn't going to be "The Curious Case of Benjamin Button," an expensive and much-anticipated Brad Pitt and David Fincher collaboration that studio chief Brad Grey has already publicly embraced as his ticket to a front-row seat Feb. 22nd at the Kodak Theater. And it certainly wasn't going to be "Revolutionary Road," a Scott Rudin-produced literary drama with a star too big to offend (Leonardo DiCaprio) and the kind of rarified subject matter that desperately needs Oscar buzz to sell tickets.

That left the studio's Ed Zwick-directed drama, "Defiance," which is a long-shot for Oscars, but still enough of a contender that while it's being pushed back to late December, is still getting an Oscar qualifying run before going wide in January. That made "The Soloist" the low man on the totem pole, since it conceivably has enough commercial potential to make a dent at the box office in the spring without the benefit of any Oscar coattails. Since the film was produced by Dreamworks, which just concluded an ugly divorce with Paramount, the inside chatter has focused on the idea that Paramount is somehow punishing Dreamworks by robbing the departing Spielberg team of any Oscar glory.

If anyone at Variety actually asked Paramount about all these complicated twists and turns involving "The Soloist," they didn't bother to mention it in their story, which credulously quotes Paramount vice chairman Rob Moore as simply saying "We decided it's a commercial movie that will play well in the spring." Like I said, studio executives almost never give the real reason for their moves. If they did, Paramount would acknowledge the obvious: These moves aren't so much about saving money--which is small potatoes in terms of the giant outlays studio make these days--as focusing the studio's marketing machinery on its biggest potential cash cow.

Even though it co-financed the film with Warners, Paramount has a huge bet down on "Benjamin Button," which is the one movie here that could be both an enormous commercial and critical hit. The studio has clearly decided to clear the decks. It can't do anything about potential Oscar rivals from other studios, but it doesn't want to compete with itself. My guess is that the studio is being uncharacteristically pragmatic. In an era where studios release all their quality films in the same 10 week time period--I call it the Oscar demolition derby--Paramount has decided to create some breathing room for its strongest contender. Only in Oscar-crazed Hollywood, where everyone lives and dies by awards glory, is the decision to move a quality movie to the spring viewed as an ignominious death sentence. If "The Soloist" gets a good reception in March, it will survive and flourish. I wish some of the industry's hand-ringers would realize there is actually life after the Oscars.

My colleague John Horn has a story in Thursday's Calendar section that grapples with the always touchy question--why do white moviegoers shy away from movies with largely African American casts? "Amistad," Steven Spielberg's 1997 slavery epic, was his lowest-grossing movie in 20 years. Even "Ray," Taylor Hackford's Oscar-nominated musical biography of Ray Charles, drew an overwhelmingly black audience.

Will the same thing happen to "The Secret Life of Bees," a highbrow literary adaptation from an African American filmmaker (Gina Prince-Bythewood) that features a largely black female cast (Queen Latifah, Jennifer Hudson and Alicia Keys)? The film, distributed by Fox Searchlight, is going wide Friday in nearly 1,600 theaters, which means it will be playing in both suburban and urban neighborhoods. The book had a large white female following, but according to Horn, research shows that black moviegoers are showing roughly twice as much interest in seeing the film as whites.

Horn raises an intriguing political parallel:

"Pundits and election strategists have been deliberating feverishly whether white voters who tell interviewers they intend to vote for Sen. Barack Obama for president will really do so once they enter the polling booth. While the discrepancy known as the Bradley effect (named after former Los Angeles mayor Tom Bradley's 1982 loss in the California gubernatorial election, in which he consistently led in polling) may prove to be a minor factor in the year's presidential race, it is still a prominent concern within Hollywood, as movies made by and with African Americans often struggle to attract white supporters, both at the box office and within the studio's executive offices."

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?"   

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.

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.

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.

"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.

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    

After an early screening of "Who Do You Love," one of the--count 'em--two new movies about 1950s powerhouse blues label Chess Records, a pair of women sought out Marshall Chess, whose dad, Leonard, was the driving force behind the record label. They were puzzled about one of the key story lines in the film. "Did your mother and father really make up after your father had that torrid affair with that beautiful singer?" one of them asked.

Marshall rolled his eyes. "No, they didn't make up," he said, "because there never was an affair. The filmmakers made that part up." When it comes to making movies about real-life people, Hollywood rarely lets the truth get in the way of a good story. No one knows that better now that Marshall Chess, who served as a technical consultant on the two competing Chess Records films, but discovered that while the actors and filmmakers were happy to listen to his recollections, it hardly meant that they would stick to the truth when it came time to film his family's story. Marshall knows the story intimately, having been behind the bar at his father's nightclub as a boy, seen his father hustle DJs on road tours and worked at Chess Records as a teenager.

He's delighted to see two films dramatizing his family history, but he's ambivalent about the results. "I guess I have a love-hate relationship with the movies," he told me recently. "They capture the spirit and the music wonderfully, but the truth isn't always there." He's especially upset over how "Cadillac Records," a film that stars Beyonce as Etta James and Oscar-winner Adrien Brody as Leonard Chess, cuts Leonard's brother, Phil, the co-founder of the record company, entirely out of the movie.

"It's a horrible distortion of history," says Marshall. "They started the company together. My uncle Phil was there every day. He recorded a lot of the best music we did. It wouldn't have happened without him and it's a real insult to our family. When I asked the producers, they simply said his character didn't work [in the script], so they cut him out."

When it comes to cutting people out of the Chess story, the rival "Who Do You Love" film has its own issues. The biggest-selling artist in Chess history is Chuck Berry, but his character was cut out of the movie. Why? Because the filmmakers couldn't make a deal for the rights to his music. The film's producer, Les Alexander, explains: "We made Chuck a spectacularly generous offer, but he wouldn't let us have anything. Our director, Jerry Zaks, even sent him a genuine fan note, saying how much his music meant to him. But it didn't matter--the answer was no."

Berry, who is still active as a touring act, is notoriously difficult when it comes to business matters. When Taylor Hackford, who directed the wonderful Berry concert film "Hail! Hail! Rock and Roll," recently ran into the performer, the first words out of Berry's mouth were, "You still owe me money." Mos Def plays Berry in "Cadillac Records," which managed to acquire some Berry songs that are owned by Marshall Chess. But dealing with Berry was so unbelievably arduous that when I asked the film's producer, Sofia Sondervan, about working with him, she replied in a hushed tone: "I can't talk about it. I can't say anything about Chuck Berry at all."

The "Who Do You Love" filmmakers defend their decision to show Leonard having an affair with a Chess artist who is clearly based on Etta James. "The question you always ask yourself is--are you illuminating who they were or are you assassinating their character?" says Zaks. "For me, the affair represents part of the seduction of success, which is a big part of the conflict in the movie's story. We did our own research and it seems evident that Leonard was a womanizer. Even his brother Phil says he had numerous affairs."

The filmmakers had less leeway in portraying Willie Dixon, the now-deceased songwriter (played by Chi McBride) who wrote most of Chess' biggest hits. Producer Les Alexander says, "We were prohibited by his estate as portraying him as someone who drank or smoked or sweared." Nonetheless, the film shows Dixon having two wives, who begrudgingly share his time together. "The estate didn't prohibit that," Alexander says.

Both films depict Chess giving his top artists a Cadillac after they had big chart-topping hits. It's a way for the films to capture the back-door way business was handled in the early days of the record industry, since the artists rarely realized that the expense of buying a Cadillac was deducted from their royalty statements. Marshall says it was a pragmatic way to reward a top artist, noting that few of the bluesmen had bank accounts at the time. "Getting a Cadillac in those days was a top of the line thing to have," he explains. "My father bought a new Cadillac every year too, because he was just like his artists--he wanted people to know he was a successful man."

Marshall laughs. "I guess he'd be happy to see two movies coming out about him at the same time. He'd definitely consider that a symbol of success too."

When I was a kid, I spent a lot of time in Chicago, home of two great baseball teams, a host of colorful politicians and the best blues in the world. Back in the day, you weren't anyone in the blues world unless you were signed to Chess Records, the label that made stars out of a generation of rough and tumble musicians, notably Muddy Waters, Little Walter, Willie Dixon and Howlin' Wolf.

So when I was at the recent Toronto Film Festival, I made a point of seeing "Who Do You Love," which stars Alessandro Nivola and Jon Abrahams as Leonard and Phil Chess, two hard-nosed immigrant entrepreneurs who ended up creating Chess Records, the 1950s record label that popularized urban blues and later, with the arrival of Chuck Berry and Bo Diddley, ushered in a brash new form of rock 'n' roll that was adopted by the Rolling Stones, the Beatles and thousands of other young white rock artists.

After the screening, I ran into a film executive, who whispered in my ear, "Do you know that there's another one?" Puzzled, I said, "Another what?" He laughed. "Another movie about Chess Records."

I really thought he was joking, but it's true. Against all odds and sound commercial judgment, the same crazy movie business that once made two asteroid movies and two movies about Truman Capote has now made two movies about the obscure icons of 1950s Chicago blues. What are the odds?

The second Chess film, made by Sony BMG Films, is "Cadillac Records," which will be released Dec. 5 through Sony's TriStar Pictures. Produced by Sofia Sondervan and Andy Lack, Sony BMG's former chairman (who just took a new job running Bloomberg's multimedia operations), the film has considerably more star power than its rival, featuring Beyonce Knowles as Chess' top songstress, Etta James; Adrien Brody as Leonard Chess; Mos Def as Chuck Berry; and Jeffrey Wright as Muddy Waters.

It's probably a misnomer to call the two pictures rivals, since "Who Do You Love," despite earning some good notices in Toronto, remains a long shot to land a theatrical release. "Cadillac Records" will be out in 800 theaters, with a Beyonce single and a soundtrack to help attract attention. Still, the question remains--what are the odds of two 1950s blues movies being made at the same time?

The answer, as always, is that making a movie isn't exactly a rational decision--passion trumps pragmatism. Neither film came out of today's increasingly timid studio system, which wouldn't dream of risking any loot on such obscure subject matter. "Cadillac Records" was championed by Lack, the former head of NBC News who ran Sony Music before being kicked upstairs after its BMG merger. According to Sondervan, Lack's family is from the Mississippi Delta, where he grew up listening to the blues, which gave him a strong interest in the story. "Who Do You Love" was financed by Jonathan Mitchell, a wealthy real estate developer with a love for the blues and directed by Jerry Zaks, who remembers singing to R&B records as a boy in his family basement.

"I was always drawn to black music," recalls Zaks, a four-time Tony Award-winning Broadway theater  director. "When I was in fifth grade, I was convinced I was Marvin Gaye. I'd put on the records I loved, everything from Gaye and Johnny Nash to Muddy Waters and Bo Diddley, and sing to the records in front of the mirror. I think that music had a powerful impact on a whole generation of kids."

But those kids are all nearing retirement age today and not especially regular moviegoers. So who's going to turn out for these films? When I asked Sondervan what made her think a blues movie could make a dent in today's marketplace, she offered an honest answer. "I don't really know," she said. "All I know is that Beyonce has a huge young following and a lot of people will come see the movie just because she's in it." She added that Beyonce has designed a clothing line of dresses inspired by the fashions in the film that are being launched later this fall at Bloomingdale's. "All the young people we've shown the film to really loved it," she says. "The blues is coming back. It's getting played at a lot of trendy restaurants, so there's a lot of new awareness out there."

Hhmm. Like I said, making movies isn't always a rational decision. Will Beyonce fans want to see her as a troubled '50s blues diva? Angelina Jolie fans do show up when she's trading gunfire with Brad Pitt, but they didn't bother to come when she played Mariane Pearl in "A Mighty Heart." And George Clooney fans, who loved him in "Oceans Eleven," turned up their noses at "Leatherheads" and "The Good German."

Music biopics have a pretty spotty track record. Taylor Hackford's "Ray" was a surprise hit (though it was also independently financed outside the studio system). But "She's Not There," Todd Haynes' impressionistic Bob Dylan biopic, never found an audience, despite a raft of rave reviews. Even "Dreamgirls," the Bill Condon film loosely based on the Supremes, was a box-office disappointment.

The real challenge for films that re-create the lives of real characters is--how true to life are they? Sony hasn't screened "Cadillac Records" yet, but the person who knows the story best of all--Leonard's son, Marshall Chess, who served as a technical consultant on both projects--says both movies took some dramatic liberties with many of the characters' personal lives. Which film took the most liberties? Which actor came the closest to capturing his real-life character? And which movie ended up cutting Chuck Berry entirely out of the story? We'll have Part 2 of our post up soon, so stay tuned.

Photo: Beyonce Knowles as Etta James in "Cadillac Records": photo credit: Eric Liebowitz

The one thing you can count on in Hollywood is that when a studio makes a sudden or unexpected decision, it is almost guaranteed that the official reason for the move is a smoke screen for what's really going on. I'm guessing that's the case with Paramount's surprise announcement late Thursday that it's knocking "The Soloist" out of the awards season scrum, "dashing any hopes," to use Variety's melodramatic phrase, for the film to win any Academy Award accolades in 2008. The film is of particular interest to those of us here at the LA Times, since it is based on a series of gripping columns by our own Steve Lopez about his relationship with a homeless musician grappling with schizophrenia.

The film, which stars Robert Downey Jr. as Lopez and Jamie Foxx as the musician, was slated for release Nov. 21st, a prime slot for a potential year-end Oscar campaign. The film, produced by Dreamworks and co-financed by Participant Media and Universal's Working Title, has now been bumped to March 13th, 2009. Why? According to a story in the LA Times, Paramount executives said the current economic collapse "might have made November an awkward time to release a movie about homelessness."

That's the kind of whopper you'd only hear in Hollywood. I think the appropriate response to that would be--when exactly would be a good time to release a film about homelessness? Halloween? The Fourth of July? Having read the script and seen the film being shot, I'm guessing that only a studio disguising its real motives would call "The Soloist" a film about homelessness, when in fact, it's a male-bonding love story about a crusading newspaper reporter and a musician with a troubled soul.

Paramount apparently told its partners, as well as top CAA brass, who represent most of the talent on the picture, that the studio was under pressure from Viacom superiors to cut costs, having recently acknowledged that it was thinning out its future release schedule. With even Sumner Redstone being forced to sell stock to keep his investments afloat, the studio was forced to take drastic measures. With four potential Oscar movies slated for year-end release, something had to give. It certainly wasn't going to be "The Curious Case of Benjamin Button," an expensive and much-anticipated Brad Pitt and David Fincher collaboration that studio chief Brad Grey has already publicly embraced as his ticket to a front-row seat Feb. 22nd at the Kodak Theater. And it certainly wasn't going to be "Revolutionary Road," a Scott Rudin-produced literary drama with a star too big to offend (Leonardo DiCaprio) and the kind of rarified subject matter that desperately needs Oscar buzz to sell tickets.

That left the studio's Ed Zwick-directed drama, "Defiance," which is a long-shot for Oscars, but still enough of a contender that while it's being pushed back to late December, is still getting an Oscar qualifying run before going wide in January. That made "The Soloist" the low man on the totem pole, since it conceivably has enough commercial potential to make a dent at the box office in the spring without the benefit of any Oscar coattails. Since the film was produced by Dreamworks, which just concluded an ugly divorce with Paramount, the inside chatter has focused on the idea that Paramount is somehow punishing Dreamworks by robbing the departing Spielberg team of any Oscar glory.

If anyone at Variety actually asked Paramount about all these complicated twists and turns involving "The Soloist," they didn't bother to mention it in their story, which credulously quotes Paramount vice chairman Rob Moore as simply saying "We decided it's a commercial movie that will play well in the spring." Like I said, studio executives almost never give the real reason for their moves. If they did, Paramount would acknowledge the obvious: These moves aren't so much about saving money--which is small potatoes in terms of the giant outlays studio make these days--as focusing the studio's marketing machinery on its biggest potential cash cow.

Even though it co-financed the film with Warners, Paramount has a huge bet down on "Benjamin Button," which is the one movie here that could be both an enormous commercial and critical hit. The studio has clearly decided to clear the decks. It can't do anything about potential Oscar rivals from other studios, but it doesn't want to compete with itself. My guess is that the studio is being uncharacteristically pragmatic. In an era where studios release all their quality films in the same 10 week time period--I call it the Oscar demolition derby--Paramount has decided to create some breathing room for its strongest contender. Only in Oscar-crazed Hollywood, where everyone lives and dies by awards glory, is the decision to move a quality movie to the spring viewed as an ignominious death sentence. If "The Soloist" gets a good reception in March, it will survive and flourish. I wish some of the industry's hand-ringers would realize there is actually life after the Oscars.

My colleague John Horn has a story in Thursday's Calendar section that grapples with the always touchy question--why do white moviegoers shy away from movies with largely African American casts? "Amistad," Steven Spielberg's 1997 slavery epic, was his lowest-grossing movie in 20 years. Even "Ray," Taylor Hackford's Oscar-nominated musical biography of Ray Charles, drew an overwhelmingly black audience.

Will the same thing happen to "The Secret Life of Bees," a highbrow literary adaptation from an African American filmmaker (Gina Prince-Bythewood) that features a largely black female cast (Queen Latifah, Jennifer Hudson and Alicia Keys)? The film, distributed by Fox Searchlight, is going wide Friday in nearly 1,600 theaters, which means it will be playing in both suburban and urban neighborhoods. The book had a large white female following, but according to Horn, research shows that black moviegoers are showing roughly twice as much interest in seeing the film as whites.

Horn raises an intriguing political parallel:

"Pundits and election strategists have been deliberating feverishly whether white voters who tell interviewers they intend to vote for Sen. Barack Obama for president will really do so once they enter the polling booth. While the discrepancy known as the Bradley effect (named after former Los Angeles mayor Tom Bradley's 1982 loss in the California gubernatorial election, in which he consistently led in polling) may prove to be a minor factor in the year's presidential race, it is still a prominent concern within Hollywood, as movies made by and with African Americans often struggle to attract white supporters, both at the box office and within the studio's executive offices."

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.

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.

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.

"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.

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    

After an early screening of "Who Do You Love," one of the--count 'em--two new movies about 1950s powerhouse blues label Chess Records, a pair of women sought out Marshall Chess, whose dad, Leonard, was the driving force behind the record label. They were puzzled about one of the key story lines in the film. "Did your mother and father really make up after your father had that torrid affair with that beautiful singer?" one of them asked.

Marshall rolled his eyes. "No, they didn't make up," he said, "because there never was an affair. The filmmakers made that part up." When it comes to making movies about real-life people, Hollywood rarely lets the truth get in the way of a good story. No one knows that better now that Marshall Chess, who served as a technical consultant on the two competing Chess Records films, but discovered that while the actors and filmmakers were happy to listen to his recollections, it hardly meant that they would stick to the truth when it came time to film his family's story. Marshall knows the story intimately, having been behind the bar at his father's nightclub as a boy, seen his father hustle DJs on road tours and worked at Chess Records as a teenager.

He's delighted to see two films dramatizing his family history, but he's ambivalent about the results. "I guess I have a love-hate relationship with the movies," he told me recently. "They capture the spirit and the music wonderfully, but the truth isn't always there." He's especially upset over how "Cadillac Records," a film that stars Beyonce as Etta James and Oscar-winner Adrien Brody as Leonard Chess, cuts Leonard's brother, Phil, the co-founder of the record company, entirely out of the movie.

"It's a horrible distortion of history," says Marshall. "They started the company together. My uncle Phil was there every day. He recorded a lot of the best music we did. It wouldn't have happened without him and it's a real insult to our family. When I asked the producers, they simply said his character didn't work [in the script], so they cut him out."

When it comes to cutting people out of the Chess story, the rival "Who Do You Love" film has its own issues. The biggest-selling artist in Chess history is Chuck Berry, but his character was cut out of the movie. Why? Because the filmmakers couldn't make a deal for the rights to his music. The film's producer, Les Alexander, explains: "We made Chuck a spectacularly generous offer, but he wouldn't let us have anything. Our director, Jerry Zaks, even sent him a genuine fan note, saying how much his music meant to him. But it didn't matter--the answer was no."

Berry, who is still active as a touring act, is notoriously difficult when it comes to business matters. When Taylor Hackford, who directed the wonderful Berry concert film "Hail! Hail! Rock and Roll," recently ran into the performer, the first words out of Berry's mouth were, "You still owe me money." Mos Def plays Berry in "Cadillac Records," which managed to acquire some Berry songs that are owned by Marshall Chess. But dealing with Berry was so unbelievably arduous that when I asked the film's producer, Sofia Sondervan, about working with him, she replied in a hushed tone: "I can't talk about it. I can't say anything about Chuck Berry at all."

The "Who Do You Love" filmmakers defend their decision to show Leonard having an affair with a Chess artist who is clearly based on Etta James. "The question you always ask yourself is--are you illuminating who they were or are you assassinating their character?" says Zaks. "For me, the affair represents part of the seduction of success, which is a big part of the conflict in the movie's story. We did our own research and it seems evident that Leonard was a womanizer. Even his brother Phil says he had numerous affairs."

The filmmakers had less leeway in portraying Willie Dixon, the now-deceased songwriter (played by Chi McBride) who wrote most of Chess' biggest hits. Producer Les Alexander says, "We were prohibited by his estate as portraying him as someone who drank or smoked or sweared." Nonetheless, the film shows Dixon having two wives, who begrudgingly share his time together. "The estate didn't prohibit that," Alexander says.

Both films depict Chess giving his top artists a Cadillac after they had big chart-topping hits. It's a way for the films to capture the back-door way business was handled in the early days of the record industry, since the artists rarely realized that the expense of buying a Cadillac was deducted from their royalty statements. Marshall says it was a pragmatic way to reward a top artist, noting that few of the bluesmen had bank accounts at the time. "Getting a Cadillac in those days was a top of the line thing to have," he explains. "My father bought a new Cadillac every year too, because he was just like his artists--he wanted people to know he was a successful man."

Marshall laughs. "I guess he'd be happy to see two movies coming out about him at the same time. He'd definitely consider that a symbol of success too."

When I was a kid, I spent a lot of time in Chicago, home of two great baseball teams, a host of colorful politicians and the best blues in the world. Back in the day, you weren't anyone in the blues world unless you were signed to Chess Records, the label that made stars out of a generation of rough and tumble musicians, notably Muddy Waters, Little Walter, Willie Dixon and Howlin' Wolf.

So when I was at the recent Toronto Film Festival, I made a point of seeing "Who Do You Love," which stars Alessandro Nivola and Jon Abrahams as Leonard and Phil Chess, two hard-nosed immigrant entrepreneurs who ended up creating Chess Records, the 1950s record label that popularized urban blues and later, with the arrival of Chuck Berry and Bo Diddley, ushered in a brash new form of rock 'n' roll that was adopted by the Rolling Stones, the Beatles and thousands of other young white rock artists.

After the screening, I ran into a film executive, who whispered in my ear, "Do you know that there's another one?" Puzzled, I said, "Another what?" He laughed. "Another movie about Chess Records."

I really thought he was joking, but it's true. Against all odds and sound commercial judgment, the same crazy movie business that once made two asteroid movies and two movies about Truman Capote has now made two movies about the obscure icons of 1950s Chicago blues. What are the odds?

The second Chess film, made by Sony BMG Films, is "Cadillac Records," which will be released Dec. 5 through Sony's TriStar Pictures. Produced by Sofia Sondervan and Andy Lack, Sony BMG's former chairman (who just took a new job running Bloomberg's multimedia operations), the film has considerably more star power than its rival, featuring Beyonce Knowles as Chess' top songstress, Etta James; Adrien Brody as Leonard Chess; Mos Def as Chuck Berry; and Jeffrey Wright as Muddy Waters.

It's probably a misnomer to call the two pictures rivals, since "Who Do You Love," despite earning some good notices in Toronto, remains a long shot to land a theatrical release. "Cadillac Records" will be out in 800 theaters, with a Beyonce single and a soundtrack to help attract attention. Still, the question remains--what are the odds of two 1950s blues movies being made at the same time?

The answer, as always, is that making a movie isn't exactly a rational decision--passion trumps pragmatism. Neither film came out of today's increasingly timid studio system, which wouldn't dream of risking any loot on such obscure subject matter. "Cadillac Records" was championed by Lack, the former head of NBC News who ran Sony Music before being kicked upstairs after its BMG merger. According to Sondervan, Lack's family is from the Mississippi Delta, where he grew up listening to the blues, which gave him a strong interest in the story. "Who Do You Love" was financed by Jonathan Mitchell, a wealthy real estate developer with a love for the blues and directed by Jerry Zaks, who remembers singing to R&B records as a boy in his family basement.

"I was always drawn to black music," recalls Zaks, a four-time Tony Award-winning Broadway theater  director. "When I was in fifth grade, I was convinced I was Marvin Gaye. I'd put on the records I loved, everything from Gaye and Johnny Nash to Muddy Waters and Bo Diddley, and sing to the records in front of the mirror. I think that music had a powerful impact on a whole generation of kids."

But those kids are all nearing retirement age today and not especially regular moviegoers. So who's going to turn out for these films? When I asked Sondervan what made her think a blues movie could make a dent in today's marketplace, she offered an honest answer. "I don't really know," she said. "All I know is that Beyonce has a huge young following and a lot of people will come see the movie just because she's in it." She added that Beyonce has designed a clothing line of dresses inspired by the fashions in the film that are being launched later this fall at Bloomingdale's. "All the young people we've shown the film to really loved it," she says. "The blues is coming back. It's getting played at a lot of trendy restaurants, so there's a lot of new awareness out there."

Hhmm. Like I said, making movies isn't always a rational decision. Will Beyonce fans want to see her as a troubled '50s blues diva? Angelina Jolie fans do show up when she's trading gunfire with Brad Pitt, but they didn't bother to come when she played Mariane Pearl in "A Mighty Heart." And George Clooney fans, who loved him in "Oceans Eleven," turned up their noses at "Leatherheads" and "The Good German."

Music biopics have a pretty spotty track record. Taylor Hackford's "Ray" was a surprise hit (though it was also independently financed outside the studio system). But "She's Not There," Todd Haynes' impressionistic Bob Dylan biopic, never found an audience, despite a raft of rave reviews. Even "Dreamgirls," the Bill Condon film loosely based on the Supremes, was a box-office disappointment.

The real challenge for films that re-create the lives of real characters is--how true to life are they? Sony hasn't screened "Cadillac Records" yet, but the person who knows the story best of all--Leonard's son, Marshall Chess, who served as a technical consultant on both projects--says both movies took some dramatic liberties with many of the characters' personal lives. Which film took the most liberties? Which actor came the closest to capturing his real-life character? And which movie ended up cutting Chuck Berry entirely out of the story? We'll have Part 2 of our post up soon, so stay tuned.

Photo: Beyonce Knowles as Etta James in "Cadillac Records": photo credit: Eric Liebowitz

The one thing you can count on in Hollywood is that when a studio makes a sudden or unexpected decision, it is almost guaranteed that the official reason for the move is a smoke screen for what's really going on. I'm guessing that's the case with Paramount's surprise announcement late Thursday that it's knocking "The Soloist" out of the awards season scrum, "dashing any hopes," to use Variety's melodramatic phrase, for the film to win any Academy Award accolades in 2008. The film is of particular interest to those of us here at the LA Times, since it is based on a series of gripping columns by our own Steve Lopez about his relationship with a homeless musician grappling with schizophrenia.

The film, which stars Robert Downey Jr. as Lopez and Jamie Foxx as the musician, was slated for release Nov. 21st, a prime slot for a potential year-end Oscar campaign. The film, produced by Dreamworks and co-financed by Participant Media and Universal's Working Title, has now been bumped to March 13th, 2009. Why? According to a story in the LA Times, Paramount executives said the current economic collapse "might have made November an awkward time to release a movie about homelessness."

That's the kind of whopper you'd only hear in Hollywood. I think the appropriate response to that would be--when exactly would be a good time to release a film about homelessness? Halloween? The Fourth of July? Having read the script and seen the film being shot, I'm guessing that only a studio disguising its real motives would call "The Soloist" a film about homelessness, when in fact, it's a male-bonding love story about a crusading newspaper reporter and a musician with a troubled soul.

Paramount apparently told its partners, as well as top CAA brass, who represent most of the talent on the picture, that the studio was under pressure from Viacom superiors to cut costs, having recently acknowledged that it was thinning out its future release schedule. With even Sumner Redstone being forced to sell stock to keep his investments afloat, the studio was forced to take drastic measures. With four potential Oscar movies slated for year-end release, something had to give. It certainly wasn't going to be "The Curious Case of Benjamin Button," an expensive and much-anticipated Brad Pitt and David Fincher collaboration that studio chief Brad Grey has already publicly embraced as his ticket to a front-row seat Feb. 22nd at the Kodak Theater. And it certainly wasn't going to be "Revolutionary Road," a Scott Rudin-produced literary drama with a star too big to offend (Leonardo DiCaprio) and the kind of rarified subject matter that desperately needs Oscar buzz to sell tickets.

That left the studio's Ed Zwick-directed drama, "Defiance," which is a long-shot for Oscars, but still enough of a contender that while it's being pushed back to late December, is still getting an Oscar qualifying run before going wide in January. That made "The Soloist" the low man on the totem pole, since it conceivably has enough commercial potential to make a dent at the box office in the spring without the benefit of any Oscar coattails. Since the film was produced by Dreamworks, which just concluded an ugly divorce with Paramount, the inside chatter has focused on the idea that Paramount is somehow punishing Dreamworks by robbing the departing Spielberg team of any Oscar glory.

If anyone at Variety actually asked Paramount about all these complicated twists and turns involving "The Soloist," they didn't bother to mention it in their story, which credulously quotes Paramount vice chairman Rob Moore as simply saying "We decided it's a commercial movie that will play well in the spring." Like I said, studio executives almost never give the real reason for their moves. If they did, Paramount would acknowledge the obvious: These moves aren't so much about saving money--which is small potatoes in terms of the giant outlays studio make these days--as focusing the studio's marketing machinery on its biggest potential cash cow.

Even though it co-financed the film with Warners, Paramount has a huge bet down on "Benjamin Button," which is the one movie here that could be both an enormous commercial and critical hit. The studio has clearly decided to clear the decks. It can't do anything about potential Oscar rivals from other studios, but it doesn't want to compete with itself. My guess is that the studio is being uncharacteristically pragmatic. In an era where studios release all their quality films in the same 10 week time period--I call it the Oscar demolition derby--Paramount has decided to create some breathing room for its strongest contender. Only in Oscar-crazed Hollywood, where everyone lives and dies by awards glory, is the decision to move a quality movie to the spring viewed as an ignominious death sentence. If "The Soloist" gets a good reception in March, it will survive and flourish. I wish some of the industry's hand-ringers would realize there is actually life after the Oscars.

My colleague John Horn has a story in Thursday's Calendar section that grapples with the always touchy question--why do white moviegoers shy away from movies with largely African American casts? "Amistad," Steven Spielberg's 1997 slavery epic, was his lowest-grossing movie in 20 years. Even "Ray," Taylor Hackford's Oscar-nominated musical biography of Ray Charles, drew an overwhelmingly black audience.

Will the same thing happen to "The Secret Life of Bees," a highbrow literary adaptation from an African American filmmaker (Gina Prince-Bythewood) that features a largely black female cast (Queen Latifah, Jennifer Hudson and Alicia Keys)? The film, distributed by Fox Searchlight, is going wide Friday in nearly 1,600 theaters, which means it will be playing in both suburban and urban neighborhoods. The book had a large white female following, but according to Horn, research shows that black moviegoers are showing roughly twice as much interest in seeing the film as whites.

Horn raises an intriguing political parallel:

"Pundits and election strategists have been deliberating feverishly whether white voters who tell interviewers they intend to vote for Sen. Barack Obama for president will really do so once they enter the polling booth. While the discrepancy known as the Bradley effect (named after former Los Angeles mayor Tom Bradley's 1982 loss in the California gubernatorial election, in which he consistently led in polling) may prove to be a minor factor in the year's presidential race, it is still a prominent concern within Hollywood, as movies made by and with African Americans often struggle to attract white supporters, both at the box office and within the studio's executive offices."

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.

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.

"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.

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    

After an early screening of "Who Do You Love," one of the--count 'em--two new movies about 1950s powerhouse blues label Chess Records, a pair of women sought out Marshall Chess, whose dad, Leonard, was the driving force behind the record label. They were puzzled about one of the key story lines in the film. "Did your mother and father really make up after your father had that torrid affair with that beautiful singer?" one of them asked.

Marshall rolled his eyes. "No, they didn't make up," he said, "because there never was an affair. The filmmakers made that part up." When it comes to making movies about real-life people, Hollywood rarely lets the truth get in the way of a good story. No one knows that better now that Marshall Chess, who served as a technical consultant on the two competing Chess Records films, but discovered that while the actors and filmmakers were happy to listen to his recollections, it hardly meant that they would stick to the truth when it came time to film his family's story. Marshall knows the story intimately, having been behind the bar at his father's nightclub as a boy, seen his father hustle DJs on road tours and worked at Chess Records as a teenager.

He's delighted to see two films dramatizing his family history, but he's ambivalent about the results. "I guess I have a love-hate relationship with the movies," he told me recently. "They capture the spirit and the music wonderfully, but the truth isn't always there." He's especially upset over how "Cadillac Records," a film that stars Beyonce as Etta James and Oscar-winner Adrien Brody as Leonard Chess, cuts Leonard's brother, Phil, the co-founder of the record company, entirely out of the movie.

"It's a horrible distortion of history," says Marshall. "They started the company together. My uncle Phil was there every day. He recorded a lot of the best music we did. It wouldn't have happened without him and it's a real insult to our family. When I asked the producers, they simply said his character didn't work [in the script], so they cut him out."

When it comes to cutting people out of the Chess story, the rival "Who Do You Love" film has its own issues. The biggest-selling artist in Chess history is Chuck Berry, but his character was cut out of the movie. Why? Because the filmmakers couldn't make a deal for the rights to his music. The film's producer, Les Alexander, explains: "We made Chuck a spectacularly generous offer, but he wouldn't let us have anything. Our director, Jerry Zaks, even sent him a genuine fan note, saying how much his music meant to him. But it didn't matter--the answer was no."

Berry, who is still active as a touring act, is notoriously difficult when it comes to business matters. When Taylor Hackford, who directed the wonderful Berry concert film "Hail! Hail! Rock and Roll," recently ran into the performer, the first words out of Berry's mouth were, "You still owe me money." Mos Def plays Berry in "Cadillac Records," which managed to acquire some Berry songs that are owned by Marshall Chess. But dealing with Berry was so unbelievably arduous that when I asked the film's producer, Sofia Sondervan, about working with him, she replied in a hushed tone: "I can't talk about it. I can't say anything about Chuck Berry at all."

The "Who Do You Love" filmmakers defend their decision to show Leonard having an affair with a Chess artist who is clearly based on Etta James. "The question you always ask yourself is--are you illuminating who they were or are you assassinating their character?" says Zaks. "For me, the affair represents part of the seduction of success, which is a big part of the conflict in the movie's story. We did our own research and it seems evident that Leonard was a womanizer. Even his brother Phil says he had numerous affairs."

The filmmakers had less leeway in portraying Willie Dixon, the now-deceased songwriter (played by Chi McBride) who wrote most of Chess' biggest hits. Producer Les Alexander says, "We were prohibited by his estate as portraying him as someone who drank or smoked or sweared." Nonetheless, the film shows Dixon having two wives, who begrudgingly share his time together. "The estate didn't prohibit that," Alexander says.

Both films depict Chess giving his top artists a Cadillac after they had big chart-topping hits. It's a way for the films to capture the back-door way business was handled in the early days of the record industry, since the artists rarely realized that the expense of buying a Cadillac was deducted from their royalty statements. Marshall says it was a pragmatic way to reward a top artist, noting that few of the bluesmen had bank accounts at the time. "Getting a Cadillac in those days was a top of the line thing to have," he explains. "My father bought a new Cadillac every year too, because he was just like his artists--he wanted people to know he was a successful man."

Marshall laughs. "I guess he'd be happy to see two movies coming out about him at the same time. He'd definitely consider that a symbol of success too."

When I was a kid, I spent a lot of time in Chicago, home of two great baseball teams, a host of colorful politicians and the best blues in the world. Back in the day, you weren't anyone in the blues world unless you were signed to Chess Records, the label that made stars out of a generation of rough and tumble musicians, notably Muddy Waters, Little Walter, Willie Dixon and Howlin' Wolf.

So when I was at the recent Toronto Film Festival, I made a point of seeing "Who Do You Love," which stars Alessandro Nivola and Jon Abrahams as Leonard and Phil Chess, two hard-nosed immigrant entrepreneurs who ended up creating Chess Records, the 1950s record label that popularized urban blues and later, with the arrival of Chuck Berry and Bo Diddley, ushered in a brash new form of rock 'n' roll that was adopted by the Rolling Stones, the Beatles and thousands of other young white rock artists.

After the screening, I ran into a film executive, who whispered in my ear, "Do you know that there's another one?" Puzzled, I said, "Another what?" He laughed. "Another movie about Chess Records."

I really thought he was joking, but it's true. Against all odds and sound commercial judgment, the same crazy movie business that once made two asteroid movies and two movies about Truman Capote has now made two movies about the obscure icons of 1950s Chicago blues. What are the odds?

The second Chess film, made by Sony BMG Films, is "Cadillac Records," which will be released Dec. 5 through Sony's TriStar Pictures. Produced by Sofia Sondervan and Andy Lack, Sony BMG's former chairman (who just took a new job running Bloomberg's multimedia operations), the film has considerably more star power than its rival, featuring Beyonce Knowles as Chess' top songstress, Etta James; Adrien Brody as Leonard Chess; Mos Def as Chuck Berry; and Jeffrey Wright as Muddy Waters.

It's probably a misnomer to call the two pictures rivals, since "Who Do You Love," despite earning some good notices in Toronto, remains a long shot to land a theatrical release. "Cadillac Records" will be out in 800 theaters, with a Beyonce single and a soundtrack to help attract attention. Still, the question remains--what are the odds of two 1950s blues movies being made at the same time?

The answer, as always, is that making a movie isn't exactly a rational decision--passion trumps pragmatism. Neither film came out of today's increasingly timid studio system, which wouldn't dream of risking any loot on such obscure subject matter. "Cadillac Records" was championed by Lack, the former head of NBC News who ran Sony Music before being kicked upstairs after its BMG merger. According to Sondervan, Lack's family is from the Mississippi Delta, where he grew up listening to the blues, which gave him a strong interest in the story. "Who Do You Love" was financed by Jonathan Mitchell, a wealthy real estate developer with a love for the blues and directed by Jerry Zaks, who remembers singing to R&B records as a boy in his family basement.

"I was always drawn to black music," recalls Zaks, a four-time Tony Award-winning Broadway theater  director. "When I was in fifth grade, I was convinced I was Marvin Gaye. I'd put on the records I loved, everything from Gaye and Johnny Nash to Muddy Waters and Bo Diddley, and sing to the records in front of the mirror. I think that music had a powerful impact on a whole generation of kids."

But those kids are all nearing retirement age today and not especially regular moviegoers. So who's going to turn out for these films? When I asked Sondervan what made her think a blues movie could make a dent in today's marketplace, she offered an honest answer. "I don't really know," she said. "All I know is that Beyonce has a huge young following and a lot of people will come see the movie just because she's in it." She added that Beyonce has designed a clothing line of dresses inspired by the fashions in the film that are being launched later this fall at Bloomingdale's. "All the young people we've shown the film to really loved it," she says. "The blues is coming back. It's getting played at a lot of trendy restaurants, so there's a lot of new awareness out there."

Hhmm. Like I said, making movies isn't always a rational decision. Will Beyonce fans want to see her as a troubled '50s blues diva? Angelina Jolie fans do show up when she's trading gunfire with Brad Pitt, but they didn't bother to come when she played Mariane Pearl in "A Mighty Heart." And George Clooney fans, who loved him in "Oceans Eleven," turned up their noses at "Leatherheads" and "The Good German."

Music biopics have a pretty spotty track record. Taylor Hackford's "Ray" was a surprise hit (though it was also independently financed outside the studio system). But "She's Not There," Todd Haynes' impressionistic Bob Dylan biopic, never found an audience, despite a raft of rave reviews. Even "Dreamgirls," the Bill Condon film loosely based on the Supremes, was a box-office disappointment.

The real challenge for films that re-create the lives of real characters is--how true to life are they? Sony hasn't screened "Cadillac Records" yet, but the person who knows the story best of all--Leonard's son, Marshall Chess, who served as a technical consultant on both projects--says both movies took some dramatic liberties with many of the characters' personal lives. Which film took the most liberties? Which actor came the closest to capturing his real-life character? And which movie ended up cutting Chuck Berry entirely out of the story? We'll have Part 2 of our post up soon, so stay tuned.

Photo: Beyonce Knowles as Etta James in "Cadillac Records": photo credit: Eric Liebowitz

The one thing you can count on in Hollywood is that when a studio makes a sudden or unexpected decision, it is almost guaranteed that the official reason for the move is a smoke screen for what's really going on. I'm guessing that's the case with Paramount's surprise announcement late Thursday that it's knocking "The Soloist" out of the awards season scrum, "dashing any hopes," to use Variety's melodramatic phrase, for the film to win any Academy Award accolades in 2008. The film is of particular interest to those of us here at the LA Times, since it is based on a series of gripping columns by our own Steve Lopez about his relationship with a homeless musician grappling with schizophrenia.

The film, which stars Robert Downey Jr. as Lopez and Jamie Foxx as the musician, was slated for release Nov. 21st, a prime slot for a potential year-end Oscar campaign. The film, produced by Dreamworks and co-financed by Participant Media and Universal's Working Title, has now been bumped to March 13th, 2009. Why? According to a story in the LA Times, Paramount executives said the current economic collapse "might have made November an awkward time to release a movie about homelessness."

That's the kind of whopper you'd only hear in Hollywood. I think the appropriate response to that would be--when exactly would be a good time to release a film about homelessness? Halloween? The Fourth of July? Having read the script and seen the film being shot, I'm guessing that only a studio disguising its real motives would call "The Soloist" a film about homelessness, when in fact, it's a male-bonding love story about a crusading newspaper reporter and a musician with a troubled soul.

Paramount apparently told its partners, as well as top CAA brass, who represent most of the talent on the picture, that the studio was under pressure from Viacom superiors to cut costs, having recently acknowledged that it was thinning out its future release schedule. With even Sumner Redstone being forced to sell stock to keep his investments afloat, the studio was forced to take drastic measures. With four potential Oscar movies slated for year-end release, something had to give. It certainly wasn't going to be "The Curious Case of Benjamin Button," an expensive and much-anticipated Brad Pitt and David Fincher collaboration that studio chief Brad Grey has already publicly embraced as his ticket to a front-row seat Feb. 22nd at the Kodak Theater. And it certainly wasn't going to be "Revolutionary Road," a Scott Rudin-produced literary drama with a star too big to offend (Leonardo DiCaprio) and the kind of rarified subject matter that desperately needs Oscar buzz to sell tickets.

That left the studio's Ed Zwick-directed drama, "Defiance," which is a long-shot for Oscars, but still enough of a contender that while it's being pushed back to late December, is still getting an Oscar qualifying run before going wide in January. That made "The Soloist" the low man on the totem pole, since it conceivably has enough commercial potential to make a dent at the box office in the spring without the benefit of any Oscar coattails. Since the film was produced by Dreamworks, which just concluded an ugly divorce with Paramount, the inside chatter has focused on the idea that Paramount is somehow punishing Dreamworks by robbing the departing Spielberg team of any Oscar glory.

If anyone at Variety actually asked Paramount about all these complicated twists and turns involving "The Soloist," they didn't bother to mention it in their story, which credulously quotes Paramount vice chairman Rob Moore as simply saying "We decided it's a commercial movie that will play well in the spring." Like I said, studio executives almost never give the real reason for their moves. If they did, Paramount would acknowledge the obvious: These moves aren't so much about saving money--which is small potatoes in terms of the giant outlays studio make these days--as focusing the studio's marketing machinery on its biggest potential cash cow.

Even though it co-financed the film with Warners, Paramount has a huge bet down on "Benjamin Button," which is the one movie here that could be both an enormous commercial and critical hit. The studio has clearly decided to clear the decks. It can't do anything about potential Oscar rivals from other studios, but it doesn't want to compete with itself. My guess is that the studio is being uncharacteristically pragmatic. In an era where studios release all their quality films in the same 10 week time period--I call it the Oscar demolition derby--Paramount has decided to create some breathing room for its strongest contender. Only in Oscar-crazed Hollywood, where everyone lives and dies by awards glory, is the decision to move a quality movie to the spring viewed as an ignominious death sentence. If "The Soloist" gets a good reception in March, it will survive and flourish. I wish some of the industry's hand-ringers would realize there is actually life after the Oscars.

My colleague John Horn has a story in Thursday's Calendar section that grapples with the always touchy question--why do white moviegoers shy away from movies with largely African American casts? "Amistad," Steven Spielberg's 1997 slavery epic, was his lowest-grossing movie in 20 years. Even "Ray," Taylor Hackford's Oscar-nominated musical biography of Ray Charles, drew an overwhelmingly black audience.

Will the same thing happen to "The Secret Life of Bees," a highbrow literary adaptation from an African American filmmaker (Gina Prince-Bythewood) that features a largely black female cast (Queen Latifah, Jennifer Hudson and Alicia Keys)? The film, distributed by Fox Searchlight, is going wide Friday in nearly 1,600 theaters, which means it will be playing in both suburban and urban neighborhoods. The book had a large white female following, but according to Horn, research shows that black moviegoers are showing roughly twice as much interest in seeing the film as whites.

Horn raises an intriguing political parallel:

"Pundits and election strategists have been deliberating feverishly whether white voters who tell interviewers they intend to vote for Sen. Barack Obama for president will really do so once they enter the polling booth. While the discrepancy known as the Bradley effect (named after former Los Angeles mayor Tom Bradley's 1982 loss in the California gubernatorial election, in which he consistently led in polling) may prove to be a minor factor in the year's presidential race, it is still a prominent concern within Hollywood, as movies made by and with African Americans often struggle to attract white supporters, both at the box office and within the studio's executive offices."

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.

"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.

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    

After an early screening of "Who Do You Love," one of the--count 'em--two new movies about 1950s powerhouse blues label Chess Records, a pair of women sought out Marshall Chess, whose dad, Leonard, was the driving force behind the record label. They were puzzled about one of the key story lines in the film. "Did your mother and father really make up after your father had that torrid affair with that beautiful singer?" one of them asked.

Marshall rolled his eyes. "No, they didn't make up," he said, "because there never was an affair. The filmmakers made that part up." When it comes to making movies about real-life people, Hollywood rarely lets the truth get in the way of a good story. No one knows that better now that Marshall Chess, who served as a technical consultant on the two competing Chess Records films, but discovered that while the actors and filmmakers were happy to listen to his recollections, it hardly meant that they would stick to the truth when it came time to film his family's story. Marshall knows the story intimately, having been behind the bar at his father's nightclub as a boy, seen his father hustle DJs on road tours and worked at Chess Records as a teenager.

He's delighted to see two films dramatizing his family history, but he's ambivalent about the results. "I guess I have a love-hate relationship with the movies," he told me recently. "They capture the spirit and the music wonderfully, but the truth isn't always there." He's especially upset over how "Cadillac Records," a film that stars Beyonce as Etta James and Oscar-winner Adrien Brody as Leonard Chess, cuts Leonard's brother, Phil, the co-founder of the record company, entirely out of the movie.

"It's a horrible distortion of history," says Marshall. "They started the company together. My uncle Phil was there every day. He recorded a lot of the best music we did. It wouldn't have happened without him and it's a real insult to our family. When I asked the producers, they simply said his character didn't work [in the script], so they cut him out."

When it comes to cutting people out of the Chess story, the rival "Who Do You Love" film has its own issues. The biggest-selling artist in Chess history is Chuck Berry, but his character was cut out of the movie. Why? Because the filmmakers couldn't make a deal for the rights to his music. The film's producer, Les Alexander, explains: "We made Chuck a spectacularly generous offer, but he wouldn't let us have anything. Our director, Jerry Zaks, even sent him a genuine fan note, saying how much his music meant to him. But it didn't matter--the answer was no."

Berry, who is still active as a touring act, is notoriously difficult when it comes to business matters. When Taylor Hackford, who directed the wonderful Berry concert film "Hail! Hail! Rock and Roll," recently ran into the performer, the first words out of Berry's mouth were, "You still owe me money." Mos Def plays Berry in "Cadillac Records," which managed to acquire some Berry songs that are owned by Marshall Chess. But dealing with Berry was so unbelievably arduous that when I asked the film's producer, Sofia Sondervan, about working with him, she replied in a hushed tone: "I can't talk about it. I can't say anything about Chuck Berry at all."

The "Who Do You Love" filmmakers defend their decision to show Leonard having an affair with a Chess artist who is clearly based on Etta James. "The question you always ask yourself is--are you illuminating who they were or are you assassinating their character?" says Zaks. "For me, the affair represents part of the seduction of success, which is a big part of the conflict in the movie's story. We did our own research and it seems evident that Leonard was a womanizer. Even his brother Phil says he had numerous affairs."

The filmmakers had less leeway in portraying Willie Dixon, the now-deceased songwriter (played by Chi McBride) who wrote most of Chess' biggest hits. Producer Les Alexander says, "We were prohibited by his estate as portraying him as someone who drank or smoked or sweared." Nonetheless, the film shows Dixon having two wives, who begrudgingly share his time together. "The estate didn't prohibit that," Alexander says.

Both films depict Chess giving his top artists a Cadillac after they had big chart-topping hits. It's a way for the films to capture the back-door way business was handled in the early days of the record industry, since the artists rarely realized that the expense of buying a Cadillac was deducted from their royalty statements. Marshall says it was a pragmatic way to reward a top artist, noting that few of the bluesmen had bank accounts at the time. "Getting a Cadillac in those days was a top of the line thing to have," he explains. "My father bought a new Cadillac every year too, because he was just like his artists--he wanted people to know he was a successful man."

Marshall laughs. "I guess he'd be happy to see two movies coming out about him at the same time. He'd definitely consider that a symbol of success too."

When I was a kid, I spent a lot of time in Chicago, home of two great baseball teams, a host of colorful politicians and the best blues in the world. Back in the day, you weren't anyone in the blues world unless you were signed to Chess Records, the label that made stars out of a generation of rough and tumble musicians, notably Muddy Waters, Little Walter, Willie Dixon and Howlin' Wolf.

So when I was at the recent Toronto Film Festival, I made a point of seeing "Who Do You Love," which stars Alessandro Nivola and Jon Abrahams as Leonard and Phil Chess, two hard-nosed immigrant entrepreneurs who ended up creating Chess Records, the 1950s record label that popularized urban blues and later, with the arrival of Chuck Berry and Bo Diddley, ushered in a brash new form of rock 'n' roll that was adopted by the Rolling Stones, the Beatles and thousands of other young white rock artists.

After the screening, I ran into a film executive, who whispered in my ear, "Do you know that there's another one?" Puzzled, I said, "Another what?" He laughed. "Another movie about Chess Records."

I really thought he was joking, but it's true. Against all odds and sound commercial judgment, the same crazy movie business that once made two asteroid movies and two movies about Truman Capote has now made two movies about the obscure icons of 1950s Chicago blues. What are the odds?

The second Chess film, made by Sony BMG Films, is "Cadillac Records," which will be released Dec. 5 through Sony's TriStar Pictures. Produced by Sofia Sondervan and Andy Lack, Sony BMG's former chairman (who just took a new job running Bloomberg's multimedia operations), the film has considerably more star power than its rival, featuring Beyonce Knowles as Chess' top songstress, Etta James; Adrien Brody as Leonard Chess; Mos Def as Chuck Berry; and Jeffrey Wright as Muddy Waters.

It's probably a misnomer to call the two pictures rivals, since "Who Do You Love," despite earning some good notices in Toronto, remains a long shot to land a theatrical release. "Cadillac Records" will be out in 800 theaters, with a Beyonce single and a soundtrack to help attract attention. Still, the question remains--what are the odds of two 1950s blues movies being made at the same time?

The answer, as always, is that making a movie isn't exactly a rational decision--passion trumps pragmatism. Neither film came out of today's increasingly timid studio system, which wouldn't dream of risking any loot on such obscure subject matter. "Cadillac Records" was championed by Lack, the former head of NBC News who ran Sony Music before being kicked upstairs after its BMG merger. According to Sondervan, Lack's family is from the Mississippi Delta, where he grew up listening to the blues, which gave him a strong interest in the story. "Who Do You Love" was financed by Jonathan Mitchell, a wealthy real estate developer with a love for the blues and directed by Jerry Zaks, who remembers singing to R&B records as a boy in his family basement.

"I was always drawn to black music," recalls Zaks, a four-time Tony Award-winning Broadway theater  director. "When I was in fifth grade, I was convinced I was Marvin Gaye. I'd put on the records I loved, everything from Gaye and Johnny Nash to Muddy Waters and Bo Diddley, and sing to the records in front of the mirror. I think that music had a powerful impact on a whole generation of kids."

But those kids are all nearing retirement age today and not especially regular moviegoers. So who's going to turn out for these films? When I asked Sondervan what made her think a blues movie could make a dent in today's marketplace, she offered an honest answer. "I don't really know," she said. "All I know is that Beyonce has a huge young following and a lot of people will come see the movie just because she's in it." She added that Beyonce has designed a clothing line of dresses inspired by the fashions in the film that are being launched later this fall at Bloomingdale's. "All the young people we've shown the film to really loved it," she says. "The blues is coming back. It's getting played at a lot of trendy restaurants, so there's a lot of new awareness out there."

Hhmm. Like I said, making movies isn't always a rational decision. Will Beyonce fans want to see her as a troubled '50s blues diva? Angelina Jolie fans do show up when she's trading gunfire with Brad Pitt, but they didn't bother to come when she played Mariane Pearl in "A Mighty Heart." And George Clooney fans, who loved him in "Oceans Eleven," turned up their noses at "Leatherheads" and "The Good German."

Music biopics have a pretty spotty track record. Taylor Hackford's "Ray" was a surprise hit (though it was also independently financed outside the studio system). But "She's Not There," Todd Haynes' impressionistic Bob Dylan biopic, never found an audience, despite a raft of rave reviews. Even "Dreamgirls," the Bill Condon film loosely based on the Supremes, was a box-office disappointment.

The real challenge for films that re-create the lives of real characters is--how true to life are they? Sony hasn't screened "Cadillac Records" yet, but the person who knows the story best of all--Leonard's son, Marshall Chess, who served as a technical consultant on both projects--says both movies took some dramatic liberties with many of the characters' personal lives. Which film took the most liberties? Which actor came the closest to capturing his real-life character? And which movie ended up cutting Chuck Berry entirely out of the story? We'll have Part 2 of our post up soon, so stay tuned.

Photo: Beyonce Knowles as Etta James in "Cadillac Records": photo credit: Eric Liebowitz

The one thing you can count on in Hollywood is that when a studio makes a sudden or unexpected decision, it is almost guaranteed that the official reason for the move is a smoke screen for what's really going on. I'm guessing that's the case with Paramount's surprise announcement late Thursday that it's knocking "The Soloist" out of the awards season scrum, "dashing any hopes," to use Variety's melodramatic phrase, for the film to win any Academy Award accolades in 2008. The film is of particular interest to those of us here at the LA Times, since it is based on a series of gripping columns by our own Steve Lopez about his relationship with a homeless musician grappling with schizophrenia.

The film, which stars Robert Downey Jr. as Lopez and Jamie Foxx as the musician, was slated for release Nov. 21st, a prime slot for a potential year-end Oscar campaign. The film, produced by Dreamworks and co-financed by Participant Media and Universal's Working Title, has now been bumped to March 13th, 2009. Why? According to a story in the LA Times, Paramount executives said the current economic collapse "might have made November an awkward time to release a movie about homelessness."

That's the kind of whopper you'd only hear in Hollywood. I think the appropriate response to that would be--when exactly would be a good time to release a film about homelessness? Halloween? The Fourth of July? Having read the script and seen the film being shot, I'm guessing that only a studio disguising its real motives would call "The Soloist" a film about homelessness, when in fact, it's a male-bonding love story about a crusading newspaper reporter and a musician with a troubled soul.

Paramount apparently told its partners, as well as top CAA brass, who represent most of the talent on the picture, that the studio was under pressure from Viacom superiors to cut costs, having recently acknowledged that it was thinning out its future release schedule. With even Sumner Redstone being forced to sell stock to keep his investments afloat, the studio was forced to take drastic measures. With four potential Oscar movies slated for year-end release, something had to give. It certainly wasn't going to be "The Curious Case of Benjamin Button," an expensive and much-anticipated Brad Pitt and David Fincher collaboration that studio chief Brad Grey has already publicly embraced as his ticket to a front-row seat Feb. 22nd at the Kodak Theater. And it certainly wasn't going to be "Revolutionary Road," a Scott Rudin-produced literary drama with a star too big to offend (Leonardo DiCaprio) and the kind of rarified subject matter that desperately needs Oscar buzz to sell tickets.

That left the studio's Ed Zwick-directed drama, "Defiance," which is a long-shot for Oscars, but still enough of a contender that while it's being pushed back to late December, is still getting an Oscar qualifying run before going wide in January. That made "The Soloist" the low man on the totem pole, since it conceivably has enough commercial potential to make a dent at the box office in the spring without the benefit of any Oscar coattails. Since the film was produced by Dreamworks, which just concluded an ugly divorce with Paramount, the inside chatter has focused on the idea that Paramount is somehow punishing Dreamworks by robbing the departing Spielberg team of any Oscar glory.

If anyone at Variety actually asked Paramount about all these complicated twists and turns involving "The Soloist," they didn't bother to mention it in their story, which credulously quotes Paramount vice chairman Rob Moore as simply saying "We decided it's a commercial movie that will play well in the spring." Like I said, studio executives almost never give the real reason for their moves. If they did, Paramount would acknowledge the obvious: These moves aren't so much about saving money--which is small potatoes in terms of the giant outlays studio make these days--as focusing the studio's marketing machinery on its biggest potential cash cow.

Even though it co-financed the film with Warners, Paramount has a huge bet down on "Benjamin Button," which is the one movie here that could be both an enormous commercial and critical hit. The studio has clearly decided to clear the decks. It can't do anything about potential Oscar rivals from other studios, but it doesn't want to compete with itself. My guess is that the studio is being uncharacteristically pragmatic. In an era where studios release all their quality films in the same 10 week time period--I call it the Oscar demolition derby--Paramount has decided to create some breathing room for its strongest contender. Only in Oscar-crazed Hollywood, where everyone lives and dies by awards glory, is the decision to move a quality movie to the spring viewed as an ignominious death sentence. If "The Soloist" gets a good reception in March, it will survive and flourish. I wish some of the industry's hand-ringers would realize there is actually life after the Oscars.

My colleague John Horn has a story in Thursday's Calendar section that grapples with the always touchy question--why do white moviegoers shy away from movies with largely African American casts? "Amistad," Steven Spielberg's 1997 slavery epic, was his lowest-grossing movie in 20 years. Even "Ray," Taylor Hackford's Oscar-nominated musical biography of Ray Charles, drew an overwhelmingly black audience.

Will the same thing happen to "The Secret Life of Bees," a highbrow literary adaptation from an African American filmmaker (Gina Prince-Bythewood) that features a largely black female cast (Queen Latifah, Jennifer Hudson and Alicia Keys)? The film, distributed by Fox Searchlight, is going wide Friday in nearly 1,600 theaters, which means it will be playing in both suburban and urban neighborhoods. The book had a large white female following, but according to Horn, research shows that black moviegoers are showing roughly twice as much interest in seeing the film as whites.

Horn raises an intriguing political parallel:

"Pundits and election strategists have been deliberating feverishly whether white voters who tell interviewers they intend to vote for Sen. Barack Obama for president will really do so once they enter the polling booth. While the discrepancy known as the Bradley effect (named after former Los Angeles mayor Tom Bradley's 1982 loss in the California gubernatorial election, in which he consistently led in polling) may prove to be a minor factor in the year's presidential race, it is still a prominent concern within Hollywood, as movies made by and with African Americans often struggle to attract white supporters, both at the box office and within the studio's executive offices."

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.

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    

After an early screening of "Who Do You Love," one of the--count 'em--two new movies about 1950s powerhouse blues label Chess Records, a pair of women sought out Marshall Chess, whose dad, Leonard, was the driving force behind the record label. They were puzzled about one of the key story lines in the film. "Did your mother and father really make up after your father had that torrid affair with that beautiful singer?" one of them asked.

Marshall rolled his eyes. "No, they didn't make up," he said, "because there never was an affair. The filmmakers made that part up." When it comes to making movies about real-life people, Hollywood rarely lets the truth get in the way of a good story. No one knows that better now that Marshall Chess, who served as a technical consultant on the two competing Chess Records films, but discovered that while the actors and filmmakers were happy to listen to his recollections, it hardly meant that they would stick to the truth when it came time to film his family's story. Marshall knows the story intimately, having been behind the bar at his father's nightclub as a boy, seen his father hustle DJs on road tours and worked at Chess Records as a teenager.

He's delighted to see two films dramatizing his family history, but he's ambivalent about the results. "I guess I have a love-hate relationship with the movies," he told me recently. "They capture the spirit and the music wonderfully, but the truth isn't always there." He's especially upset over how "Cadillac Records," a film that stars Beyonce as Etta James and Oscar-winner Adrien Brody as Leonard Chess, cuts Leonard's brother, Phil, the co-founder of the record company, entirely out of the movie.

"It's a horrible distortion of history," says Marshall. "They started the company together. My uncle Phil was there every day. He recorded a lot of the best music we did. It wouldn't have happened without him and it's a real insult to our family. When I asked the producers, they simply said his character didn't work [in the script], so they cut him out."

When it comes to cutting people out of the Chess story, the rival "Who Do You Love" film has its own issues. The biggest-selling artist in Chess history is Chuck Berry, but his character was cut out of the movie. Why? Because the filmmakers couldn't make a deal for the rights to his music. The film's producer, Les Alexander, explains: "We made Chuck a spectacularly generous offer, but he wouldn't let us have anything. Our director, Jerry Zaks, even sent him a genuine fan note, saying how much his music meant to him. But it didn't matter--the answer was no."

Berry, who is still active as a touring act, is notoriously difficult when it comes to business matters. When Taylor Hackford, who directed the wonderful Berry concert film "Hail! Hail! Rock and Roll," recently ran into the performer, the first words out of Berry's mouth were, "You still owe me money." Mos Def plays Berry in "Cadillac Records," which managed to acquire some Berry songs that are owned by Marshall Chess. But dealing with Berry was so unbelievably arduous that when I asked the film's producer, Sofia Sondervan, about working with him, she replied in a hushed tone: "I can't talk about it. I can't say anything about Chuck Berry at all."

The "Who Do You Love" filmmakers defend their decision to show Leonard having an affair with a Chess artist who is clearly based on Etta James. "The question you always ask yourself is--are you illuminating who they were or are you assassinating their character?" says Zaks. "For me, the affair represents part of the seduction of success, which is a big part of the conflict in the movie's story. We did our own research and it seems evident that Leonard was a womanizer. Even his brother Phil says he had numerous affairs."

The filmmakers had less leeway in portraying Willie Dixon, the now-deceased songwriter (played by Chi McBride) who wrote most of Chess' biggest hits. Producer Les Alexander says, "We were prohibited by his estate as portraying him as someone who drank or smoked or sweared." Nonetheless, the film shows Dixon having two wives, who begrudgingly share his time together. "The estate didn't prohibit that," Alexander says.

Both films depict Chess giving his top artists a Cadillac after they had big chart-topping hits. It's a way for the films to capture the back-door way business was handled in the early days of the record industry, since the artists rarely realized that the expense of buying a Cadillac was deducted from their royalty statements. Marshall says it was a pragmatic way to reward a top artist, noting that few of the bluesmen had bank accounts at the time. "Getting a Cadillac in those days was a top of the line thing to have," he explains. "My father bought a new Cadillac every year too, because he was just like his artists--he wanted people to know he was a successful man."

Marshall laughs. "I guess he'd be happy to see two movies coming out about him at the same time. He'd definitely consider that a symbol of success too."

When I was a kid, I spent a lot of time in Chicago, home of two great baseball teams, a host of colorful politicians and the best blues in the world. Back in the day, you weren't anyone in the blues world unless you were signed to Chess Records, the label that made stars out of a generation of rough and tumble musicians, notably Muddy Waters, Little Walter, Willie Dixon and Howlin' Wolf.

So when I was at the recent Toronto Film Festival, I made a point of seeing "Who Do You Love," which stars Alessandro Nivola and Jon Abrahams as Leonard and Phil Chess, two hard-nosed immigrant entrepreneurs who ended up creating Chess Records, the 1950s record label that popularized urban blues and later, with the arrival of Chuck Berry and Bo Diddley, ushered in a brash new form of rock 'n' roll that was adopted by the Rolling Stones, the Beatles and thousands of other young white rock artists.

After the screening, I ran into a film executive, who whispered in my ear, "Do you know that there's another one?" Puzzled, I said, "Another what?" He laughed. "Another movie about Chess Records."

I really thought he was joking, but it's true. Against all odds and sound commercial judgment, the same crazy movie business that once made two asteroid movies and two movies about Truman Capote has now made two movies about the obscure icons of 1950s Chicago blues. What are the odds?

The second Chess film, made by Sony BMG Films, is "Cadillac Records," which will be released Dec. 5 through Sony's TriStar Pictures. Produced by Sofia Sondervan and Andy Lack, Sony BMG's former chairman (who just took a new job running Bloomberg's multimedia operations), the film has considerably more star power than its rival, featuring Beyonce Knowles as Chess' top songstress, Etta James; Adrien Brody as Leonard Chess; Mos Def as Chuck Berry; and Jeffrey Wright as Muddy Waters.

It's probably a misnomer to call the two pictures rivals, since "Who Do You Love," despite earning some good notices in Toronto, remains a long shot to land a theatrical release. "Cadillac Records" will be out in 800 theaters, with a Beyonce single and a soundtrack to help attract attention. Still, the question remains--what are the odds of two 1950s blues movies being made at the same time?

The answer, as always, is that making a movie isn't exactly a rational decision--passion trumps pragmatism. Neither film came out of today's increasingly timid studio system, which wouldn't dream of risking any loot on such obscure subject matter. "Cadillac Records" was championed by Lack, the former head of NBC News who ran Sony Music before being kicked upstairs after its BMG merger. According to Sondervan, Lack's family is from the Mississippi Delta, where he grew up listening to the blues, which gave him a strong interest in the story. "Who Do You Love" was financed by Jonathan Mitchell, a wealthy real estate developer with a love for the blues and directed by Jerry Zaks, who remembers singing to R&B records as a boy in his family basement.

"I was always drawn to black music," recalls Zaks, a four-time Tony Award-winning Broadway theater  director. "When I was in fifth grade, I was convinced I was Marvin Gaye. I'd put on the records I loved, everything from Gaye and Johnny Nash to Muddy Waters and Bo Diddley, and sing to the records in front of the mirror. I think that music had a powerful impact on a whole generation of kids."

But those kids are all nearing retirement age today and not especially regular moviegoers. So who's going to turn out for these films? When I asked Sondervan what made her think a blues movie could make a dent in today's marketplace, she offered an honest answer. "I don't really know," she said. "All I know is that Beyonce has a huge young following and a lot of people will come see the movie just because she's in it." She added that Beyonce has designed a clothing line of dresses inspired by the fashions in the film that are being launched later this fall at Bloomingdale's. "All the young people we've shown the film to really loved it," she says. "The blues is coming back. It's getting played at a lot of trendy restaurants, so there's a lot of new awareness out there."

Hhmm. Like I said, making movies isn't always a rational decision. Will Beyonce fans want to see her as a troubled '50s blues diva? Angelina Jolie fans do show up when she's trading gunfire with Brad Pitt, but they didn't bother to come when she played Mariane Pearl in "A Mighty Heart." And George Clooney fans, who loved him in "Oceans Eleven," turned up their noses at "Leatherheads" and "The Good German."

Music biopics have a pretty spotty track record. Taylor Hackford's "Ray" was a surprise hit (though it was also independently financed outside the studio system). But "She's Not There," Todd Haynes' impressionistic Bob Dylan biopic, never found an audience, despite a raft of rave reviews. Even "Dreamgirls," the Bill Condon film loosely based on the Supremes, was a box-office disappointment.

The real challenge for films that re-create the lives of real characters is--how true to life are they? Sony hasn't screened "Cadillac Records" yet, but the person who knows the story best of all--Leonard's son, Marshall Chess, who served as a technical consultant on both projects--says both movies took some dramatic liberties with many of the characters' personal lives. Which film took the most liberties? Which actor came the closest to capturing his real-life character? And which movie ended up cutting Chuck Berry entirely out of the story? We'll have Part 2 of our post up soon, so stay tuned.

Photo: Beyonce Knowles as Etta James in "Cadillac Records": photo credit: Eric Liebowitz

The one thing you can count on in Hollywood is that when a studio makes a sudden or unexpected decision, it is almost guaranteed that the official reason for the move is a smoke screen for what's really going on. I'm guessing that's the case with Paramount's surprise announcement late Thursday that it's knocking "The Soloist" out of the awards season scrum, "dashing any hopes," to use Variety's melodramatic phrase, for the film to win any Academy Award accolades in 2008. The film is of particular interest to those of us here at the LA Times, since it is based on a series of gripping columns by our own Steve Lopez about his relationship with a homeless musician grappling with schizophrenia.

The film, which stars Robert Downey Jr. as Lopez and Jamie Foxx as the musician, was slated for release Nov. 21st, a prime slot for a potential year-end Oscar campaign. The film, produced by Dreamworks and co-financed by Participant Media and Universal's Working Title, has now been bumped to March 13th, 2009. Why? According to a story in the LA Times, Paramount executives said the current economic collapse "might have made November an awkward time to release a movie about homelessness."

That's the kind of whopper you'd only hear in Hollywood. I think the appropriate response to that would be--when exactly would be a good time to release a film about homelessness? Halloween? The Fourth of July? Having read the script and seen the film being shot, I'm guessing that only a studio disguising its real motives would call "The Soloist" a film about homelessness, when in fact, it's a male-bonding love story about a crusading newspaper reporter and a musician with a troubled soul.

Paramount apparently told its partners, as well as top CAA brass, who represent most of the talent on the picture, that the studio was under pressure from Viacom superiors to cut costs, having recently acknowledged that it was thinning out its future release schedule. With even Sumner Redstone being forced to sell stock to keep his investments afloat, the studio was forced to take drastic measures. With four potential Oscar movies slated for year-end release, something had to give. It certainly wasn't going to be "The Curious Case of Benjamin Button," an expensive and much-anticipated Brad Pitt and David Fincher collaboration that studio chief Brad Grey has already publicly embraced as his ticket to a front-row seat Feb. 22nd at the Kodak Theater. And it certainly wasn't going to be "Revolutionary Road," a Scott Rudin-produced literary drama with a star too big to offend (Leonardo DiCaprio) and the kind of rarified subject matter that desperately needs Oscar buzz to sell tickets.

That left the studio's Ed Zwick-directed drama, "Defiance," which is a long-shot for Oscars, but still enough of a contender that while it's being pushed back to late December, is still getting an Oscar qualifying run before going wide in January. That made "The Soloist" the low man on the totem pole, since it conceivably has enough commercial potential to make a dent at the box office in the spring without the benefit of any Oscar coattails. Since the film was produced by Dreamworks, which just concluded an ugly divorce with Paramount, the inside chatter has focused on the idea that Paramount is somehow punishing Dreamworks by robbing the departing Spielberg team of any Oscar glory.

If anyone at Variety actually asked Paramount about all these complicated twists and turns involving "The Soloist," they didn't bother to mention it in their story, which credulously quotes Paramount vice chairman Rob Moore as simply saying "We decided it's a commercial movie that will play well in the spring." Like I said, studio executives almost never give the real reason for their moves. If they did, Paramount would acknowledge the obvious: These moves aren't so much about saving money--which is small potatoes in terms of the giant outlays studio make these days--as focusing the studio's marketing machinery on its biggest potential cash cow.

Even though it co-financed the film with Warners, Paramount has a huge bet down on "Benjamin Button," which is the one movie here that could be both an enormous commercial and critical hit. The studio has clearly decided to clear the decks. It can't do anything about potential Oscar rivals from other studios, but it doesn't want to compete with itself. My guess is that the studio is being uncharacteristically pragmatic. In an era where studios release all their quality films in the same 10 week time period--I call it the Oscar demolition derby--Paramount has decided to create some breathing room for its strongest contender. Only in Oscar-crazed Hollywood, where everyone lives and dies by awards glory, is the decision to move a quality movie to the spring viewed as an ignominious death sentence. If "The Soloist" gets a good reception in March, it will survive and flourish. I wish some of the industry's hand-ringers would realize there is actually life after the Oscars.

My colleague John Horn has a story in Thursday's Calendar section that grapples with the always touchy question--why do white moviegoers shy away from movies with largely African American casts? "Amistad," Steven Spielberg's 1997 slavery epic, was his lowest-grossing movie in 20 years. Even "Ray," Taylor Hackford's Oscar-nominated musical biography of Ray Charles, drew an overwhelmingly black audience.

Will the same thing happen to "The Secret Life of Bees," a highbrow literary adaptation from an African American filmmaker (Gina Prince-Bythewood) that features a largely black female cast (Queen Latifah, Jennifer Hudson and Alicia Keys)? The film, distributed by Fox Searchlight, is going wide Friday in nearly 1,600 theaters, which means it will be playing in both suburban and urban neighborhoods. The book had a large white female following, but according to Horn, research shows that black moviegoers are showing roughly twice as much interest in seeing the film as whites.

Horn raises an intriguing political parallel:

"Pundits and election strategists have been deliberating feverishly whether white voters who tell interviewers they intend to vote for Sen. Barack Obama for president will really do so once they enter the polling booth. While the discrepancy known as the Bradley effect (named after former Los Angeles mayor Tom Bradley's 1982 loss in the California gubernatorial election, in which he consistently led in polling) may prove to be a minor factor in the year's presidential race, it is still a prominent concern within Hollywood, as movies made by and with African Americans often struggle to attract white supporters, both at the box office and within the studio's executive offices."

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    

After an early screening of "Who Do You Love," one of the--count 'em--two new movies about 1950s powerhouse blues label Chess Records, a pair of women sought out Marshall Chess, whose dad, Leonard, was the driving force behind the record label. They were puzzled about one of the key story lines in the film. "Did your mother and father really make up after your father had that torrid affair with that beautiful singer?" one of them asked.

Marshall rolled his eyes. "No, they didn't make up," he said, "because there never was an affair. The filmmakers made that part up." When it comes to making movies about real-life people, Hollywood rarely lets the truth get in the way of a good story. No one knows that better now that Marshall Chess, who served as a technical consultant on the two competing Chess Records films, but discovered that while the actors and filmmakers were happy to listen to his recollections, it hardly meant that they would stick to the truth when it came time to film his family's story. Marshall knows the story intimately, having been behind the bar at his father's nightclub as a boy, seen his father hustle DJs on road tours and worked at Chess Records as a teenager.

He's delighted to see two films dramatizing his family history, but he's ambivalent about the results. "I guess I have a love-hate relationship with the movies," he told me recently. "They capture the spirit and the music wonderfully, but the truth isn't always there." He's especially upset over how "Cadillac Records," a film that stars Beyonce as Etta James and Oscar-winner Adrien Brody as Leonard Chess, cuts Leonard's brother, Phil, the co-founder of the record company, entirely out of the movie.

"It's a horrible distortion of history," says Marshall. "They started the company together. My uncle Phil was there every day. He recorded a lot of the best music we did. It wouldn't have happened without him and it's a real insult to our family. When I asked the producers, they simply said his character didn't work [in the script], so they cut him out."

When it comes to cutting people out of the Chess story, the rival "Who Do You Love" film has its own issues. The biggest-selling artist in Chess history is Chuck Berry, but his character was cut out of the movie. Why? Because the filmmakers couldn't make a deal for the rights to his music. The film's producer, Les Alexander, explains: "We made Chuck a spectacularly generous offer, but he wouldn't let us have anything. Our director, Jerry Zaks, even sent him a genuine fan note, saying how much his music meant to him. But it didn't matter--the answer was no."

Berry, who is still active as a touring act, is notoriously difficult when it comes to business matters. When Taylor Hackford, who directed the wonderful Berry concert film "Hail! Hail! Rock and Roll," recently ran into the performer, the first words out of Berry's mouth were, "You still owe me money." Mos Def plays Berry in "Cadillac Records," which managed to acquire some Berry songs that are owned by Marshall Chess. But dealing with Berry was so unbelievably arduous that when I asked the film's producer, Sofia Sondervan, about working with him, she replied in a hushed tone: "I can't talk about it. I can't say anything about Chuck Berry at all."

The "Who Do You Love" filmmakers defend their decision to show Leonard having an affair with a Chess artist who is clearly based on Etta James. "The question you always ask yourself is--are you illuminating who they were or are you assassinating their character?" says Zaks. "For me, the affair represents part of the seduction of success, which is a big part of the conflict in the movie's story. We did our own research and it seems evident that Leonard was a womanizer. Even his brother Phil says he had numerous affairs."

The filmmakers had less leeway in portraying Willie Dixon, the now-deceased songwriter (played by Chi McBride) who wrote most of Chess' biggest hits. Producer Les Alexander says, "We were prohibited by his estate as portraying him as someone who drank or smoked or sweared." Nonetheless, the film shows Dixon having two wives, who begrudgingly share his time together. "The estate didn't prohibit that," Alexander says.

Both films depict Chess giving his top artists a Cadillac after they had big chart-topping hits. It's a way for the films to capture the back-door way business was handled in the early days of the record industry, since the artists rarely realized that the expense of buying a Cadillac was deducted from their royalty statements. Marshall says it was a pragmatic way to reward a top artist, noting that few of the bluesmen had bank accounts at the time. "Getting a Cadillac in those days was a top of the line thing to have," he explains. "My father bought a new Cadillac every year too, because he was just like his artists--he wanted people to know he was a successful man."

Marshall laughs. "I guess he'd be happy to see two movies coming out about him at the same time. He'd definitely consider that a symbol of success too."

When I was a kid, I spent a lot of time in Chicago, home of two great baseball teams, a host of colorful politicians and the best blues in the world. Back in the day, you weren't anyone in the blues world unless you were signed to Chess Records, the label that made stars out of a generation of rough and tumble musicians, notably Muddy Waters, Little Walter, Willie Dixon and Howlin' Wolf.

So when I was at the recent Toronto Film Festival, I made a point of seeing "Who Do You Love," which stars Alessandro Nivola and Jon Abrahams as Leonard and Phil Chess, two hard-nosed immigrant entrepreneurs who ended up creating Chess Records, the 1950s record label that popularized urban blues and later, with the arrival of Chuck Berry and Bo Diddley, ushered in a brash new form of rock 'n' roll that was adopted by the Rolling Stones, the Beatles and thousands of other young white rock artists.

After the screening, I ran into a film executive, who whispered in my ear, "Do you know that there's another one?" Puzzled, I said, "Another what?" He laughed. "Another movie about Chess Records."

I really thought he was joking, but it's true. Against all odds and sound commercial judgment, the same crazy movie business that once made two asteroid movies and two movies about Truman Capote has now made two movies about the obscure icons of 1950s Chicago blues. What are the odds?

The second Chess film, made by Sony BMG Films, is "Cadillac Records," which will be released Dec. 5 through Sony's TriStar Pictures. Produced by Sofia Sondervan and Andy Lack, Sony BMG's former chairman (who just took a new job running Bloomberg's multimedia operations), the film has considerably more star power than its rival, featuring Beyonce Knowles as Chess' top songstress, Etta James; Adrien Brody as Leonard Chess; Mos Def as Chuck Berry; and Jeffrey Wright as Muddy Waters.

It's probably a misnomer to call the two pictures rivals, since "Who Do You Love," despite earning some good notices in Toronto, remains a long shot to land a theatrical release. "Cadillac Records" will be out in 800 theaters, with a Beyonce single and a soundtrack to help attract attention. Still, the question remains--what are the odds of two 1950s blues movies being made at the same time?

The answer, as always, is that making a movie isn't exactly a rational decision--passion trumps pragmatism. Neither film came out of today's increasingly timid studio system, which wouldn't dream of risking any loot on such obscure subject matter. "Cadillac Records" was championed by Lack, the former head of NBC News who ran Sony Music before being kicked upstairs after its BMG merger. According to Sondervan, Lack's family is from the Mississippi Delta, where he grew up listening to the blues, which gave him a strong interest in the story. "Who Do You Love" was financed by Jonathan Mitchell, a wealthy real estate developer with a love for the blues and directed by Jerry Zaks, who remembers singing to R&B records as a boy in his family basement.

"I was always drawn to black music," recalls Zaks, a four-time Tony Award-winning Broadway theater  director. "When I was in fifth grade, I was convinced I was Marvin Gaye. I'd put on the records I loved, everything from Gaye and Johnny Nash to Muddy Waters and Bo Diddley, and sing to the records in front of the mirror. I think that music had a powerful impact on a whole generation of kids."

But those kids are all nearing retirement age today and not especially regular moviegoers. So who's going to turn out for these films? When I asked Sondervan what made her think a blues movie could make a dent in today's marketplace, she offered an honest answer. "I don't really know," she said. "All I know is that Beyonce has a huge young following and a lot of people will come see the movie just because she's in it." She added that Beyonce has designed a clothing line of dresses inspired by the fashions in the film that are being launched later this fall at Bloomingdale's. "All the young people we've shown the film to really loved it," she says. "The blues is coming back. It's getting played at a lot of trendy restaurants, so there's a lot of new awareness out there."

Hhmm. Like I said, making movies isn't always a rational decision. Will Beyonce fans want to see her as a troubled '50s blues diva? Angelina Jolie fans do show up when she's trading gunfire with Brad Pitt, but they didn't bother to come when she played Mariane Pearl in "A Mighty Heart." And George Clooney fans, who loved him in "Oceans Eleven," turned up their noses at "Leatherheads" and "The Good German."

Music biopics have a pretty spotty track record. Taylor Hackford's "Ray" was a surprise hit (though it was also independently financed outside the studio system). But "She's Not There," Todd Haynes' impressionistic Bob Dylan biopic, never found an audience, despite a raft of rave reviews. Even "Dreamgirls," the Bill Condon film loosely based on the Supremes, was a box-office disappointment.

The real challenge for films that re-create the lives of real characters is--how true to life are they? Sony hasn't screened "Cadillac Records" yet, but the person who knows the story best of all--Leonard's son, Marshall Chess, who served as a technical consultant on both projects--says both movies took some dramatic liberties with many of the characters' personal lives. Which film took the most liberties? Which actor came the closest to capturing his real-life character? And which movie ended up cutting Chuck Berry entirely out of the story? We'll have Part 2 of our post up soon, so stay tuned.

Photo: Beyonce Knowles as Etta James in "Cadillac Records": photo credit: Eric Liebowitz

The one thing you can count on in Hollywood is that when a studio makes a sudden or unexpected decision, it is almost guaranteed that the official reason for the move is a smoke screen for what's really going on. I'm guessing that's the case with Paramount's surprise announcement late Thursday that it's knocking "The Soloist" out of the awards season scrum, "dashing any hopes," to use Variety's melodramatic phrase, for the film to win any Academy Award accolades in 2008. The film is of particular interest to those of us here at the LA Times, since it is based on a series of gripping columns by our own Steve Lopez about his relationship with a homeless musician grappling with schizophrenia.

The film, which stars Robert Downey Jr. as Lopez and Jamie Foxx as the musician, was slated for release Nov. 21st, a prime slot for a potential year-end Oscar campaign. The film, produced by Dreamworks and co-financed by Participant Media and Universal's Working Title, has now been bumped to March 13th, 2009. Why? According to a story in the LA Times, Paramount executives said the current economic collapse "might have made November an awkward time to release a movie about homelessness."

That's the kind of whopper you'd only hear in Hollywood. I think the appropriate response to that would be--when exactly would be a good time to release a film about homelessness? Halloween? The Fourth of July? Having read the script and seen the film being shot, I'm guessing that only a studio disguising its real motives would call "The Soloist" a film about homelessness, when in fact, it's a male-bonding love story about a crusading newspaper reporter and a musician with a troubled soul.

Paramount apparently told its partners, as well as top CAA brass, who represent most of the talent on the picture, that the studio was under pressure from Viacom superiors to cut costs, having recently acknowledged that it was thinning out its future release schedule. With even Sumner Redstone being forced to sell stock to keep his investments afloat, the studio was forced to take drastic measures. With four potential Oscar movies slated for year-end release, something had to give. It certainly wasn't going to be "The Curious Case of Benjamin Button," an expensive and much-anticipated Brad Pitt and David Fincher collaboration that studio chief Brad Grey has already publicly embraced as his ticket to a front-row seat Feb. 22nd at the Kodak Theater. And it certainly wasn't going to be "Revolutionary Road," a Scott Rudin-produced literary drama with a star too big to offend (Leonardo DiCaprio) and the kind of rarified subject matter that desperately needs Oscar buzz to sell tickets.

That left the studio's Ed Zwick-directed drama, "Defiance," which is a long-shot for Oscars, but still enough of a contender that while it's being pushed back to late December, is still getting an Oscar qualifying run before going wide in January. That made "The Soloist" the low man on the totem pole, since it conceivably has enough commercial potential to make a dent at the box office in the spring without the benefit of any Oscar coattails. Since the film was produced by Dreamworks, which just concluded an ugly divorce with Paramount, the inside chatter has focused on the idea that Paramount is somehow punishing Dreamworks by robbing the departing Spielberg team of any Oscar glory.

If anyone at Variety actually asked Paramount about all these complicated twists and turns involving "The Soloist," they didn't bother to mention it in their story, which credulously quotes Paramount vice chairman Rob Moore as simply saying "We decided it's a commercial movie that will play well in the spring." Like I said, studio executives almost never give the real reason for their moves. If they did, Paramount would acknowledge the obvious: These moves aren't so much about saving money--which is small potatoes in terms of the giant outlays studio make these days--as focusing the studio's marketing machinery on its biggest potential cash cow.

Even though it co-financed the film with Warners, Paramount has a huge bet down on "Benjamin Button," which is the one movie here that could be both an enormous commercial and critical hit. The studio has clearly decided to clear the decks. It can't do anything about potential Oscar rivals from other studios, but it doesn't want to compete with itself. My guess is that the studio is being uncharacteristically pragmatic. In an era where studios release all their quality films in the same 10 week time period--I call it the Oscar demolition derby--Paramount has decided to create some breathing room for its strongest contender. Only in Oscar-crazed Hollywood, where everyone lives and dies by awards glory, is the decision to move a quality movie to the spring viewed as an ignominious death sentence. If "The Soloist" gets a good reception in March, it will survive and flourish. I wish some of the industry's hand-ringers would realize there is actually life after the Oscars.

My colleague John Horn has a story in Thursday's Calendar section that grapples with the always touchy question--why do white moviegoers shy away from movies with largely African American casts? "Amistad," Steven Spielberg's 1997 slavery epic, was his lowest-grossing movie in 20 years. Even "Ray," Taylor Hackford's Oscar-nominated musical biography of Ray Charles, drew an overwhelmingly black audience.

Will the same thing happen to "The Secret Life of Bees," a highbrow literary adaptation from an African American filmmaker (Gina Prince-Bythewood) that features a largely black female cast (Queen Latifah, Jennifer Hudson and Alicia Keys)? The film, distributed by Fox Searchlight, is going wide Friday in nearly 1,600 theaters, which means it will be playing in both suburban and urban neighborhoods. The book had a large white female following, but according to Horn, research shows that black moviegoers are showing roughly twice as much interest in seeing the film as whites.

Horn raises an intriguing political parallel:

"Pundits and election strategists have been deliberating feverishly whether white voters who tell interviewers they intend to vote for Sen. Barack Obama for president will really do so once they enter the polling booth. While the discrepancy known as the Bradley effect (named after former Los Angeles mayor Tom Bradley's 1982 loss in the California gubernatorial election, in which he consistently led in polling) may prove to be a minor factor in the year's presidential race, it is still a prominent concern within Hollywood, as movies made by and with African Americans often struggle to attract white supporters, both at the box office and within the studio's executive offices."

Chess Records movie duel Part 2: Fact vs. fiction

After an early screening of "Who Do You Love," one of the--count 'em--two new movies about 1950s powerhouse blues label Chess Records, a pair of women sought out Marshall Chess, whose dad, Leonard, was the driving force behind the record label. They were puzzled about one of the key story lines in the film. "Did your mother and father really make up after your father had that torrid affair with that beautiful singer?" one of them asked.

Marshall rolled his eyes. "No, they didn't make up," he said, "because there never was an affair. The filmmakers made that part up." When it comes to making movies about real-life people, Hollywood rarely lets the truth get in the way of a good story. No one knows that better now that Marshall Chess, who served as a technical consultant on the two competing Chess Records films, but discovered that while the actors and filmmakers were happy to listen to his recollections, it hardly meant that they would stick to the truth when it came time to film his family's story. Marshall knows the story intimately, having been behind the bar at his father's nightclub as a boy, seen his father hustle DJs on road tours and worked at Chess Records as a teenager.

He's delighted to see two films dramatizing his family history, but he's ambivalent about the results. "I guess I have a love-hate relationship with the movies," he told me recently. "They capture the spirit and the music wonderfully, but the truth isn't always there." He's especially upset over how "Cadillac Records," a film that stars Beyonce as Etta James and Oscar-winner Adrien Brody as Leonard Chess, cuts Leonard's brother, Phil, the co-founder of the record company, entirely out of the movie.

"It's a horrible distortion of history," says Marshall. "They started the company together. My uncle Phil was there every day. He recorded a lot of the best music we did. It wouldn't have happened without him and it's a real insult to our family. When I asked the producers, they simply said his character didn't work [in the script], so they cut him out."

When it comes to cutting people out of the Chess story, the rival "Who Do You Love" film has its own issues. The biggest-selling artist in Chess history is Chuck Berry, but his character was cut out of the movie. Why? Because the filmmakers couldn't make a deal for the rights to his music. The film's producer, Les Alexander, explains: "We made Chuck a spectacularly generous offer, but he wouldn't let us have anything. Our director, Jerry Zaks, even sent him a genuine fan note, saying how much his music meant to him. But it didn't matter--the answer was no."

Berry, who is still active as a touring act, is notoriously difficult when it comes to business matters. When Taylor Hackford, who directed the wonderful Berry concert film "Hail! Hail! Rock and Roll," recently ran into the performer, the first words out of Berry's mouth were, "You still owe me money." Mos Def plays Berry in "Cadillac Records," which managed to acquire some Berry songs that are owned by Marshall Chess. But dealing with Berry was so unbelievably arduous that when I asked the film's producer, Sofia Sondervan, about working with him, she replied in a hushed tone: "I can't talk about it. I can't say anything about Chuck Berry at all."

The "Who Do You Love" filmmakers defend their decision to show Leonard having an affair with a Chess artist who is clearly based on Etta James. "The question you always ask yourself is--are you illuminating who they were or are you assassinating their character?" says Zaks. "For me, the affair represents part of the seduction of success, which is a big part of the conflict in the movie's story. We did our own research and it seems evident that Leonard was a womanizer. Even his brother Phil says he had numerous affairs."

The filmmakers had less leeway in portraying Willie Dixon, the now-deceased songwriter (played by Chi McBride) who wrote most of Chess' biggest hits. Producer Les Alexander says, "We were prohibited by his estate as portraying him as someone who drank or smoked or sweared." Nonetheless, the film shows Dixon having two wives, who begrudgingly share his time together. "The estate didn't prohibit that," Alexander says.

Both films depict Chess giving his top artists a Cadillac after they had big chart-topping hits. It's a way for the films to capture the back-door way business was handled in the early days of the record industry, since the artists rarely realized that the expense of buying a Cadillac was deducted from their royalty statements. Marshall says it was a pragmatic way to reward a top artist, noting that few of the bluesmen had bank accounts at the time. "Getting a Cadillac in those days was a top of the line thing to have," he explains. "My father bought a new Cadillac every year too, because he was just like his artists--he wanted people to know he was a successful man."

Marshall laughs. "I guess he'd be happy to see two movies coming out about him at the same time. He'd definitely consider that a symbol of success too."

When I was a kid, I spent a lot of time in Chicago, home of two great baseball teams, a host of colorful politicians and the best blues in the world. Back in the day, you weren't anyone in the blues world unless you were signed to Chess Records, the label that made stars out of a generation of rough and tumble musicians, notably Muddy Waters, Little Walter, Willie Dixon and Howlin' Wolf.

So when I was at the recent Toronto Film Festival, I made a point of seeing "Who Do You Love," which stars Alessandro Nivola and Jon Abrahams as Leonard and Phil Chess, two hard-nosed immigrant entrepreneurs who ended up creating Chess Records, the 1950s record label that popularized urban blues and later, with the arrival of Chuck Berry and Bo Diddley, ushered in a brash new form of rock 'n' roll that was adopted by the Rolling Stones, the Beatles and thousands of other young white rock artists.

After the screening, I ran into a film executive, who whispered in my ear, "Do you know that there's another one?" Puzzled, I said, "Another what?" He laughed. "Another movie about Chess Records."

I really thought he was joking, but it's true. Against all odds and sound commercial judgment, the same crazy movie business that once made two asteroid movies and two movies about Truman Capote has now made two movies about the obscure icons of 1950s Chicago blues. What are the odds?

The second Chess film, made by Sony BMG Films, is "Cadillac Records," which will be released Dec. 5 through Sony's TriStar Pictures. Produced by Sofia Sondervan and Andy Lack, Sony BMG's former chairman (who just took a new job running Bloomberg's multimedia operations), the film has considerably more star power than its rival, featuring Beyonce Knowles as Chess' top songstress, Etta James; Adrien Brody as Leonard Chess; Mos Def as Chuck Berry; and Jeffrey Wright as Muddy Waters.

It's probably a misnomer to call the two pictures rivals, since "Who Do You Love," despite earning some good notices in Toronto, remains a long shot to land a theatrical release. "Cadillac Records" will be out in 800 theaters, with a Beyonce single and a soundtrack to help attract attention. Still, the question remains--what are the odds of two 1950s blues movies being made at the same time?

The answer, as always, is that making a movie isn't exactly a rational decision--passion trumps pragmatism. Neither film came out of today's increasingly timid studio system, which wouldn't dream of risking any loot on such obscure subject matter. "Cadillac Records" was championed by Lack, the former head of NBC News who ran Sony Music before being kicked upstairs after its BMG merger. According to Sondervan, Lack's family is from the Mississippi Delta, where he grew up listening to the blues, which gave him a strong interest in the story. "Who Do You Love" was financed by Jonathan Mitchell, a wealthy real estate developer with a love for the blues and directed by Jerry Zaks, who remembers singing to R&B records as a boy in his family basement.

"I was always drawn to black music," recalls Zaks, a four-time Tony Award-winning Broadway theater  director. "When I was in fifth grade, I was convinced I was Marvin Gaye. I'd put on the records I loved, everything from Gaye and Johnny Nash to Muddy Waters and Bo Diddley, and sing to the records in front of the mirror. I think that music had a powerful impact on a whole generation of kids."

But those kids are all nearing retirement age today and not especially regular moviegoers. So who's going to turn out for these films? When I asked Sondervan what made her think a blues movie could make a dent in today's marketplace, she offered an honest answer. "I don't really know," she said. "All I know is that Beyonce has a huge young following and a lot of people will come see the movie just because she's in it." She added that Beyonce has designed a clothing line of dresses inspired by the fashions in the film that are being launched later this fall at Bloomingdale's. "All the young people we've shown the film to really loved it," she says. "The blues is coming back. It's getting played at a lot of trendy restaurants, so there's a lot of new awareness out there."

Hhmm. Like I said, making movies isn't always a rational decision. Will Beyonce fans want to see her as a troubled '50s blues diva? Angelina Jolie fans do show up when she's trading gunfire with Brad Pitt, but they didn't bother to come when she played Mariane Pearl in "A Mighty Heart." And George Clooney fans, who loved him in "Oceans Eleven," turned up their noses at "Leatherheads" and "The Good German."

Music biopics have a pretty spotty track record. Taylor Hackford's "Ray" was a surprise hit (though it was also independently financed outside the studio system). But "She's Not There," Todd Haynes' impressionistic Bob Dylan biopic, never found an audience, despite a raft of rave reviews. Even "Dreamgirls," the Bill Condon film loosely based on the Supremes, was a box-office disappointment.

The real challenge for films that re-create the lives of real characters is--how true to life are they? Sony hasn't screened "Cadillac Records" yet, but the person who knows the story best of all--Leonard's son, Marshall Chess, who served as a technical consultant on both projects--says both movies took some dramatic liberties with many of the characters' personal lives. Which film took the most liberties? Which actor came the closest to capturing his real-life character? And which movie ended up cutting Chuck Berry entirely out of the story? We'll have Part 2 of our post up soon, so stay tuned.

Photo: Beyonce Knowles as Etta James in "Cadillac Records": photo credit: Eric Liebowitz

The one thing you can count on in Hollywood is that when a studio makes a sudden or unexpected decision, it is almost guaranteed that the official reason for the move is a smoke screen for what's really going on. I'm guessing that's the case with Paramount's surprise announcement late Thursday that it's knocking "The Soloist" out of the awards season scrum, "dashing any hopes," to use Variety's melodramatic phrase, for the film to win any Academy Award accolades in 2008. The film is of particular interest to those of us here at the LA Times, since it is based on a series of gripping columns by our own Steve Lopez about his relationship with a homeless musician grappling with schizophrenia.

The film, which stars Robert Downey Jr. as Lopez and Jamie Foxx as the musician, was slated for release Nov. 21st, a prime slot for a potential year-end Oscar campaign. The film, produced by Dreamworks and co-financed by Participant Media and Universal's Working Title, has now been bumped to March 13th, 2009. Why? According to a story in the LA Times, Paramount executives said the current economic collapse "might have made November an awkward time to release a movie about homelessness."

That's the kind of whopper you'd only hear in Hollywood. I think the appropriate response to that would be--when exactly would be a good time to release a film about homelessness? Halloween? The Fourth of July? Having read the script and seen the film being shot, I'm guessing that only a studio disguising its real motives would call "The Soloist" a film about homelessness, when in fact, it's a male-bonding love story about a crusading newspaper reporter and a musician with a troubled soul.

Paramount apparently told its partners, as well as top CAA brass, who represent most of the talent on the picture, that the studio was under pressure from Viacom superiors to cut costs, having recently acknowledged that it was thinning out its future release schedule. With even Sumner Redstone being forced to sell stock to keep his investments afloat, the studio was forced to take drastic measures. With four potential Oscar movies slated for year-end release, something had to give. It certainly wasn't going to be "The Curious Case of Benjamin Button," an expensive and much-anticipated Brad Pitt and David Fincher collaboration that studio chief Brad Grey has already publicly embraced as his ticket to a front-row seat Feb. 22nd at the Kodak Theater. And it certainly wasn't going to be "Revolutionary Road," a Scott Rudin-produced literary drama with a star too big to offend (Leonardo DiCaprio) and the kind of rarified subject matter that desperately needs Oscar buzz to sell tickets.

That left the studio's Ed Zwick-directed drama, "Defiance," which is a long-shot for Oscars, but still enough of a contender that while it's being pushed back to late December, is still getting an Oscar qualifying run before going wide in January. That made "The Soloist" the low man on the totem pole, since it conceivably has enough commercial potential to make a dent at the box office in the spring without the benefit of any Oscar coattails. Since the film was produced by Dreamworks, which just concluded an ugly divorce with Paramount, the inside chatter has focused on the idea that Paramount is somehow punishing Dreamworks by robbing the departing Spielberg team of any Oscar glory.

If anyone at Variety actually asked Paramount about all these complicated twists and turns involving "The Soloist," they didn't bother to mention it in their story, which credulously quotes Paramount vice chairman Rob Moore as simply saying "We decided it's a commercial movie that will play well in the spring." Like I said, studio executives almost never give the real reason for their moves. If they did, Paramount would acknowledge the obvious: These moves aren't so much about saving money--which is small potatoes in terms of the giant outlays studio make these days--as focusing the studio's marketing machinery on its biggest potential cash cow.

Even though it co-financed the film with Warners, Paramount has a huge bet down on "Benjamin Button," which is the one movie here that could be both an enormous commercial and critical hit. The studio has clearly decided to clear the decks. It can't do anything about potential Oscar rivals from other studios, but it doesn't want to compete with itself. My guess is that the studio is being uncharacteristically pragmatic. In an era where studios release all their quality films in the same 10 week time period--I call it the Oscar demolition derby--Paramount has decided to create some breathing room for its strongest contender. Only in Oscar-crazed Hollywood, where everyone lives and dies by awards glory, is the decision to move a quality movie to the spring viewed as an ignominious death sentence. If "The Soloist" gets a good reception in March, it will survive and flourish. I wish some of the industry's hand-ringers would realize there is actually life after the Oscars.

My colleague John Horn has a story in Thursday's Calendar section that grapples with the always touchy question--why do white moviegoers shy away from movies with largely African American casts? "Amistad," Steven Spielberg's 1997 slavery epic, was his lowest-grossing movie in 20 years. Even "Ray," Taylor Hackford's Oscar-nominated musical biography of Ray Charles, drew an overwhelmingly black audience.

Will the same thing happen to "The Secret Life of Bees," a highbrow literary adaptation from an African American filmmaker (Gina Prince-Bythewood) that features a largely black female cast (Queen Latifah, Jennifer Hudson and Alicia Keys)? The film, distributed by Fox Searchlight, is going wide Friday in nearly 1,600 theaters, which means it will be playing in both suburban and urban neighborhoods. The book had a large white female following, but according to Horn, research shows that black moviegoers are showing roughly twice as much interest in seeing the film as whites.

Horn raises an intriguing political parallel:

"Pundits and election strategists have been deliberating feverishly whether white voters who tell interviewers they intend to vote for Sen. Barack Obama for president will really do so once they enter the polling booth. While the discrepancy known as the Bradley effect (named after former Los Angeles mayor Tom Bradley's 1982 loss in the California gubernatorial election, in which he consistently led in polling) may prove to be a minor factor in the year's presidential race, it is still a prominent concern within Hollywood, as movies made by and with African Americans often struggle to attract white supporters, both at the box office and within the studio's executive offices."

Move over, Truman Capote: Another movie duel to the death?

When I was a kid, I spent a lot of time in Chicago, home of two great baseball teams, a host of colorful politicians and the best blues in the world. Back in the day, you weren't anyone in the blues world unless you were signed to Chess Records, the label that made stars out of a generation of rough and tumble musicians, notably Muddy Waters, Little Walter, Willie Dixon and Howlin' Wolf.

So when I was at the recent Toronto Film Festival, I made a point of seeing "Who Do You Love," which stars Alessandro Nivola and Jon Abrahams as Leonard and Phil Chess, two hard-nosed immigrant entrepreneurs who ended up creating Chess Records, the 1950s record label that popularized urban blues and later, with the arrival of Chuck Berry and Bo Diddley, ushered in a brash new form of rock 'n' roll that was adopted by the Rolling Stones, the Beatles and thousands of other young white rock artists.

After the screening, I ran into a film executive, who whispered in my ear, "Do you know that there's another one?" Puzzled, I said, "Another what?" He laughed. "Another movie about Chess Records."

I really thought he was joking, but it's true. Against all odds and sound commercial judgment, the same crazy movie business that once made two asteroid movies and two movies about Truman Capote has now made two movies about the obscure icons of 1950s Chicago blues. What are the odds?

The second Chess film, made by Sony BMG Films, is "Cadillac Records," which will be released Dec. 5 through Sony's TriStar Pictures. Produced by Sofia Sondervan and Andy Lack, Sony BMG's former chairman (who just took a new job running Bloomberg's multimedia operations), the film has considerably more star power than its rival, featuring Beyonce Knowles as Chess' top songstress, Etta James; Adrien Brody as Leonard Chess; Mos Def as Chuck Berry; and Jeffrey Wright as Muddy Waters.

It's probably a misnomer to call the two pictures rivals, since "Who Do You Love," despite earning some good notices in Toronto, remains a long shot to land a theatrical release. "Cadillac Records" will be out in 800 theaters, with a Beyonce single and a soundtrack to help attract attention. Still, the question remains--what are the odds of two 1950s blues movies being made at the same time?

The answer, as always, is that making a movie isn't exactly a rational decision--passion trumps pragmatism. Neither film came out of today's increasingly timid studio system, which wouldn't dream of risking any loot on such obscure subject matter. "Cadillac Records" was championed by Lack, the former head of NBC News who ran Sony Music before being kicked upstairs after its BMG merger. According to Sondervan, Lack's family is from the Mississippi Delta, where he grew up listening to the blues, which gave him a strong interest in the story. "Who Do You Love" was financed by Jonathan Mitchell, a wealthy real estate developer with a love for the blues and directed by Jerry Zaks, who remembers singing to R&B records as a boy in his family basement.

"I was always drawn to black music," recalls Zaks, a four-time Tony Award-winning Broadway theater  director. "When I was in fifth grade, I was convinced I was Marvin Gaye. I'd put on the records I loved, everything from Gaye and Johnny Nash to Muddy Waters and Bo Diddley, and sing to the records in front of the mirror. I think that music had a powerful impact on a whole generation of kids."

But those kids are all nearing retirement age today and not especially regular moviegoers. So who's going to turn out for these films? When I asked Sondervan what made her think a blues movie could make a dent in today's marketplace, she offered an honest answer. "I don't really know," she said. "All I know is that Beyonce has a huge young following and a lot of people will come see the movie just because she's in it." She added that Beyonce has designed a clothing line of dresses inspired by the fashions in the film that are being launched later this fall at Bloomingdale's. "All the young people we've shown the film to really loved it," she says. "The blues is coming back. It's getting played at a lot of trendy restaurants, so there's a lot of new awareness out there."

Hhmm. Like I said, making movies isn't always a rational decision. Will Beyonce fans want to see her as a troubled '50s blues diva? Angelina Jolie fans do show up when she's trading gunfire with Brad Pitt, but they didn't bother to come when she played Mariane Pearl in "A Mighty Heart." And George Clooney fans, who loved him in "Oceans Eleven," turned up their noses at "Leatherheads" and "The Good German."

Music biopics have a pretty spotty track record. Taylor Hackford's "Ray" was a surprise hit (though it was also independently financed outside the studio system). But "She's Not There," Todd Haynes' impressionistic Bob Dylan biopic, never found an audience, despite a raft of rave reviews. Even "Dreamgirls," the Bill Condon film loosely based on the Supremes, was a box-office disappointment.

The real challenge for films that re-create the lives of real characters is--how true to life are they? Sony hasn't screened "Cadillac Records" yet, but the person who knows the story best of all--Leonard's son, Marshall Chess, who served as a technical consultant on both projects--says both movies took some dramatic liberties with many of the characters' personal lives. Which film took the most liberties? Which actor came the closest to capturing his real-life character? And which movie ended up cutting Chuck Berry entirely out of the story? We'll have Part 2 of our post up soon, so stay tuned.

Photo: Beyonce Knowles as Etta James in "Cadillac Records": photo credit: Eric Liebowitz

The one thing you can count on in Hollywood is that when a studio makes a sudden or unexpected decision, it is almost guaranteed that the official reason for the move is a smoke screen for what's really going on. I'm guessing that's the case with Paramount's surprise announcement late Thursday that it's knocking "The Soloist" out of the awards season scrum, "dashing any hopes," to use Variety's melodramatic phrase, for the film to win any Academy Award accolades in 2008. The film is of particular interest to those of us here at the LA Times, since it is based on a series of gripping columns by our own Steve Lopez about his relationship with a homeless musician grappling with schizophrenia.

The film, which stars Robert Downey Jr. as Lopez and Jamie Foxx as the musician, was slated for release Nov. 21st, a prime slot for a potential year-end Oscar campaign. The film, produced by Dreamworks and co-financed by Participant Media and Universal's Working Title, has now been bumped to March 13th, 2009. Why? According to a story in the LA Times, Paramount executives said the current economic collapse "might have made November an awkward time to release a movie about homelessness."

That's the kind of whopper you'd only hear in Hollywood. I think the appropriate response to that would be--when exactly would be a good time to release a film about homelessness? Halloween? The Fourth of July? Having read the script and seen the film being shot, I'm guessing that only a studio disguising its real motives would call "The Soloist" a film about homelessness, when in fact, it's a male-bonding love story about a crusading newspaper reporter and a musician with a troubled soul.

Paramount apparently told its partners, as well as top CAA brass, who represent most of the talent on the picture, that the studio was under pressure from Viacom superiors to cut costs, having recently acknowledged that it was thinning out its future release schedule. With even Sumner Redstone being forced to sell stock to keep his investments afloat, the studio was forced to take drastic measures. With four potential Oscar movies slated for year-end release, something had to give. It certainly wasn't going to be "The Curious Case of Benjamin Button," an expensive and much-anticipated Brad Pitt and David Fincher collaboration that studio chief Brad Grey has already publicly embraced as his ticket to a front-row seat Feb. 22nd at the Kodak Theater. And it certainly wasn't going to be "Revolutionary Road," a Scott Rudin-produced literary drama with a star too big to offend (Leonardo DiCaprio) and the kind of rarified subject matter that desperately needs Oscar buzz to sell tickets.

That left the studio's Ed Zwick-directed drama, "Defiance," which is a long-shot for Oscars, but still enough of a contender that while it's being pushed back to late December, is still getting an Oscar qualifying run before going wide in January. That made "The Soloist" the low man on the totem pole, since it conceivably has enough commercial potential to make a dent at the box office in the spring without the benefit of any Oscar coattails. Since the film was produced by Dreamworks, which just concluded an ugly divorce with Paramount, the inside chatter has focused on the idea that Paramount is somehow punishing Dreamworks by robbing the departing Spielberg team of any Oscar glory.

If anyone at Variety actually asked Paramount about all these complicated twists and turns involving "The Soloist," they didn't bother to mention it in their story, which credulously quotes Paramount vice chairman Rob Moore as simply saying "We decided it's a commercial movie that will play well in the spring." Like I said, studio executives almost never give the real reason for their moves. If they did, Paramount would acknowledge the obvious: These moves aren't so much about saving money--which is small potatoes in terms of the giant outlays studio make these days--as focusing the studio's marketing machinery on its biggest potential cash cow.

Even though it co-financed the film with Warners, Paramount has a huge bet down on "Benjamin Button," which is the one movie here that could be both an enormous commercial and critical hit. The studio has clearly decided to clear the decks. It can't do anything about potential Oscar rivals from other studios, but it doesn't want to compete with itself. My guess is that the studio is being uncharacteristically pragmatic. In an era where studios release all their quality films in the same 10 week time period--I call it the Oscar demolition derby--Paramount has decided to create some breathing room for its strongest contender. Only in Oscar-crazed Hollywood, where everyone lives and dies by awards glory, is the decision to move a quality movie to the spring viewed as an ignominious death sentence. If "The Soloist" gets a good reception in March, it will survive and flourish. I wish some of the industry's hand-ringers would realize there is actually life after the Oscars.

My colleague John Horn has a story in Thursday's Calendar section that grapples with the always touchy question--why do white moviegoers shy away from movies with largely African American casts? "Amistad," Steven Spielberg's 1997 slavery epic, was his lowest-grossing movie in 20 years. Even "Ray," Taylor Hackford's Oscar-nominated musical biography of Ray Charles, drew an overwhelmingly black audience.

Will the same thing happen to "The Secret Life of Bees," a highbrow literary adaptation from an African American filmmaker (Gina Prince-Bythewood) that features a largely black female cast (Queen Latifah, Jennifer Hudson and Alicia Keys)? The film, distributed by Fox Searchlight, is going wide Friday in nearly 1,600 theaters, which means it will be playing in both suburban and urban neighborhoods. The book had a large white female following, but according to Horn, research shows that black moviegoers are showing roughly twice as much interest in seeing the film as whites.

Horn raises an intriguing political parallel:

"Pundits and election strategists have been deliberating feverishly whether white voters who tell interviewers they intend to vote for Sen. Barack Obama for president will really do so once they enter the polling booth. While the discrepancy known as the Bradley effect (named after former Los Angeles mayor Tom Bradley's 1982 loss in the California gubernatorial election, in which he consistently led in polling) may prove to be a minor factor in the year's presidential race, it is still a prominent concern within Hollywood, as movies made by and with African Americans often struggle to attract white supporters, both at the box office and within the studio's executive offices."

"The Soloist" moves to the back of the orchestra pit

The one thing you can count on in Hollywood is that when a studio makes a sudden or unexpected decision, it is almost guaranteed that the official reason for the move is a smoke screen for what's really going on. I'm guessing that's the case with Paramount's surprise announcement late Thursday that it's knocking "The Soloist" out of the awards season scrum, "dashing any hopes," to use Variety's melodramatic phrase, for the film to win any Academy Award accolades in 2008. The film is of particular interest to those of us here at the LA Times, since it is based on a series of gripping columns by our own Steve Lopez about his relationship with a homeless musician grappling with schizophrenia.

The film, which stars Robert Downey Jr. as Lopez and Jamie Foxx as the musician, was slated for release Nov. 21st, a prime slot for a potential year-end Oscar campaign. The film, produced by Dreamworks and co-financed by Participant Media and Universal's Working Title, has now been bumped to March 13th, 2009. Why? According to a story in the LA Times, Paramount executives said the current economic collapse "might have made November an awkward time to release a movie about homelessness."

That's the kind of whopper you'd only hear in Hollywood. I think the appropriate response to that would be--when exactly would be a good time to release a film about homelessness? Halloween? The Fourth of July? Having read the script and seen the film being shot, I'm guessing that only a studio disguising its real motives would call "The Soloist" a film about homelessness, when in fact, it's a male-bonding love story about a crusading newspaper reporter and a musician with a troubled soul.

Paramount apparently told its partners, as well as top CAA brass, who represent most of the talent on the picture, that the studio was under pressure from Viacom superiors to cut costs, having recently acknowledged that it was thinning out its future release schedule. With even Sumner Redstone being forced to sell stock to keep his investments afloat, the studio was forced to take drastic measures. With four potential Oscar movies slated for year-end release, something had to give. It certainly wasn't going to be "The Curious Case of Benjamin Button," an expensive and much-anticipated Brad Pitt and David Fincher collaboration that studio chief Brad Grey has already publicly embraced as his ticket to a front-row seat Feb. 22nd at the Kodak Theater. And it certainly wasn't going to be "Revolutionary Road," a Scott Rudin-produced literary drama with a star too big to offend (Leonardo DiCaprio) and the kind of rarified subject matter that desperately needs Oscar buzz to sell tickets.

That left the studio's Ed Zwick-directed drama, "Defiance," which is a long-shot for Oscars, but still enough of a contender that while it's being pushed back to late December, is still getting an Oscar qualifying run before going wide in January. That made "The Soloist" the low man on the totem pole, since it conceivably has enough commercial potential to make a dent at the box office in the spring without the benefit of any Oscar coattails. Since the film was produced by Dreamworks, which just concluded an ugly divorce with Paramount, the inside chatter has focused on the idea that Paramount is somehow punishing Dreamworks by robbing the departing Spielberg team of any Oscar glory.

If anyone at Variety actually asked Paramount about all these complicated twists and turns involving "The Soloist," they didn't bother to mention it in their story, which credulously quotes Paramount vice chairman Rob Moore as simply saying "We decided it's a commercial movie that will play well in the spring." Like I said, studio executives almost never give the real reason for their moves. If they did, Paramount would acknowledge the obvious: These moves aren't so much about saving money--which is small potatoes in terms of the giant outlays studio make these days--as focusing the studio's marketing machinery on its biggest potential cash cow.

Even though it co-financed the film with Warners, Paramount has a huge bet down on "Benjamin Button," which is the one movie here that could be both an enormous commercial and critical hit. The studio has clearly decided to clear the decks. It can't do anything about potential Oscar rivals from other studios, but it doesn't want to compete with itself. My guess is that the studio is being uncharacteristically pragmatic. In an era where studios release all their quality films in the same 10 week time period--I call it the Oscar demolition derby--Paramount has decided to create some breathing room for its strongest contender. Only in Oscar-crazed Hollywood, where everyone lives and dies by awards glory, is the decision to move a quality movie to the spring viewed as an ignominious death sentence. If "The Soloist" gets a good reception in March, it will survive and flourish. I wish some of the industry's hand-ringers would realize there is actually life after the Oscars.

My colleague John Horn has a story in Thursday's Calendar section that grapples with the always touchy question--why do white moviegoers shy away from movies with largely African American casts? "Amistad," Steven Spielberg's 1997 slavery epic, was his lowest-grossing movie in 20 years. Even "Ray," Taylor Hackford's Oscar-nominated musical biography of Ray Charles, drew an overwhelmingly black audience.

Will the same thing happen to "The Secret Life of Bees," a highbrow literary adaptation from an African American filmmaker (Gina Prince-Bythewood) that features a largely black female cast (Queen Latifah, Jennifer Hudson and Alicia Keys)? The film, distributed by Fox Searchlight, is going wide Friday in nearly 1,600 theaters, which means it will be playing in both suburban and urban neighborhoods. The book had a large white female following, but according to Horn, research shows that black moviegoers are showing roughly twice as much interest in seeing the film as whites.

Horn raises an intriguing political parallel:

"Pundits and election strategists have been deliberating feverishly whether white voters who tell interviewers they intend to vote for Sen. Barack Obama for president will really do so once they enter the polling booth. While the discrepancy known as the Bradley effect (named after former Los Angeles mayor Tom Bradley's 1982 loss in the California gubernatorial election, in which he consistently led in polling) may prove to be a minor factor in the year's presidential race, it is still a prominent concern within Hollywood, as movies made by and with African Americans often struggle to attract white supporters, both at the box office and within the studio's executive offices."

Will white moviegoers go see 'The Secret of Life of Bees'?

My colleague John Horn has a story in Thursday's Calendar section that grapples with the always touchy question--why do white moviegoers shy away from movies with largely African American casts? "Amistad," Steven Spielberg's 1997 slavery epic, was his lowest-grossing movie in 20 years. Even "Ray," Taylor Hackford's Oscar-nominated musical biography of Ray Charles, drew an overwhelmingly black audience.

Will the same thing happen to "The Secret Life of Bees," a highbrow literary adaptation from an African American filmmaker (Gina Prince-Bythewood) that features a largely black female cast (Queen Latifah, Jennifer Hudson and Alicia Keys)? The film, distributed by Fox Searchlight, is going wide Friday in nearly 1,600 theaters, which means it will be playing in both suburban and urban neighborhoods. The book had a large white female following, but according to Horn, research shows that black moviegoers are showing roughly twice as much interest in seeing the film as whites.

Horn raises an intriguing political parallel:

"Pundits and election strategists have been deliberating feverishly whether white voters who tell interviewers they intend to vote for Sen. Barack Obama for president will really do so once they enter the polling booth. While the discrepancy known as the Bradley effect (named after former Los Angeles mayor Tom Bradley's 1982 loss in the California gubernatorial election, in which he consistently led in polling) may prove to be a minor factor in the year's presidential race, it is still a prominent concern within Hollywood, as movies made by and with African Americans often struggle to attract white supporters, both at the box office and within the studio's executive offices."