The Morning Fix: 3-D traffic jam! Alice hits roadblock in UK. Stalking Sumner!
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After the coffee. Before sending your audition tape to replace Barbara Walters as host of the Oscars special.
3-D glut. More than 20 3-D movies are expected to be released this year. Only problem is, space for all these movies is limited. The Wall Street Journal notes that according to the National Assn. of Theater Owners, fewer than 10% of the nation’s theaters are 3-D-enabled. ‘There’s clearly a bottleneck,’ Frank Rash, senior vice president of the big theater chain AMC told the WSJ. Yeah, but business will be booming for the companies that make the funny glasses.
Alice doesn’t play here anymore. Walt Disney Co.’s move to close the gap between the end of the theatrical run and the DVD release of its upcoming movie ‘Alice in Wonderland’ is meeting resistance from some U.K. and Dutch theater owners, according to Bloomberg. The move is not a complete surprise and many theater chains in the U.S. are also concerned about the shortening of the windows between the theatrical and DVD releases.
Toys in the attic. It’s time for the annual toy fair in New York, and this year it’s Hollywood that it is driving the deals. The Los Angeles Times takes a look at the licensing convention.
Madison Avenue blues. If it’s not too early for bubble stories (there’s been a recent rush of articles handicapping what shows will and won’t be back next fall), then it isn’t too early to see how the advertising market is going to look in a few months when the TV industry starts selling commercials for the fall season. Broadcasting & Cable does a little early handicapping.
Video blues. The video game industry, which for a while seemed immune to the woes hitting the rest of the media business, is in something of a tailspin. Sales were off about 13% last month compared to January 2009, and last week Activision confirmed layoffs and EA saw its stock take a hit. The Wrap with a look at what’s going on with the gamers.
Stalking Sumner. For your amusement, a clip of TMZ interviewing Viacom CEO Sumner Redstone as he leaves a dinner with his good friend flame Christine Peters. Redstone’s initially not sure if he owns TMZ or not (he doesn’t, Time Warner does), but he’s a good sport about it.
Inside the Los Angeles Times: Patrick Goldstein on Quentin Tarantino. The buzz on Monday’s Oscar nominee luncheon. Kevin Smith’s fat spat with Southwest. Barbara Walters has had enough of interviewing actors. We don’t blame her.
-- Joe Flint
