What’s All the Racket About?

When studios invite critics to advance screenings of upcoming features, the invitations often come with strict embargo dates mandating when reviews can appear or air. Studios like to maximize coverage--or minimize damage--by having reviews break as close to release dates as possible.

So imagine the surprise at Disney Studios when the Associated Press moved its review of Warren Beatty’s “Dick Tracy” 12 days before the June 11 embargo date-- 16 days before the film’s June 15 opening. Since AP’s customer list includes more than 1,400 newspaper, radio and TV outlets, the review could have enormous impact on the advance word.

Sure enough, two of AP’s clients--the Hollywood Reporter and Daily Variety--saw the piece and decided to go with their reviews the next day. When Variety placed a “courtesy call” to Disney to announce its intentions, the executives were reportedly furious.

Peter Pryor, Daily Variety editor-in-chief, tells us that managing editor Rich Bozanich received three calls from Disney pressuring the paper to hold its review. “I’m not going to comment on who called or what was said,” Pryor says. But a Disney source says that Disney Studios chairman Jeffrey Katzenberg personally called Bozanich and had “an acrimonious” conversation. The Reporter received one call, from a publicist, according to editor Teri Ritzer, but there were no threats--such as banishment from future screenings.

Both trades say they broke the embargo because of AP; AP says it broke the embargo because, hey, they could: “From our view, it’s a newsworthy movie to review,” AP managing editor Marty Thompson said from New York. “We had two staffers at Disney’s screening and nothing was ever said about holding the review or any so-called embargo.”

AP’s L.A. bureau chief Andy Lippman said Disney had lodged complaints with the wire service too, but things are cool now: “It’s more a misunderstanding than anything else. They were upset. We now understand each other.”

Or maybe not. AP insiders say that Disney has canceled a scheduled AP interview with Beatty. Both Thompson and a Disney source say that the Beatty interview is up in the air.

For the record, the AP’s Bob Thomas gave “Dick Tracy” a generally positive review, the Reporter’s Henry Sheehan gave it a rave and Daily Variety’s Joe McBride panned it.

And why is our review appearing today, 24 hours before the embargo date? Why not?