May 9th, 2008 by Barry Caplan
From Yahoo:
SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - Take-Two Interactive Software Inc (TTWO.O) said on Friday that “Pirates of the Caribbean” director Gore Verbinski will make a movie version of “BioShock,” its hit video game about an underwater utopia gone disastrously wrong.
The movie will be made by Universal Pictures, a unit of NBC Universal owned by General Electric Co (GE.N), and John Logan, the screenwriter behind “Gladiator” and “Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street,” was in talks to pen the script, Take-Two said.
…[MORE]
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May 9th, 2008 by Barry Caplan
From Yahoo: By Scott Hillis Fri May 9, 7:31 AM ET
SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - Playing video games does not turn children into deranged, blood-thirsty super-killers, according to a new book by a pair of Harvard researchers.
Lawrence Kutner and Cheryl Olson, a husband-and-wife team at Harvard Medical School, detail their views in “Grand Theft Childhood: The Surprising Truth About Violent Video Games and What Parents Can Do,” which came out last month and promises to reshape the debate on the effects of video games on kids.
“What I hope people realize is that there is no data to support the simple-minded concerns that video games cause violence,” Kutner told Reuters.
…[MORE]
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May 7th, 2008 by Barry Caplan
WebVideoReport.com reports:
Fora.tv, which offers intellectual videos from think tanks and educational institutions, raised $4 million in an A round of venture funding from William Randolph Hearst III, Adobe Ventures and other investors, Beet.tv reports. The money will be used to add content to the site.
-Elizabeth Jensen
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April 30th, 2008 by Barry Caplan
The writer of Friday’s Movie Projector column, which looks at weekend box-office prospects, finds going to the multiplex is still a relative bargain.
By Josh Friedman, Los Angeles Times Staff Writer
April 27, 2008
In Berkeley circa 1971, a weekend matinee at the local movie house cost about a buck. Ten-year-old Projector, flush with his $5 weekly allowance, could catch “Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory,” hit the concession stand for popcorn, a Coke and Bon-Bons, and still have enough cash left over to buy the next week’s essentials at the corner store: baseball cards, Hershey bars and comic books.
Like everything else, the economics of moviegoing has gotten more complicated. With baby-sitting and dinner, a recent Friday night at the multiplex cost Mr. and Mrs. Projector $73.66. (That tab, by the way, does not include the two hours of our lives spent watching “Leatherheads.” Call that a write-off.) No wonder so many folks simply flop down in front of their flat screen TVs and pop in DVDs from Netflix or Blockbuster.
Complete article here
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April 30th, 2008 by Barry Caplan
Hollywood taking sides in network neutrality debate
Studios and artists split over its effects on digital distribution.
Hollywood believes the Internet is the key to its future. But its constituents are again squabbling over how to get there.
As in the recent television writers strike, the major studios are at odds with some members of the creative community over digital distribution. This time it’s about a public policy issue known as network neutrality.
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April 29th, 2008 by Barry Caplan
The-Numbers.com contains data on box office past present, and links to modeling of film finance. worth a look see, and I will be incorporating and commenting more on some of the data over time.
http://www.the-numbers.com/
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