Thompson on Hollywood

Disney's Rich Ross Meets the Press

New Disney chairman Richard Ross put on a dog-and-pony show at the Burbank lot Thursday to introduce himself to a group of key entertainment reporters. This is what a new studio chairman does to deal with media requests for interviews and meetings and to alert Wall Street to a strong line-up in advance of an upcoming Disney earnings call. About 20 reporters attended, including the trades. Ross announced the breaking news that Pixar was ramping up a Monsters Inc. sequel for a November 15 2012 release and that Disney was dating their film Brave for June 15, 2012.

By Anne Thompson
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April 23, 2010 4:00 AM
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3-D Divide: Upfront vs. Retrofit

No one in Hollywood will listen now that Avatar and Alice in Wonderland have scored the mother-lode of grosses as 3-D movies. Could Alice have done as well in 2-D as a perfect match between name director, beloved children's book, and family-friendly studio? No, confirms Disney, because 70% of its grosses came from 3-D screens.

By Anne Thompson
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March 31, 2010 1:29 AM
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Spielberg Does Not Have Asperger's Syndrome

Imagine my surprise when listening to an NPR report stating as fact that Steven Spielberg has Asperger's Syndrome. Anyone who has had any interaction with the guy knows that he's not only a super-smart and gifted filmmaker with extraordinary technological command (which easily could accompany an Asperger's diagnosis), but he's also highly intuitive, with warmth, charm and social skills to spare (which is far less frequent).

By Anne Thompson
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March 29, 2010 9:22 AM
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HBO, Hanks, Spielberg Deliver Must-Watch The Pacific

Tim Appelo reviews Tom Hanks and Steven Spielberg's follow-up to HBO's Band of Brothers, The Pacific.

By Anne Thompson
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March 21, 2010 5:49 AM
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Time Cover Boy Hanks' The Pacific Launches Sunday on HBO

I confess: I am at SXSW wishing I had time to watch the DVDs for The Pacific that HBO delivered the day I left town. At $200 million (more than Rome), the ten-part series is the most expensive HBO has ever made, and earned Tom Hanks the cover of Time (like HBO, a Time Warner company). It's the flip side to Hanks and Spielberg's brilliant and harrowing World War II series Band of Brothers, which broke out Damian Lewis.

By Anne Thompson
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March 13, 2010 12:21 AM
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Spielberg Heating Up Gershwin and Quinto

It looks like DreamWorks and Steven Spielberg are heating up on Doug Wright's script for a planned biopic of composer George Gershwin. Several biopics--including Tony Kushner's Lincoln and a still-in-development look at the life of Martin Luther King--are in the works, and there's also the ten-part family adventure The 39 Clues, written by Jeff Nathanson, which Spielberg could decide to take on. But clearly, the DreamWorks filmmaker is excited about Gershwin. The script is set in the 30s during the period when the songwriter, hugely popular, stretched himself by turning to more serious Broadway musicals.

By Anne Thompson
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February 1, 2010 1:06 AM
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Disney's Aviv Exits as Ross Relies on DreamWorks

It's deja vu all over again. A studio in management upheaval. A new studio head recruited from TV being directed to reinvent the wheel by a boss who is a film biz outsider.

By Anne Thompson
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January 13, 2010 12:22 AM
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Things I Learned at the Avatar Premiere

James Cameron basked in the glow as Avatar, his latest industry-changing event-film, earned a standing ovation at the Mann Chinese Wednesday night. At the after party Cameron beamed as he stood between two tall women, wife Suzy Amis and ex-wife Kathryn Bigelow. "You're on a roll!" he said to the Hurt Locker director. "You raised the bar," she said to Cameron.

By Anne Thompson
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December 17, 2009 4:49 AM
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Dreamworks Acquires WW I novel War Horse to Produce with Kennedy/Marshall

DreamWorks Studios has acquired the rights to the World War I adventure novel War Horse for Steven Spielberg, Kathleen Kennedy, Frank Marshall and Revel Guest to produce. Lee Hall (Billy Elliot) is writing the script. Written by children's author Michael Morpurgo and first published in 1982, War Horse tells the story from a boy's POV of being separated from his horse. The sentimental play, staged with puppet horses, has been a huge sellout family hit in London for the past two years. Spielberg believes the story has universal appeal.

By Anne Thompson
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December 16, 2009 8:07 AM
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Ten Things I Learned at the Governors Awards

1. The Governors Awards will not be televised. At the orange Grand Ballroom at Hollywood and Highland Saturday night, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences gave out four honorary Oscars at a new annual event on the awards calendar. Academy executive director Bruce Davis, president Tom Sherak, Oscar show producers Bill Mechanic and Adam Shankman, and Oscar-host-to-be Alec Baldwin all attended this relaxed, celebratory black-tie cocktail and dinner party. The ceremony awarding four honorary Oscars to actress Lauren Bacall, producers John Calley and Roger Corman and cinematographer Gordon Willis, punctuated by repeated standing ovations, lasted three hours and 18 minutes, to be exact.