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Those of us who saw Paramount's first Iron Man materials at Comic-Con--and witnessed the hordes lining up just to see the damned costume unveiled--don't need to be convinced that this picture will be a summer boxoffice juggernaut. It should easily pass $200 million. Will it get to $300 million is another question.

By Anne Thompson
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April 10, 2008 4:23 AM
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Oscar Watch: Bay Hosts Transformers Tech Show

Transformers director Michael Bay returned to the scene of the crime Thursday night at the Cary Grant mixing stage at the Sony lot to revisit the Oscar-nominated achievements in VFX and sound. The place was packed with filmmaking geeks eager to hear and see the behind-the-scenes machinations that go into a formidable FX epic like Transformers.

By Anne Thompson
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February 8, 2008 7:42 AM
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300: Model Paradigm for Future Success

As I suggested a few weeks ago, the global blockbuster 300 will have a huge impact on the movie business, because for better or for worse, both aesthetically and economically, it provides a useful new paradigm for how to succeed at the movies. That's why it will be widely imitated: it was made for $64 million, shot (on film, btw) on Montreal soundstages, with actors with no cut of the back-end gross. (Here's Businessweek's take.)