Goodbye To A Story Teller

William Goldman has died. You might not know who he is, but you know his work. He wrote novels ("The Temple of Gold", "The Princess Bride", numerous others). And screenplays. (Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, Harper, All the President's Men, Misery) And he crafted memorable lines of dialogue:

"Follow the money."

“My name is Inigo Montoya. You killed my father. Prepare to die.”

"Why, are you crazy? The fall will probably kill ya." [see above]

Mr. Goldman was born in Illinois and writing ran in the family. His older brother James grew up to write "The Lion in Winter" (among other works). Like younger brother William, he won an Academy Award for one of his screenplays.

William Goldman claimed not to think he wrote particularly well, but the claim is undercut by two Academy Awards and a career that was over a half-century long (Among his last assignments was adapting Stephen King's novel "Misery" for the Broadway stage.) One of the lesser-known facts of Mr. Goldman's career is that he wrote a script for Universal's animated feature Curious George, though ultimately it wasn't used.

He leaves two daughters (Jenny and Susanna) from a thirty-year marriage that ended in 1991. Rest in Peace, Mr. Goldman.

The ReBoot

Slick as a ringmater's polished silver whistle, but will audiences buy in to a new version of a beloved classic? Of a monster conglomerate messing with their childhood memories? (And granted, for the elementary school set, this iteration WILL be their childhood memory, not the 1941 film.)

I honestly don't know the answer, but we'll find out soon enough. But whether the new movie is good, bad or indifferent, it isn't about new ideas or old ideas. It's about about properties tucked away in the corporate library that can generate major cash flow.

The Grinch's B.O.

Illumination Entertainment scored a #1 with its new iteration of The Grinch Who Stole Christmas while Warner Bros's Smallfoot quietly left the Top Ten.

THREE DAYS OF GROSSES

1) The Grinch -- 4,141 -- $66M -- $66M (1st weekend)

2) Bohemian Rhapsody -- 3,766 -- $30.8M (-40%) -- $100M

3) Overlord -- 2,859 -- $10.1M -- $10.1M (1st weekend)

4) The Nutcracker -- 3,766 -- $9.5M (-53%) -- $35.2M

5) A Star Is Born -- 2,848 (-583) -- $8M (-27%) -- $178M

5) ….Spider’s Web -- 2,929 -- $8M -- $8M (1st weekend)

7) Nobody’s Fool -- 2,468 -- $6.5M (-53%) --$24.2M

8) Venom -- 2,351 (-716) -- $4.8M (-38%) -- $206.2M

9) Halloween -- 2,717 (-1,058) -- $3.8M (-65%) -- $156.8M

10) Hate You Give -- 1,108 (-399) -- $2M (-38%) --$26.7M

The recently-departed Smallfoot now perches at #11, with a domestic total of $80,306,553 and $203,906,553 globally.

Incredibles 2, despite moving to other platforms on your home viewing devices, remains in 140 theaters. The pic collected $144,000 over the weekend, and now has a domestic total of $608,297,459 (worldwide the gross is $1,238,553,699).

Lsstly, the animation hybrid Disney's Christopher Robin remains in 132 theaters, picked up some small change, and now stands at $99,118,784 in domestic grosses. Globally, the take is almost evenly split between the U.S./Canada and everywhere else; world total is $196,116,581.

The Ever-Changing Cartoon Biz

Now with healthful, gluten-free Add On (see below).

Ed Catmull retires next month. John Lasseter is looking to make a comeback in Cartoonland (at a studio not named Disney). Animation, in ways similar to live-aCtion, has become a roiling sea.

Companies are beset by mergers, or #MeToo scandals. Studios are wedded to big ambitions, or shackled to past successes.

And internal questions are only the start. Leaders such as Disney and Pixar are trying to maintain dominance over the field, while close competitors like Illumination are closing in. Once-great studios such as DreamWorks are struggling to find their way back. And well-funded upstarts from Sony to Netflix are seeking to knock them all off.

“We are witnessing fundamental change right before our eyes,” said Dan Sarto, editor at the industry-watching Animation World Network and a close observer of the category. “It’s totally unprecedented. Everything is subject to disruption.” ...

A big reason animation is in flux is, it isn't a sleepy little corner of the movie business anymore. (Truth be told, it hasn't been small or sleepy for years.) Every entertainment conglomerate produces and releases animated features. Every conglomerate produces and distributes TV cartoons. Netflix and Amazon, to upstart pretenders to the Hollywood throne, produce animation because the formate draws LOTS of eyeballs. And well-watched content is the ane of the game.

Standard rule of thumb: the higher the stakes, the more vicious the in-fighting. That's why there is more back-stabbing and maneuvering at higher levels than there ever was before. That's why fewer big-shots talk to the mainstream media. (Kindly note that highly-placed animation execs delivered quotes to the Washington Post story directly above. They have more to lose than gain from press accessibility.)

Yes, the industry is going through Big Change, but it has gone through change and upheaval before. (Television, labor strife, cable networks, etc.) The difference now is the profits are far bigger and the stakes far higher. Internal turmoil is one thing when cartoons are a sleepy sideshow, quite another when the money is big and the competition fierce. The business is not just Disney, Hanna-Barbera, and a few small upstart studios anymore. Now it's seven hungry corporations with very long knives.

Add On: But, of course, it isn't just the animation biz in turmoil. The wider live-action industry is also going through painful change, as one of our major metroploitan dailies details here.

Merry Times at Walt's Place

The House of Mouse (otherwise known as the Walt Disney Company) had a very good quarter...

... The company reported adjusted per-share earnings of $1.48, topping analysts forecasts of $1.34 for the fiscal fourth quarter. It booked record revenues of $14.3 billion, exceeding Wall Street’s projections of $13.73 billion.

The film studio’s revenue jumped 50% in the quarter to $2.2 billion, buoyed by the box office success of Incredibles 2, which rang in more than $1.2 billion globally, and Ant-Man and the Wasp, at $622 million in worldwide ticket sales.

The media networks group, which includes broadcast and cable television, saw revenues rise 9% to nearly $6 billion in the quarter ending September 29. ...

Disney will complete its integration (digestion?) of Fox assets early in the new year. The Mouse's new streaming services will shortly be up and running. How well will Diz Co. complete against Netflix and Amazon? Should be interesting to find out.

In the meanwhile, most of its subsidiaries are ticking along, contributing to the bottom line. And Disney stockholders will no dout be hoping that Chairman Robert Iger stays beyond his current employment contract, even though he's getting a bit long in the tooth.

Bohemian Box Office

Rock-and-roll rules the turnstiles as Warner's animated feature makes ready to leave the Top Ten, and make way for Illumination Entertainment's Grinch.

THREE DAYS OF GROSSES

1) Bohemian Rhapsody -- 4,000 -- $48.9M -- $48.9M (1st weekend)

2) Nutcracker… -- 3,766 -- $20.2M -- $20.2M (1st weekend)

3) Nobody’s Fool -- 2,468 -- $13.8M -- $13.8M (1st weekend)

4) Halloween -- 3,775 (-215) -- $11.1M (-65%) -- $150.4M

5) A Star Is Born -- 3,431 (-473) -- $10.7M (-24%) -- $165.2M

6) Venom -- 3,067 (-500) -- $7.5M (-30%) -- $198.3M

7) Hunter Killer -- 2,720 -- $4.1M (-37%) -- $13.6M

8) Goosebumps 2 -- 2,828 (-895) -- $3.6M (-50%) -- $44M

9) The Hate U Give -- 1,507 (-868) -- $3.5M (-31%) -- $23.5M

10) Smallfoot -- 2,002 (-660) -- $3.1M (-35%) -- $76.7M

Smallfoot has now made $192,684,301 around the world. Not one of Warner Bros. larger hits, but since it's still playing off in lots of market and cost less than $100 million, (it was made in Canada at Sony Picture Imageworks Vancouver studio), it might eke out a profit by the time all cash streams are exhausted.

Incredibles 2 remains in 150 theaters domestically and has taken in $608,113,568 domestically. Worldwide Brad Bird's feature has taken in $1,238,213,568, good enough for #15 on the all-time grossers list.

Mickey! Merchandise!!

The rodent in the red shorts (there on the left with two other corporate mascots) turns ninety.

... Disney is using Mickey’s 90th birthday as a monstrous marketing moment, with the company’s cross-promotional machine revved up to what may be its highest level yet. Every corner of the $168 billion company is contributing to the campaign, which will intensify on Sunday when ABC runs “Mickey’s 90th Spectacular.” ...

By the early 1930s, Mickey was a merchandising machine. Look at early studio photographs, there is Mickey. He became a doll, became a watch, became a comic strip. The company was raking a $100 million in royalties on the Mouse by the second decade of its corporate existence.

As American copyright goes, Mickey frolicks into the public domain five years hence. Look for the Walt Disney Company to extend copyright AGAIN before the clock runs out. There is GOLD in that rodent with the bright red shorts.