Jennifer miller nyc’s drogin production maximum

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Marcy Drogin, a Gotham film, lit and legit vet who recently ran
Michael Douglas’ Furthur Films, has formed Maximum Films &
Management.
Blending production, management and consulting, the company has signed
a half-dozen scribes and writer-directors and forged consulting pacts
with CBS Films, Mandalay and Participant.

“Maximum is their New York eyes and ears, covering books, plays,
screenplays and other material,” Drogin said. “My goal was to create a
niche in New York that wasn’t filled: a management company with
someone at its head who had a lot of production and development
experience and wouldn’t have to depend on movies getting made.”

Drogin recently brought in “Chasing Harry Winston,” by “The Devil
Wears Prada” author Lauren Weisberger, and helped attach screenwriter
Gina Wendkos to adapt the book. Mandalay has since set up the project
at Universal. She also brought Larry Beinhart’s novel “Salvation
Boulevard” to Mandalay; George Ratliff is attached to adapt and
direct.

Cathy Schulman, prexy of Mandalay Pictures and Mandalay Independent
Pictures, praised Drogin’s “keen eye for identifying compelling
stories.”

Drogin’s Maximum has no connection to the Canadian production
and distribution company Maximum Films, which Robert Lantos launched
in 2007.

Along with Douglas and Mark Canton, Drogin is also attached to produce
“The Ride Down Mt. Morgan” at Atmosphere Entertainment. Nicole Kassell
(“The Woodsman”) adapted it from the Arthur Miller play and will
direct.

While at Furthur Films, Drogin produced “The Sentinel” for Fox and New
Regency and logged co-producer credits on “Swimfan” and “It Runs in
the Family.”

Maximum’s management client list includes Seth Rosenfeld, David
Gilbert, Chris Carlson, Shira-Lee Shalit and Jennifer Gruskoff & David
Gordon.

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ProductionsToronto, ON Ace Web Programmer/Consultant Company
Confidential – Entertainment SiteLos Angeles, CA Executive Assistant
to the Editor-In-Chief – The Knot, Inc.New York, NY Kingston, MA

Presidential debate palin in gwen ifill meet the press

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Forget the presidential debates. The veepstakes has all the action,
and this week’s match between Joe Biden and Sarah Palin could make
ratings history.
“I love the vice presidential debate; it’s always the one I look
forward to the most,” says Alan Schroeder, author of “Presidential
Debates: 40 Years of High-Risk TV” and a journalism professor at
Northeastern U. “The stakes are lower, so the candidates usually
attack harder. It’s much better political theater.”

Anyone not remember Lloyd Bentsen’s stinging put-down of Dan Quayle in
the 1988 veep debate when Quayle compared himself to JFK? “Senator,
you’re no Jack Kennedy.”

“The vice presidential debate usually draws the lowest ratings, but
this could be the year that changes all that,” Schroeder says, mainly
because of the Palin factor. “This is the mystery woman meeting the
public almost for the first time. We’ve never had such a thing with a
vice presidential candidate in history.”

Still, we have had a woman running for the vice presidency —
Geraldine Ferraro on the 1984 Democratic ticket — and her sparring
with then-incumbent V.P. George H.W. Bush holds the record for Nielsen
ratings of vice presidential debates: 56.7 million viewers.

But Ferraro was not, as Palin has been, shielded from the media for so
long a time after her addition to the ticket. Palin’s press exposure
has been minimal, which can reduce the chance for gaffes or mistakes.
But it also ups the pressure on her to perform when she finally opens
herself to unscripted questions, which in turn will likely draw more
viewers — perhaps more than the Ferraro-Bush debate — than had she
been fielding questions all along.

There’s also the Ifill factor, as in Gwen Ifill, the PBS “News Hour”
correspondent who will moderate the Biden-Palin face-off. Given how
successful the McCain campaign has been in branding many tough
questions for Palin as “sexist,” that attack will be harder to sustain
against another woman posing the questions. Ifill has a “very down-to-
earth, matter-of-fact, fair style,” says Allan Louden, director of
graduate studies at Wake Forest U. and coach of its debate team for 30
years. “For a woman to go after a woman is maybe OK, so maybe Biden
just sits back and watches” — along with millions of others who might
be anticipating a womano-a-womano confrontation.

The lowest-rated debate, pitting Jack Kemp and Al Gore in 1996 and
moderated by “News Hour” anchor Jim Lehrer, drew only 26.6 million
viewers. Not coincidentally, the lowest rated presidential debate
occurred the same year, between Bob Dole and Bill Clinton (36.1
million). That race wasn’t close, unlike the current one.

One issue that’s guaranteed to draw viewers — whether Palin has
enough experience to be a heartbeat from the most powerful office on
the planet — may already be having an impact. “It really bolsters
McCain that she doesn’t have much experience,” Louden says. “The focus
is on her, and his experience is treated as a given. Obama has been
trying to make McCain’s experience an issue again, arguing that he has
the wrong kind of experience.”

Louden says there also will be different audiences for this debate, a
point the mainstream media haven’t really understood so far, he adds.
“Palin doesn’t have to know much, not when the campaign has been
trying to portray Washington media as elitist. She just has to meet a
threshold of sincerity more than of knowledge, because if she can make
the tough questions sound like they’re elitist, everyone west of the
Mississippi gets it.”

With the format planned — a total of maybe five minutes of back-and-
forth discussion per question — both Palin and Biden’s knowledge will
have to be more broad than deep. “This format is going to keep the
subject matter moving very quickly,” Schroeder notes. And with no
limitation on questions, Ifill will be free to cover as wide a range
of topics as she feels necessary.

“The presidential candidates are always very cautious in debates,”
Schroeder says. “They’re really giving tight performances. The vice
presidential candidates are looser.”

And when those candidates are a moose-hunting hockey mom and a wonky
D.C. insider squaring off in primetime over the most pressing issues
of the day, showrunners and scriptwriters can only dream of the
ratings likely to come.

A.Elizabeth – The influence of pay per view, direct to cable, etc.
on the movie industry; the price of m…

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Religulous movie’s weekend wide variety

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A whopping seven wide releases — plus the semi-wide release of
Bill Maher’s doc “Religulous” — debut this weekend at the
domestic box office, making for the most crowded frame that anyone can
remember.
Battling for October B.O. amid the many openers poses all sorts of
problems for distributors, from fighting for screens to having to
spend more on media campaignsjust be heard. It also fragments the
prospective aud for weekend moviegoing. meaning money left on the
table.

The bottleneck at the B.O. isn’t going to ease up any time soon.
There are four new wide releases set for each of the next two weekends
and three slated for the last weekend in October.

September and October have traditionally been a time for more serious
films and family pics. The months also are a favorite dumping ground.

But nowadays, studios have to use the early fall for more commercial
films, too, because the release calendar is crowded year-round.

“This sort of crazy volume has never happened before,” said Disney
prexy of distribution Chuck Viane. “How do you even get noticed?”

For this weekend, Disney would seem to be well-positioned. Its
“Beverly Hills Chihuahua” is looking like a surefire bet with the kid
and family aud.

Of the other new titles, Sony’s Michael Cera-Kat Dennings quirky
comedy “Nick and Norah’s Infinite Playlist” also is looking
strong.

Titles include Universal’s Greg Kinnear topliner “Flash of
Genius”; MGM’s comedy “How to Lose Friends and Alienate People,”
based on the bestselling book; Miramax’s Julianne Moore-Mark
Ruffalo starrer “Blindness”; Vivendi’s politically charged spoof
“An American Carol”; and Warner Bros.’ Western “Appaloosa,”
which expands nationwide.

U has been heavily marketing “Flash of Genius,” based on the real-life
story of the man who invented the intermittent windshield wiper, only
to fight patent claims for years against automakers.

Last fall, there was a similar glut around this time but it was more
on the specialty side. The results weren’t pretty, with many of
the pics falling by the wayside. This year, the glut is more
pronounced for all the wide releases. In the same weekend last year
there were only three wide releases.

The four pictures opening wide over the Oct. 10-12 weekend are Ridley
Scott’s Leonardo DiCaprio-Russell Crowe starrer “Body of Lies,”
Fox Walden’s family film “City of Ember,” U’s sports drama
“The Express” and Sony’s thriller “Quarantine.”

The following weekend, Fox’s vidgame adaptation “Max Payne,”
which is tracking strongly, arrives alongside Fox Searchlight’s
“The Secret Life of Bees” and Lionsgate’s George Bush biopic
“W.,” directed by Oliver Stone, enter the fray.

Opening on Oct. 24 are Warner Bros. crime drama “Pride and Glory,”
directed by Gavin O’Connor, Lionsgate’s “Saw V” and
Disney’s “High School Musical 3: Senior Year.”

A.Michael – 1. The Economy. 2. Tax Incentives (or the lack thereof,
for California) 3. Reality Televis…

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