alan horn
Spirited Fans Move to Death-Threat and Hate-Mail Phase of ‘Harry Potter’ Fever
4:00AM STV | We don’t traffic in empathy much around here — especially for studio heads — but you can’t help but feel a bit sorry for Alan Horn these days, who has been reduced to peering under his car in a paranoid state before each trip to and from the Warners lot, searching for some Harry Potter fan’s homemade peat-moss explosive affixed to his gas tank with frog spit and the hovering air of revenge. Surely he knew what he was getting into when he pushed Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince from this November to July 2009 (he’s already apologized), but still, no one deserves to live under the type of shrieking death-threat duress graphically laid out by The Wall Street Journal:
Fans’ Wizard Hats Droop With Anger, Sorrow as Warners Pushes Back ‘Harry Potter 6′
10:00AM STV | Warner Bros. sent surprising word today that it has bumped Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince from a release this November all the way back to July 17, 2009 — a savvy numerological strategy landing Potter exactly one year’s worth of Fridays from its opening day for The Dark Knight. Studio boss Alan Horn officially attributed the move to more practical considerations, however, namely the fact that Warners’ vibrant content chain is missing a few links next summer thanks to the writer’s strike. But don’t get any ideas about Jonze-esque hold-ups or other snags, added Jeff Robinov: More »
Joel Silver, ‘Rocknrolla’ Among the Inventory on Display at Warner Bros. Fire Sale
2:20AM STV | Add another “maybe” to our speculation about Joel Silver’s future at Warner Bros.: Reports today indicate that the slumping superproducer is shopping around Guy Ritchie’s Rocknrolla, a Dark Castle project scheduled for release by WB in October. Maybe. Now Lionsgate and Sony are supposedly in talks to pick up the action/crime thriller lest Warners overextend itself this fall with titles inherited from New Line (Pride and Glory), Picturehouse (The Women) and Warner Independent (Slumdog Millionaire, Towelhead). More »
5 Burning Questions We Still Have For ‘Content Kings’ at Warner Bros.
5:15AM STV | We took the better part of two days to process the NYT’s recent recognition of Warner Bros. as the crown jewel at Time Warner, where Jeff Bewkes, Barry Meyer, Alan Horn and Co. are venerated at length for emphasizing “content” (i.e. their film and TV properties) ahead of “distribution” outlets like AOL, DVD and on-demand services. It’s an oddly situational success story; in fact, it opens with WB chairman Meyer literally inhaling the incoming fax telling him The Dark Knight made $66 million on opening day, and namechecks Two and a Half Men among a handful of TV series that are finding lucrative traction internationally. There’s also the HBO factor and the Turner channels’ flourishing as well.
‘Where The Wild Things Are’ Gets New Release Date: Never
9:40AM Defamer Hollywood | We hoped you liked the clip “test footage” of Spike Jonze’s troubled adaptation of Where the Wild Things Are, which made the rounds in February amid rumours of the $75 million film’s slow demise at Warner Bros. We’re reading now that that may be all you see for at least a few more years while Jonze tinkers and tweaks on Warners’ watch, prompting Alan Horn to offer an update today to his bloggy BFF Patrick Goldstein. More »
