sony

Money Man Ryan Kavanaugh’s Next Funding Project: A Drunk Driving Defence

10:08AM STV | Here’s a Doomsday holdover for anyone who thinks today is going a little too conveniently well: Ryan Kavanaugh, the film financier whose Relativity Media interests intersect heavily with Universal, Sony and pretty much anyone else making films in Hollywood right now, will be arraigned next week on speeding and drunk driving charges dating back to October. His arrest was his second since 2006, when he previously sideswiped a Malibu police cruiser. And that would be a probation violation; do they allow development meetings in jail? More »

Thousands of Drunken Co-Worker Trysts in Jeopardy as Industry Cuts Back Holiday Parties

5:53AM STV | The odds that you remember the drunken, depraved glories of your employer’s past holiday parties are virtually nil, so most of Hollywood shouldn’t be too upset today to hear how the recession-to-be is affecting this year’s big industry fetes. Variety reports that Disney and Viacom won’t be celebrating at all, while other studios are scaling back their own events and even awards-season premieres to the extent their needy talent will allow. And if the global economic meltdown didn’t feel like a crisis before, wait until you hear how the caterers will be hit: More »

Sony Eyeing ‘Tintin’ Uncomfortably

6:50AM Seth | Steven Spielberg and Peter Jackson are searching for financing and distribution partners for their Tintin series after Universal passed. Sony is said to be interested in splitting the costs, with one studio insider explaining “A $US140 million movie about some French explorer dude with a mini-pompadour and little Wire Fox Terrier that no American kid has ever heard of? Where do we sign?” [THR] Universal won a bidding war for video game Dante’s Inferno, revolving around a “journey through the depths of hell” presumably separate from the one parents will experience taking their kids to see Dante’s Inferno. [Variety] McCain’s appearance on SNL, an amazingly chipper performance considering Tina Fey was literally inches away from him tearing his running mate to shreds, brought the episode a 9.0 household rating/20 share. (And a seriously funny Keith Olbermann sendup from Ben Affleck. We give props where props are due.) [THR] After the jump: Jack Bauer’s back, and he’s more pro-torture than ever! More »

Discuss: Why Would A Studio Give Hayden Christensen a Three-Picture Deal?

8:00AM STV | There’s a valid debate to be had about the cosmic justice in news that Hayden Christensen this week agreed to a three-picture deal with Screen Gems. Beyond the obvious indignation that directors like David Lynch (and his cow) are reduced to promoting his films on the street while Werner Herzog remakes American B-pictures (when he’s not remaking his own), we might look to the more bracing reality that a man best known for pouting his way through two Star Wars films as Anakin Skywalker has been entrusted with the development of three movies for Sony’s genre offshoot. More »

Pepsi Man Jack White Lashes Out at ‘Quantum’ Theme in Coke Commercial

9:03AM STV | There are no quantums of solace to be found today in the Jack White household, where the recent unveiling of his and Alicia Keys’s theme song to Quantum of Solace via a Coke commercial has the songwriter lashing out at his Sony patrons. “Jack White was commissioned by Sony Pictures to write a theme song for the James Bond film Quantum Of Solace, not for Coca Cola,” read a statement obtained over the weekend by NME. “Any other use of the song is based on decisions made by others, not by Jack White. We are disappointed that you first heard the song in a co-promotion for Coke Zero, rather than in its entirety.” Ah ah ah — make that Coke Zero Zero Seven, rebranded exclusively for the occasion of Quantum’s release this November. We’ll withhold judgment of the song itself until we can hear it in its entirety, but the sample available after the jump certainly sounds low-calorie. More »