variety
Big Screen
It’s No Victory Tour, But…
6:07AM Brian Moylan | Michael Jackson’s concert film This Is It grosses $2.2 million on opening night.
Online
Will Variety Lead Old Media Back To Pay Wall Ghetto?
12:53AM John Cook | Variety, the Hollywood trade newspaper with its own secret language based on words like “ankle” and “boffo” into its copy, has confirmed that it plans to put most or all of its web site behind a paywall. More »
Big Screen
Is Judd Apatow’s Funny People Ha-Ha Funny, Or Awkward “Funny?”
12:45AM Foster Kamer | Yesterday, the first reviews of Judd Apatow’s Funny People started to trickle out from the major film critics. How’d it do? Well… More »
Print
Layoffs At Variety, Parent Company
6:42AM Hamilton Nolan | After longtime Variety editor Peter Bart was eased out of power last week, the conventional wisdom was that major staff changes could be in store. And here they come, at the entire company. Layoffs! More »
Print
Peter Bart And Variety’s Future
1:23AM Hamilton Nolan | Longtime Variety editor Peter Bart was finally replaced last weekend—a move that we (and others) interpreted as Bart being, essentially, stripped of his power to make way for new blood. Not true, he says! More »
Online
Peter Bart Kicked Upstairs At Variety
8:26AM Ryan Tate | After 20 years as Variety’s editor in chief, Peter Bart was replaced with his deputy. Now the question is what the trade’s cost-cutting corporate overlords will do to the paper. More »
Anne Thompson Among Shocking ‘Variety’ Staff Cuts
7:58AM STV | The pink-slip printer had been whirring loudly all day over at Variety. And moments ago, as it produced actual names, it took on the blood-curdling tone of a meat grinder. More »
3:05AM STV | Happy 75th, Variety! Defamer wishes the best of anniversaries to Daily Variety, which today celebrates 75 years in business — albeit a month late, as is customary with so many of its biggest stories, but in a festive, infectious spirit nonetheless. Not to mention surprising as well, according to the blurb featured on its Web site’s front page; we knew Peter Bart had been tottering around the deck for a while now, but to think Bart himself may have once run the printer with one hand while memoing Gone With the Wind notes to Louis Mayer with the other… Well, kudos indeed. And don’t stay up too late partying! [Variety] More »
Harsh ‘Variety’ Editors Take Official Stand on Natalie Portman’s Acting Skills
9:45AM STV | All she wanted to do was direct, and now look: The gang at Variety all but scoffed today at Natalie Portman’s forthcoming feature helming debut, scare-quoting an implicit vote of no confidence in the job she has now. But she’ll show the “trade paper” yet, with her short-film bow on the the way in the omnibus New York, I Love You and more outstanding performances to come in 2009. Seriously — this is an Oscar nominee! Have they not seen Closer? Or that film she did years ago with Luc Besson? Oh. Wait. [Variety] More »
