No one ever said the meek shall inherit the movie industry. But as Hollywood’s blockbuster films continue to soar critically and rewrite box-office records in 2008, the American independent sector is on life support.
The factors that were meant to boost independents - including new private equity investment, the relative accessibility of digital filmmaking and studio [...]

When Meg Ryan and Antonio Banderas signed up to star in an independently produced comedy-action movie called “My Mom’s New Boyfriend,” the film’s backers figured they had a slam dunk — a modestly priced film with bankable stars that would surge at the box office.
The producers say the $17 million movie scored well in test [...]

That’s it — fall is a wash.
With Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince unceremoniously bumped from November to next July, theater owners should just go ahead and shut down. Because there’s nothing left on the film slate over the next few months. No new releases between now and the end of the year. Not a crumb to [...]

Mathieu Kassovitz is pissed off. The French auteur, who first made waves in 1995 with La Haine, is supposed to be celebrating the passion project he’s been nursing for the past five years. Instead — the week before Babylon A.D. hits theaters — he is nursing a grudge. “I’m very unhappy with the film,” he says. “I never [...]

Emboldened by this summer’s success with “The Dark Knight,” Warner Bros.’ movie studio is setting a new strategy.
The Time Warner Inc. unit, like some other Hollywood studios, is planning to release fewer films into the crowded marketplace. But the studio, known for making more big, expensive movies than most rivals, plans to make even more of those [...]

How could this happen? The question springs to mind as 20th Century Fox claims it has the rights to the graphic novel on whichWarner Brothers is basing “Watchmen,” its giant superhero movie.
Peer deeper into the murk of Hollywood’s business practices, though, and the question becomes: How could it not?
The film industry was buzzing last week after [...]

Starting in 2009, all of DreamWorks Animation SKG Inc’s films will be in next-generation 3-D.
“This is the next innovation for the movie industry,” Jeffrey Katzenberg, chief executive of DreamWorks Animation, said in an interview. “It impacts how we make our movies, how movie theaters present our films and how audiences experience our films.”
Katzenberg’s DreamWorks Animation [...]

Will Steven Spielberg soon be directing a Bollywood extravanganza? A few years ago this might have seemed like a ridiculous question but with the news that Indian entertainment giant Reliance may invest $500m in Spielberg’s DreamWorks studio, it suddenly doesn’t sound so unlikely after all. And Spielberg isn’t the only major Hollywood player that Reliance [...]

As the fear of hard economic times infects, yes, even Hollywood, plastic surgeons and beauty consultants are pitching lower-cost alternatives to pricey face-lifts: Botox, lasers and all variety of creams, some of which reporter Shari Roan explored in one L.A. Times story on stem cell ingredients, and in another story on exotic botanicals.
Even a [...]

Scarlett Johansson has criticised Hollywood’s treatment of older women.
The 23-year-old actress and singer said that the movie industry was harder on women than men.
Johansson told Hello! magazine: “Women kind of wilt as men sort of achieve as they get older, like wine or whatever. It’s like, ‘Oh, she’s past her prime and she can’t play [...]