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hollywoodlandHollywoodlandInside the big picture show.12155894hollywoodlandfalsefalsespacernullhollywoodlandReality BitesKim MastersWhy the actors' strike won't happen.noReality BitesWhy the actors' strike won't happen.noActors' strike? We have been reluctant to address the latest labor conflict in Hollywood, but with the Screen Actors Guild contract set to expire Monday, we turn to the subject just long enough to say this about a strike: There's not going to be one.truenotochyperlinkno200862611312PMThursdayJunJune136/26/2008 5:13:12 PM633500827920000000200862611312PMThursdayJunJune136/26/2008 5:13:12 PM633500827920000000hollywoodlandTom Cruise MysteryKim MastersThe case of the doctored publicity photo.*noTom Cruise MysteryThe case of the doctored Tom Cruise publicity photo.noTomfoolery: It appears that Tom Cruise isn't putting all his eggs into the Valkyrie basket. Valkyrie, you'll recall, is the Bryan Singer-directed thriller in which Cruise plays a German officer who tried to assassinate Hitler. That project has hit some bumps on its way to theaters. Meanwhile, Cruise is also making an attempt to go back to his roots. But making that happen isn't simple: It seems that the Cruise camp recently reached out to Paramount about making Mission: Impossible 4 and got seriously disavowed.truenotochyperlinkno200861215205PMThursdayJunJune136/12/2008 5:52:05 PM6334887552500000002008617125849PMTuesdayJunJune126/17/2008 4:58:49 PM633493043290000000hollywoodlandHBO's Roman Polanski ProblemKim MastersA crucial scene of a celebrated documentary turns out to be wrong.noHBO's Roman Polanski ProblemHBO's Roman Polanski problem.noRewind: Tonight, HBO airs Roman Polanski: Wanted and Desired, a documentary that, according to the HBO press materials, raises "lasting questions about … the U.S. legal system." Without being exactly sympathetic to Polanski, the message of the film is clear: The courts did to him what he did to a 13-year-old girl in 1977.truenotochyperlinkno200852844629PMWednesdayMayMay165/28/2008 8:46:29 PM633475899890000000200869115123AMMondayJunJune116/9/2008 3:51:23 PM633486090830000000hollywoodlandDoes NBC Really Have an Office Spinoff?Kim MastersAlso: Gaming out the Conan, Fallon, Leno, and Kimmel late-night musical chairs.noDoes NBC Really Have an Office Spinoff?Does NBC really have an Office spinoff?noIn front or upfront?: This evening, NBC's "experience" will be taking the place of the usual upfront presentation. Recall that the network said it would forgo all of that this year, opting for the "in-front" session several weeks ago. So instead of filling Radio City Music Hall with advertisers and the press, as usual, the network will instead have reporters walk through some sort of display that will expose us to the many facets of NBC—including its mighty cable properties and the Internet stuff that CEO Jeff Zucker bored us with in upfronts past.truenotochyperlinkno20085814532PMThursdayMayMay135/8/2008 5:45:32 PM6334585113200000002008512122555PMMondayMayMay125/12/2008 4:25:55 PM633461919550000000hollywoodlandAnalyze ThisKim MastersHow did a Robert De Niro flop get chosen to close Cannes?noAnalyze ThisHow did a Robert De Niro flop get chosen to close Cannes?noWeird: We've never been to the Cannes Film Festival, which is our loss, no doubt. But luckily we've already seen this year's closing-night selection, What Just Happened?, which leads us to ask, what did just happen?truenotochyperlinkno2008421124213PMMondayAprApril124/21/2008 4:42:13 PM633443785330000000200843062924PMWednesdayAprApril184/30/2008 10:29:24 PM63345176964000000020061220112420AMWednesdayDecDecember1112/20/2006 4:24:20 PM63302210660000000020061220112420AMWednesdayDecDecember1112/20/2006 4:24:20 PM633022106600000000falsetruetruetruetruetruetrue20061220112142AMWednesdayDecDecember1112/20/2006 4:21:42 PM63302210502000000020061220112142AMWednesdayDecDecember1112/20/2006 4:21:42 PM633022105020000000By spacerKim MastersyeshyperlinkspacerKim MastersyeshyperlinkKimMastersfalse13Kim Masters is an NPR correspondent and the author of The Keys to the Kingdom: The Rise of Michael Eisner and the Fall of Everyone Else.848kmasters@prodigy.net(310) 446-9624310-446-934210736 Rochester aveLos AngelesCA90024USAsocial security # is 220 60 5274111203620011018111443PMThursdayOctOctober2310/19/2001 3:14:43 AM6313904368300000002001101875447PMThursdayOctOctober1910/18/2001 11:54:47 PM63139031687000000011200962315658AMTuesdayJunJune16/23/2009 5:56:58 AM6338131901827339242004816124722PMMondayAugAugust128/16/2004 4:47:22 PM6322825724200000002004816124722PMMondayAugAugust128/16/2004 4:47:22 PM632282572420000000Aug. 16, 2007spacer155200J.K. Rowling. Click image to expand.J.K. Rowlingfalsefalse1/123125/2155893/2157584/2172348/070816_HWL_RowlingTN.jpghttp://img.slate.com/mediayesStandardImage1/123125/2155893/2157584/2172348/070816_HWL_RowlingTN.jpg155200http://img.slate.com/mediafalse200962315658AMTuesdayJunJune16/23/2009 5:56:58 AM633813190182733924200962315658AMTuesdayJunJune16/23/2009 5:56:58 AM633813190182733924200962315658AMTuesdayJunJune16/23/2009 5:56:58 AM633813190182733924false200781623039PMThursdayAugAugust148/16/2007 6:30:39 PM633228714390000000200781623039PMThursdayAugAugust148/16/2007 6:30:39 PM633228714390000000Muggles: For journalists condemned to write about Hollywood, August may be the cruelest month. Sure, there have been news explosions in Augusts past—Sumner Redstone fired Tom Cruise in August, God bless him. Years back, Michael Eisner fired Jeffrey Katzenberg in August. Elvis died in August. But so far, this August hasn't moved us.What do we have to work with here? It may be a sign of trouble ahead that Goldman Sachs has withdrawn its commitment to raise $1 billion for a batch of MGM movies, so we'll keep an eye on that. But we can't get excited about the drama of Ed Limato leaving ICM. There's a molecule of entertainment value in agents doing each other dirty, but why do we care which agency made Ed's deal? (William Morris, if you do care.) OK, Limato's got Denzel Washington, which has to be a decent business. But is Mel Gibson paying some kind of big commission these days? He hires himself to make his movies and supposedly coughs up 5 percent if and when he's hired to act. It's been a long time since What Women Want, friends, and we're not so sure that many women want him any more. As for Limato's other clients, is Richard Gere paying big dividends? And we're interested in what happens to ICM and William Morris because ... ?So we turn for amusement to amusement parks. The details that follow here are not entirely news if you follow Disney obsessively, as does blogger Jim Hill. But it slipped past us at the time and most everyone else as well.In June it was finally made official that Universal will create a Harry Potter attraction in Florida. The Los Angeles Times reported  that this will enable Universal at last to challenge Disney's dominance there. It was mentioned that Disney had tried to make the deal. But Hill had the real dish. His under-the-radar reportgave some details on Harry Potter creator J.K. Rowling's ideas on how this attraction would work. And it said that Disney concluded the project would be an expensive nightmare.Rowling's vision supposedly was that each person would enter through the Leaky Cauldron, tap on a brick, gain access to Diagon Alley, then proceed to a platform in a version of King's Cross station and take a train to Hogwarts. Disney figured it would have had to build multiple Leaky Cauldron entrances to cycle in small groups every two minutes. Admission to the attraction envisioned by Rowling would have run north of $800 per person. Disney's thought it might be able to drive the cost down a bit to make it comparable to Anheuser-Busch's Discovery Cove, where folks pay a few hundred bucks to swim with dolphins. But in the end, Disney and Rowling could not come to terms.The fact that Disney was also shelling out big bucks for Pixar at the time might well have colored the company's thinking. As we look back, the situation reminds us of Disney's attempt to lure another persnickety British writer of children's books into a deal. Some time in the '80s, the company negotiated with Mary Poppins author P.L. Travers into approving a sequel. At the time, an internal memo leaked (to us, we're glad to say) in which Marty Kaplan—then a Disney executive and now at the USC Annenberg School for Communication—described Travers as an impossible tippler who couldn't stand Dick Van Dyke as Bert. No Mary Poppins 2 materialized.It's unclear whether Universal's Harry Potter plan includes the elements that scared Disney off the deal. But Universal seems to have worked things out with Rowling in part through the fabulous diplomacy of Ron Meyer and in part by hiring Stuart Craig, the Oscar-winning production designer who worked on the Potter films and has Rowling's confidence. (Disney was said to be reluctant to link itself too closely with the movies, which are made by Warner Bros.)Universal is mum on how much its attraction will cost. The last book is out, and by the time Universal gets ready to open, the last movie will be in sight. But the movies are still going great guns. Is there any doubt that the passion of Potter fans will suffice to repay Universal's investment, whatever it may be?HollywoodHollywoodHSumner RedstoneSumner RedstonePeopleHarry PotterHarry PottercultureDisneyDisneyDDenzel WashingtonDenzel WashingtonPeopleChildren's booksChildren's booksCRichard GereRichard GerePeopleEisnerEisnerEFilmsFilmsFRemarks from the Fray:"Is there any doubt that the passion of Potter fans will suffice to repay Universal's investment, whatever it may be?" To answer this question, which concludes the article, I have to say, "There is considerable doubt." If Disney never got any closer than an admittance cost in the hundreds of dollars, they were smart to walk away. No way would a park charging that much ever succeed--particularly in Orlando, where there are so many other first-rate attractions that cost far less. I suspect the finished park will charge about the same as Disney and Universal, at which price-point it will probably do okay. However, another reason to be cautious: There aren't any other major theme parks out there devoted to a single story. Harry Potter is huge, but whether it can endure enough to still support a park a decade from now, when the books and movies are long since gone, is debatable. Disney and Universal stay relevant by mixing in brand new attractions with the old favorites. That's something the Potter park will struggle to do. In that regard, it would probably have made more business sense to make it a part of Universal's Islands of Adventure, as opposed to being a stand-alone park. --Sundown(To reply, click here.)(8/19)Photograph of J.K. Rowling by Evan Agostini/Getty Images.10000false231001falsefalsefalse1falsefalsefalsefalsefalsefalse457200781621651PMThursdayAugAugust148/16/2007 6:16:51 PM633228706110000000200781621651PMThursdayAugAugust148/16/2007 6:16:51 PM633228706110000000