Millions by the minute
Related links: Slideshow: What The 10 Highest Paid Celebrities Make Every Minute / News Limited picture
July 19, 2006 12:00
He would need less than two minutes to save for his driver of choice, the Nike SasQuatch. By contrast, the median household income in the US is about $US43,000, or eight cents per minute. These days, that's barely enough for a gumball.
But Woods is on the poor end of Forbes’s list of top-earning celebrities. Due in large part to endorsement deals and tournament winnings, he rings in at number six, once bands U2 and the Rolling Stones are removed from the equation.
Steven Spielberg tops the list, earning $US332 million in 2005, or $US632 per minute. It would take him only eight minutes to accumulate enough money for a night at the Mansion at MGM Grand, a Las Vegas hotel, which charges $US5000 per night.
Related links: Slideshow: What The 10 Highest Paid Celebrities Make Every Minute
Slideshow: What The 10 Top Billionaires Make Every Minute
Slideshow: World’s Billionaires
Slideshow: Billionaires and the Stars
Slideshow: Billionaires Under 40
There's bad news for the Hollywood set, however. While celebrities sometimes venture into nine-figure territory, their paychecks don't even come close to the sums earned in the business world.
In fact, Spielberg didn't corral that cash directing War of the Worlds or Munich. Last year, DreamWorks, the studio he founded with Jeffrey Katzenberg and David Geffen, was sold for $US1.6 billion. Starting a company, it seems, can be much more lucrative than making a movie.
The titans of technology make more than any producer, director or diva in Hollywood.
Microsoft founder Bill Gates is, of course, the richest man in world, with a net worth of $US50 billion. If he makes a 7 per cent return on investment, which is the average amount the stock market appreciates each year, he earns $US6659 per minute. That's enough to buy about 16 shares of Google's stock, which might be a smart investment considering Microsoft's shares are languishing below $US24.
Actual returns, of course, will vary widely--particularly for billionaires like Gates, who hold a large portion of their wealth in one company's stock. Nevertheless, in our hypothetical world, Gates could save for about four minutes and buy his wife Melinda a $US25,000 dress designed by Elie Saab, who frequently clothes Oscar-winning actress Halle Berry. Berry, by the way, makes only $US30 per minute, barely enough for a pair of jeans off Old Navy's sale rack.
Of course, the Gateses prefer more charitable pursuits, and they've received copious attention lately for their philanthropic efforts. Their foundation, which is frequently lauded for its investments in education and antipoverty programs, handed out $US2663 per minute last year. Praiseworthy, to be sure. But at our hypothetical rate of return, Bill and Melinda Gates still make more than twice as much as their foundation spends.
Fewer than half of the world's ten richest people are American. Indian steel titan Lakshmi Mittal, the majority owner of Mittal Steel, earns $US3130 per minute off his $US23.5 billion fortune. It would take Mittal four days to accumulate $US18.2 million, enough to buy Coakley Cay, a private island in the Bahamas. If he's impatient, however, he could find a quicker route to happiness. In six minutes, he could afford a six-liter bottle of champagne, the Louis Roederer Cristal Brut 1990, which sold at an auction last year for $US17,625.
Did we mention it's good to be rich?
Suddenly, even summer-lite movies have gotten too long
  |
| Tuesday, July 18, 2006 |
If brevity is the soul of wit, no wonder we have so many stupid movies.
Filmmakers don't know when enough is enough.
It used to be that cinematic diarrhea was most common during the Christmas season. Somewhere along the way Hollywood began equating long with important, and since the holiday season was heavy with Oscar-hopeful titles, we got used to sitting through long movies.
| n'); } if ( plugin ) { document.write(''); } else if (!(navigator.appName && navigator.appName.indexOf("Netscape")>=0 && navigator.appVersion.indexOf("2.")>=0)) {document.write(' |
Steven Spielberg's "Munich," with a running time of 2 hours, 45 minutes, is a perfect example. At least it is a film with something on its mind, so I was willing to forgive the movie for my numbed posterior.
But things have gotten out of hand. Now summer movies -- so-called "light" entertainment -- are clocking in at more than 160 minutes, and I have to protest.
Not only is that too long for a movie that aspires to mere entertainment, but also excessive running times hurt these films artistically.
Be honest now ... was there any earthly reason Peter Jackson's "King Kong" had to be three hours long? (Twice the running time of the 70-year-old original "Kong.") It would have been a vastly better movie at just two hours.
The new "Superman Returns" is a butt-deadening 2 hours, 34 minutes, a big chunk of that devoted to a giant f/x pig-out involving giant crystals threatening a luxury yacht on which Lois Lane and her kid are prisoners.
And I say, who cares? Why drag it out? Why not advance the plot quickly and efficiently and get the story back on track? Why subject the audience to an unending chapter of "Look What We Can Do With a Computer"?
"Superman" at least had a plot. The same can't be said of "Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest." This movie consists of 2 hours and 25 minutes of pointless running around, sword fights and battles with a giant tentacled creature called the kraken. It's not a movie ... it's the world's biggest trailer.
And where did moviemakers get the idea that comedy is improved by stretching out the time between solid laughs? No, no, no. Woody Allen's best movies clock in at 1:30. If your script has a dozen good laughs, isn't it better to make an 80-minute movie than a two-hour one?
This is why "It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World" (1963), with a three-hour running time, is minute-for-minute one of the unfunniest comedies of all time.
And apart from all other considerations, it's simply a matter of good showmanship. Leave your audience wanting more rather than wishing you'd stopped a half-hour ago.
WEEKEND FIRST: Weekly Movie Comings and Goings
By Tony Rutherford
Huntington News Network Writer
Huntington, WV (HNN)-- New Mainstreamers … Despite the announced “We Are Marshall” trailer delay (at least we now have more official sources, yea!), “Lady in the Water” has promise. Writer-director M. Night Shyamalan (“The Sixth Sense”) had written this tale as a bed time story for his kids, so its more on the ‘fantasy’ end of the ‘horror’ genre with a maintenance man rescuing a beautiful female creature called a ‘narf’ (legendary story book nymph) from the pool of an apartment complex. Be prepared for the unexpected, though, as the superintendent has a little ‘critic’ in his soul and “Lady” has the word parody written all over it.
Putting a comedic spin on relationships and superheroes, “My Super Ex-Girlfriend” begins with Matt (Luke Wilson) breaking up with Jenny (Uma Thurman). But Jenny happens to be the alter-ego for “G-Girl,” a now jealous lady who uses all her super powers to bust up Matt’s new relationship. Ivan (“Stripes”) Reitman directs.
Motion Capture Animation brings “Monster House” to the screen. Popularized by “The Polar Express,” the film by a just out of film school director has both Robert Zemeckis (“Back to the Future”) and Steven Spielberg (“Munich”) acting as executive producers as teens discover the house across the street is a living, breathing ‘monster’ in disguise.
Finally, “Clerks II” sends old pals Randal (Jeff Anderson) and Dante (Brian O’Halloran) back flipping burgers as they begrudgingly enter their 30s.
Next week, Michael Mann updates “Miami Vice” and three cheated upon high school gals plot to break a hunk’s heart in “John Tucker Must Die.”
Of course, you might consider a new one in the animation genre, “The Ant Bully,” where a young ant colony destroyer finds himself shrunken to insect size and sentenced to hard labor by the ants who survived his water gun drowning of their ant hill.
REMINDER… We received confirmation from the executive / publicity offices at Warner Bros. that the “We Are Marshall” trailer will not be in front of one of their pics until September. Stay tuned.
Continuing Art/Festival/Limited Releases … LAST CALLS….
An Inconvenient Truth – Described as a rallying cry to protect the Earth from a deepening global climate crisis, Director Davis Guggenheim weaves global warming science with the former vice president’s advocacy for an environmental message stripped free of politics. The documentary has been called charming, funny, engaging and haunting. Exclusive Showing(s) at Marquee Cinemas Pullman Square and the Warner Theatre (Morgantown); Ends Thursday at Marquee Southridge, Charleston. Interestingly, while one internet link claims that scientists have endorsed the warming warning as REAL, another site has a link to where others have called it ‘junk science.’ See it to make your own conclusion. (Continues at Marquee Pullman with two a day time schedule. )
(Note: Times and Titles subject to change at discretion of film bookers. Double check websites to verify times or to purchase on line tickets.)
HUNTINGTON, WV
Megan J. Doughty
Special to Hollywood.com
It was a most welcome invasion: Steven Spielberg was stunned Saturday as Tom Cruise made a surprise landing in Chicago to present his War of the Worlds and Minority Report director with a prestigious film festival award.
Cruise shocked a ballroom of 700 guests at the 42nd Chicago International Film Festival Summer Gala. Only Michael Kutza, the Festival’s founder and artistic director, knew that Cruise would join an eclectic mix of Spielberg’s colleagues and friends who were involved in the presentation of the Gold Hugo Lifetime Achievement Award.
(And before you ask, Cruise's new daughter Suri, was nowhere in sight)
Spielberg was joined on the red carpet by Jaws idol Roy Scheider, actor Cuba Gooding Jr., and Chicago paleontologist Paul Sereno, who discovered the 100-million-year-old remains of a sail-backed spinosaur the size of a T-rex—one of the reptilian stars of Spielberg’s Jurassic Park III.
Other celebrities, including Harrison Ford (Indiana Jones), Catherine Zeta-Jones (The Terminal) and Liam Neeson (Schindler's List), made video presentations describing their experiences working with Spielberg and lauding his lifelong body of work.
Spielberg has indeed defined a lifetime of favorite movies. From Jaws in 1975 to Munich in 2005, Spielberg’s hits are reliably, year after year, among our choices at the movie theater—and this longevity is certainly not lost on the filmmaker himself.
“It feels like a few lifetimes, actually,” Spielberg said. “Movies take a long time to make, and each one means so much to me. Every one might not be important to you, but every one of them is important to me. So in that sense, I feel like I’ve had a very full and very long life—or several lives—already.”
Past recipients of the Festival’s Lifetime Achievement Award include Clint Eastwood, Jodie Foster and Charlie Chaplin. Spielberg said he feels honored not only to be among such a list of established film icons, but also to be recognized by an organization that seeks out less-established filmmaking talent.
“The Chicago Film Festival has prided itself for 42 years on finding first- and second-time directors,” Spielberg said. “And I know I’m very proud of new directors that I’ve brought into the business over my 33 or 34 years of shooting film and television. So this particular award and the theme behind it really mean a lot to me for that reason.”
In this spirit, the proceeds from the Summer Gala will go to the festival’s year-round cinema education programs.
Scheider reminisced about working with Spielberg in his early days, when the now-legendary director was just a skinny, late-20s kid fascinated by Peter Benchley’s shark tale.
“He was terrific,” Scheider said. “He was inventive, imaginative, and he listened to his actors and allowed them to contribute as much as they could to his film. And that’s always a wonderful thing for actors.”
Scheider added that while Spielberg was already a highly effective director, no one could have predicted the eventual magnitude of his success.
“I don’t think anyone expected that,” Scheider said. “Certainly we knew that we were working with someone very talented, someone with a future in the motion picture industry.”
While Scheider was one of the first actors to work with Spielberg, Gooding is still looking forward to his second chance; he was offered the lead part in Amistad, but turned it down. Djimon Hounsou eventually landed the role.
“I regret not working with Steven,” Gooding said. “I still think I made a strong choice as an actor…but the more work I see from him, I think that just to have the opportunity to share the screen when this guy is behind the camera…is an opportunity not to be missed.”
Gooding added that Spielberg commands tremendous respect from his colleagues because his bold stylistic range is unparalleled in its breadth.
“He’s really touched on so many genres,” Gooding said. “When you think of a Spike Lee or a Woody Allen, you know you’re going to get a specific statement or a specific type of comedy. But with Spielberg, you think of E.T., and then you think of Schindler's List, and there might be certain camera movements that look familiar to you, but the whole storytelling technique is so diverse, and it’s always such a refreshing take.”
Amistad and Schindler's List are certainly different animals than the Jurassic Park series, which captured the attention of Sereno, a world-renowned dinosaur expert. Sereno lauded not only Spielberg’s versatility, but also his ability to inspire popular trends—in particular, to make paleontology cool.
“I think [Jurassic Park] was like an adrenaline shot in the arm,” Sereno said. “I’ve always felt that kids like dinosaurs not because they’re big and ugly, but because they encourage the imagination. And what Steven Spielberg did was he came in and said, well, I’m not going to just encourage your imagination—I’m going to blow your imagination wide open.”
Sereno noted, however, that some of the dinosaur representations in Jurassic Park did not pass his scientific muster.
“Of course I have my ‘bone to pick,’ so to speak,” Sereno said. “I think they blew certain aspects of the dinosaurs out of proportion. I would have done it differently…but does that mean the film is less of a film? No. I think it was a lot of fun.”
Cinephiles are anxiously awaiting Spielberg’s next “fun” release—which may feature a familiar rugged face.
“I’m attempting to do Indiana Jones IV right now,” Spielberg said. “But we’re still developing a screenplay and there’s no start date for production.” He added that he hopes to start another much-anticipated project, an Abraham Lincoln biopic, in late 2007.
It seems that Spielberg’s creative wheels will turn for years to come—but even after his inevitable departure from filmmaking, there may still be a Spielberg film to look forward to each year.
“My daughter Sasha seems very interested in acting and writing, and my son Sawyer is quite interested in directing,” Spielberg said. “But my oldest son, Max, who’s 21, wants to go into designing computer games.”
It’s the modern triple threat: one brilliant mind to write and act (maybe opposite Tom Cruise?), one to direct and one to produce the video game.