..Gary Dretzka
..Noah Forrest
..Leonard Klady
..R.J. Matson
..David Poland
..Douglas Pratt
..Ray Pride
..Michael Wilmington

October 6 , 2004

With the widely-dreaded December 17th release date of Lemony Snicket’s A Series of Unfortunate Events less than twelve weeks away, we are displeased to report a recent flurry of associated activity.

* A new preview for the film began appearing in theaters everywhere on October 1. Thousands of young viewers reported that the trailer – seen here – was “even more unfortunate” than the one shown in theaters early last summer.
* The Grim Grotto, the eleventh book in Lemony Snicket’s chronicles of the Baudelaire children, is now in bookstores. In a matter of days, the controversial book, published by HarperCollins, has wreaked havoc with the sunny demeanor of young people and bestseller lists across the United States.
*The website at www.UnfortunateEventsMovie.com has been radically altered to be much worse. The completely redesigned site now features an appalling amount of information about the upcoming motion picture and the unfortunate characters that will appear in it, including what appear to be files from the Desk of Lemony Snicket.
* The website at www.CountOlaf.com has been named “Really, Really Upsetting” by BUSTED (Baudelaires’ Underage Supporters Timidly Exploring Discourse), an orphan advocacy group. The site, run by Count Olaf, continues to set new standards for villainous content; Count Olaf’s latest Blog entries alone have led thousands of users to resign from the Internet.

All of us at Paramount Pictures, DreamWorks Pictures, and Nickelodeon Movies can only apologize for what is proving to be a film event that no one will ever be able to forget. Please don’t say we didn’t warn you.