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

By now, it’s a given that the Lord works in mysterious ways. Take Hollywood marketing campaigns … please.

Despite all the fancy talk about exploiting the Internet, and tapping into niche markets, studio publicists continue to rely primarily on publicity junkets, magazine cover stories and TV talk-show appearances to create buzz around a new movie or TV show. As long as the media remain obsessed with celebrities and the trappings of excessive wealth, it’s the most cost-effective way to reach large numbers of potential customers.

Not that the public can be relied upon to take the bait anymore. In making their weekly box-office choices, consumers have applied many of the same filters that newspapers, especially, once relied upon when deciding which movies it would bless with coverage on any given Sunday. Foremost among them, of course, was the smell test.

If the information transmitted via a trailer, screener, one-sheet poster, TV commercial or press release exuded a foul odor, chances were the product wouldn’t be worth wasting space or money on, either. Even if there’s no accounting for taste at the box-office, the shit-detectors now employed by consumers seem far more effective than the out-dated models employed by the media. Offer an editor or segment producer “exclusivity” on a hot young star or the movie du jour, and they’ll agree to almost anything.

Nothing terribly new, there. What’s different today, however, are they lengths to which actors, directors and producers will go to distance themselves from a turkey. (Success, of course, has hundreds of parents.)

TThe latest example comes in the form of the public pissing match that’s currently taking place over the disappointing domestic returns from The Island. While most Monday-morning quarterbacks considered the marketing campaign to be, at best, ambiguous -- director Michael Bay had complained that the posters made Scarlett Johansson look like a "porn star" -- producers Walter Parkes and Laurie MacDonald apparently decided that the stars were to blame.

It's been widely reported that this observation, which referred to Johannson and Ewan McGregor, appeared on the producing team's impossible-to-find website (maybe having an unlisted website is a cool new trend on the west side): "Listen, those are superstars of the future, not superstars of the present. Even lesser television actresses, quite honestly would have more connection to that audience."

(This exact quote has been attributed to Parkes in dozens of articles about the contretemps. The uniformity suggests that, like me, only a small handful of the reporters -- if that -- could actually find the website to confirm the item, let alone establish its context. Is the quote accurate? From what I can tell, Parkes hasn't tried to clarify his position, and only one blogger thought the press misrepresented it.)

Through her publicist, Johannson replied, methinks reasonably, “This is a clear-cut example of the producers passing the buck and not taking responsibility for their part in making calculated mistakes throughout the film's marketing. (I am) proud of (my) performance and the film.”

Now that international numbers are turning positive, look for the Parkes and everyone else at DreamWorks, Warners and the catering wagon to take public bows for the turn-around.

For the media, though, the quarreling was all part of a highly ritualized continuum that generally begins with the trial balloons that are floated over the trades by agents, announcing imminent casting deals, and ends with the announcement of sequels, director’s-cut DVDs and lawsuits accusing one party or another of plagiarism (in the case of The Island, it’s Jeffrey Katzenberg, who, while still at Paramount, allegedly copped someone else’s idea for a clone thriller). Just as the junketeers dutifully reported Bay’s dopey anecdote about having to talk Johansson out of going topless in a romantic scene, the pundits couldn’t be bothered to wait for contrarian reports from foreign distributors -- or DVD sales, for that matter -- to declare the project a fiasco.

A budget of $130 million-plus may be tough to make up, especially after such a puny opening, but it’s hardly an impossible task. Waterworld was supposed to be one of the all-time bombs, but, somehow, it still can be found on TV, at Blockbuster and, in the guise of a theme-park attraction, at Universal Studios Hollywood.

Myopia comes with the territory.

When discussing the marriage-of-convenience between journalists and Hollywood, it’s interesting to note how far into a corner the print media now appears to have painted itself.

With the changes in command at the New York Times and, most recently, the Los Angeles Times, we’re told that the editors are determined to feed us even more short-sighted coverage of Hollywood than they’ve dished out in the past. This catering to celebrity and show-biz ephemera is necessary, they argue, in the desperate industry-wide pursuit of young readers. It’s a dubious strategy, at best, but one of the few available to the newspaper industry.

A more logical argument for such excessive coverage of often-trivial pursuits comes in the knowledge that newspaper executives have reached a point of no return when it comes to studio advertising budgets. At this year’s ShoWest, reporters learned that studios had clearly begun to put the brakes on newspaper spending.

After all, the prime movie-going demographics obviously no longer depended on information -- including theater schedules -- gleaned from newspapers. Why bother, then, with all those full-color double-truck ads found in every Sunday features sections, and the harvesting of quotes from the over-indulged junket whores?

At the time, not much was made of that little tidbit. And, God knows, media-beat reporters were unlikely to trumpet the bad news in the pages of the newspapers that employed them.

This week, however, in her closely watched column in the LA Weekly, Nikki Finke added some alarming new perspective to the story. In it, she got some influential Wall Street types to acknowledge the potential impact on the nation’s largest papers and chains, which, until the arrival of the Internet, were the primary source for information about upcoming entertainment options.

Moreover, she argued, “I have long maintained, and frequently written, that the nearly simultaneous decision by both the LAT and NYT to increase the space devoted to, and upgrade the quality of reporting on, culture is the direct result of these newspapers’ attempts to woo even more Hollywood advertising than the large amount they already receive. For some time now, movie ads are no longer the one bright spot in an otherwise dim display-ad picture for even these newspapers.”

According to Wall Street’s Goldman Sachs, she adds, “newspaper ad revenues are growing at a dismal pace. Goldman Sachs pegged the weakness to decreased spending in entertainment, which makes up 14 percent of national revenues for the newspaper industry.”

No one has accused the major papers, their critics and business reporters of pulling punches in their coverage of show-business issues. It’s easy to argue, however, that most of the profile and preview stories that are assigned or grabbed off the wire to fill holes in feature sections are sops either to middle-brow readers or studio marketing departments.

Too harsh? Ask yourself these questions?

** While 99 percent of all movies and a majority of network TV programs are reviewed -- or, otherwise pimped -- what percentage of new books, music albums and niche cable shows are allowed the same treatment? (Answer: very few.)

** Why force highly qualified critics to review movies intended solely for the amusement of teenage horn-dogs and morons of all stripes? (Answer: because the publicists would complain if we didn’t, and, anyway, we assign those reviews to interns.)

** Why would a big-time newspaper run staff, freelance or wire stories from junket, roundtable and telephone sessions, knowing that the guidelines for the interviews were pre-arranged by studio or independent publicists? (Answer: they didn’t think you’d notice.)

** Do the studios kowtow to Oprah, 60 Minutes, USA Today and Newsweek/Time out of respect for their journalistic standards, or guarantees of powder-puff interviews and gushy behind-the-scenes baloney? (Answer: the latter.)

** Would I be less or more inclined to see a movie that ran a half- or quarter-page ad in the Sunday paper, instead of the usual full-page or double-truck display? (Answer: you’ll soon find out.)

It’s a jungle out there, and newspapers have begun to behave like wounded animals … not to protect their turf or integrity, but to ensure a steady revenue stream.

This could take the form of combined bureaus in Hollywood for the major chains, instead of select reporters and critics for individual papers (the Tribune papers have already embarked on a similar strategy in Washington, D.C., and have discussed a similar option for Hollywood). It also could mean less space is reserved in feature sections for all entertainment coverage, with high-brow material taking the biggest hit. Or, more newspapers could lower their ethical standards, by agreeing to participate in publicity junkets or marathon gang-bangs on the order of the ceremonial spoon-feeding of television writers that occurs at the TCA’s critics’ tours.

Would newspapers fight fire with fire, by adding numbers to their writing and critical staffs, and reporting on projects and issues not already covered ad nauseum already by People, Entertainment Weekly, the Star, W and Cigar Aficionado … continue to review movies and TV shows, but take a pass on the hype? Not bloody likely.

By showing a little spunk and independence, though, the print media could eventually cut into the ties that inexorably bind them to the major studios and their star-maker machinery. Such a declaration of semi-independence certainly would work to the benefit of distributors of art-house, documentary and other low-budget indie fare, which, after all, is the most dependent on newspaper advertising, coverage and intelligent criticism, and might decide to increase their spending in newspapers.

Not to be forgotten is the fact that the advertising in features sections -- especially on Sundays -- pays the freight for such slacker sections as sports, editorial, op-ed, books (sadly, except at the New York Times), local news and business (who, in this digital age, really needs four open pages of stocks listings?).

A few stockholders might complain, but, after a couple of quarters of flat revenues, they’ll feel enriched by their sacrifices. And, who knows, maybe the studios will start making movies for adults, again, and flock back to newspapers, and those once-dispensable demographics.

Stranger things have happened … but, not many.

August 19 , 2005
- Gary Dretzka