Start-Up Brash Entertainment Gets Its Game On

It's axiomatic in the entertainment industry that video games and Hollywood movies have a hard time traversing platforms. Video games almost always make terrible movies (Super Mario Brothers, Street Fighter, Tomb Raider, Resident Evil...the list goes on and on and...

Jun 04 2007

Activision C.E.O.: Labels Should Owe Guitar Hero, Not Reverse

Guitar Hero, Rock Band and other music-oriented videogames are the latest hotly contested licensing battleground for music, as executives on both sides of the equation question the deals that allow songs to be used in the games. Last month,...

Sep 30 2008

Video Games Are Outperforming the Economy

Ars Technica reports: September's NPD numbers on game sales were the focus of a lot of speculation, as everyone was looking for answers to two questions: will the gaming industry continue to perform well in the face of a struggling...

Oct 17 2008

Beatles, MTV 'Come Together' For Video Game

Sam Gustin hums: It's been a long and winding road, but it looks like the Beatles -- the last, biggest holdout from the digital music scene -- are finally embracing Rock Band, the video game phenomenon.Word broke late Wednesday that...

Oct 29 2008

Advice to Over-40 Crowd: Start Playing Videogames

Kevin Maney writes: Maybe it's time to stop being surprised when studies show that videogame fans are normal, sociable, successful -- and in fact are the future of business. Like, duh -- most of the population under A Certain Age...

Oct 23 2008

The Secret to Saving Movie-Based Video Games

Just last night I was watching G4, the channel dedicated to all things tech, and cracking up as they skewered the video game for DreamWork's Shrek the Third (host Adam Sessler's entire review was told in a kid's story rhyming...

Jun 27 2007

Salaam, Hollywood!

Why does the Persian Gulf want to be a Hollywood player? The state-owned Abu Dhabi Media Company is launching a film production arm, called Imagenation, which will commit about $1 billion in film financing over the next five years in...

Sep 03 2008

Microsoft and the Ivy League: Videogame Makers?

Andrea Chalupa reports: At a presentation at New York University today, Craig Mundie, Microsoft's head of research and strategy, paced back and forth in front of a PowerPoint presentation. It was a pretty flat display for the fast-moving, multidimensional product...

Oct 07 2008

Globes Downgrade--Now What Of The Oscars?

To borrow a metaphor that was reworked in Paul Haggis's In the Valley of Elah (given that he's been perhaps the Writers Guild MVP for his untiring early commitment to their cause), the WGA has again taken their slingshot...

Jan 08 2008

Celebrity Blog: Bob Rice on Portfolio.com Thursday

Bob Rice, this week's Playa, has had many careers. He was an attorney with the U.S. Justice Dept., a partner at law firm Milbank, Tweed, Hadley and McCloy, a CEO of tech startup and now runs merchant bank Tangent Capital, which he founded in 200

Aug 27 2008

Activision: Driving EA Crazy; Upcoming CEO Interview

Electronic Arts is used to being the big cheese in the exploding video game industry. But in the past year or so, Activision has been driving EA nuts. First it came out with Guitar Hero, which turned into one of...

Feb 25 2008

New to Hollywood? Watch Your Wallet.

As gushers of new money pour into Hollywood from India, Dubai, and Abu Dhabi, we offer the newcomers a little heads up about the ways of the Wild West.

Sep 11 2008

Amazon Selling Music on Grand Theft Auto IV

Here's an interesting twist on music marketing: Gamers who play the new Grand Theft Auto IV will be able to easily (well, sort of easily) buy downloads of the music they hear through Amazon.com. Although, it seems like a pretty...

Apr 29 2008

Everybody Loves a Price War!

Okay, gamers. As you ride the wave of falling console prices, shout: "Wii!!" Microsoft joined Sony in cutting the price of its top-of-the-line gaming hardware, announcing on Tuesday that it would cut the price of its Xbox 360 console by...

Aug 07 2007

Tough Times, Even in Tinseltown

Think of all the producers or directors who have the pull to plunk down at the studio of his choice and make any film he pleases. It's a short list, even in the best of times. Steven Spielberg would...

Sep 24 2008

The Tyranny of Opening Weekend Box Office

This summer is "proving the apotheosis of the one-weekend blockbuster," says David Halbfinger in the New York Times, citing Spider-Man 3's $182 million opening week in May, followed by a 61 percent box office plunge the next week. Pirates of...

Jul 18 2007

Where There's Smoke, There's Ire

Should all movies that feature people smoking receive an R-rating? The MPAA is currently wrestling with that seemingly draconian question and asked the Harvard School of Public Health for guidance, explains Kim Masters in Slate. Let's just say that Harvard's...

Apr 08 2007

Halo, World.

Microsoft's launch of Halo 3 today is one of those events in the video game industry where, as in a close playoff baseball game with a slugger at the plate: Everyone in the stadium can smell the home run about...

Sep 25 2007

Can Ben Stiller Cap Off Paramount's Summer?

Ben Stiller wrote, directed, produced and stars in Tropic Thunder--but his portrayal of a quote, "full retard" in the film is stirring controversy.

Aug 06 2008

Direct-to-DVD: H'wood's New Boom Biz

The Wall Street Journal's Merissa Marr has a terrific article today about Hollywood's rapidly growing direct-to-DVD market. This is a subset of studios' homevid business that's fascinated me for the past few years. As Marr's piece (titled "Studios Have New...

Apr 20 2007

EA's 2008: Spielberg, Sports And Screaming Ducks

There may, within days, finally be some further information shaking loose from Electronic Arts and collaborator Steven Spielberg as to the nature of the three video game titles--one almost a complete mystery thus far--that they've been cooking up for...

Jan 30 2008

MPAA's Latest Smoke Signal

The MPAA recently asked the Harvard School of Public Health for guidance about its policy on cinematic smoking and now the association has made a decision, announcing today that its going to consider how all tobacco use is portrayed when...

May 10 2007

Don't Invest in Hollywood

Only a fool would invest in the expectation of making a profit either in films or in art.

Jun 11 2007

Mid-Summer Movie Report Card

For those of you who don't know, the summer works like this in Hollywood: Memorial Day kicks off the season, Independence Day marks the middle and Labor Day is the other book end. As Wednesday, July 4th marks the mid-point,...

Jul 02 2007

What "BFF" Really Means in Hollywood

Nope. Not "Best Friend Forever." How about "Black Best Friend"? Today's LA Times takes a look a not-so recent trend in Hollywood--African American actresses playing characters whose principal function is to the support the heroine, "often with sass, attitude and...

Aug 29 2007

Superheroes Save Hollywood! (Barely.)

The stellar performance of superhero movies again this summer is enough to make you wonder if the film industry has figured out a way to bottle zeitgeist. You need look no further than the summer's two tallest action-figure tent...

Sep 03 2008

Hollywood Credits Anti-Piracy Efforts For "Dark Knight" Success

Sam Gustin has learned the REAL reason why The Dark Knight smashed box-office records during its opening weekend: Hollywood's anti-piracy efforts.Or so Tinseltown would have you believe.In an L.A. Times article which can only be described as "bizarre" -- in...

Jul 28 2008

Strike Watch 2007: Quality Control

The specter of a possible strike is really starting to spook Hollywood. With production surging and studios stockpiling, the Hollywood Reporter's Carl DiOrio is asking the question that always comes up whenever the town faces a period of work stoppage:...

Aug 08 2007

Last Bytes: Google, World of Warcraft, Intel, Cisco

Google finally gets it: YouTube to let advertisers buy search terms on videos. [Cnet]New edition of World of Warcraft draws iPhone-like pre-release lines. [SAI] Intel cut Q4 forecast by a lot, citing slowing demand. [Business Wire]Cisco is canceling its annual...

Nov 12 2008

Hollywood's New $300 Million Club

Remember when $100 million was the benchmark for box-office success? That number seems so quaint compared to this summer's record breaking run. For the first time ever, four films have broken the $300 million barrier at the dometic box office:...

Aug 16 2007