APRIL, 4

SEASON 4 BEGINS

MOVIES RELEASED

1-CALVIN AND HOBBES

Animation / Comedy
Directed and Produced by James L. Brooks
Starring voices: Owen Wilson, Vince Vaughn, Kirsten Dunst, Dakota Fanning
Box Office: 6 mill.
Net Loss: 33 mill.

CMP Reaction: It is obvious that CMP is not made for animation movies. Maybe the Studio should leave that to Disney and forget about it…

2-UNCOMMON VALOUR: A SHOW OF CONFIDENCE

Adventure / Romance
Directed and Produced by Ridley Scott
Starring Pierce Brosnan, Keira Knightley, Jude Law, Jake Gyllenhaal, Alan Rickman, John Cleese, Johnny Depp

Box Office: 71 mill.
Net Gains: 41 mill.

CMP Reaction: Best box office of the trilogy! A deserved successful ending for a saga that will be always remembered by the Studio.

THE THUMBS AND THE STARS

1-CALVIN AND HOBBES

“Translating a comic strip to screen is always risky. Readers always have in mind their own composure of the characters and it may be hard to accept the movie version of them. And usually there’s a lot of lost in translation. Did any fan of ‘Garfield’ comic strip liked the Garfield’s movies? This is the same. An adaptation of the comic strip for kids. It just doesn’t work”
-Roy Winslow, ‘The Critics Corner’

“Future of traditional animation is uncertain. Maybe Disney can save it, but CMP definitely won’t”
-Jack Carter, ‘The Critics Corner’

“This movie does not contribute with anything to the animation genre or to the original comic strip where it comes from. Not even ‘Calvin and Hobbes’ fans were interested in it.”
-Sheilah Graham, ‘The Critics Corner’

2-UNCOMMON VALOUR: A SHOW OF CONFIDENCE

“Another brilliant episode of the saga, although the formula gives signs of exhaustion. It is always nice to watch Brosnan, Knightley, Law and the rest of the band, but three movies seem more than enough for the concept”
-Charlie Kiggs, ‘The Critics Corner’

“Why Johnny Depp, the great villain of the first movie of the saga, has only returned to it making just a cameo in this third one? He is definitely the best of ‘Uncommon Valour’ and Scott should have taken more from him.”
-Anne Roman, ‘The Critics Corner’

“A worthy end of the saga. Once again, Scott has showed his talent filming great scenes at the sea. And Brosnan and Knightley take all their glamour to walk through the scenes. Instead of the failed addition of Leonardo DiCaprio in the second movie, this time new faces like Jake Gyllenhaal and specially Alan Rickman enrich the story. It is always a pleasure to watch an ‘Uncommon Valour’ episode.”
-Jay Johnston, ‘The Critics Corner’

AWAITING RELEASE

1-ROBOTECH 3

The Cast of Voices: Heath Ledger, Antonio Banderas, Maggie Gyllenhaal, Donald Sutherland

The Director and Producer: Michael Bay

The Plot: Picking up a year after the events of the last movie the SDF1 crew has returned home after beating back the invading forces and Rick Hunter has settled into a somewhat stable life with his popstar girlfriend who is having troubles of her own and now Rick has met a new lady who seems to not be able to take a hint when he rejects her. In other areas the life on earth seems to have atleast returned to normal for the time being. But the Zentroni forces are making a return, a one last ditch effort. They return to earth with a super powerful weapon capable of vaporizing earth into dust and the final conflict is about to begin. Many familiar faces will die in the last part of the first saga and some characters will recall their fondest memories as they lay their lives on the line to save humanity.

The Comment: Two previous Robotech movies made a box office over 120 mill. The Studio just hopes that this third one will at least equalize both.

2-THE CURE

The Cast: Leonardo DiCaprio, Jodie Foster, Robert Redford, Natalie Portman, Billy Bob Thornton, Paul Giamatti, Laurence Fishburne

The Director: Doug Liman

The Plot: Joseph Ford (L.DiCaprio) is a normal man with a normal job, he works as a police detective in NYC. That is until after a routine full physical he is diagnosed with cancer, a tumour in his brain that is in operable. Joseph can't cope with this news and cannot come to terms with it constantly asking why and how he got it. In the end he ends up drinking himself into oblivion alienating his friends and family losing everything. That is until while hungover a note slips through his doors offering him answers. Travelling half way around the world to find these answers. he learns many people are infected with cancer by a group of governments working to make their citizens resistant to biological and chemical attacks by terrorists. Killing thousands in return for possibly saving millions. Joseph now seeks revenge and heads back to America to do this in the process fighting his illness and fighting his ethics as he goes to make sure what happened to him doesn't happen to anyone else and look for a possible cure to his illness.
Characters: Joseph Ford (Leonardo Dicaprio)
Elizabeth Hast (Natalie Portman) – A woman with the same illness that helps Ford in his search for truth.
Rachel Jones (Jodie Foster) – A scientific, one of the leaders of the project
William Hunt (Robert Redford) – A popular congressman, one of the brains behind the project
Peter McNab - (Laurence Fishburne) – Ford’s partner/ex-partner
James - (Paul Giamatti) - Man who reveals the conspiracy to Joseph
Edward Saimes (Billy Bob Thornton) - An agent tasked to stop Joseph

The Comment: Big CMP’s mega-production of the season. A quality action thriller with a superb cast that is expected to become a major blockbuster.


SPECIAL REPORT – SEASON 3 FINALE

Julian Jones presented the CMP’s official report of CMP’s Season 3. ‘his season has gone beyond all our expectations’, said Jones during the press conference, ‘The Studio keeps growing up and making better movies each time. It has been an exciting and successful season and we pretend to do it even better in Season 4… although it’s going to be hard to reach this season’s achievements.”

Here is the final report (in brackets you can see the same data from Season 2 to compare):

MOVIES RELEASED: 30 (24)
SEQUELS RELEASED: 8 (2)

MOVIES WITH NET GAINS: 22 (15)
MOVIES WITH NET LOSS: 8 (9)

NET GAINS TOTAL: 1577.4 mill. (1015 mill.)
NET LOSS TOTAL: 136.8 mill. (202 mill.)
FINAL BALANCE: Net Gains – 1440.6 mill. (813 mill.)

MOVIES WITH BOX OFFICE SUPERIOR TO 200 MILL: 2 (0)
-Star Wars: New Order (Steven Spielberg / Marcus Trax)
-The Great War Series: Darkening Skies (Peter Weir / Jack Hammer)

MOVIES WITH BOX OFFICE SUPERIOR TO 100 MILL.: 4 (3)
-Westworld (Michael Bay / Steve Connors)
-Captain America vs Superman (Tim Burton / Joey Stark)
-Hitman: Two Ways To Die (Tony Scott / John Daws)
-The Greatest Show On Earth (Tom Hanks / Marcus Trax)

TOP 1 NET GAINS: STAR WARS: NEW ORDER – 250 mill.
TOP 1 NET LOSS: OUTER EYE – 35 mill.

MOVIES IN DEVELOPMENT

THE LAW: Laurence Fishburne (‘Bullitt’, ‘Deep Silence’) will be seen in the upcoming release ‘The Cure’. Due to his work in this picture, he had to reject the offer made by Christopher Nolan to be in ‘The Law’. The character conceived for him will be finally played by Andy Garcia.

CASUAL DAY: Tommy Lee Jones (‘The Tempting Diamond’, ‘The Greatest Show On Earth’) will be Eva Longoria’s father in this action comedy. And it is finally known the name of the man that is working behind the cameras: Andrew Bergman.

DAKOTA NORTH: First western ever produced by CMP. Jack Hammer has written the perfect story for Angelina Jolie to prove us again that she is a tough girl. Her dearest Brad Pitt gets into the family business as producer. And it is said that he has asked Clint Eastwood to direct the movie. But it is also said that Eastwood is not crazy with the idea of putting another western in his life.

LONDON UNDERGROUND: Stephen Sommers will travel to London to film this horror movie. He has no cast yet. The original characters of the story written by Matt Kubrick were teenagers, but Sommers is considering rising a bit the age of the cast trying to make a difference from the ordinary teen horror movies.

ULTRAMAN’S REVENGE: Villain chosen. Two big comedy names join the new adventure of Ultraman. Will Ferrell will be the main villain and Martin Lawrence will be a minor villain playing an Eddie Murphy’s ex friend. Harold Ramis is so happy to have such group of comedy stars. Should we too?

SOUTH EAST: It seems like every screenwriter has his muse. James Bradley has Kate Winslet. And iJohn Daws has Keira Knightley. He wanted her in his new movie, but Keira has refused to be in it, as she wants to take some rest after such a busy time with the sagas of ‘Hitman’ and ‘Uncommon Valour’.

THE LIBRARY: Another female star getting busy. Right after finishing her work in ‘The Cure’, Natalie Portman (‘Saving Samantha Moss’) joins the cast of this one. But it won’t take her long as she only appears in a few scenes playing nothing more and nothing less than Anthony Hopkins’ vision of the goddess Athena. Wow.

THE HEIRS – PART 3: Scorsese has denied that he hasn’t decided the end of his saga yet. ‘That’s rubbish’, he stated in a recent interview, ‘I know how the story will end since the very first movie. It is stupid to think that I’m working with two different screenplays’. Don’t mess around with Martin, guys.

PIECE OF MY HEART: Hard to believe. No other than Mr. Jack Nicholson himself will make a cameo in Baz Luhrman’s musical. Nicholson will play a mean music industry mogul that exploits Drew Barrymore without scruples. It is not confirmed if he will also sing or dance in the movie. Expect anything.

VISIONAIRES: There we go… Bryan Singer has finally accepted to direct and produce this new saga written by Marcus Trax based on a popular action figures. The movie will be one of the more expensive productions for this Season. Although the Studio does not confirm or deny anything, it sounds like they are trying to begin a new franchise. Thrilling.

COMING SOON –THE ADD

RUMOURS AND GOSSIPS

Long time without saying anything about Star Wars… Well, here we are. George Lucas is already working on the pre-production of the new movie. Little is known yet. Some new stars will join the cast. Spielberg is not returning as director. And yes, we know a title for sure: ‘Star Wars: Mysteries of the Sith’.

Nobody loves Tom Cruise? Although his only movie for CMP, ‘Chevrolet’, was both a critics and box office hit, nobody has offered him any other job for the Studio. So Cruise has got tired of waiting a phone call and it seems like he will take the initiative and, together with his partner, producer Paula Wagner, is going to present some projects to Harry Stark for his consideration.

The movie version of the Broadway musical ‘Nine’ is expected to be green lighted soon. Antonio Banderas will repeat the character he successfully played on stage. He also has the intention of directing the movie, although in some recent interview he stated that he is not definitely sure if he wants to work both in front and behind the cameras at the same time.

INSIDE CMP

After the tremendous flop of ‘Calvin and Hobbes’, CMP has decided to close its Animation Division. Director and Producer Michael Bay, who was ahead of this Division, will keep working on his anime saga, ‘Robotech’, but the Studio won’t maintain a specific Division for animation. After the bad results of ‘Happy Hamsters’ and ‘Calvin and Hobbes’, Harry Stark is not interested in animation movies any more. ‘Maybe we’ll give animation another try in the future, but it is not a genre we’ll concentrate on for a while’, has stated CMP’s President.

So the Studio’s internal structure is being reorganized and now it will stay as follows:
-President: Harry Stark (the big boss)
-Production Division CEO: Julian Jones (his right hand, he will get even more involved in all the production process and specially the relationship with screenwriters through what he calls ‘Production Reports’)
-Head of Screenplays Department: Joey Stark (big boss’ younger brother, he takes care of those screenplays not coming from independent screenwriters)
-CGI and FXs Department: James Cameron (director and producer will supervise all the technology aspects of the Studio’s production)
-Press Office: Amy Ratched (CMP has hired the prestigious movie journalist to become the official speaker of the Studio)

EVERYBODY IS INVITED TO VOTE FOR THE GMA NOMINATIONS BEFORE SATURDAY, 7TH