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In Management Shake-Up, Warner Bros. Puts TV and Movie Units Under One Executive

June 24, 2013 by Leave a Comment

LOS ANGELES — Warner Brothers on Monday announced a new leadership team for its film division while informing the staff that Jeff Robinov was leaving as the motion picture group’s president. Combined with a shake-up at its television unit, the moves greatly concentrate power at Hollywood’s largest studio in the hands of one executive.

Rather than relying on formidable movie and television presidents to run their respective businesses, which has long been Warner’s practice, Kevin Tsujihara, the studio’s recently appointed chief executive, has shifted to lines of reporting that promise a more hands-on approach — by him. Less than four months after taking over for Barry Meyer, Mr. Tsujihara, 48, will now have a half dozen TV and movie executives reporting directly to him.

Warner said in an e-mail to employees on Monday that Mr. Robinov, who has been president of the studio’s movie operation, would “no longer serve” in that role. Four of Mr. Robinov’s lieutenants — Toby Emmerich, Dan Fellman, Sue Kroll and Greg Silverman — will instead begin reporting to Mr. Tsujihara.

The new alignment promises to be more than just a stopgap measure, but it was hastily designed in recent days after Mr. Robinov signaled that his reign was coming to an end. The circumstances of Mr. Robinov’s exit are still unclear; in the e-mail sent to employees, Warner stopped short of saying that he would depart.

A Warner spokesman declined to comment. Mr. Robinov, whose contract stretches into next year, did not return a call left at his office. His lawyer, Harry M. Brittenham, declined to comment.

Associates of Mr. Robinov said last week that he might surface at another studio, if he managed to discontinue contractual arrangements that tie him to Warner.

Mr. Robinov, a volatile executive who maintained strong relationships with filmmakers, was publicly passed over for the chief executive job that Mr. Tsujihara received in January. Another candidate who lost out, Bruce Rosenblum, formerly Warner’s television president, left the studio in May after 25 years.

Instead of replacing Mr. Rosenblum, whose amicable departure came as his contract ended, Warner opted to have three of his deputies — Craig Hunegs, Peter Roth and Jeffrey Schlesinger — run the business and report to Mr. Tsujihara, who started as chief executive on March 1. Warner insiders positioned the combined movie and TV management changes as an effort to create a flatter and faster operation.

Mr. Tsujihara and his new movie team have a certain comfort in knowing that Peter Jackson’s “Hobbit” franchise — stretched to three films — will fill screens through the end of next year, with the release of “The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug” and “The Hobbit: There and Back Again.” The “Hobbit” series has already been overseen by Mr. Emmerich, who will continue as president of New Line Cinema, a Warner subsidiary.

Mr. Emmerich will add responsibility for Warner’s live theater business, which adapts its movies for the stage. A musical adaptation of “Charlie and the Chocolate Factory” is under way in London, for instance.

Mr. Fellman will continue to run Warner’s movie distribution in North America, while Ms. Kroll, president of worldwide movie marketing, will add oversight of international distribution. Mr. Silverman will now serve as president of creative development and production.

Until recently, Warner had been the industry’s most stable studio. Mr. Meyer served as Warner’s chief executive for 14 years before turning over the wheel to Mr. Tsujihara; a single management team oversaw the studio for the previous 18 years.

In film production, Mr. Robinov’s departure sweeps away a management structure that had been in place since 2002. In September of that year, Lorenzo di Bonaventura, a highly regarded production executive, resigned to become a producer, allowing Mr. Robinov to consolidate his position as the executive in charge of key moviemaking decisions.

The new appointments give little clue as to the future plans of Time Warner, the studio’s parent company. Time Warner’s chief executive, Jeffrey L. Bewkes, recently initiated plans to spin off the company’s magazine holdings, which will concentrate the conglomerate more around its entertainment holdings.

As Hollywood’s largest studios focus on fewer and more expensive films, some executives and analysts have speculated that industry consolidation is inevitable. But whether Time Warner would figure as a buyer, seller, merger partner or bystander in any next round of transactions remained unclear.

In recent years, Mr. Tsujihara, who formerly ran the studio’s home entertainment division, has had a role in deciding what movies would be made, even routinely reading scripts. Last year Warner movies took in about $4.3 billion at the global box office, with hits like “The Dark Knight Rises,” “Magic Mike” and “Argo,” which won the Oscar for best picture of 2012.

Still, the studio faces significant competition in television production from 20th Century Fox and has struggled to bring its DC Comics superheroes like Wonder Woman and Green Lantern to movie audiences while Disney’s Marvel Studios has had one superhero hit after another.

Article source: http://www.nytimes.com/2013/06/25/business/media/warner-brothers-announces-new-studio-leadership.html?partner=rss&emc=rss

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Media Decoder Blog: Studios Have Differing Responses to Visual Effects Company’s Financial Woes

February 15, 2013 by Leave a Comment

LOS ANGELES—As expected, Rhythm and Hues, the El Segundo, Calif.-based visual effects supplier, has filed for protection under Chapter 11 of the United States Bankruptcy Code, and the filing shows that its principal customers—20th Century Fox, Universal Studios and Warner Brothers—have split in their approach to the company’s financial woes.

According to filings, made on Wednesday with the bankruptcy court in Los Angeles, Fox and Universal agreed to extend credit that will allow the company to proceed with work on their films, presumably including Fox’s “Percy Jackson: Sea of Monsters” and Universal’s “R.I.P.D.”

But Warner, according to the effects company’s motion, which seeks extra time to file a schedule of assets and liabilities, has demanded the “return of all materials” related to three of its scheduled movies. Two of those were identified in the filings as “Black Sky,” a thriller from the company’s New Line Cinema unit, and “300: Rise of an Empire,” which was made in partnership with Legendary Entertainment, and is set for release in August. The third film, according to a person who was briefed on the matter but spoke on condition of anonymity because of the court proceedings, is “The Seventh Son,” a Legendary film, which is scheduled for release by Warner in October.

According to the filings, Warner has claimed that it is owed $4.9 million, which it has paid for work that is not yet completed.

“Unfortunately, with respect to the current projects,” a Rhythm and Hues filing noted, the company “will be unable to complete them at the bid amount, and therefore needs additional funding to pay the costs.” Three Warner-related entities are identified as being among the 20 unsecured creditors with the largest claims against the company, although it also noted that the status of the claims by those three are “disputed.”

The person briefed on the matter said he did not expect the studio to alter its release plans for the films.

While no full schedule of assets and liabilities has yet been filed, the court papers said Rhythm and Hues had about $27.5 million in assets at the end of 2012, and about $33.8 million in liabilities. One of the company’s filings identified Rhythm and Hues as one of the “top eight” visual effects companies in the world, and said it had contributed to more than 150 feature films. Those include “Life of Pi,” a Fox film whose visual effects have been nominated for an Oscar.

The Rhythm and Hues bankruptcy compounds financial troubles across the effects industry, which has been affected by intense global competition.

A Warner spokesman declined to comment on the filings.

Article source: http://mediadecoder.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/02/14/studios-have-differing-responses-to-visual-effects-companys-financial-woes/?partner=rss&emc=rss

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For Archie Comics, a Return to Superheroes

October 10, 2011 by Leave a Comment

At the New York Comic Con this week, Archie Comics will reveal its next step in the digital frontier. In spring, the company will bring back its line of superhero characters in a subscription model that will offer an original six-page story and access to an archive of past adventures.

“It’s very exciting to be creating the first brand-new digital comic book label,” said Jon Goldwater, the co-chief executive of Archie Comics Publications.

Besides the possibility of reaching an audience beyond the comic book stores, there was a second advantage to this digital model. “Financially, it makes sense,” Mr. Goldwater said. “We are not going to have any print costs. To be a slave to printing prices when you’re starting a new venture is a tremendous concern.”

The idea for this initiative came up in July during the Comic Con International in San Diego. The Archie crew was meeting with Michael Murphey, the founder and chief executive of iVerse Media, a distributor of digital content. The two companies teamed up to bring Archie into the digital world in 2008. Between comics available for free, and those that have been purchased, Archie is closing in on three million downloads.

Mr. Murphey was a fan of Archie’s superheroes, who are often referred to as the Red Circle based on an earlier imprint that published them. The characters include The Fly, which was created by Joe Simon and Jack Kirby and introduced in 1959, and The Shield, a patriotic hero who had his first adventure in 1940, predating Captain America by a year. The champions banded together as The Mighty Crusaders.

“When Marvel sold to Disney, and with DC owned by Warner Brothers, I thought those characters are the only superheroes left that are not owned by a major studio,” Mr. Murphey said.

Archie last published the characters in 1985. DC Comics licensed them from Archie and released stories in 1991 and in 2008, but both attempts were short lived.

The premise of the digital series, written by Ian Flynn and illustrated by Ben Bates, begins with the heroes largely in retirement in a suburb called the Red Circle. Their enemies find and dispatch the heroes, forcing the next generation, who will be overseen by The Shield, to save the day, thus paving the way for The New Crusaders, the title of the series.

Tonally, the stories will be similar to “The Incredibles,” Mr. Goldwater said. “They are not going to be water-downed superheroes, but they are not going to be dark either.”

The digital marketplace is of growing importance to the comic book industry. As part of the DC Comics initiative to reinvigorate its superhero universe with new No. 1 issues, the company also began selling digital copies of its series on the same day as print publication. Last month, Slave Labor Graphics Publishing, a smaller company, announced it would offer its periodicals only in digital form, saving the print versions for collected editions.

“Publishing and profiting from periodical format comics has become increasingly irrelevant for most indie comics publishers,” wrote Heidi MacDonald, editor for The Beat, a blog that covers comics.

Archie’s latest digital initiative will be similar to Netflix, Mr. Goldwater said. “It will be a nominal monthly charge with access to new comics and thousands and thousands of pages from the archive.”

That trove of material will include stories that have not previously been reprinted. But the archive is meant to enrich the reading experience, not bog it down. It was important to give subscribers a full story that was not mired in decades of continuity, Mr. Goldwater said.

The price, which has not been set, is another important consideration. “Value, value, value. That’s what we want to give at Archie Comics,” said Mr. Goldwater, who said he expected the subscription fee to be no more expensive than a regular comic book ($2.99 or $3.99). “We’re very conscious of what’s going on in the economy right now. We want to be recession busters. We don’t want to gouge our fans.”

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On Tyson’s Face, It’s Art. On Film, a Legal Issue.

May 21, 2011 by Leave a Comment

In “The Hangover Part II,” the sequel to the very successful what-happened-last-night comedy, the character played by Ed Helms wakes up with a permanent tattoo bracketing his left eye. The Maori-inspired design is instantly recognizable as the one sported by the boxer Mike Tyson, which is part of the joke. (Mr. Tyson makes an appearance in both films, playing himself.)

But S. Victor Whitmill, a tattoo artist formerly of Las Vegas and currently from rural Missouri, doesn’t quite see the humor. Mr. Whitmill designed the tattoo for Mr. Tyson, called it “tribal tattoo,” and claims it as a copyrighted work.

He has gone to Federal District Court in St. Louis to ask a judge to stop Warner Brothers Entertainment from using the tattoo in its posters or in the movie, which would amount to stopping the film from being released, as well as to demand monetary damages for what he calls “reckless copyright infringement” by the studio.

“Mr. Whitmill has never been asked for permission for, and has never consented to, the use, reproduction or creation of a derivative work based on his original tattoo,” argues the lawsuit, which was filed April 28, and will be taken up next week.

The suit isn’t frivolous, however, legal experts say. They contend the case could offer the first rulings on tricky questions about how far the rights of the copyright holder extend in creations that are, after all, on someone else’s body. They are questions likely to crop up more often as it becomes more common for actors or athletes to have tattoos and as tattoo designs become more sophisticated.

Warner Brothers responded on Friday in a brief to Judge Catherine D. Perry, stating that any delay in releasing the film would have huge economic costs. It also argued that there was no legal precedent for Mr. Whitmill’s assertion of copyright, saying he had put forward a “radical claim that he is entitled, under the Copyright Act, to control the use of a tattoo that he created on the face of another human being.”

Copyright and trademark law can be hard to understand intuitively — for example, the idea that you can “own” a photograph or a letter, but not own the right to reproduce its content. The example of a tattoo, where “ownership” means having it become part of your body, actually does little to clear up the matter.

The wrinkle in the “Hangover” lawsuit is that Mr. Whitmill has taken pains to leave Mr. Tyson out of it. “This case is not about Mike Tyson, Mike Tyson’s likeness, or Mike Tyson’s right to use or control his identity,” the complaint says. “This case is about Warner Bros. appropriation of Mr. Whitmill’s art and Warner Bros. unauthorized use of that art, separate and apart from Mr. Tyson.”

“One of the things that the copyright law gives you as an artist is control over your work — and he lost control here,” said Michael A. Kahn, the lawyer who is representing Mr. Whitmill. The complaint includes a photograph of the tattoo being inked and a statement from Mr. Tyson agreeing that “all artwork, sketches and drawings related to my tattoo and any photographs of my tattoo are property” of Mr. Whitmill’s business.

If a tattoo clearly violates copyright — say, exactly reproduces a Keith Haring drawing or an Annie Leibovitz photograph without permission — could a court order it removed?

The case gets more serious, according to Christopher A. Harkins, an expert on copyright and patents who has written the definitive law review article on the subject, when someone tries to profit from the copying — by, for instance, selling photographs of the infringing tattoos.

“I don’t see a court forcing someone to remove it, or wear a burqa, but they may not allow me to profit from that work that I had tattooed on my body,” he said, adding that it would be very unlikely that this action could delay “The Hangover Part II” from being released.

The range of material that individuals and businesses are seeking to get copyright protection for has only been expanding, often at the insistence of movie studios. Mattel has gone to court to assert the copyright of the face of its Barbie doll; fashion companies have been lobbying Congress to pass a law to protect unique, nontrivial new designs. And trademark, which is governed by different laws and is much more contextual, has been used by athletes and coaches to get a measure of control over terms like “three-peat” or “Revis Island.”

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Cable Advertising Helps Time Warner Top Its Forecast

May 4, 2011 by Leave a Comment

Like other media companies, Time Warner has benefited from a rebound in advertising sales. In a conference call with investors Wednesday morning, the chief executive, Jeffrey L. Bewkes, noted that revenue for its channels increased 18 percent, reaffirming the strength of cable content. The company’s results were mostly in line with expectations.

Net income declined 10 percent, to $651 million , or 59 cents a share, in the quarter, from $725 million, or 62 cents a share , from in the period a year ago. Adjusted earnings, at 58 cents a share, were slightly above expectations.

Analysts said the decline was mostly because of higher costs associated with the rights to the N.C.A.A. basketball tournament, which Time Warner’s cable channels shared with CBS for the first time this year. Total programming costs for the network division jumped 37 percent from the quarter a year ago.

Partly offsetting the costs, advertising revenue for the channels like TNT and CNN climbed 48 percent, helping the company achieve the overall 18 percent gain in revenue for its networks division. Mr. Bewkes said the basketball games on the TBS, TNT and truTV channels “performed even better than we expected.”

Revenue declined 3.3 percent at the company’s film arm, Warner Brothers, where net income declined almost a 50 percent because its film slate was healthier in the same period last year. Michael Nathanson, an analyst for Nomura Securities, said the decline was the result of fewer home video releases in the quarter “and the lack of any major box-office hits with releases.”

On Wednesday, Time Warner said it had acquired Flixster, an online community for film buffs that recommends films and has a strong presence on mobile phones. The acquisition also includes Rotten Tomatoes, a Web site that compiles film reviews. Time Warner said that Rotten Tomatoes would remain independent.

The price of the acquisition was not disclosed. Time Warner is expected to leverage Flixster and its fan base as it introduces “Digital Everywhere,” a pay-once, play-anywhere approach to digital movie delivery.

Time Warner’s publishing arm, Time Inc., which remains much smaller than television or film, reported revenue that was effectively flat. Asked on the conference call if he intended to sell Time Inc. — a persistent question — Mr. Bewkes said no and reiterated the opportunity that he saw for magazines on tablet computers.

In an outlook statement on Wednesday, Time Warner affirmed that it expected earnings growth in 2011 to be in “the low teens” in percentage growth.

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