The Great Geek Manual News

Movie theaters nowadays are becoming more secure than some airports. Employees are equipped with night-vision goggles and instructed to closely monitor movie goers. Metal detectors are installed, the public has to hand over all recording devices and in some instances even their candy. Despite all these efforts, desperately poor-quality camcorded films that are hardly worth watching still leak onto the Internet - so more has to be done.

Quite common by now are the watermarking techniques used by the studios to track down the origin of cams. Through these watermarks the theaters where the movies are recorded can be identified, and every now and then an arrest is made. Recent technological advances even make it possible to get a fairly accurate estimation of the location of the camcorder equipment using audio watermarks. These audio watermarks have not been implemented yet since they require a lot of extra paperwork in order to work well.

In a recent blog post John August, the director of hit movie The Nines, discusses some of the anti-piracy tools the movie studios are using to decrease or deter camcording in theaters. August himself has a fairly balanced view on illegal downloading. In a previous interview with TorrentFreak he said that he wouldn’t think bad of people who downloaded his movie using BitTorrent. In talks with other studio insiders, however, he discovered something that made our jaws drop.

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Source: Torrent Freak

‘Resident Evil: Degeneration‘, or ‘Biohazard: Degeneration’ as it’s known in Japan, will never become a blockbuster film, simply because it is only set for release in a few movie theaters. On the Internet, however, its popularity exceeds all expectations.

The film, produced by Hiroyuki Kobayashi, is set for a Sony Pictures DVD release in the USA on December 30. A few days ago it leaked onto the Internet and since then it has already been downloaded a million times via BitTorrent.

This is not the first time that a movie quickly became popular online due to the release of a pirated copy. “The Man from Earth” is another example of a film that became immensely popular due to its distribution on BitTorrent. Contrary to the opinion of the big studios, many independent filmmakers see piracy as free promotion instead of a threat.

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Source: Torrent Freak

YouTube, the largest video-sharing website, will show full-length television shows and films from Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer’s archives in its latest step to boost advertising revenue by adding professional programing, the company told Reuters on Sunday.

The site, owned by Google Inc, plans to make the announcement about the new partnership on Monday. MGM Studios will kick off the partnership by posting episodes of its decade-old “American Gladiators” program to YouTube on one channel.

On another channel, MGM will post full-length action films like “Bulletproof Monk” and “The Magnificent Seven” and clips from popular movies like “Legally Blonde.” These will be free to watch, with ads running alongside the video.

YouTube in October forged a similar partnership with CBS Corp to run full-length archived shows, including “Star Trek,” “Young and the Restless” and “Beverly Hills 90210.”

Many TV networks already run short clips on YouTube, which also offers millions of home videos uploaded by users.

But until now, YouTube videos were predominantly short clips of ten minutes or less. The company has been experimenting with full-length shows for some months with Time Warner Inc’s HBO and CBS’s Showtime cable networks.

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Source: Reuters

Blu-ray is in a death spiral. 12 months from now Blu-ray will be a videophile niche, not a mass market product.

With only a 4% share of US movie disc sales and HD download capability arriving, the Blu-ray disc Association (BDA) is still smoking dope. Even $150 Blu-ray players won’t save it.

16 months ago I called the HD war for Blu-ray. My bad. Who dreamed they could both lose?

Snatching defeat from the jaws of victory
Delusional Sony exec Rick Clancy needs to put the crack pipe down and really look at the market dynamics.

In a nutshell: consumers drive the market and they don’t care about Blu-ray’s theoretical advantages. Especially during a world-wide recession.

Remember Betamax? SACD? Minidisk? Laser Disk? DVD-Audio? There are more losers than winners in consumer storage formats.

It’s all about volume. 8 months after Toshiba threw in the towel, Blu-ray still doesn’t have it.

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Source: ZDNet

Oh, Uwe Boll. We do love you. Well not in that kind of way but you know what we mean. You make movies that are really crappy and most of them are based on video game franchises like House of the Dead, Alone in the Dark, Bloodrayne, Dungeon Siege and most recently Postal. We can’t help but love them and you anyway. But now we are upset, man. Why? You are ditching your US detractors and premiering your latest video game adaptation, Far Cry, in Germany on October 2.

Ok, we know that’s your home country but we still need our fill of crappy video game movies and your version of the terrific Crytek-Ubisoft Far Cry FPS looks like it has just enough Uwe Boll-ness for us. B-list actors, poor production values, filming in Vancouver to substitute for a tropical island….and that’s just in the PDF press kit we read on your site. Hopefully you can get a direct-to-DVD or maybe a Saturday Sci-Fi Channel movie deal for Far Cry’s US release. We don’t want Germany to have all the fun.

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Source: BIG Download News

Filmmaker Michael Moore plans to premiere his latest documentary exclusively on the Internet for free, forgoing the traditional theatrical release. Slacker Uprising , which documents Moore’s 62-city tour through swing states during the 2004 U.S. presidential election to rally young voters, will be available for download for three weeks, beginning September 23. A DVD of the 97-minute film will be released on October 7 through Amazon.com and Netflix.

“This is being done entirely as a gift to my fans,” Moore said in a statement Thursday. “The only return any of us are hoping for is the largest turnout of young voters ever at the polls in November. I think Slacker Uprising will inspire (millions) to get off the couch and give voting a chance.”

Moore’s camp said no consideration was ever given to a theatrical release for the film, which cost about $2 million to make, perhaps forfeiting a nice profit at the box office. His last two documentaries, Sicko and Fahrenheit 9/11, are two of the three highest-grossing documentaries ever released.

The download will be available on BlipTV. The planned release takes a page out of Radiohead’s book, which released its album In Rainbows on the Internet in October 2007. The band invited fans to pay what they wanted for the download, but the music was essentially free for the taking. Radiohead has never revealed the promotion’s sales figures, but there was speculation that the money wasn’t very good.

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Source: CNet

Firebrand filmmaker Michael Moore will release his latest documentary exclusively on the Internet for free on September 23, eschewing a traditional theatrical rollout, he said on Thursday.

“Slacker Uprising” documents Moore’s 62-city tour of key swing states during the 2004 U.S. presidential election, when he tried to convince young non-voters to give voting a shot.

“This is being done entirely as a gift to my fans,” Moore said in a statement. “The only return any of us are hoping for is the largest turnout of young voters ever at the polls in November.”

“Slacker Uprising,” budgeted modestly at over $2 million, was funded by Moore along with movie executives Bob and Harvey Weinstein, who hold international rights, said a spokesman for Moore.

It marks his follow-up to the healthcare expose “Sicko,” which earned just $24.5 million at the North American box office last year, far short of the $119 million haul for his 2004 political blockbuster “Fahrenheit 9/11.”

Moore’s spokesman said no consideration was ever given to a theatrical release. A low-cost DVD will be released on October 7.

The download will be available on by BlipTV (http://www.blip.tv).

Source: Reuters

At the request of theatrical film makers, the Federal Communications Commission on Friday quietly launched a proceeding on whether to let video program distributors remotely block consumers from recording recently released movies on their DVRs. The technology that does this is called Selectable Output Control (SOC), but the FCC restricts its use. The Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA) wants a waiver on that restriction in the case of high-definition movies broadcast prior to their release as DVDs.

“The Petitioners’ theatrical movies are too valuable in this early distribution window to risk their exposure to unauthorized copying,” MPAA wrote to the FCC last month. “Distribution over insecure outputs would facilitate the illegal copying and redistribution of this high value content, causing untold damage to the DVD and other ‘downstream’ markets.” Less than a month after the request, the FCC has given MPAA a public comment period on the question that will last through July 7.

MPAA has pressed its Petition for Expedited Special Relief on behalf of Paramount Pictures, Sony Pictures, Twentieth Century Fox, Universal City Studios Walt Disney Studios, and Warner Brothers. How did these media companies get an FCC proceeding so fast? Ars bets that hiring former FCC Commissioner Kathleen Q. Abernathy as their attorney helped. Abernathy supported former FCC Chair Michael Powell’s drastic relaxation of the agency’s media ownership rules in 2003, along with Kevin Martin, now head of the agency.

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Source: Ars Technica

Jake Gyllenhaal has been cast as the lead in Disney’s Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time.

Confirming rumours from last month, Variety reports that Gyllenhaal will play Dastan in the video game adaptation.

The story revolves around a prince who tries to prevent the Sands of Time, a gift from the gods that can reverse time, from falling into the hands of an evil nobleman.

Quantum of Solace Bond girl Gemma Arterton has been cast as Tamina, an exotic princess who helps Dastan.

Mike Newell will direct the film from a script by Doug Miro, Carlo Bernard, Boaz Yakin and the game’s creator Jordan Mechner. Jerry Bruckheimer is on board to produce.

Speaking about the casting of Gyllenhaal, Bruckheimer said: “He’s a wonderful actor. He’s someone I’ve been watching for a long time and somebody I’ve always wanted to work with.”

Source: Digital Spy

The estate of “Lord of the Rings” creator J.R.R. Tolkien is suing the film studio that released the trilogy based on his books, claiming the company hasn’t paid it a penny from the estimated $6 billion the films have grossed worldwide.

The suit, filed Monday, claims New Line was required to pay 7.5 percent of gross receipts to Tolkien’s estate and other plaintiffs, who contend they only received an upfront payment of $62,500 for the three movies before production began.

The writer’s estate, a British charity dubbed The Tolkien Trust, and original “Lord of the Rings” publisher HarperCollins filed the lawsuit against New Line Cinema in Los Angeles Superior Court. If successful, it could block the long-awaited prequel to the films.

Robert Pini, a spokesman for Time Warner Inc.’s New Line, declined to comment.

The films — 2001’s “The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring,” 2002’s “The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers,” and 2003’s “The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King” — have reaped nearly $6 billion combined worldwide, according to the complaint.

The estimate includes everything from box office receipts to revenue from sales of DVDs and other products.
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Transformers director Michael Bay and his partners at the Platinum Dunes production company have been tasked by New Line Cinema to “relaunch” the Nightmare on Elm Street franchise.

Wes Craven’s 1984 slasher classic gave the world the iconic Freddy Krueger, who haunted a total of nine films and two TV series. According to Variety, the new outing will represent a “complete overhaul” of the Nightmare concept.

Bay and chums are also gearing up for a May start on resurrecting Jason Voorhees of Friday the 13th in a new film to be helmed by Marcus Nispel. This is apparently up for a “complete overhaul” as well, and movie buffs will remember just what a complete overhaul did for The Texas Chainsaw Massacre - remade in 2003 by New Line with Nispel calling the shots and Platinum Dunes lurking in the shadows.

And just to reinforce the feeling that Hollywood has completely lost the ability to come up with an original concept, Variety adds that Platinum Dunes is “prepping an exorcism thriller” for Rogue Pictures, plus a remake of Near Dark to be directed by music vid vet Samuel Bayer.

Oh yes, and the company’s filling its spare time “developing a Universal remake of Alfred Hitchcock’s The Birds”, in which Casino Royale director Martin Campbell will presumably ensure that slated star Naomi Watts will get plenty of unwanted avian attention.

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Source: The Register

Apple CEO Steve Jobs Tuesday unveiled iTunes Movie Rentals during his keynote address at Macworld 2008. The service lets users watch more than 1,000 movies starting at $2.99 each.

Pricing for the service, which begins with 100 movies, includes $2.99 for library titles or $3.99 for new videos. High-definition versions are available for $1 more.

After downloading the movies, people have up to 30 days to start watching, but have hours to complete viewing the movie, Apple said in a statement. The Cupertino, Calif.-Apple also said the movies can be viewed “multiple” times.

In a jab at video rental service Blockbuster and DVD-by-mail operation Netflix, Jobs said Apple’s new service brings major movies to your PC, iPod and iPhone “without having to drive to the video store or wait for DVDs to arrive in the mail.”

The announcement included word that all major Hollywood studies have joined Apple, including Fox, Walt Disney, Warner Bros., Paramount, Universal, Sony, MGM, Lionsgate and New Line Cinema.

Jobs also said new Apple TV software will let iTunes TV users watch movies directly on their television.

Source: All Headline News

Edward Burns’ latest film, Purple Violets, won’t be coming to a theater near you, but you won’t have to go far to see it. The movie is available to anyone with $13 and an account at iTunes. It is the first time a feature film has premiered at the Apple media store.

Burns first landed on the scene in Hollywood with his highly successful 1995 film The Brothers McMullen. He wrote, directed, produced and starred while managing to spend less than $30,000 putting together the vehicle that would pave the way for his role acting in Saving Private Ryan.

While his resume as both a filmmaker and an actor are impressive, the LA Times points out that, “All nine of Burns’ films, going back to his breakout 1995 success ‘The Brothers McMullen,’ have seen a limited initial release in New York and Los Angeles. The last time moviegoers in St. Louis got to see a film of his premier there, said Burns, was 1998.” This way everyone can watch it right now, but it remains unclear how this approach to distribution will pan out.

Sure, I can watch Purple Violets on my iPhone or at home on my monitor, but at $12.99 I’m paying a premium over seeing it in the theater (it is cheaper than tickets for two though). I also “own” the movie and can watch it again and again, but this is only a bonus for those people who like to watch films more than once.

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Source: CNet

British comedian Simon Pegg has been chosen to play “Montgomery Scott” in the upcoming Star Trek film. In Star Trek: The Original Series, Scotty was played by Canadian engineer James Doohan.

The 37-year-old actor joins Eric Bana, Anton Yelchin, Zachary Quinto, Zoe Saldana and Leonard Nimoy in the 11th film in the sci-fi series.

The new film will focus on the earliest adventures of Captain James T. Kirk and his First Officer Mr. Spock during their days at Starfleet Academy. Written by Alex Kurtzman and Roberto Orci, and directed by “Lost” creator J. J. Abrams, it is expected to be released on Dec 25, 2008. Shooting will star next month.

Pegg is best known for playing title roles in “Shaun of the Dead” and “Hot Fuzz.”

Source: All Headline News