Coppola Settles Up
All together now…it was an offer he couldn’t refuse.
Francis Ford Coppola has resolved a lawsuit brought by a film production company that claimed it had been jilted out of its share of the profits from daughter Sofia’s directing debut, The Virgin Suicides.
Muse Productions sued the Oscar-winning Godfather director last November in Los Angeles Superior Court, alleging breach of contract and demanding a full audit of the movie’s earnings.
According to the complaint, Coppola’s company, American Zoetrope, struck a deal with Muse in October 1997 that essentially cleared the film rights to the original Virgin Suicides book by Jeff Eugenides, in exchange for Muse receiving a percentage of the film’s revenue.
Muse’s lawyers submitted a two-page document to the court stating that a settlement had been reached. Terms were not disclosed, and neither side was available for comment.
Released in May 2000, The Virgin Suicides starred James Woods, Kathleen Turner, Kirsten Dunst, Josh Hartnett and Danny DeVito and marked the first outing behind the camera for Sofia, who up until that point had been known mostly for her widely panned performance in The Godfather Part III.
The film grossed more than $10 million worldwide and, more importantly, paved the way for the younger Coppola’s Oscar-winning sophomore flick, Lost in Translation.
Game on for the Godfather
Yes, it was an offer they couldn’t refuse.
More than 30 years after Marlon Brando, Robert Duvall and James Caan first starred in Francis Ford Coppola’s 1972 masterpiece, The Godfather, the trio have reunited for Electronic Arts’ new videogame based on the movie.
Before Brando died last June, the Oscar winner granted EA permission to use his likeness and voice for the game’s cinematic interludes and even revisited his Don Vito Corleone role by recording new parts.
While it’s not known how much Electronic Arts shelled out to secure Brando, who was notorious for his outrageous salary demands, the company forked over enough to convince Caan and Duvall to take another stab in the family business as, respectively, hotheaded heir Santino "Sonny" Corleone and consigliere and adopted son Tom Hagen.
Caan and Duvall turned up for The Godfather videogame’s official unveiling at Little Italy’s Il Cortile restaurant in New York Thursday, where the actors watched for the first time teaser clips of their CG selves and explained why more than three decades later, they got pulled back in.
"It was fun," said an antsy Caan (who looked like he’d rather have been back at work on his NBC series Las Vegas). "Bobby called me…and it was a thrill to be working with him again. Obviously, Marlon did the game and Bobby did it, and it was great. For me, it was like my kids could play with me even if I’m not there."
The Godfather game allows players to invent their own GoodFella and climb the ranks of the criminal underworld controlled by the Corleones and the other families. As they work their way up, players employ tried-and-true mob tactics like intimidation, protection rackets, extortion, pistol-whipping, drive-by shootings and, of course, horse beheading–a Corleone family tradition.
"The game is based heavily on the same thing the film was: respect. Family. Expanding one’s territory. You have the opportunity to live the life of the godfather," said David DeMartini, the game’s executive producer.
Nick Earl, EA’s vice president and general manager, says having Brando, Caan and Duvall aboard reprising their iconic characters adds an element of realism.
"You’re kind of a guy off the street who gets sucked into the family because you helped them out," Earl told Online. "Here are different paths. You can become the godfather of the Corleone family, or the don of every family. You can play everything."
Electronic Arts also acquired the rights to use Godfather composer Nino Rota’s score in the game and hired Oscar-winning composer Bill Conti to write an additional 100 minutes of original music.
Development on The Godfather videogame started 18 months ago, when Paramount and parent company Viacom pitched EA execs the long-shot idea of adapting one of its most famous properties. After Paramount embraced the games EA did based on The Lord of the Rings, the company got the greenlight and set about making the concept work.
"A lot of entertainment executives are afraid of technology, don’t understand interactive, don’t know how big our audience is, how many million people around the world spend more time playing games than they do watching television," said Jeffrey Brown, EA’s vice president of corporate communications. "Paramount gets it. They understood early on what an interactive Godfather could be."
Along with Brando, Caan and Duvall’s characters, gamers will encounter other notables from the movies–including Fredo Corleone, Luca Brasi and the heads of the five families.
There has been no word whether Michael Corleone made the cut, but Al Pacino’s voice is not in the game. Also MIA is the other Corleone sibling, Talia Shire’s Connie Corleone.
Caan was asked how he would play the scene where Sonny pulls up to a tollbooth–and winds up getting ambushed.
"If I knew there was a Godfather II, you bet I would’ve had change," Caan said.
After their brief appearance plugging the game, Caan and Duvall made a swift getaway through Il Cortile’s kitchen.
The Godfather videogame is due out in time for the holiday shopping season and will be available for a variety of platforms, including PlayStation 2, Xbox and Sony’s new PSP.
Sofia Coppola Has a Baby Girl
Oscar winner Sofia Coppola has given birth to her first child, a baby girl named Romy, her rep confirms to PEOPLE.
The baby was born on Tuesday in Paris. The father is Coppola’s boyfriend, Thomas Mars, the French singer of the band Phoenix. The news was first reported by E!’s Marc Malkin.
“I’m so excited to have a little girl,” Coppola, 35, told USA Today in October.
Among the many joys of motherhood, she said, would be the chance to go on a good shopping spree or two. “All those little dresses,” she said. “It’s so fun to have little girl stuff.”
The couple met when Mars recorded a song with the band Air for Coppola’s 1999 movie The Virgin Suicides. That same year Coppola married director Spike Jonze (Adaptation, Being John Malkovich), from whom she split in 2003.
Most recently, Coppola wrote, produced and directed Marie Antoinette, starring Kirsten Dunst. In 2005, she won an Oscar for her screenplay for Lost in Translation, which she also directed.
As for the new little girl, the baby enters a talented family: Mom is the daughter of The Godfather director Francis Ford Coppola and a cousin of actors Nicolas Cage and Jason Schwartzman, who also starred in Marie Antoinette.
Sony Pictures Classics to Buy/Bury The Wackness?!
Please someone tell me this isn’t true. THR is reporting that Sony Pictures Classics has closed a deal for Jonathan Levine’s The Wackness. The deal is said to be in the low seven figures.
The Wackness is one of my favorite films of the festival. The buzz around Park City on shuttles and in lines, is that this is THE film of Sundance 2008. I’ve found it very strange that no studio deal has yet been announced. And while I’m very happy to finally hear that The Wackness has a deal possibly in sight, I’m torn over the mention of the potential buyer. Why? Well because Sony Pictures Classics sucks. Don’t get me wrong, they have some great films in their catalog. But it seems to me that many of these films are buried at the box office with lackluster promotion. If only every mini-major could be more like Fox Searchlight!
Let’s take a look at some of the recent Sony Pictures Classics releases, and how well they faired at the box office:
Youth Without Youth - $196,000: I don’t care how experimental or how badly reviewed this film was, Sony could have slapped ads up touting “Francis Ford Coppola’s First Film in Ten Years” or “From the Director of The Godfather”.
Persepolis - $913,000: Nominated for an academy award, but dumped in to art houses with little to no press and advertising.
My Kid Could Paint That - $229,000: One of the best documentaries of 2007 with huge free marketing appeal (in news shows, newspapers…etc)
Junebug - $2,680,000: Amy Adam’s oscar nominated break-out performance dumped.
Layer Cake - $2,340,000: A lighting quick gangster film with major cult appeal starring announced Bond replacement Daniel Craig.
In fact, the nine films which were released theatrically last year [From January 1st 2007 to December 31st 2007] by Sony Pictures Classics, made a grand total of $6.5 million in the 2007 calendar year. That’s an average of $725,000 per picture. The fact that their highest box office take was The Jane Austen Book Club, which took in $3.5 million, yet cost over $6 million to produce. Compare this to Fox Searchlight, which made almost twice that of the total SPC with The Darjeeling Limited alone, which never played on more than 700 screens. Actually, only one of the eight films that Searchlight released in 2007, made less than the combined sum of Sony Pictures Classic’s 2007 catalog.
I understand that the sex and drugs themes inherent within The Wackness might pose a challenge to market, which explains why The Wackness probably settled with Sony Pictures Classics. But Levine would have had a better chance by selling the film to Fox Searchlight for $1 and taking a back-end deal. At least then maybe the film would have a chance.
I hope that Sony pictures Classics proves me wrong. I hope they market the hell out of this film. The Wackness has huge generational cult classic potential on the level of Zack Braff’s Garden State, which took in $26.8 million in the U.S. One thing is for sure, as much as I dislike Sony Pictures Classics, I will be giving this film an abundance of free marketing.
More from our Friends:
Neil at FSR: “This is probably one of the worst things that could have happened for the film.” “They are a studio that wouldn’t know what to do with a great film even if it came with a set of instructions.”
Alex from FS.net: “Sony Pictures Classics really needs to learn from Fox Searchlight if they’re going to market The Wackness and Baghead correctly, and I wish them the best of luck, because both of these need to be huge hits”
Edward Douglas of CS.net: “It’s a fun movie and could find a big audience, though it’s not the kind of movie Sony Classics usually releases, though it would be a huge turnaround for the company if they’re able to learn something from the Fox Searchlight marketing model”
Josh Tyler from CinemaBlend: “With the right marketing campaign and the right people promoting it, The Wackness could have easily opened in 1000 theaters and made millions. With Sony Pictures Classics behind it, we’ll be lucky if it ever plays anywhere outside of New York or LA, and forget about Oscar consideration.”
Anne Thompson of Variety: “Some folks seem to have an issue with SPC distributing Wackness.”
Peter Martin of Cinematical: “The complaint is that Sony Classics has had a poor track record over the past couple of years and someone like Fox Searchlight would do a better job with marketing a film that critics think needs to be seen.”