The Front Page: September 2, 2008

By Randee Dawn

Mark Urman, you'll be missed at ThinkFilm. Mark's one of those great guys who always makes himself available and always has salient, interesting things to say -- and according to Steven Zeitchik and Gregg Goldstein's article today, he has now decamped from his longtime home at Think to "take the post of president at the revamped Senator Entertainment U.S." In some kind of amusing twist, Senator is producing a film (with Samuel L. Jackson) called "Unthinkable," which is what I'd have told you before today about Urman's departure. However, notes the article, this really says more about ThinkFilm than anything else: "Despite a track record of quality and creative marketing since its inception, ThinkFilm has faced financial troubles, and was sold two years ago to Capitol Films entrepreneur Bergstein."

Another person of interest, Gregg Kilday, uses his Take Two column today to note that whatever movie seems to come out these days, "someone, somewhere, is lying in wait, preparing to launch a protest." Between the self-appointed arbiters of reason who went on the attack for releasing "Disaster Movie" on the third anniversary of Hurricaine Katrina and those who took offense at "Tropic Thunder's" coining of the phrase "going full retard," it is true that the PC wagons circle just about every film made these days, and as Kilday notes, "the media is only too happy to rush in to cover the 'controversy.'" There's even a shortlist of films you may have forgotten drew protest -- including "Shark Tale." Apparently it was protested by Italian-Americans, who said it characterized Italians as gangsters. Do sharks have ethnicities?

Speaking of controversial films, "Tropic Thunder" did hit the top of the box office over the weekend -- for the third time, now -- but it still only brought in $14.3 million, which is a pretty pathetic Labor Day weekend, when you think about it. I actually finally saw "Dark Knight" myself, so I can now be counted in that film's cume of $504.7 million. Notes Carl DiOrio, "Grosses were limp elsewhere as the session's $122 million industrywide haul marked an 18% drop from last year's holiday weekend." Maybe it was just because the weather was so nice? Welcome to September -- and brace for the oncoming Oscar season....