universal – Moe Lane

Regal joins AMC in Universal boycott.

Interesting. Cineworld is giving itself a little wiggle room, but not all that much:

Following yesterday’s flurry of dramatic exchanges involving AMC, the National Association of Theater Owners and Universal, Regal Entertainment owner Cineworld Group has now added its voice to the chorus of windows controversy surrounding Trolls World Tour. The world’s second biggest circuit says its policy with respect to the window “is clear, well known in the industry and is part of our commercial deal with our movie suppliers… We make it clear again that we will not be showing movies that fail to respect the windows.” Cineworld also calls Universal’s decision to opt for a PVOD release on the DreamWorks Animation sequel, “completely inappropriate,” adding that it “certainly has nothing to do with good faith business practice, partnership and transparency.”

The opening shots of the AMC-Universal War.

Via @Rebeller… hoo, boy. Short version: studios want to start releasing movies in both theater and home format on the same days. The theaters are disinclined to acquiesce to this request, to put it mildly. The dispute was all kinda-sorta stable, in that broken-stool-freakishly-balanced-on-two-legs sort of way, until the coronavirus breathed on it; and now the knives are out. Deadline:

‘Invisible Man’ gets a director at Universal.

And, in case you were wondering:

“Upgrade” director Leigh Whannell has signed on to direct a reboot of “The Invisible Man.” The project reunites Whannell with Jason Blum, who is producing the Universal Pictures movie through his Blumhouse banner.
The move is part of a fresh strategy for Universal’s monsters properties, bringing creative directors with distinctive visions to the classic characters and moving on from the interconnected Dark Universe concept.
Via Coming Soon.

[UPDATED] DOES [Universal] formally stand with the baby harvesters at Planned Parenthood? @ppact [] #minions

[UPDATE: Yeah, my bad. Could have been worse: I could have had it as being Disney.]

Because the official Twitter feed of Planned Parenthood certainly seems to want to make it look like ~~Dreamworks~~ Universal stands with them on the righteousness of harvesting babies for their profitable organs.

Or did ~~Dreamworks~~ Universal give Planned Parenthood permission to use their intellectual property in an official capacity? Does ~~Dreamworks~~ Universal, in fact, support baby harvesting, and this is their way of tacitly admitting that? …The pro-life subset of American consumers would like an answer on that, please. Preferably before they start planning their Christmas shopping budgets.

Oh, and before anybody starts objecting: Planned Parenthood apparently likes to claim support from mainstream corporate America for their abortion services when such support does not actually exist. As Coca-Cola, Ford Motors, Xerox, March of Dimes, and others have hastily, if not desperately, scrambled to explain. So it is indeed entirely possible that Planned Parenthood is merely doing something similar here, although, frankly: messing with a major studio’s intellectual property like this is sufficiently dangerous that it makes it hard for me to believe that the image was used without permission.