Who could have imagined Disney, Fox, Viacom, CBS and NBC Universal all teaming up together? They're so desperate to compete with Google's YouTube -- and to get paid for all that copyrighted material -- that desperate times have called for desperate measures. But more often than not, too many cooks spoil the broth. Take Movielink -- the collaboration of all the studios to offer digital downloads -- the politics got so intense that it took much longer to get off the ground than it should. Could be trouble... But do they need to team up to stand a chance?
What a terrible weekend for Warner Bros -- two totally different, equally disappointing films. "Blood Diamond" was expected to be the movie with the message, the big romantic Leo pic that had its sights set on an Oscar... but lo, the film, which cost an estimated $100 million, brought in just $8.5 million this past weekend. OUCH. And at the other end of Warner Brothers' spectrum, "Unaccompanied Minors" -- which they hoped would be the next Home Alone -- brought in just $6.2 million. It wasn't as expensive ($25 million budget est.), but it looks like a bunch of dancing penguins will totally knock out Warners' prospects for a strong Christmas box office season.
TiVo on the block?
Is there such a thing as a cheap TV Spot? Well there's a company called Cheap TV Spots, and there has been lots of speculation about Cheap TV Spots buying TiVo. The company denies it, but it raises questions of who could buy the commercial-skipping company -- maybe Yahoo, Google, or Ask.com?
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