If you were a movie pirate looking to steal a print of the latest Harry Potter movie when it was shipped to movie theaters a few weeks ago, you were probably out of luck if you were looking for film canisters with Half-Blood Prince on their side. Of course, you may have noticed a number of prints being shipped out from Warner Brothers of a film called Candle Light. Never heard of it? That’s because there is no film with that title, it’s just a ruse  used by the studio when they shipped their copies of Harry Potter And The Half-Blood Prince to theaters to prevent theft.

Shipping prints of new releases to movie theaters under phony names is nothing new. Studios have been doing it for years. (See below for a random sampling.) We know that the studios and the Motion Picture Association of America have inflated the impact that piracy has had on their bottom line. But has there ever been a real problem with film prints being stolen by either pirates or over-zealous film collectors? And while it is reportedly a problem in the Indian film market, the only time that I can recall reading a newspaper story about a print of a film being stolen was back in the summer of 1983 when a gunman had a copy of Return Of The Jedi taken out of a Midwest theater’s projection room and placed in his car’s trunk. (Ironically enough, the capstone to the Star Wars prequel trilogy, Revenge Of The Sith, would also be the victim of piracy, though the copies of the film that circulated the weeks before its official release were thought to have stemmed from a disgruntled insider at Lucasfilm.)

A search of Variety reveals only a scant few more such instances. The first dates back to 1994, when a copy of the indie film Cultivating Charlie was stolen out of the trunk of the filmmakers’ rental car in Hollywood. A second news item is on the brisk sale on eBay of 35mm copies of the trailer for Star Wars: The Phantom Menace two months before the full-length film’s release. I think we can all agree that neither instance probably had much, if any, impact on their respective film’s business. (Though I will grant that the producers of Cultivating Charlie were probably out about $3,5000, the cost of the print.) A third story mentions a bootleg of the 1999 comedy Detroit Rock City being circulated among fans of the rock group Kiss, who appear in the film, two months before the film’s release, but it is unclear as to whether the bootleg video tapes originated with a stolen print or not.

Yet despite this extremely low level of print theft activity as reported by Variety, the trade paper still reported statements at least twice from industry reps that stolen prints of films contribute to the losses that the industry claims are due to piracy. A 2001 story even placed that loss at $2.5 billion. But it is clear that the MPAA’s stressing of print theft as a problem doesn’t seem to jibe with Variety‘s own reporting on actual incidences of stolen prints. Of course, since Variety is largely supported by ad revenue received from the major studios, it does have an interest in abandoning its journalistic integrity and just parroting what the people holding the purse strings say. With the MPAA having been caught back in January 2008 inflating the percentage of piracy caused by college students by 300%, I find it very easy to dismiss anything that the lobbying organization has to say. They are only interested in protecting their signatory studios’ bottom line.

Which brings us around to the following question- In this day when so much of production is carried on the digital world, isn’t the danger of digital piracy much greater than piracy involving a physical film print? Surely, the leak of the Wolverine work print at the beginning of this year’s summer blockbuster season, amongst other films, taught us this. And even with the

And do they honestly believe that they are fooling anyone by changing the film titles on their shipping canisters? Perhaps they think that some film pirate is going to think, “Well gee, I don’t see any copies of the new Harry Potter film… Just four copies of some film I’ve never heard of or seen advertised called Candle Light being shipped to this one theater. What funny coincidence, cuz there’s lots of candles in those Harry Potter movies… Oh well, I’m sure it’s not related…”

They’re really not fooling anyone.

And just for fun, here’s some films from the past few years that have shipped under false titles. Not a whole lot of imagination showing here on many of these.

• The Brave One- Sweet Revenge
• Casino Royale- Rough Skins
• The Dark Knight- Oliver’s Army*
• GI Joe- Silver King
• Hancock- Hidden From Earth
• Harry Potter And the Goblet Of Fire- Happy Days
• Harry Potter And The Prisoner Of Azkahban- Radiator Blues
• Harry Potter And The Order Of The Phoenix- The Raven
• Julie & Julia- Twice The Risk
• King Kong (2005)- Tiny Dancer
• My Sister’s Keeper- Family Life
• The Orphan- Infant Terror
• Star Trek- Code 53
• Sweeney Todd- Skunk
• Transformers 2- Altar

*Director Christopher Nolan must really like the name Oliver, as his new film Inception is current;y shooting LA under the name Oliver’s Arrow.

Special thanks to the various theater projectionists who helped compile the list of fake film shipping titles.

Author Raymond Chandler’s impact on detective fiction is greater than just his seven groundbreaking novels and the films that were made from them. Chandler also briefly worked as a screenwriter in Hollywood, teaming with director Billy Wilder to hammer James Cain’s novel Double Indemnity into the film noir classic it is known as today.

By all accounts, the two did not get along at all. It was in Mid-May, 1943 when Chandler was asked to come in to meet with Wilder about working on adapting Cain’s novel. Wilder was impressed with Chandler’s keen ear for dialogue, but that turned out to be all that he was impressed with. Chandler wasn’t much taken with Wilder’s demeanor either.The novelist found himself ill at ease once he was submerged in the film factory culture. He didn’t like to be flattered and he had little tolerance for pretension, the twin coins of the realm in Hollywood.

After working on a first draft of the script for five weeks, Chandler handed it in to Wilder who read it and then literally threw it back at the author, saying that it was no good. Wilder insisted that the two hole-up in an office and work on the script together. Chandler had never written in collaboration with anyone and found it a rough process. At one point, he refused to come to work until Wilder apologized for a long list of grievances.

Whatever personality clashes the two may have had, Wilder knew enough to keep Chandler around once filming began, giving Chandler final approval over any dialogue changes. Chandler reportedly was on set every day, silently observing the proceedings from the sidelines. And once, as we now know, from in front of the camera.

It strikes me as strange that Chandler, who was famously reclusive and publicity-shy, would acquiesce to a brief on screen cameo. But there he is, approximately 16 minutes into the film, sitting in the hallway of the company Fred MacMurray’s insurance salesman Walter Neff works for, looking up from a paperback as Neff passes by.

Amazingly, there is no record of either Wilder or Chandler ever mentioning the cameo. Did it come about during a rare moment when the two were feeling more amicable than adversarial with each other? Did Wilder strong-arm Chandler into it? Unless someone discovers some previously unknown journal or correspondence from either party, we will probably never know.

Even more amazing is that it has taken this long to for someone to recognize Chandler in the scene. In this day when digital technology has allowed for every frame of a film to be scrutinized, it seems that something this obvious would have been detected already. It wasn’t until earlier this year, when two different bloggers, pointed out the author’s brief appearance.

Chandler would go on to fictionalize his impressions of the movie business in his 1949 novel, The Little Sister. There’s a Hollywood agent who paces in his office waving a Malaca cane, something that Wilder had done to Chandler’s annoyance during their collaboration. For his part, Wilder’s next film was The Lost Weekend, which some have suggested may have been the director’s attempt to understand the alcholism that Chandler fell into during his time as a screenwriter.

Via The Guardian.

As my 40^th birthday looms just a few weeks away, I’ve been thinking a bit about how movies, the film business and film fandom have changed over the past four decades.

Take for example, how rumors spread through fandom. With the explosion of the internet in the mid-1990s, absolutely reliable, rock-solid news such as Christopher Walken appearing in the upcoming Star Wars prequels as a Sith Lord could now travel around the world in an instant as opposed to the weeks and months it took to disseminate through fan magazines and conventions.

The blog DaveExMachina has just served up a reminder of those pre-internet days, by reprinting an article out of the February, 1980 issue of Starlog magazine that rounds-up many of the prevalent rumors swirling through Star Wars fandom some six months before the release of The Empire Strikes Back. While there are some wild ones that seem absolutely ridiculous in the 20-20 vision of hindsight – The Millennium Falcon falls into a black hole, with Luke, Leia, Han, Chewie, and Darth Vader aboard, and travels through time! – there are plenty of nuggets that actually panned out.

Most surprisingly is the fact that a good half year before the film’s release word was already spreading spoiling the film’s biggest plot twist- the Darth Vader is really Luke Skywalker’s father! For years we’ve heard that this story point was more closely guarded that nuclear missile launch codes, with fake scripts being circulated through Lucasfilm and a closed set when the scene in question was filmed. Now I will concede that it perhaps can never be proven that the story actually leaked out of Lucasfilm or that some fan made it up independently and got lucky. But it does go to show that rumors and spoilers existed before the internet and will undoubtedly continue into the medium that replaces it.

When a young Hugh Hefner was looking at getting into the magazine publishing business, he had narrowed down the possible subject matter for his magazine to two ideas- one was a sophistacated gentlemen’s magazine and the other was a periodical devoted to movies and Hollywood. Well, history has shown the ramifications of Hefner’s decision. But that doesn’t mean that he abandoned his love for film.

Today’s LA Times has a fascinating new interview with Hugh Hefner, the film fan. In it, Hef talks about his life long love affair with the movies and how he learned everything he knows about romance from classic Hollywood films. The article also touches briefly on the money that he has donated over the years towards film restoration and to producing documentaries on film history. Hefner also talks about maovie nights at the famed Playboy Mansion and the social circle that revolves around such events. (What I wouldn’t give to be invited to one of those nights…)

Check out the interview for a look at a side of Hugh Hefner that the public doesn’t get to see all that much.

Out of the thousands of films that are actively being developed at one time, only a small handful ever reach the point where they are actually produced. As Hollywood is not necessarily a meritocracy, the best ones in development are not necessarily the ones that get the greenlight. And in the case of literary properties – films being adapted from short stories, novels or comics – it may take several tries by several different people before the story hits the screen.

Opening Christmas Day is a live action adaptation of Will Eisner’s classic comic The Spirit. But director Frank Miller’s interpretation is not the first attempt made to bring the two-fisted hero to the big screen. Back in the early 1980s, one other than a fresh out of college Brad Bird was looking at turning Eisner’s character into a feature length animated film.

Publicist-turned-animation producer Steven Paul Leiva wrote about the attempt for the LA Times this weekend in a fascinating article that not only details Bird’s take on the project, but also illuminates the rocky state of the entire animation industry at the time.

Would the man who eventually gave us The Iron Giant and The Incredibles actually have had the first hit of his career with this project? It’s hard to say. If it had gone ahead there were still numerous things that could have kept it from being a good movie. Still, it is interesting to speculate what it would have looked like.

Via Cartoon Brew.

Warning: Spoilers for the 1969 version of The Italian Job ahead.

The original The Italian Job ends on a literal cliffhanger.

The gang of thieves is in a bus which is perched precariously on the lip of a ravine. One false step could throw off the bus’s balance, sending them all over the side to their death, which makes getting their loot off the vehicle a tricky proposition at best. Suddenly Michael Caine’s character Charlie Croker pipes up, “Hang on lads, I’ve got a great idea.”

And then the credits roll, leaving audiences to wonder how, or even if, they manage an escape.

Well, Charlie Croker, in the guise of Sir Michael Caine himself, has divulged to the BBC how his cinematic cohorts managed to escape their precarious predicament and in doing so would have set up a proposed sequel.

I crawl up [to the driver’s seat], switch on the engine and stay there for four hours until all the petrol runs out. The van bounces back up so we can all get out, but then the gold goes over. There are a load of Corsican Mafia at the bottom watching the whole thing with binoculars. They grab the gold, and then the sequel is us chasing it.

The BBC report also has Caine stating that the sequence had been filmed, but the producers later decided not to use it.

I have to admit that I’m a bit conflicted over Caine’s revelation. On one hand, I am always interested in the filmmaking process and the decisions that go into deciding what material makes it to a film’s final cut. Alternate edits, deleted scenes and the like are always fascinating to read about as it gives some insight in to how the filmmakers crafted their story. On the other hand, The Italian Job ends pretty perfectly as it does, leaving the characters to live on in the audiences imaginations, perhaps with the suggestion that Caine and company are destined to continue chasing their ill-gotten gains, never to retrieve them. I guess it is ironic that in this case the revelation of what would have come next in the film actually reinforces the notion of continuing adventures.

Via CinemaRetro.

No, not the end of FilmBuffOnLine, but a collection of end title cards from various films that is being put together over on Flickr. There are already over 100 different ways letting audiences know that the film is over, with presumably more to be posted as time goes on. Some are standard cards that the various studios used during different points in their histories. Others were created for just one specific film. Are there any you recognize?

Via Slash Film.

Howard Stern starring in a Marvel Comics superhero movie?

It almost happened according to a revelation the talk show host stated this morning on his Sirius-XM Satellite Radio program. Stern was chatting with a caller who had asked if there was ever a chance that he would ever considering resurrecting his comedy superhero film project The Adventures Of Fartman. (See our review of the hilarious script written for the project here.) Stern stated that he would like to get around to someday before disclosing that he came close to making another superhero movie.

I met with these guys from Marvel a few years ago and they had an idea for a superhero movie for me, but it was a serious superhero movie. I liked that better. There were some funny aspects to it because my parents were involved, my real parents. It was funny.

I would have done that movie. I don’t know what happened. We just kind of burned out. They went off on another project, some stupid thing like Iron Man, and we never got around to it.

Unfortunately, Stern did not specify which character he had been approached with. While I am more a reader of DC Comics’ output than I am of Marvel’s, I think I am fairly conversant with Marvel’s characters, but after wracking my brains for the past couple of hours I can not think of any superhero character that Howard Stern would be a good fit for.

Outside of Spider-Man, I can’t even think of a character whose parents or parental-type figures are an active part of their story. Thor? While I think seeing Stern’s father Ben (“Shut up! Sit down!”) as Odin would be a rather interesting and funny way to go, I just don’t see Howard himself as the God of Thunder. Unless it was butt thunder, that is.

Every now and then you hear about some interesting ideas for movie casting that never panned out for one reason or another. This is one of those stories with just enough details to be maddeningly tantalizing. Hopefully, more information as to what this project might have been will come to light.

Previously, Stern had been rumored to be in consideration for the part of the villainous Scarecrow in a projected fifth Batman movie back in the 1990s, though Stern always denied that he had been approached by anyone involved.

Eyes Wide Shut may be the last film from wunderkind director Stanley Kubrick – he passed away in 1999 while putting the final post-production touches on the project – but it is a film he had been thinking about making for over two decades.

Based on the French novella Traumnovelle, translated to English as Dream Story, Kubrick’s film is a surreal and somber tale of sexual exploration. It is hard to believe that at one time the cinematic auteur contemplated making the film as a sex comedy. In his book Kubrick, writer Michael Herr details the director’s initial take on adapting the book and his rather interesting choice of lead actor.

Stanley thought it would be perfect for Steve Martin. He’d love The Jerk… I know that his idea for it in those days was always as a sex comedy, but with a wild and somber  streak running through it. This didn’t make a lot of sense to us, we were responding to the text as a work of literary art, and not a very funny one. Maybe Traumnovelleis a comedy in the sense that Don Giovanni is: attempted rape and compulsive pathetic list-keeping, implied impotence and the Don dragged down into hell forever, the old sex machine ignorant and defiant to the end. A pretty severe and unsettling comedy, not very giocoso, and not the essence of Traumnovelle, which more than anything was sinister. Now I think we were all too square to imagine what Stanley saw in Steve Martin, because this was not The Jerk.

Try to wrap your mind around what kind of film this would have been.

The possibility of two wildly different comic masters such as Howard Stern and Woody Allen appearing in a movie together is enough to boggle the mind, yet such a film project almost came to pass.

On his Sirius Satellite Radio show this morning, Howard Stern briefly talked about how a year ago he was offered a starring role in a film opposite Woody Allen. The discussion came about in response to a caller’s question if Stern would ever work with Woody Allen.

“From a creative standpoint, I would love to work with Woody Allen,” Stern said. “But from a moral standpoint I got a problem. There’s a million women in the world… [but what Allen did] that’s just creepy and dark.”

Stern is referring to the much publicized break up with Allen and Farrow’s longterm relationship when Allen began seeing one of Farrow’s adopted children, Soon-yi Previn. There is a 34 year age gap between Allen and Previn. At the time of the breakup, Stern was very vocal about his feelings on the matter. As a ‘Thank you’ for his support, Farrow made a cameo appearance in Stern’s 1997 autobiographical comedy Private Parts.

Stern does admit that his admiration for Allen makes the project still sound tempting to do.

“I got to be honest with you though, now that I’m sitting here thinking about it, I think I would throw almost all of my morality out the window and maybe I would have done this movie. But you know, at the end of the day…”

While he went to say that he wasn’t sure he could give details of the proposed project’s plot, Stern did reveal that it was not something that Allen wrote. He also said that Allen had already agreed to the project.

“I think it would have been brilliant,” Stern enthused. “It was a very funny idea. If you heard the premise of the movie, you’d laugh your ass off. If I said it to you right now, you’d say ‘I have to see that movie.’”

While Stern has on occasion mentioned that he continues to get offers for movie appearances, today’s revelation was one of the rare times he went into any detail. Given that Allen is reticent to appear in anything he hasn’t written or will be directing himself, makes this never-happened project all the more fascinating.

“I have mad respect for his gifts and talents,” Stern stated. “But geez, that’s a f***ed up, dark place he went to. If Woody Allen captured Osama bin Laden, maybe I could forgive him.”

I side with Stern when it comes to Woody Allen. I greatly admire his talents – Love And Death is still one of the funniest comedies every made – but have real problems with how he has conducted his personal life.

Still, the cinematic collision of these comedians is in intriguing. While their styles of comedy are different, both their comic sensibilities stem from their own neuroses and are informed by their upbringing in the New York City area. (Allen was reared in Brooklyn while Stern grew up in the Long Island community of Roosevelt.) It must have been one amazing script that was able to interest these two.

If anyone has any further information on this project, please pass it along.