By Steven Zeitchik

There may be uncertainty about its theatrical pipeline
but pay no attention — HBO Films has done it again. Colin Callender’s longstanding production unit is attached to a movie (in this case, an acquisition) that brings the prestige without being precious, and is worthy of movie screens even though it plays just fine on the small screen, air quotes around that adjective.

The tony New York premiere Wednesday of “Bernard & Doris” — Sidney Lumet, Susan Sarandon and Ellen Barkin among the guests — suggests how HBO has again managed to walk the ground between cable special and event programming that few TV-first production labels have been able to pull off. The relatively small-budget movie, about the relationship between a gay butler (Ralph Fiennes) and a kooky old heiress (Sarandon), has the cozy, intimate feel of television. And yet by reveling in every gesture and small shift of power in its primary relationship, it captures an oddball tenderness that makes the movie as good as any love story that plays in theaters. Put it in a year of a “The Remains of the Day” or a “Driving Miss Daisy” and it knocks either out of the Best Picture slot.

It’s a strange kind of blessing — sporting original movies that fit snugly into a Saturday night premiere but have enough star wattage and Oscar virtues for a theatrical play — and watching it you can almost feel why HBO has grown conflicted. Enviable hybrids in a world scarce for them, the movies also heighten the question of whether or not it makes sense for the pay network to undertake the labor-intensive job of going theatrical.

In other words, they heighten the Picturehouse question — whether HBO should continue to have the outlet, or the obligation, for riskier and pricier theatrical runs.

And “B&D” isn’t even the most theatrical-ready play on the slate. Upcoming projects like “John Adams,” “Generaton Kill” and “Recount” could, length issues notwithstanding, make a strong case for a multplex run. So too with “Sugar,” the Maud Nadler project from the producers and creators of “Half Nelson” that was so clearly the cream of the Sundance crop. That movie could have sold to a major theatrical distributor in about eighteen seconds flat had there not been a question of HBO going theatrical itself, at least according to some buyers who said they were unsure about how available the movie really is.

But having these kinds of movies, and this kind of distribution potential, is a certain kind of wealth. And as Sarandon’s Doris could tell you, wealth makes life complicated.

How nervous are slate financers about their investments and the general performance of slate pictures? So nervous — so teeth-chatteringly, knee-knockingly, swallow five-Tums-and-still-reach-for-the-bourbon nervous — that Risky Biz was asked to leave a Deutsche Bank conference on film financing earlier today after being (mistakenly, apparently) allowed in.We were told that it had been decided that no press were allowed in the room for the two sessions collectively titled ‘How have structures truly performed? What is the outlook?” (The answer: Not good. And not so great.)

Or at least it was decided after we were in the room (on the invitation of one of the panelists, incidentially). Given all the dark clouds hovering over Wall Street these days, apparently someone realized that maybe it’s not such a good idea for a reporter to hear the doomer talk about bankers’ eight- and nine-figure Hollywood investments.

Still, we were there long enough to hear pretty much what we needed to — that the great slate-financing experiment has been in many cases a cautionary tale, and deals will be structured a lot differently the next time around (a time that in a number of instances is fast approaching).

A wonderfully acerbic Amir Malin of Qualia Capital answered that no, it wasn’t true that no one was profiting from deals that gave us everything from “Poseidon” to the upcoming Marvel slate.

“A lot of people have done well with these things,” he quipped. “Lawyers have done well, and the investment bankers,” who’ve taken hefty consulting fees for providing models, have done well, and “Michael (Lynne, of New Line) and Bob (Osher, of Sony) who’ve received the largesse,” have done well.

Generally the conensus was that slate financiers need to be more involved in selecting the films – we’re not sure if that would solve things or complicate them further, but no matter — and that the deals needed to tilt even further toward library and ancillary and away from box office.

Moderator Laura Fazio of Deutsche Bank inquired about the underpinnings of film financing when she asked the studio execs, “Can there be a real alignment of interest with a pure financial investor?”

But Sony COO Osher was quick to defend studios, reminding that when you invest in a pic you’re taking risks, and pointing out that the studio absorbs huge costs that a financier never has to shoulder. “We spend a tremendous amount of money developing and putting together movies. We’re not in the acquisition business. We develop movies ourselves. That, frankly, we don’t get compensated for.”

But Malin had the best line when describing the slipperiness of slate investements and saying that, in the end, there was little Wall Street could do. “We’re dealing with the vagaries of the business. One day we have a studio going on a hit parade. As my father likes to remind me, one day you’re the dog and one day you’re the tree.”

Poor Julian Schnabel. Even when he’s trying to play it straight, it hits him in the face. As you’ve no doubt heard, the candid painter-auteur and in-jokey obsession of the New York media was genuinely trying to thank the DGA and revel in the moment Saturday when he ran into the buzzsaw that was an inebriated Sean Young. Exclusive video over at our Gold Rush blog.

Lots of attention at the recently-ended Sundance film fest for “What Just Happened,?” the Barry Levinson-Art Linson take on all the things that have bothered them about the studio system — we mean sendup of Hollywood foibles — courtesy of 2929 Entertainment.

First there was buzz that the DeNiro pic would be the biggest sale in the history of the fest with a reported floor of $10-$12 million set for interested bidders. Then it became a poster child for non-starter deals. Now it’s sit-back-and-wait-time for Cinetic and CAA, who are co-repping the film.

No need to rehash the sales subplot (late in the fest there were rumors of several studios interested for a  sub-$5 mil price. But will the sellers sell? John Sloss recently told Risky Biz that with the stars and the premise “there is value in the film,” theatrically and in the aftermarket).

Instead, we’ll draw your attention to another Hollywood sendup that played Park City, the Steve Schachter-directed/William H. Macy-acted “The Deal.” We, um, stalwarts here at Risky Biz may have been among the only festgoers to actually see the pic — Macy himself joked at the awards-night ceremony about all the distribs banging down his door — so let us also point to a surprising number of similarities between the films (a slight spoiler alert, but really, will you be seeing either of these movies anytime soon?)

Among them:

A) A tough-chick studio chief (Catherine Keener in WJH; Meg Ryan in Deal)

B) Creative people subverting their corporate bosses (a last-minute Cannes switcheroo by the director in WJH; a slightly ludicrous attempt to film an entirely new movie in Europe without studio chiefs back home knowing it in Deal)

C)Celebs willing to parody their own high-maintenance selves (Bruce Willis in WJH, LL Cool J in Deal)

D) The use of Israelis muttering under their breath, sans subtitles, about the idiots around them (a financier in WJH, a director in Deal).

We have no idea what the last one means. But the other three point to an interesting pattern — the same industry facts seems to be on the minds of two entirely diverse sets of filmmakers (and, in the case of B, the same solution has occurred to both groups).

The concurrence of both movies at Sundance also points to another trend, one echoed in venues as far-flung as strike-era late-night hosts rallying against network chiefs: people within the system using the system as a source of comedy.

Besides the obvious problem – does the general public give two hoots? — the phenomenon, and the two movies’ lackluster response, raise a more problematic question: whether these efforts are detached enough from the material to skewer it. Can you really conduct a decent sendup while being connected, perceptually and actually, to the industry you’re targeting? Even the path these projects have taken — they’re indie-financed productions involving decidely non-indie types — undermine the effort. I mean, these are films seeking studio distribution.

Ah, but it’s been done before, you say. Sure. But past paragons of the form had some critical remove — Altman’s maverick sensibility for “The Player,” or Tom DiCillo’s truly indie outlook for 1995’s underrated “Living in Oblivion.” HBO’s “Entourage” probably comes closest to being a Hollywood product that’s able to cast an acerbic eye on the biz, but then, the show’s really about the rituals of modern male bonding as much as gross points and key-man clauses anyway.

No, the lesson here is that Hollywood should stop trying to send itself up. It has a more important role to play in these satires — being Hollywood. The satirists will know where to find it. They’ll like it better that way. And so will the rest of us.

Heath Ledger continues to be an object of grieving for the film biz – and a source of speculation when it comes to upcoming projects.

After Chris Nolan’s moving Newsweek letter about Ledger’s creativity and dedication, the attention has turned to the future of other projects the actor had been working on.

Some reports have Johnny Depp picking up where Ledger left off in Terry Gilliam’s “The Imaginarium of Dr. Parnassus (the character moves through different worlds, and his different appearance could be explained through shapeshifting).

There’s also the possibility of CG techniques being used to help finish the film without the casting of a new actor.

Earlier, Warner Bros. was one of the first entities to issue a public statement expressing its sorrow about the tragedy. Ledger had recently completed work on “The Dark Knight,” in which he plays the Joker and for which he was supposed to be a key part of the marketing campaign. The studio made a show of respect by subtly tweaking a Web site it had put together promoting the film and the character, Whysoserious.com, which now sports a black ribbon made out of a film strip.

Sundance premieres can be many things. Rock concerts aren’t usually one of them.

Unless you’re Morgan Spurlock, that is.

The Weinstein Co.’s premiere for Spurlock”s “Where in the World Is Osama Bin Laden?” had the air of a Stones show, with ticketless fans practically throwing money at moviegoers in the parking lot and Spurlock tailed by groupies as he hurried into the theater.

(Earlier he had told Risky Biz that “The first time I was here (for “Supersize Me”) was amazing, meeting all these great filmmakers, but I was in a daze and couldn’t appreciate it. This time I’m going to see a lot of movies and really soak in the experience.”)

The movie energetically blends man on the (Arab) street interviews, cleverly presented facts about the Arab world and a touch of Spurlock’s personal life (most cloyingly, through a framing device about his impending fatherhood).

Despite the title and one early sequences, the quest to find the world’s most famous fugitive never moves beyond the comedic; instead, it’s a Trojan horse for the director to travel to the Middle East and offer and elicit insight about Muslim attitudes.

Comments from citizens in countries like Egypt and Jordan feel a little evening news-y (They’re regular people! They like wrestling! They dislike terrorists!), but it moves into more journalistic terrain when he visits harder-line countries like Saudi Arabia and Afghanistan.

As a kind of primer on the Arab world it’s unlikely to ruffle feathers in either red or blue states. But the movie nonetheless shows what Spurlock is becoming: a documentarian inspired by but wittier than Michael Moore, with a more genuinely inquiring tone and a lot less grandstanding.

Spurlock said that in shooting the movie he was visited by the FBI (Feds: “Why are you looking for Osama Bin Laden?” Spurlock: “Why not? Are you guys looking for him?”) and also recounted how online buzz has reached his ears.

“There have been so many stories in circulation about this movie — my favorite one being Harvey Weinstein paid me $25 million for this movie,” he said, alluding to the amount of the bounty on Bin Laden.

Then he quipped. “I hope you guys will come back in 2 years for the sequel — ‘Where in the World Is All My Money?’”

There were a lot of jeers yesterday at the Academy for not nominating Josh Brolin for his performance in “No Country for Old Men.” But on Tuesday, at the premiere of wife Diane Lane’s latest movie “Untraceable” for Screen Gems at the Pacific Design Center, Brolin didn’t seem like a slighted man. He took it all in stride and didn’t dwell on being overlooked.

Instead, Brolin chatted up Risky Biz about his latest project, “Bush,” a biopic about W by Oliver Stone, while he waited for Lane to finish her red-carpet entrance.

Knowing Stone’s rep as a conspiracy theorist of sorts, Brolin admits he was hesitant to play the president. “I looked at the script and told Oliver, ‘I can’t do this.’” But Stone persisted, handing Brolin a revamped script

The biopic follows Bush from his twenties right up until his entry to the White House in 2001, from his days as an oil executive to a baseball owner to a governor. Stone also tackles Bush’s personal life, from struggles with alcoholism to the discovery of religion.

No matter how polarizing a figure Bush is, it will be hard for prez supporters or oppnens to accuse Stone of going at this half-cocked — scribe Stanley Weister spent a year researching the president.

And Brolin says the film has something for every donkey and elephant. “If you’re a Democrat, you’re going to say, ‘I can’t believe he’s president.’ And if you’re a Republican, you’re going to say, ‘This is why he’s president.’”

Throughout Sundance, distributors have been asking “Indie hit, where art thou?”

The answer may have come Monday evening with “Hamlet 2,” Andrew Fleming’s story of an overly dramatic high school drama teacher (played by Steve Coogan) who attempts to salvage his department by putting on a controversial musical sequel to Shakespeare’s play.

The late addition to the fest had intermitent lulls, but it also had a number of top film execs gushing outside the Library screening room, including the Weinstein Co., Lionsgate, Focus and ThinkFilm.

“I heard before I came that it needed a lot of work, but it doesn’t need that much work,” said one buyer. Others said some judicious cutting could bring it big success. At a “Hamlet” dinner afterwards,  veteran studio director Fleming (”Threesome,” “Nancy Drew”) said he’d be open to working with a distributor on a refined edit, despite saying he avoided the development process initially. “It”s nothing I haven’t been through before,” he deadpanned.

The film’s satirical take on theater types, modern musicals, high school and high school movies like “Dangerous Minds” resonated with the audience, as did top notch performances by Coogan and Catherine Keener, Amy Poehler and the newcomer Skyler Astin, who plays a budding drama student many will recognize.

“Hamlet 2″ came together thanks to producers Eric Eisner as well as “Little Miss Sunshine” producers Ron Yerxa and Albert Berger.” Editors were still cutting the movie three days before the screening. But the filmmakers finished it and got it into the festival just under the wire, not unlike the way the fall’s big indie hit, “Juno,” snuck into Telluride at the last minute.

CAA is selling the title, and top distributors began gathering at their Park City house immediately after the film.

One of the most expensive movies ever to come to Sundance played to one of the most distributor-heavy screenings ever to hit the festival on Saturday night.

Buyers from pretty much every major company turned out for Barry Levinson’s “What Just Happened?,” the serio-comic study of a studio producer (played by Robert DeNiro) plagued by personal and professional issues over the course of one turbulent week. The movie is loosely based on producer Art Linson’s memoir.

The movie, which is co-repped by Cinetic and CAA, entered the festival with buzz that it could sell for a significant sum and could possibly even go to a studio division hungry for material during the strike.

According to a source close to one of the filmmakers, previous projections of a budget well over $30 million are inflated.

“It was $23 million. I saw the papers,” said the source.

Besides the many film execs, the screening also included outgoing Time Warner CEO Dick Parsons, who in an interview recounted a number of the comedic bits with evident enjoyment.

When asked whether he thought Warner Bros. could board the project, Parsons said. “I really think it’s more of a New Line kind of movie.”

Reactions among a number of buyers surveyed as they exited the theater were mixed. Sales negotiations were expected to go into the night, with someone close to the project assuring that “it will go fast.”

2929 Entertainment, which produced the film, will seek to replicate its Cannes feat, when it sold James Gray’s period cop-drama “Who Owns the Night” to Columbia for a reported $11.5 million.

The negotiations for the distribution rights of “What Just Happened?” may end up being as colorful as the film’s chaotic portrait of the industry. “I don’t think the film is satire,” said Linson. “It’s real.”

UPDATE: Also on Saturday night, bidding was heating up for the documentary “American Teen,” with prices said to be in the $3 million range, according to sources. Nanette Burstein’s narrative docu about a group of high-school seniors in Indiana played extremely strong at its Library premier Saturday afternoon, with a heavily enthusiastic audience response.

Searchlight topper Peter Rice was also seen approaching Burstein after the film, while Par Vantage execs were spotted at the film’s afterparty at the Marquee.

By Melissa Grego

Lot o’ juice being sucked up on Main Street in Park City. It’s not only a scene of overloaded parties at Sundance but also apparently overloaded power grids. We were standing outside a party Friday night that hit capacity in 27 minutes, according to what we overheard from the guy at the door. Flicker, flicker — poof — and lights along the main thoroughfare went out. Nothing to help see but headlights for 15 minutes. Cheers along the block as soon as they came back on. Click to watch our video report. For more daily video reports, news and reviews out of Sundance go to thr.com/sundance.

(Photo by Michael Gordon)

At Sundance, volunteers are wanted, but not always film execs.

Several buyers found that out the hard way Friday night when they tried to get into a volunteers-only 8 p.m. Library screening of Ari Gold’s air-drumming comedy “Adventures of Power,” starring Gold and Adrian Grenier.

They were hoping to get a jump on the film’s official midnight Sunday premiere, but they were left out in the 1-degree cold, trying their luck again for 10 p.m. and midnight screenings of “Anvil! The True Story of Anvil” in the same theater.

Several made it in to the comic heavy-metal rockumentary, which (despite a few dissenters) emerged with good buzz. No final verdict on its distribution fate should arrive until after Friday’s official 5:30 p.m. premiere at the same venue.

One of the first films to bring in distributors (Miramax, Fox Searchlight and Sony Pictures Classics among them) was Friday morning’s premiere of “Good Dick,” pictured, an entry in the Dramatic Competition. The psychodrama laced with dark humor stars first-time writer-director Marianna Palka and her offscreen beau Josh Ritter as two emotionally damaged characters who embark on a tortured relationship.

Audiences were divided, with some echoing the Sundance programmers’ enthusiasm and others hating it with a passion. Its characters and themes are similar to one of the worst films I’ve ever seen, Tom Noonan’s stagy and pretentious first-date-gone-wrong drama “What Happened Was …” But somehow this one managed to engage and impress both me and my colleague Steve Z., despite the frequent eye-rolling of a few former colleagues sitting next to me.

Sundance opening-night scene you don’t often see: Colin Farrell, Mary-Kate Olsen and a paucity of buyers.

The fest opened with a distributed film this year, Focus Features’ hit-man dramedy “In Bruges,” and had both the stars and the laughter that more tweedy opening-nights have lacked. The screening, in its customary Thursday evening slot at the Eccles, featured the blood-spattered specialty fare filmgoers have grown accustomed to this fall, though unlike most fall offerings it was the funny and playful kind of blood-spattering.

Martin McDonagh, whose mordant plays and shorts combine the brutality of “Rambo” with the motormouth dialogue and dementedly philosophical wit of “Pulp Fiction,” continues the theme here with his feature debut.

Hit-man Ray (Farrell, pictured) is guilt-stricken after accidentally killing a child while on a job — so guilt-stricken that his boss Harry (Ralph Fiennes), heard but not seen for the picture’s first half, deems Ray incapable of doing his job and banishes him and his partner Ken (Brendan Gleeson) to Bruges, with the covert instruction to Ken that he rub out Ray.

The unspoken joke, later spoken, is that spending any time in Bruges is almost like being dead already. (The movie also uses what might be called the anti-”Sopranos” technique, showing the grim business of violence not amid the derelict warehouses of New Jersey but the stately canals and churches of Western Europe.)

The film comes alive when Fiennes shows up midway through to finish the job, delivering some of the film’s best lines and displaying unusual comic timing, along with an endearingly twisted moral compass. Filled with colorfully violent set pieces, the movie shows McDonagh more than capable of translating his flair for acerbic and unexpected dialogue to the feature medium, even if he still struggles with plotting and character development.

Focus’ James Schamus, at the afterparty at The Lift, described a strategy to use the Sundance opening as a kind of buzz-starting device, and then turning around quickly and releasing the movie three weeks later. “In Bruges” is eminently quotable (though not in a family blog), and the play for Focus is clear: get enough (male) McDonagh fans and (female) Farrell devotees in to the theater and then citing lines from the film, and everyone else will wonder what the fuss is about and run out to see it.

Which they might, though for now there’s a hundred movies to run out and see in Park City, even if some of those movies would no doubt have been better off staying far away — say, in Bruges.