Hollywood How To

New Trailer for Dinesh D'Souza's 'America': Watch George Washington Killed (Video)

by Paul Bond

The filmmaker behind "2016: Obama's America" debuted the video at the Conservative Political Action Conference on Friday.

Dinesh D’Souza, the filmmaker behind 2016: Obama’s America who is out on $500,000 bond for allegedly violating campaign finance laws, was at the Conservative Political Action Conference in Washington on Friday to unveil a new trailer for his upcoming release, America, a movie that imagines the United States lost the Revolutionary War so therefore never existed.

The trailer, obtained by The Hollywood Reporter, begins with some familiar faces -- Steve Jobs, Ronald Reagan, John F. Kennedy, Jackie Robinson -- then morphs into a battle scene where Gen. George Washington is struck by a bullet from a British musket. As Washington dies, American landmarks like the Statue of Liberty and Mount Rushmore disintegrate.

D’Souza delivered the afternoon keynote address at CPAC, where he showed about 3,500 attendees the trailer. Later, he plans to show the video during an appearance on Fox News Channel.

This year’s CPAC -- an annual gathering that attracts thousands of Republicans, Libertarians and conservatives – also features presentations from Ann Coulter, Charles Krauthammer, New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, former vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin and several nationally syndicated talk-radio hosts. At CPAC two years ago, D’Souza unveiled a trailer for his first film, 2016, a critical look at PresidentBarack Obama.

"Even though we made a mainstream movie that is for all Americans, we know that it will especially resonate with our conservative friends," D'Souza told THR. "We are proud to debut our trailer at what is effectively their Super Bowl."

America is set to open on July 4 and is associate produced by Grey Frederickson, who won a best picture Oscar for The Godfather Part II, and produced by Gerald Molen, who won a best picture Oscar for Schindler’s List. Molen also produced 2016.

Molen described his upcoming film as "a love story about America -- what she has meant to us, what she's done for us and what she expects of us."

D’Souza was arrested in January on accusations he used “straw donors” to give more money to a Senate candidate than is legally allowed. Molen says the charges are politically motivated and several powerful conservatives have come to D’Souza’s defense, including Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas, who gave the opening keynote address at CPAC on Thursday. Cruz told The Hollywood Reporter last month that the justice department is engaging in “a remarkably selective prosecution considering Obama raised millions of dollars under similar circumstances and donors merely faced civil fines while D’Souza is charged with felony violation of federal law.”

D'Souza's trial is set to begin May 19 in New York.

In 2016, D'Souza conducts an interview with the president’s brother, George Obama, who was living in a hut in Kenya at the time. The film was a surprise hit two years ago, earning $33 million at the domestic box office and becoming the second-most popular political documentary of all time behindMichael Moore’s Fahrenheit 9/11.

Email: Paul.Bond@THR.com

THE GODFATHER PART II

FAHRENHEIT 9/11

ANN COULTER

POLITICS

2016: OBAMA'S AMERICA

'Noah' Banned in Several Middle Eastern Countries

by Pamela McClintock

Censor boards in Qatar, Bahrain and the United Arab Emirates have informed Paramount they will not release the Biblical epic, which begins its global rollout later this month.

Darren Aronofsky's Noah -- inspired by the Biblical story of Noah's ark -- is starting to come under fire in the Middle East for contradicting Islamic law by portraying a prophet.

On Thursday, censorship boards in Qatar, Bahrain and the United Arab Emirates informed Paramount they will not allow the release of the film. Similar rulings are expected in Egypt, Jordan and Kuwait, according to Paramount insiders.

In Egypt, the leading Sunni Muslim institute Al-Azhar issued a statement on Thursday condemning the Paramount movie, saying it should be banned in that country.

“Al-Azhar renews its rejection to the screening of any production that characterizes Allah’s prophets and messengers and the companions of the Prophet [Muhammad],” the statement read. “Therefore, Al-Azhar announces the prohibition of the upcoming film about the Allah’s messenger Noah -- peace be upon him.”

Al-Azhar said any such film is “contrary to faith and to the fundamentals of the Islamic Sharia [law]," adding that such movies antagonize the "feelings of the faithful."

Paramount insiders say the studio knew going in that Noah could face issues in Muslim countries.

Noah is tentatively scheduled to open in Egypt on March 26, two days before its launch in the U.S., where it also has come under fire from some church leaders for its dark portrayal of Noah, played byRussell Crowe.

In a gesture of goodwill toward religious groups, Paramount agreed last week to alter the marketing materials for Noah to make clear that it is a creative rather than a literal adaptation of the Bible story.

Noah also stars Anthony Hopkins, Emma Watson, Jennifer Connelly, Douglas Booth,Logan Lerman and Ray Winstone.

Hollywood Continues to Flee California at Alarming Rate

Dave McNary

Film ReporterWhen Paul Audley took the job as president of FilmL.A. in late 2008, he was astounded to discover that physical production on the $70 million pic “Battle: Los Angeles” wasn’t being done in Los Angeles.

“It stunned me that the movie was shooting in Louisiana, and that the state of California was letting this happen,” he recalls.

In the subsequent five years, the situation has only worsened, despite the film production incentive program California enacted in 2009, which provides for $100 million a year in tax credits for what’s usually 20% of production costs. That’s significantly smaller than programs offered by other states such as New York, which offers $420 million a year in credits for 30% of production costs.

The trend has been mounting for high-profile films set in the Golden State to be filmed almost entirely outside California, due to lucrative tax breaks elsewhere that producers can’t turn down. One key component of new legislation to strengthen California’s incentive program, introduced Feb. 19, would raise to $100 million the current budget cap of $75 million on eligible productions. To drive home the need for state support, attendees at a Feb. 22 rally in Burbank held by Hollywood unionists were handed petitions to send to Sacramento citing that only one of 41 big-budget feature films shot in 2012 and 2013 was shot entirely in California.

The latest example of a locally set runaway is New Line’s upcoming earthquake thriller “San Andreas,” in which a helicopter pilot played by Dwayne Johnson rescues his daughter in San Francisco after a 10.0 quake. Except for six planned days of shooting in San Francisco, the entire $100 million movie will be made in Australia at the Village Roadshow Studios in Gold Coast, Queensland.

In December, “San Andreas” was granted a portion of Australia’s $20 million film fund set up specifically to attract overseas movies. Additionally, the film benefits from offsets from the Queensland Production Incentive Scheme, as well as local payroll tax rebates and federal rebates. Queensland officials have estimated that the movie will pump $30 million into the state economy, employ 70 local production crew, and provide roles for more than 2,000 extras.

“It’s frustrating to get only a few days shooting in San Francisco, but it’s better than nothing,” said San Francisco film commissioner Susannah Robbins. “Once again, the producers are going to where they’re getting the best incentive.”

There were even fewer days — four — shot in San Francisco for Legendary’s upcoming tentpole “Godzilla,” with most of the filming being done in Vancouver and Hawaii. Fox took a similar tack with its forthcoming summer release “Dawn of the Planet of the Apes” and that pic’s 2011 predecessor “Rise of the Planet of the Apes,” both of which were shot primarily in Canada with a few days of establishing shots in San Francisco.

“Producers tell us, ‘I’d love to shoot here but I have to go where the incentives are,’ ” Robbins notes.

Robbins has been touting San Francisco’s rebate program — which provides for up to $600,000 of production costs including rentals, street closures, permit fees, payroll taxes and police officers — in order to overcome the ingrained belief that such programs don’t exist in California. “We had eight productions use the rebate in its first six years, and we’ve had seven more since July.” San Francisco has a tradition as an iconic film location, with such titles as “Bullitt,” “Dirty Harry” and “Vertigo” having filmed in the city.

Further south, not a frame of “Rock of Ages,” set on the Sunset Strip, was shot in Los Angeles, although filming did take place in Hollywood — Florida, that is — at the Hard Rock Casino, along with a six-block section of North Miami Avenue in downtown Miami, decorated as a late-1980s version set of the Strip, replete with the Whisky-a-Go-Go, Frederick’s of Hollywood, Tower Records and the Angelyne Billboard.

Even the ruins of a future Los Angeles shown in “Elysium” were shot in Mexico and Canada.

Steve Dayan, who serves as vice chairman of the state film commission and secretary-treasurer of Local 399 of the Intl. Brotherhood of Teamsters, spoke at the Feb. 22 labor rally, promising his union would be willing to repeat its 1999 action of encircling the State Capitol in Sacramento with 200 Teamster trucks — a tactic used to campaign for incentives. “We are not going to let other states poach our jobs,” he said, evoking loud applause from the 700-plus attendees.

Audley’s agency is tasked with troubleshooting and simplifying the permit process. He’s been pressing the point that although location-based feature production increased by 18% in Los Angeles last year, to 6,900 days, that number is only half what it was in 1996. And the growth is not coming in higher value projects. Audley said. “(Other states are cherry picking the best stuff away from us,” he noted.

Dayan admits that producers have been substituting locations for as long as films have been shot. “Downtown L.A. has been used for New York City many times,” he said. But he noted that production costs on big features are now so high that it’s impossible for producers to shoot in town.

“We’re making the argument that by creating and retaining jobs, the new legislation would pay for itself,” he explained.

While statistics abound that show the extent of the economic impact of locally set runaways, on another level, the issue is emotional. The Feb. 22 rally featured an impassioned declaration by Maria Elena Durazo, secretary-treasurer of the Los Angeles County Federation of Labor, who pledged that organized labor will back the push for an improved film incentive.

“We are going to stand with you to make sure Hollywood does not become Detroit,” she declared. “I’ll be damned if we’re going to stand by and see the last film industry worker here turn out the lights. Hell, no!”

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Most Americans have yet to watch any best-picture Oscar nominee

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - It may be one of the best years in recent memory for high-quality Hollywood film, but two-thirds of Americans have yet to see any of the movies nominated for the best picture Oscar, according to a Reuters/Ipsos poll released on Sunday.

Among other questions, the poll asked 1,433 Americans whether they had seen any of the nine best-picture nominees, plus two other films competing in other categories. The Academy Awards will be hosted by comedian Ellen DeGeneres on March 2.

Among those who responded to the online survey, Somali piracy thriller "Captain Phillips" was the most-watched film, at 15 percent. But 67 percent said they had yet to see any of the eleven films in the poll.

The outer-space drama "Gravity" was second with 14 percent, while crime caper "American Hustle" and "The Wolf of Wall Street," Martin Scorsese's portrait of 1990s greed and excess, each had been seen by 12 percent of those surveyed. The numbers include those surveyed who may have seen more than one of the nominees.

The survey found that 60 percent of respondents were unsure about which film should win best picture. Slavery drama "12 Years a Slave" had the most support at 9 percent.

"Gravity" and "Captain Phillips" drew 8 percent of the vote each and "The Wolf of Wall Street" took in 7 percent, according to the survey conducted from February 17-21.

Hollywood awards season watchers have tipped "12 Years a Slave" and "Gravity" as the favorites to take home the film world's highest honor.

Among those surveyed, previous best-actress Oscar winner Sandra Bullock is the favorite in that category again for her role as an astronaut in "Gravity," with 24 percent saying she will take home the prize. Amy Adams garnered 11 percent support for her portrayal of a 1970s con artist in "American Hustle."

Leonardo DiCaprio's depiction of disgraced stock trader Jordan Belfort in "The Wolf of Wall Street" should earn him his long-awaited best-actor Oscar in his third try for the prize, according to 17 percent of those surveyed. Some 11 percent favored "Dallas Buyers Club" star Matthew McConaughey to win the award.

Steve McQueen, the director of "12 Years a Slave," had the most support at 14 percent to win best director, and Scorsese finished second with 11 percent. If McQueen wins, he would be the first black director to do so.

Alfonso Cuaron, who has won nearly all of the directing awards this season for "Gravity" and is the pundits' favorite to win the Oscar, was third with 7 percent.

Fifty-two percent said they were unsure who should win the best actor and best actress awards.

DeGeneres, the ceremony's host, scored the approval of 60 percent of respondents. Of those who supported the choice, 34 percent said they strongly approved of the daytime talk show host leading the show for a second time.

Seventeen percent said DeGeneres was their top choice to host the Oscars. Frequent host Billy Crystal, Golden Globe co-host Tina Fey, and comedians Eddie Murphy and Jimmy Fallon all came in second with 8 percent.

Last year's host, "Family Guy" creator Seth MacFarlane, garnered 3 percent of support from respondents as their top choice.

The precision of Reuters/Ipsos online polls is measured using a credibility interval. In this case, the poll has a credibility interval of plus or minus 3 percentage points.

(Reporting by Eric Kelsey; Editing by Mary Milliken)

FCC backs off newsroom study

By HADAS GOLD

The Federal Communications Commission will amend a proposed study of newsrooms in South Carolina after outcry over what some called "invasive questions," the commission's chairman said Friday.

The survey was meant to study how and if the media is meeting the public's “critical information needs” on subjects like public health, politics, transportation and the environment. Now, FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler said questions about news philosophy and editorial judgment will be removed from the survey and media owners and reporters will no longer be questioned.

The uproar caught on fire after one of the Republican commissioners, Ajit Pai, penned an op-ed in the Wall Street Journal last week blasting the survey and saying the government had no place in newsrooms. The FCC is required by law to conduct media studies.

"Any suggestion the Commission intends to regulate the speech of news media is false," FCC spokeswoman Shannon Gilson said Friday in a statement, adding that a revised study will be released within the next few weeks. Additionally, she said media owners and journalists will no longer be asked to participate in the pilot study.

"Any subsequent market studies conducted by the FCC, if determined necessary, will not seek participation from or include questions for media owners, news directors or reporters," she said.

CNN’s ‘Piers Morgan Live’ Ratings Sink To Second Lowest Ever

By DOMINIC PATTEN

Piers Morgan’s rocky ratings just took another dive for CNN. On Tuesday, the Brit’s 9PM show had its second worst result ever in the all important adults 25-54 news demographic. With a total audience of 270,000 watching, Piers Morgan Live drew a mere 50,000 viewers in the demo. The only time the stumbling CNN show has fared that poorly since its January 17, 2011 launch was on May 15, 2012. Then the show, then known as Piers Morgan Tonight, pulled in a just 39,000 viewers in the demo. In terms of overall viewers, February 18 was the ninth worst Morgan’s talk show has done. The all-time viewership low for Piers Morgan Live was on February 7 this year when just 235,000 tuned in. Morgan’s cable news rivals The Kelly File on Fox News Channel and The Rachel Maddow Show on MSNBC did far better last night. The 9PM shows got 354,000 and 227,000 in the demo respectively and 2.068 million and 906,000 total viewers – pretty close to what they both had last Tuesday with the FNC show even getting a tiny rise in the demo.

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Tuesday’s results are a huge fall from February 11 when Morgan’s show got 111,000 viewers in the demo and 374,000 watching overall – which is a long way of say, Jeff Zucker can’t blame theOlympics cause they were on last week as well. Then again he might have bigger worries – CNN matched its sixth worst primetime result among the 25-54s on February 18. Between 8PM and 11PM, the cable news network had 64,000 watching in the demo. That’s a tie with December 28, 2010 and October 22, 1997′s demo results. The all-time worst CNN primetime demo viewership was the tiny 57,000 who tuned in on May 18,2000. In terms of total viewers on Tuesday, CNN had 274,000 watching - its sixth worst result ever.

Ben Affleck to Testify Before Congress as an Africa Expert

BY JOHN HUDSON
With a vicious spate of mass killings plaguing the Democratic Republic of the Congo, a Senate panel is calling on experts to appear before U.S. lawmakers next week. One of them is Hollywood actor and serial activist Ben Affleck, The Cable has learned.

Affleck is slated to appear before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee next Wednesday to discuss the troubled central African country of 75 million people. The Argo director has shown a keen interest in Congo in recent years through his philanthropic organization, the Eastern Congo Initiative (ECI). But not everyone thinks Affleck's résumé qualifies him to testify on Capitol Hill. When the Seattle-based advisory firm working for Affleck, WilliamsWorks, tried to set up a similar event in the GOP-controlled House of Representatives, Republicans did not accept, according to a congressional aide familiar with the matter. "It was floated and turned down," said the aide.

It's unclear if Republicans declined due to scheduling issues or philosophical differences. One GOP aide at the House Foreign Affairs Committee said the meeting would be inappropriate given the wide offering of other experts available to speak on the issue. "People serious about resolving problems -- especially problems related to life and death -- want to have serious conversations with experts and leaders in the field, not celebrities," the aide said. Defending Affleck's presence, a separate aide said it doesn't have to be an "either-or decision," noting that experts could speak alongside the actor during a hearing. "I think there's value in having someone like Ben there," said the aide. "He's pretty invested in the issue."

Other experts who will be appearing before the Senate panel on Wednesday include Russell Feingold, the U.S. special envoy for the Great Lakes region and Congo; Roger Meece, former U.S. ambassador to Congo; and Raymond Gilpin, an academic dean at the National Defense University.*

Since 1996, the former Belgian colony has been beset with disease, violence, and malnourishment in a conflict involving ethnic rivalries and a battle for the region's resources of copper, gold, and diamonds. Just last week, the United Nations mission in Congo, MONUSCO, said more than 70 people had been hacked to death by armed groups in the resource-rich northeastern North Kivu province.

ECI, Affleck's philanthropic organization, emphasizes direct giving by connecting donors with Congolese nonprofits rather than channeling money into large international NGOs. Affleck also testified on Congo before the House Armed Services Committee in 2012. At the time, he called for the United States to play a greater role in influencing the United Nations' role in the country. "Without persistent, high-level leadership by the United States, the key players will not come to the table and do their part," he said. "They deserve better than this cycle of violence and upheaval."