Movie Industry

Manhattan or Los Angeles? Edward Duffy will take Ventura, thank you. As location manager for the hit TV series "Melrose Place," Duffy can tell horror stories about trying to get routine shots on the streets of Los Angeles. "Everyone is so jaded there," he says. "No one wants to cooperate." Not so in Ventura. "When you find a fresh area like this, it makes everything so much easier."

Brad Pitt's "Killing Them Softly" suffered the kind of deadly hit at the box office this weekend that its protagonist might have admired. A wide opening from The Weinstein Co. yielded a paltry $7 million, barely enough for seventh place in a crowd of holdovers. It was one of the lowest-ever wide openings for Pitt, and could wind up as his second-lowest grosser in nearly 20 years. If dismal attendance wasn't enough, the people who did come out to "Killing" wanted to whack it: The movie averaged a rock-bottom "F" CinemaScore.

"We need to buy a movie studio. " Amid the conferences, panels, meetings and informal conversations in the wake of the presidential election, this idea has been a near constant among conservatives who feel like the country is slipping through their fingers. Mitt Romney and the Republican National Committee combined raised just more than $1 billion, and all we got are these lousy T-shirts. Since conservatives are losing the culture, goes the argument, which in turn leads to losing at politics, maybe that money could be better spent on producing some cultural ammo of our own?

Three people were arrested and 848 pirated videotapes were seized at a Glendale store last week as part of a nationwide campaign by the movie industry to curb the illegal duplication of popular films. Acting on a tip from the Motion Picture Assn. of America (MPAA), officers raided Indra Video, 517 S. Verdugo Road, Friday afternoon, Glendale Police said.

The plot of the new "South Park" movie seems torn from today's headlines: Young kids sneak into an R-rated movie and become so entranced by the four-letter words they hear on screen that they can't stop using them. Their parents and eventually the government are so outraged that they take drastic action--everything from implanting a V-chip in a child to declaring war.

California continues to resist the national economic recovery, but a few of the state's key industries, notably Hollywood, are beginning to show signs of vigorous growth, the Federal Reserve Board said Wednesday. "The motion picture industry in Los Angeles is growing at a double-digit pace, and summer box office revenues are at record levels," the Fed said in its periodic survey of economic conditions around the country.

Looking back, the truest sign that then-Vivendi Universal honcho Jean-Marie Messier was toast may have come when he showed up for a public forum at the Beverly Hilton two years ago with Viacom Chief Executive Sumner Redstone and other entertainment industry power players, and he wasn't wearing a necktie.

Hoping to exploit the enormous creative opportunities inherent in new digital technologies, IBM Corp. and three well-known Hollywood talents announced Thursday that they have joined forces to launch a special effects production company. The new Los Angeles-based firm, Digital Domain, will use cutting-edge computer and video technologies to create the type of exotic visual effects popularized by "Terminator 2: Judgment Day" and other recent big-budget action movies.

In an early episode of "Damages," civil suit litigator Patty Hewes is standing somewhere on Manhattan's Upper East Side having an "accidental" meeting with the attorney for the CEO she is attempting to sue for fraud. "If you could just give us a number," he insists, attempting to negotiate an out-of-court settlement. "I'm in a dog park, Ray," she says, her voice a symphony of emotions, her face, behind the retro society sunglasses, alive with irritation, exhilaration and genuine amusement.

With production activity continuing at a lethargic pace, the issue of "runaway production" is fast becoming the hottest topic in Hollywood, with labor and film commission officials pushing hard to make it a national issue as well. Various groups are moving on several fronts to call attention to the issue this week: * On Sunday, the newly formed Film and Television Action Committee plans to hold a "Bring Hollywood Home" rally at 1 p.m. at Johnny Carson Park in Burbank.