Movies

It's Valentine's Day, and the movie studios have rolled out chick flicks like bouquets for every gal whose husband or boyfriend has ever disappointed them. Thank goodness. Or so that seems to be the message from female moviegoers who have been lining up for women-enticing movies in droves. Last year kicked off with the wildly successful "Sex and the City: The Movie" followed by "Mamma Mia!" in the summer and "Twilight" in the fall.

Harry Potter, the teen wizard whose films have generated billions of dollars and become one of Hollywood's biggest franchises, is known for battling the evil Lord Voldemort. Now he's about to confront an even darker foe: A soft DVD market. "Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince," the sixth installment in the Warner Bros. film series, will be released July 15, and expectations are that it will be one of the year's biggest blockbusters. The previous five "Potter" movies have generated $7.

The most popular site for watching video on the Internet may soon get Hollywood's most popular movies. Google Inc.'s YouTube is in talks with several major studios -- including Sony Pictures, Warner Bros. and Lionsgate -- about streaming movies when the DVDs become available in rental stores and kiosks, according to sources familiar with the situation. The move represents a bold gambit for the entertainment giants, which have been cautious in embracing the Internet out of fear it would disrupt relationships with major retailers and undercut lucrative DVD sales.

Detroit's not the only one reeling from the collapse of General Motors. There are a few executives bummed out on the Paramount Pictures lot as well. Eleven weeks before the release of its expensive summer sequel "Transformers 2: Revenge of the Fallen," the studio can't count on its key promotional partner to support a marketing blitz that helps drive mass awareness of Hollywood's big popcorn movies.

Both old-fashioned movie marketing and modern digital buzz helped drive a surprisingly strong weekend at the box office. Universal's romantic comedy "Couples Retreat," supported by such tried-and-true promotional efforts as an all-expenses-paid tropical press junket, topped the charts this weekend with an impressive $35.3 million, according to studio estimates. Paramount's "Paranormal Activity," meanwhile, relied on word of mouth and Internet marketing to smash the box-office record for a movie playing at fewer than 200 theaters.

First rule of movie marketing: With a hard sell, sell the faithful first. So it was with Walt Disney Co., which on Thursday used a gathering of thousands of loyal Disney fans to unveil "The Princess and the Frog," perhaps the studio's riskiest movie in years. Disney Chief Executive Bob Iger used the assembly of devoted followers at the Anaheim Convention Center, many of them sporting Mickey T-shirts, to screen a major portion of the film that marks the studio's return to hand-drawn animation.

Jenny Shircore has an uncanny ability to make people's faces read like books. On the set of director Iain Softley's new fantasy adventure "Inkheart," Shircore created hundreds of intricately lettered facial tattoos to signify that certain characters in the film had been brought to life from the pages of works of literature. Born in India during the days of the British Raj to an Armenian father and a French mother, Shircore moved to England at the age of 10.

The Hollywood moguls behind such films as "The Dark Knight," "Watchmen" and "Pirates of the Caribbean" are looking for their next blockbuster in a new realm: video games. An increasing number of big shots from the movie business are seeing new opportunities in the $50-billion global interactive entertainment industry.

The stars are not twinkling bright this summer. Hollywood's movie studios, hopeful that marquee-name actors would push their summer box-office receipts to record levels, are finding that the heavyweights aren't winning over audiences like they used to. With all but a couple of big-budget films already opened, the summer of 2009 is shaping up to be one of the worst on record for Hollywood's A-list talent.

It was a challenge that Barbra Streisand wasn't sure she could handle. Though she made her directorial debut with 1983's "Yentl" -- the musical drama about a young Jewish woman who disguises herself as a man -- she was initially wary of taking on filmmaker duties for the cinematic adaptation of Isaac Bashevis Singer's short story.