CINEMA BuzzFEED - 28 November 2013 (Happy Thanksgiving)

Black Bird Nets $4.1 million

Bogart with Falcon

Last month CMG reported that the James Bond Lotus Submarine car sold at auction for $800,000, and while this is impressive, it pales in comparison to the sale of  'the black bird'. Yes, I'm referring to the iconic statuette that appeared in the 1941 classic 'The Maltese Falcon'.  Last Monday, 'the bird' was auctioned off for over $4 million.

The auctioned statute was one of two used as props in the movie but the only one authenticated by Warner Brothers, as it has a WB inventory number etched into its base and bears the name of the movie.  The sale took place at Bonhams, the British art auction house.  In the movie, the statuette is termed "a priceless work of art", which is the cause of several murders.  The movie stars Humphrey Bogart as detective Sam Spade, with co-stars: Mary Astor, Peter Lorre, and Sydney Greenstreet. Directed by John Huston, it was nominated for three Academy Awards.

Lee To Create New Superheros

Stan Lee and Superheros

90 year old comic guru and genre creator Stan Lee has been hired by Sony Pictures to create new Superheros for the movies.  Lee created or co-created Spider-Man, the Hulk, Fantastic Four, Iron Man, Thor, X-Men, and other comic superheros and was the moving force in the development and expansion of Marvel Comics.

Sony tapped Lee because it needs more superheros, as it has only one, Spider-Man.  Disney owns the rights to The Avengers, Iron Man, Thor, Captain America, and the Hulk via its purchase of Marvel Studios in 2009.  Warner Brothers owns the heroes from rival publisher DC Comics, which include: Batman, Superman, and Wonder Woman. Fox Studios owns the rights to X-Men and the Fantastic Four.

Thus far Sony's attempts at creating new superheros has failed, so Lee (who is no longer affiliated with Marvel) was hired to dream up new characters.  We wish Stan the best.

Gaming Is Really Big

Spil Games, a maker of online and mobile games, reported that more than 1.2 billion people play games worldwide each day, with 700 million playing online.

Oscar Diele, Spil's Head of Marketing told CMG, "Gaming is a huge part of people's online activities. It's really mainstream, crossing age and gender boundaries.  Many people really don't know how big gaming is. We are beginning to see more and more advertisers realizing that they need to spend more on video ads within games." 

Spil's data shows that 46% of gamers are women with 54% men. The top game categories for men and boys are racing, sports, and action games. The top categories for women are puzzles, quizzes, word matching and mahjong games.  The top categories for girls are cooking, dress-up, and pet care games.

47% of all females aged 15 to 24 play games, while 54% of that age group in males play games.  On the other end of the age spectrum, 41% of females and 37% of males over age 45 play games.

Movies and games feed off of each other. Many movies have turned into very popular games, such as Harry Potter and popular games have turned into movies, like Tome Raider.

Best
Jim Lavorato