More important than printing comics (which, they actually still do!), Marvel is valuable for the merchandising and movie rights to all its characters—over 5,000—many of which have become the massive film franchises that are the lifeblood of the movie studios. The only two studios that aren't dependent on Marvel for summer tentpoles are Disney and Warner Bros. (which bought out DC Comics and its stable of characters including Batman, Superman and Wonder Woman). Paramount has Iron Man, Sony's long been living off Spider-Man, 20th Century Fox lives and dies by how many X-Men,Wolverine, or Fantastic Four films it can spin out and Universal would like you to like The Hulk.

All of a sudden, those studios have just discovered that Disney may be in control of their summer fates. Welcome to your new groveling life, studio executives.

The London Times issued the first mainstream approbation after Tuesday's world premiere, suggesting that "as the first attempt to make a truly post-adolescent comic book movie, Watchmen is, literally, peerless." Neither critics from Variety nor The Hollywood Reporter seemed to disagree after viewing the film last night in LA. For what that was worth: At bigger issue, they wrote, is Watchmen's muddled mediocrity at best and stories "too absurd and acting too uneven to convince anyone," according to THR's Kirk Honeycutt. And by "anyone," the critic really does mean it, concluding, "Looks like we have the first real flop of 2009." Variety's Justin Chang was barely more optimistic about the long-awaited graphic novel adaptation:

[A]uds unfamiliar with Moore's brilliantly bleak, psychologically subversive fiction may get lost amid all the sinewy exposition and multiple flashbacks. After a victorious opening weekend, the pic's B.O. future looks promising but less certain.

"Whatever," studio partners Warner Bros. and Paramount might reply, reminding us that last week's distant fanboy screeching has crescendoed into a full-on market mating call. Harry Knowles led a generally rapturous second wave of praise ("I WATCHED THE FUCKING WATCHMEN AND FUCKING LOVED IT!" he bellowed this week on Ain't It Cool News), joined by admirers from CHUD, Hitfix and elsewhere. The studios' pricey, saturation marketing push nudges you from every direction — Web, print, TV, bus stops, even inside your coffee cup. Another classic case of review-proof comics fodder, a $125 million epic cut from Dark Knight cloth and tailored like one-size-fits-all robes for the geek choir. Right?

Not so fast. Full disclosure: We haven't seen Watchmen, and for all we know it's worthy of CHUD's comparisons to, ahem, The Godfather. But the ad hominem accolades overlook the bigger problem of two studios offering spring's biggest film as an R-rated, 161-minute, apocalyptic sex-and-violence fantasia. "[N]ot for the kids," acknowledges the Times, and possibly not even for the adults if leading critics — usually relied on to boost the prospects of indie and foreign fare — don't attest to director Zack Snyder's "art" when the films opens globally next week. So far, so bad.

Outside of Oscar season, it's an almost unprecedented scenario. The audience limitation is already beyond risky at these prices (particularly for a film that has no franchise future), but unofficially relying on critics to sell a blockbuster even its own source novelist vehemently disowns doesn't seem like much of a bet at all — it's like a prelude to a forfeiture. Of course Watchmen will open to $70 - $80 million domestically, and of course it will be profitable (most notably for the Satanic rights-claimants at Fox), and DVD perpetuity will be good to Snyder's even longer director's cut. But a sure thing it's not — and that's at best. Look out below.

The film's Web site recently unveiled a partial interior tour of the USS Enterprise, nicely remodeled after the original owners' slide into '80s-era disrepair. Bedroom/bathroom counts are still forthcoming, but the state-of-the-art teleport-bay bidet hints at the charmingly upscale touches holding you over until more specifics become available.

• 'Star Trek' [Paramount via TrekMovie]

Instead, Stewart went forward with a few good-natured jibes at his corporate cousin's $150 million Oscar behemoth The Curious Case Of Benjamin Button — if you can call two narcolepsy jokes and extended plot mockery "good-natured." Worse yet, it came while introducing Slumdog's Dev Patel, who was welcomed shortly afterward as the equivalent of Oscar 2009's homecoming king. Worse yet, Stewart's smirking laughter at his own jokes led both his live and viewing audiences to believe they are actually fresher, funnier and/or more influential than they actually are.

So! That does it, right? 0-for-13? Watch your nuts, Jon; Brad Grey just stepped out for lunch. [The Daily Show via LAT]

Nikki Finke passes along word that Viacom boss Phillipe Dauman "wanted to get a jump" on retaining Grey, whose current contract expires at the end of the year but whose tenure — however much money he spent and partners he deported to India — has been distinguished enough to ask back for another five-year run. We salute his longevity/survival against the odds and hope he'll return our meek waves of support should our paths ever cross his daily executive motorcade down Melrose.

• Viacom Extends Brad Grey's Contract [DHD]

As of this writing, at least the splash page for Paramount 2008 is still under the cryptic spell of what appear to be a cabal of Turkish hackers calling themselves "Unimportant Defacers Team." The lone link directs readers to a list of their other international conquests, among whom Paramount seems its biggest defacement yet. While we can't say we're not impressed, the question remains: Aren't the Turks supposed to be at war with Warner Bros. instead? Or is this just another crafty Weinstein Co. diversion to conceal Harvey's newfound computer proficiency? Developing... [Thanks to reader MCU for the tip.]

• Paramount 2008

After the jump: The Universal globe stops spinning for 70 unlucky souls.

Not even veteran talking head John Norris—who was very polite to us on the VMAs red carpet when we accidentally wandered into his shot and asked where we might find Britney's elephant—was immune. Over at Paramount, meanwhile, a behooded, shirtless, chaps-wearing Sumner Redstone (he doesn't particularly like playing executioner—but when he has to, he goes for it whole hog) stands guard at a ceremonial guillotine set up in studio square, awaiting word on when to release the symbolic blade that will officially cut further salaries from the payroll. We're told supervisors are still in a meeting, and the rest of the staff is defecating masonry in anticipation. We'll have a report for you from the inside a little later.

Over at NBC Universal, Deadline Hollywood Daily reports, the belts are being tightened to gastric-bypass levels. Personal printers are strictly verboten, no new office supplies will be purchased for six months, everyone must travel (*gasp*) one class-level down, and Jeff Zucker himself will be reviewing temps' overtime charges. So don't even try it, A1 Personnel Placing Services recommendee.

500 job cuts throughout the company will follow, THR reports—including a "3% headcount reduction" at Universal Pictures, as chairman and co-chairman Marc Shmuger and David Linde's Christmas card thoughtfully put it. That's about 70 positions worldwide. The text follows:

Dear Colleagues,

As we strive to meet the challenges presented by the struggling economy, leaders from every department at Universal Pictures have worked hard to identify cost saving measures in many areas of our business. Those measures include scaling back on travel, overtime, consultants, premieres, conferences, newspaper marketing and general administrative costs.

While much has been accomplished to find necessary savings, we regret that we must also reduce headcount by around 3%. No company likes to have to make these kinds of decisions, and certainly we are no exception. We want to assure you that everyone has done their best to keep job cuts to an absolute minimum.

The process of communicating with those individuals whose positions are affected has begun today and will continue for the next few days.

We appreciate the effort from everyone who has participated in this difficult process.

Sincerely,
Marc Shmuger and David Linde

• Marc Shmuger and David Linde Break Bad News To Universal: 70 Layoffs Worldwide [Deadline Hollywood Daily]
• NBC Universal laying off 500 employees [THR]

Examples are vague, however, and we are at a loss ourselves to suggest potential conflicts between Paramount's efforts and Fincher's vision: Perhaps the poster's lettering isn't backwards enough? The reviews aren't unanimously euphoric with praise? It could be anything, really, but we hear at least one 'Mount alum has a new welt to remind him of an ancient-past studio misstep:

After an LA screening, Fincher was rude to John Goldwyn, who was running Paramount in the early '90s when the movie, based on a short story by F. Scott Fitzgerald, was first in development. After Goldwyn congratulated Fincher, "he hit Goldwyn in the chest with his hand and hurt him and said, 'That's for you, for not greenlighting the movie when you had a chance.' " The picture, which shows Brad Pitt aging backward, relies on computerized effects that didn't exist 15 years ago.

Not to mention on a director whose film career at the time consisted solely of Alien 3, and nobody thumped him in the chest for wrecking that. Appreciate your breaks where you can catch them, Fincher, and consider keeping these guys closer for the next three months— they aren't Jake Gyllenhaal.

• Director Acts Like a Dope [NYP]

Or so argues an anonymous filmmaker who today sent word to Hollywood Elsewhere praising the timeless tradition of unloading book and script options, lest they moulder in middle management's closets instead of rocketing past a green light on another lot:

"When Goldstein ran that story, it increased the level of paranoia in the studios and now people aren't as likely to put projects into turnaround, which is what saves or releases some projects and results in their being made into films at other studios [...] Let's say I have a property that's owned by a studio and it's not working out. In this situation a studio exec saying to me 'Fine, I'll put it into turnaround and let you have it, take it across the street to Warner Bros. and God speed' is usually an act of benevolence. It saves a project from death.

"Now with this Weston thing, a lot more studio execs and [sic] going to say 'Sure, I let you take it elsewhere and then two years from now I'll read about how I'm the asshole who let a big hit go to some other studio? Fuck it, I'm going to hang onto it. I'd rather have the project die here than have it go elsewhere than have an article turn up down the road that'll make me look stupid.'"

All right, all right, Weston, we get it — you did the right thing. Turnaround for all! You first, Poltergeist.

• How the big studios missed the boat on 'Twilight' [Source]

• TUrnaround Chill [Hollywood Elsewhere]

The first Button item we saw was submitted by an "industry spy"; if it was published by anyone other that Anne Thompson, we'd assume it was just a publicity intern practicing her press-note chops:

The achievement is big and bold and ambitious and life-affirming, but the sentimentality is always toughened by the continual sense of loss and deep sadness at the transitory nature of the human condition. If it sounds like an art movie, it absolutely is, but it's a four-quadrant art film!

Or as director David Fincher might put it, a "four-quadrant rim job." That's a milestone, no doubt, but we'd missed an even earlier, spoiler-heavy read from a blogger who was less sanguine:

I wasn’t as moved by this film as I wanted to be. This was number one on my list of must-see holiday movies and I so wanted to be blown away but it just didn’t happen. This movie is a very ambitious effort—it looks gorgeous, there are some groundbreaking special effects and the rest of the cast also do excellent work but it’s the kind of movie you respect more than love. It’s like a piece of art that you look at and say, “It’s pretty,” but don’t necessarily want to bring home.

And then came Spout's Karina Longworth, who honored every part of the embargo except for the part prohibiting slagging the visual effects. And then came the hater to whom The Playlist attributed an "emotional dud":

While they didn't think it was terrible, they did say the film wasn't the tearjerker we all heard it was supposed to be and was much more of an "emotional dud." They're reaction to it was lukewarm, but they also noted it was the kind of tepidness that the Academy loves. When we probed a little further and asked about its deeper Oscar hopes, the mention of Brad Pitt was practically laughed out of the room.

NOOO! We needed him for our Oscar pool — even though the season's other big Paramount release (with DreamWorks), Revolutionary Road, is prompting lip-loosening hype itself on two sides of the Atlantic. Thompson again had an anonymous impression back on Oct. 29, citing a "very powerful two-hander for Leo and Kate. [...] You can sense the real-life bond that lets them really go for it, all defenses down." Modern classic, etc etc.

Meanwhile, Jeffrey Wells's source in the UK agreed for the most part today:

"Only the ending felt a little unsure; otherwise, I feel Mendes has made serious progress as a director. A daring scene at the breakfast table is pulled off with virtuosity towards the end. I'll say no more than this. Much is demanded of the leads. [...] We're dealing with a lot of heightened emotion bordering on melodrama. But the actors cope well, although Kate Winslet, I feel, is more convincing than Leonardo DiCaprio.

Great. We heard she might be in the running for some sort of honors this year. So! Thanks to everyone for contributing, and we'll see you on the studio blacklist!

· Gore Verbinski is said to be looking to produce and possibly direct a movie based on this WSJ article about a guy obsessed with a Second Life-style virtual community. It sounds kind of interesting, unless it makes a wrong turn somewhere and starts giving off whiffs of S1m0ne. [EW]
· The opening day of the American Film Market in Santa Monica brings a glut of movies in various states of completion looking for investors and distributors. Organizer Jonathan Wolf uses a lengthy pendulum metaphor to explain the economics of it all that put us in a light trance. [THR]

The shift guarantees that everyone from senior debtholders at Merrill Lynch to smaller equity backers around Wall Street are locks to lose on the $231 million slate financing deal. As recently as March, the investors were rumored to be considering suing the 'Mount and its free-spending chief Grey after the dramatic underperformance of The Stepford Wives, Alfie and other films partially underwritten by Melrose (the funders signed on during the Sherry Lansing/Jim Dolgen regime but had no say where their money went once they were gone). Viacom CEO Phillippe Dauman himself intervened, we hear, and based on renegotiated terms for Melrose Partners' second round of financing (and Grey's belt-tightening), the mutiny was defused. For now.

• Paramount's Melrose on shaky ground [THR]

Such modesty! To a point, anyway: If and/or when his Reliance Big Entertainment honeymoon ever tapers off, Spielberg and DreamWorks president Stacey Snider really won't have the Geffen touch to help woo another international conglomerate into bed. But by then Spielberg, 62, will probably be ready to scale back anyway, and survival will be less about braintrust than brand (and the library it manages to develop with its new distribution partners at Universal). He shouldn't even be there now, if one of his more illuminating disclosures today is to be believed:

In describing Mr. Geffen’s role at DreamWorks, Mr. Spielberg likened it to a family relationship. “Jeffrey and I were like the kids,” he said, while Mr. Geffen built the house and saw that the bills were paid. [...]

By his own recollection, Mr. Spielberg was initially reluctant to join in creating the original DreamWorks studio, which was conceived by Mr. Katzenberg shortly after he was fired as chairman of the Walt Disney Company’s studio operation in 1994. But Mr. Katzenberg begged for a meeting, and asked to bring a friend. The friend was Mr. Geffen, who not only did all the talking, but insisted to Mr. Spielberg: “I am representing your best interests.”

That assurance was to become the theme of Mr. Geffen’s dealings with Mr. Spielberg, who describes Mr. Geffen’s efforts for him over the years as a kind of “altruism.”

Aww! That shouldn't imply Spielberg was in a hurry to race out the door at Paramount, though, where Geffen reportedly had a short stay in mind even before he clashed with Brad Grey in 2006 over credit for Dreamgirls; "I do not like change," the director told the NY Times. And even if we have Tom Freston's firing and other, seemingly circumstantial evidence to vouch for that philosophy, everyone knows the bottom line: The sex just isn't the same off the Paramount lot. Wait and see — he'll be back.

• David Geffen Makes a Sudden Exit [NYT]

Sort of. After all, can DreamWorks or CAA ever really find consolation in a Tropic Thunder campaign pushing Downey as Best Supporting Actor? They'd better — neither Downey nor Foxx had a shot at Best Actor anyway with Sean Penn (Milk), Josh Brolin (W.), Mickey Rourke (The Wrestler) and Brad Pitt widely foreseen to hold down four of the five slots, and the latter star's Curious Case of Benjamin Button (not to mention, to a lesser degree, Downey's Iron Man performance) already drawing from Paramount's awards war chest.

DreamWorks insiders are still griping over some perceived revenge from Paramount, but even they'd acknowledge that The Soloist is better off with spring prestige all to itself. And that a nominated blackface performance is no doubt one of the least controversial ways to revive public interest in the Oscars. We're pulling for you, RDJ.

• 'Soloist' won't play holiday [Variety]

• 2008 Oscar race turned 'upside-down' [THR]

So who's in and who's out?

· The Soloist: OUT. The move to March 13 stings for everyone, especially with millions in marketing dollars already being spent ahead of the Jamie Foxx/Robert Downey Jr. drama's Nov. 21 release. Both men were on the bubble for actor nominations — Foxx as a schizophrenic cellist and RDJ as the journalist who chronicles his feel-good recovery journey — but Paramount's new conservatism (i.e. an intern hiding Brad Grey's checkbook) means it only has so many in-house resources to lend to its fall releases. The studio's semi-official insistence that the shifts have nothing to do with the film's quality or favoring its homegrown Benjamin Button and Scott Rudin/DreamWorks offering Revolutionary Road, but that's bullshit. It's not 2006 anymore; nobody can afford all this prestige at once.

· Defiance: IN. Barely. Paramount inherited the WWII-era Daniel Craig drama from its lopped-off Vantage arm; but unlike The Soloist, the studio didn't have it on its Oscar-season books until earlier this year. Pushed back from Dec. 12, it'll still get a qualifying run in New York and L.A. before opening wide on Jan. 16 — sort of an afterthought treatment that won't likely sit well with director/producer and biennial Oscar bridesmaid Ed Zwick, but hey: There's always the ShowEast Kodak Award. Congrats again, Ed!

And while we're at it, let's not forget the neglected Weinstein and MGM family:

· The Road: OUT. As noted yesterday, the Weinsteins took it back from MGM only to nudge it from Nov. 14 to an undisclosed release date in December. It's not finished, and the Weinsteins can't promote it; we foresee this one left wailing on someone's doorstep in a basket some time in mid-2009.

· The Reader: IN. It's apparently back on the Weinstein Web site, and Bob Weinstein thinks it's "terrific"! And now without Defiance to contend with, Harvey's Folly may actually have a shot at an audience on Dec. 12. Oscars, though? We're not so sure.

· Valkyrie: IN. Even the MGM Tower receptionist is pulling her weight on the campaign these days. If gold had a smell, Valkyrie would reek.