Brand Central Station

(Company press release)
 Drink Me magazine launches its first issue this month in San Francisco. Published by Open Content, Drink Me is the only lifestyle and entertainment publication about drinking and bar culture created for enthusiasts.

“Thirty months in the making, we’re finally here,” says Daniel Yaffe, president of Open Content. “It’s been a long and exciting road. We hope our readers take time to explore and enjoy as we offer up all the alcohol culture one could ever ask for, bottled up and ready to drink with a little tag that reads, ‘Drink Me.’ Welcome to our world…”

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The Associated Press reports that Warner Brothers has announced its intentions to move up the opening of the next Harry Potter movie (Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince) to Wednesday, July 15 – two days earlier than its previous release date.

Rumors are also circulating that Paramount intends to break the new Star Trek movie on Thursday, May 7th at 7pm rather than holding out for a midnight premier in the wee hours of the 8th.

The moves are seen as last-minute positioning tactics to try and eek out extra box office dollars during the first weekend of what is shaping up to be a very hotly contested summer at the movie theater.  Unlike previous years, no “blockbuster” is expected to last more than two weeks at the top of the box office charts, although the premature release of the new Wolverine Origins movie (leaked to the Internet a few weeks ago) may help Trek’s second and third week draws.

For marketers, all of this increased churn in the movie theater will, in all likelihood, accelerate the “depreciation” of movie-related promotions in stores and online.

Who is Susan Boyle?  Not many of us in the US watch ITV’s “Britain’s Got Talent” television show on a regular basis.  But nearly 20 million of us have caught Susan Boyle’s performance on YouTube.

Susan is a frumpy, 47 year-old spinster who has never married and has spent the last two years of her life taking care of her ailing mother (who has since passed away).  When she walked out on stage as a contestant last week, everyone in the audience – from the judges to the fans – expected to watch a classic “reality TV moment” when an unattractive, somewhat abrasive boob goes down in flames in front of the entire country on live television.

Ms. Boyle told Simon Cowell (yes, the same obnoxious know-it-all from American Idol) that she wanted to be a singer but had never had a chance to perform in front of a big audience until that night.  She was obviously flummoxed by the size of the 4,000-strong crowd and had problems recalling details about her home town (Blackburn, West Lothian in Scotland).

There were sniggers and eye-rolls and nervous coughs.  The music started and we all (even those of us watching at home or on-line) were ready for disaster.

Boy, were we all wrong.

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Blame Tina Fey if you want.  I do.

The SNL alum had the nerve (along with her cohorts) to call out the mainstream media and seriously question their objectivity on the Obama vs Clinton primary battle for the Democratic nomination for President.  It does seem the media has been taking it easy on Mr. Obama and the SNL folks don’t seem to like it much at all.  (View Fey’s editorial rant here.)

There’s more to review by visiting a blog set up to provide the video YouTube won’t show.  Give it a look (here) and let me know what you think. (more…)

Crain’s NY reports the estate of JRR Tolkien is suing New Line Cinemas for royalties on the Lord of the Rings film trilogy.  The estate and fellow plaintiffs say they only received $62,500 as an up-front payment of the 7.5% of gross receipts they were promised.

Let’s see now.  The LOTR films grossed about $6 billion ($6,000,000,000).  7.5% of that would be $450 million.

The writers’ strike was hard enough on Hollywood.  The last thing producers need is for the Tolkien estate’s negotiation team to show up at their door (see photo).