Tinseltown in tears over cancelled Globes
Bill Nighy, on arriving at last year’s event, was heard to tell the waiting cameras that the sight of the red carpet and all the posh frocks merely made him want to get back in the car and go home.He would be pleased by this year’s rejigged arrangement: a one-hour press conference at which the names of the winners will be read out.But for other, less world-weary souls, the cancellation of the Globes due to the ongoing screenwriters’ strike is cause for disappointment if not downright depression entailing a trip to the nearest celebrity manicurist.Take best actress in a whatever nominee Nikki Blonsky, one of the stars of Hairspray: “It’s kind of like you’ve got your dress, you’re getting ready for the senior prom, you’ve got your hair and your makeup, and somebody goes, ‘Prom’s cancelled!’” she told MTV. “That’s what it’s like. This was going to be a super-crazy prom. But it’s not going to be.”Blonsky is not alone in feeling the pain of being denied a slap-up dinner, plenty of free booze and a chance to share the air with Hollywood’s elite. Waiters, valet parkers, caterers, party-organisers, hairdressers, tuxedo rental outlets, just about everyone is feeling the effect of the unexpected loss of custom. It all only adds insult to injury, as many of these subsidiary players in the movie business have already seen their livelihoods impacted by the 11-week old WGA strike.The five parties known to have been cancelled bring in an estimated $2.5m in revenue, according to LA County Economic Development Corporation economist Jack Kyser.”What we’re looking at is an economic impact from the Golden Globes of about $70m to $80m each time the event is held,” he said.Beyond the lack of tips in pockets, the cancellation of the Globes has had an effect on advertisers. NBC, the network that was to have broadcast the ceremony in the US, estimates it will lose between $14m and $15m in advertising revenue for the three-hour programme.”We’re working with each client on a case-by-case basis to come up with the best possible solution for everyone involved,” a NBC spokeswoman said when asked if advertisers were being given their money back.But while advertisers - and the Hollywood Foreign Press Association, the organisation behind the Globes - will be concerned about the loss of revenue, far more worrying is the prospect of the loss of the Oscars, scheduled to take place on February 24. While the Golden Globes attracts some 20 million viewers and around $27m in advertising revenue, the Oscars is a far weightier business, with 40 million viewers tuning in, attracting around $80m in advertising revenue last year.Many advertisers, such as Oscar perennial American Express, create special commercials for the Oscar broadcast. If there is no show, they cannot simply place the ads during another programme. With a 30-second spot during the Oscars costing around $1.5m, the potential for loss has Madison Avenue, home to the advertising industry in the US, in something of a petulant frenzy.The state of relations between the WGA and the Alliance of Motion Picture %26 Television Producers, representing the studios, suggests it is unlikely the strike will be resolved any time soon.”We’re willing to talk,” the WGA West president, Patric Verrone, said this week when asked about the prospects for the Oscars. “It will be difficult for us to work something out that allows the Oscars to continue in the traditional way unless we have an overall deal.”Nevertheless, the Oscar ceremony producer, Gil Cates, is insistent that the show will go on.”It has been on through wars and through presidential assassination attempts,” he said. “It would be shameful if the Oscars were in any way impacted.”We are going to do it,” Cates added. “I can’t elaborate on how we’re going to do it, because I don’t want anybody to deal with the elaboration in a way that might impact its success.”During the last writers’ strike, in 1988, the Oscar show went ahead, unscripted. Viewers were hard put to spot the difference. This time, however, as with the Globes, it is unlikely that nominees would be willing to cross writers’ picket lines.Meanwhile, one part of the Golden Globes ritual proceeded uninterrupted in the run-up to the non-ceremony: the gifting suite.At the Secret Room, somewhere in west Los Angeles, celebrities of varying stripes were being encouraged to take away as many luxury goods as they could carry, from mink eyelashes to jewellery, clothing and even Botox treatments.But no amount of freebies could spoil the disappointment for Harvey Weinstein, head of the eponymous film company who expected to be championing two of his films at the Globes, The Great Debaters and I’m Not There.”Here is my dream table. I dreamed about this table, like since I was a kid. The greatest table of all time,” said Weinstein, a man not given to understatement, whose Golden Globe tablemates would have included Denzel Washington, Cate Blanchett, Oprah Winfrey and Clint Eastwood.”So Clint, Denzel, Oprah and Cate at my table. My nominees. I’ll be at McDonald’s instead with my kids.”
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