Media-Whore D'Oeuvres

"Magazines have always sent their stories off to Hollywood — movies like 'Saturday Night Fever,' 'American Gangster,' 'Goodfellas' and 'Grey Gardens' all began as stories in New York, as did television shows like 'Taxi' — but this summer they’ve become more aggressive. New York and The Atlantic have signed contracts with International Creative Management to help formalize the process of turning stories into films or TV shows. Todd Hoffman, one of the firm’s top agents, will oversee deal-making for the magazines when filmmakers take an interest to one of their stories and also mine the magazines’ archives for old stories that weren’t scooped up by Hollywood when they first came out. The New York Times has had a similar relationship with Hoffman for more than five years. Whether these new contracts will change the role of writers like Lee, who have long fielded their own requests from filmmakers and even signed on with agents of their own, is unclear. Equally unclear is whether these deals will make any difference to the magazines, since Hollywood’s tradition of buying film rights has never been a major moneymaker for the publishing world. The details and structures of different deals depend largely on the magazine’s rules and relationships with the writers (at The New Yorker, for example, all writers retain full copyright to their work and many of them, accustomed to spinning their stories into larger projects, have their own agents). At the Times, it’s more cut and dried: the newspaper owns everything. 'The Times owns all of the content so it’s ours to represent and to do with what we want,' said Stephanie Serino, the director of domestic sales and licensing at The New York Times Syndicate. At New York magazine, the terms of the deals will depend on the magazine’s agreement with different writers." (WWD)

"From her front row seat at the fall and spring fashion shows, a nod or frown from Anna Wintour can make or break what comes down the runway and send tremors through the fashion industry.
As one of President Barack Obama’s most successful fundraisers, the Vogue editor memorably played as a controlling ice queen by Meryl Streep in 'The Devil Wears Prada,' exerts her influence in another way.27 Obama supporters who have used their connections to each solicit $500,000 for the president’s re-election campaign. In less than a year of making fundraising calls and hosting a string of dinner parties, Wintour has more than tripled the $100,000-plus she helped raise for the campaign in 2008.The fashion matriarch’s support for Obama is not a complete positive for the Obama campaign. On the one hand, Wintour, who was named the 69th most powerful woman in the world this week by Forbes, brings a certain panache to a campaign that promises to reach the billion dollar mark. On the other, she highlights Obama’s celebrity ties at a time when the administration is tackling a down economy. Last year, before Wintour, 61, hosted a fundraiser at her Greenwich Village home, the Republican National Committee sent out an e-mail with the subject line 'The President Wears Prada.' In their press release, they blasted Obama for his 'elitist disconnect from the American people.'" (Politico)

"Shauna Taylor, the model who got a Damien Hirst-designed butterfly permanently tattooed on her most private area for the cover of Dasha Zhukova’s Garage magazine, says she has no regrets becoming part of Hirst’s body of work. 'I love it,' Taylor told us, adding, 'I would have been stupid not to be part of this project. I have a piece of art on my vagina. Not one single person can ever say they gave birth through a Damien Hirst piece of art. I can [if I ever give birth].' A London-based illustrator, Taylor, 23, got involved through an ad. Tattoo artist Mo Coppoletta was handpicked by Hirst to ink the green-and-black tat. 'It’s a part of the body you can’t reach well,' he said, and it took two sessions to complete from Hirst’s design. Did it hurt? Says Taylor, 'I was hoping it might feel kind of nice, but it was probably the worst pain I have felt. I thought I was going to pass out.' Taylor met with Hirst -- who didn’t sign the piece -- to show him, and also threw a garden party with friends to celebrate." (PageSix)

"Everything about the new Galaxy Macau casino and hotel is big. The $2 billion complex, which opened in May, has three hotels with a total of 2,200 rooms. The gaming floor is 39,000 square meters, with 600 tables and 1,500 slot machines. A rooftop beach features 350 tons of white sand and a 4,000-square-meter wave pool.  Running the Galaxy takes some 8,000 workers—and in a city of just half a million people that boasts a jobless rate below 3 percent, finding them is not easy. From accountants and IT professionals to housekeepers and croupiers, there aren’t enough qualified people to meet the needs of the city’s casinos, says Trevor Martin, Galaxy Entertainment Group’s senior vice-president for human resources. 'We do the best we can in a tight market,' he says with a sigh. The former Portuguese colony (like Hong Kong, now a special administrative region of China) is the only place in the country with legalized casino operators. Since the government let foreign-owned casinos in, Macau’s economy has been on fire—real gross domestic product grew 26.4 percent last year and is growing at a 21.5 percent rate this year. In the first half of 2011, gaming revenue jumped 44 percent.  Macau’s gambling revenue is now four times larger than that of Las Vegas, and the gap should keep growing as more casinos open." (BusinessWeek)

"Feature film writer David Benioff (Troy, The Kite Runner) and novelist D.B. Weiss found mega-success as co-showrunners of their very first TV show, HBO’s freshman medieval fantasy series Game of Thrones. It hauled in 13 Primetime Emmy nominations, including honors for top Drama Series and Writing for an episode they co-penned. That’s more nods than any drama series except Mad Men and Boardwalk Empire. Deadline TV contributor Ray Richmond talked to Benioff and Weiss via email about how they’re dealing with overnight success and where Thrones will go in Season 2:
DEADLINE: So has the early success of Game of Thrones surprised you? This is probably a difficult question to answer honestly: if you say ‘No’ it sounds immodest, and if you say ‘Yes’ it appears insecure. DAVID BENIOFF and D.B. WEISS: We, the insecure, say ‘Yes.’ We always believed the show would find a loyal audience, but our fear was that it could be an audience of 40. Both the number and the passion of the viewers stunned us .." (Deadline)