|
|||||||||||||||||
RELATED LINKSInternal LinksGrants to:
External LinksFortune magazine: Anschutz "Greediest Executive" Cursor.orgMediaTransparency.org sponsor More stories by Bill Berkowitz PERC receives Templeton Freedom Award for promoting 'enviropreneurs' Media Transparency writersAndrew J. Weaver FundometerEvaluate any page on the World Wide Web against our databases of people, recipients, and funders of the conservative movement. |
ORIGINAL RESEARCHBill Berkowitz The movie, the media, and the conservative politics of Philip Anschutz"Greediest executive in America" teams up with Walt Disney Pictures for film about Christ's "resurrection"On December 9, "The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe," a $200 million dollar film adapted from C.S. Lewis' children's book of the same title, will open on several thousand screens across the country. If it performs well at the box office, Disney and conservative billionaire Philip Anschutz -- whose company co-produced the movie -- could have a "Lord of the Rings"/"Harry Potter"-type franchise on its hands, as six other Narnia-related titles are waiting in the wings. "The Chronicles" -- which many have called the most eagerly anticipated film of the holiday season -- is a joint production of Walt Disney Pictures and Anchutz's Walden Media, his "family friendly" entertainment company. Walden and Disney claim that, "they have sent out 'Narnia' materials to every elementary and middle school in America. That includes posters, educational guides and more than 90,000 copies of the novel. The guides include suggested lesson plans for teachers on topics ranging from the Blitz to the art of writing music lyrics." For Disney, it is all about the money; Anschutz, however, has other things on his mind. The release of "The Chronicles of Narnia" will likely usher in another skirmish in America's ongoing culture wars; fought out at cineplexes around the country as well as on the 24/7 cable news networks. As long as it does not get out of hand, it surely will advance Anschutz's conservative Christian agenda. While it is unlikely the movie will spark as huge a dust-up as "The Passion of the Christ" -- actor/director Mel Gibson's ultra-violent portrayal of the last 12 hours in the life of Jesus Christ -- Lewis' book has "a frankly religious element," New York Times reporter Charles McGrath wrote in the November 13 edition of the Times Magazine. The book contains "not just an undercurrent of all-purpose, feel-good religiosity but a rigorous substratum of no-nonsense, orthodox Christianity. If you read between the lines -- and sometimes right there in them -- these stories are all about death and resurrection, salvation and damnation." Disney's partner, Walden Media is owned by Philip Anschutz, an oil magnate, media mogul, the owner of the Regal Entertainment Group (website) -- the largest motion picture exhibitor in the world (it operates nearly 20 percent of all indoor screens in the US) -- and a growing force in Hollywood. While Anschutz certainly does not want the negative publicity attached to his new movie, he would benefit greatly if it became the 2005 version of Gibson's blockbuster. In the late winter of 2004, "The Passion of the Christ" embodied "buzz." Fundamentalist Christian leaders, privy to a series of pre-release private showings arranged by Gibson, fully embraced the film. Local churches gave away thousands of tickets to parishioners. Jewish organizations, worried that the movie emphasized Jews as the killers of Christ, voiced concern that film would cause an uptick in anti-Semitic violence. At the Vatican, a sermon by Father Raniero Cantalamessa, said that the film deserved to be criticized if it "spread the belief that all Jews were responsible for Christ's death." However, "if it restricts itself to showing an influential group of Jews' were to blame, then it could not." In the end, there was no rash of anti-Semitic incidents. "The Passion" was credited with reviving a moribund box office in taking in more than $370 million in the United States and $200-plus million overseas. It currently ranks in the top 10 of all-time "Box Office Blockbusters." In early November, the Christian Post reported that "several influential Christian organizations" including Dr. James Dobson's Focus on the Family, "have endorsed and promoted" the movie. Abram Brook, editorial writer for Leadership Magazine, pointed out that, "the marketing machine for the big C.S. Lewis Narnia movie is just getting cranked up." Brook voiced his concern that Disney may be using Christians merely to promote its film: "There is a ponderable difference between supporting a movie about the Crucifixion that had input from a broad range of Christian scholars, and endorsing a film that will be seen by some as Christian allegory, or, eventually, nice movies that have vague Judeo-Christian underpinnings." In the run-up to the premiere, 'Narnia Sneak Peek' events have been held in churches around the country, the Christian Post reported: "At the Christian Cultural Center in Brooklyn, N.Y., members of the 20,000-plus congregation viewed exclusive clips, received free gift bags full of outreach material, and were treated to a special live performance by Steven Curtis Chapman. In addition, C.S. Lewis' stepson and co-producer of the film, Doug Gresham; Walden Media President and film's visionary Michael Flaherty; and other Narnia filmmakers discussed the making of the movie." The Wall Street Journal recently reported that, "the Los Angeles County Probation Department [had] put together" a series of "Narnia"-related events "for its juvenile centers." "In addition to reading the book, exercises included making crumpets in cooking class and recreating the movie sets in construction class. The grand finale: seeing the movie after it comes out on Dec. 9." Pre-release marketing efforts have reached out "to a panoply of special-interest groups, from the Coast Guard Youth Academy to Ronald McDonald House, wooing them with invitations to glitzy presentations on the studio lot and lavishing them with posters, snow globes and other promotional gear." Walden and Disney claim that, "they have sent out 'Narnia' materials to every elementary and middle school in America. That includes posters, educational guides and more than 90,000 copies of the novel. The guides include suggested lesson plans for teachers on topics ranging from the Blitz to the art of writing music lyrics." Taking steps to avoid potential controversy, Disney -- the company that made, but refused to release, Michael Moore's "Fahrenheit 9/11" last year -- "is hedging its bets and has, for example, already issued two separate soundtrack albums, one featuring Christian music and musicians [playing music inspired by the film] and another with pop and rock tunes," the New York Times' McGrath reported. EMI Christian Music Group released its album in early October to promote the film. Covering all its bases, Disney signed a deal with America Online Inc., a unit of Time Warner Inc., to promote the movie across the AOL network, including Moviefone.com and AOL Music and Television. According to TechWebNews, the deal "include[d] the movie's new theatrical trailer, which debuted on AOL's Moviefone" in late October, and "AOL plans to offer fans the first look at behind-the-scenes video features, extended footage from the movie, an extensive production gallery, interactive character guides and more." Anschutz in HollywoodAnschutz has already made his mark in Hollywood. "No one seems better positioned to move Hollywood right than Anschutz ...whose Anschutz Film Group oversees two studios: Walden Media and Bristol Bay Productions," Bruce C. Anderson wrote in a long piece called "Conservatives in Hollywood?!" in the Autumn 2005 edition of City Journal, a quarterly magazine of urban affairs published by the conservative New York City-based think tank, the Manhattan Institute (website): Owner of everything from oil fields to railroads to newspapers, and a major contributor to conservative causes, Anschutz decided not long ago to begin a career as a twenty-first-century Louis B. Mayer. His agenda: producing humanistic, family-oriented films. 'We expect them to be entertaining, but also to be life affirming and to carry a moral message,' he told a Hillsdale College audience last year. Anschutz sees a golden market opportunity in such movies. 'Hollywood as an industry can at times be insular and doesn't at times understand the market very well,' he explained. But he also 'saw a chance with this move to attempt some small improvement in the culture.' Like an old-time film mogul, Anschutz has nailed down the distribution side. His Regal Entertainment is the nation's largest movie-theater chain, with about 18 percent of all U.S. indoor screens. He keeps a firm hand on the creative process. 'Many things happen between the time you hatch an idea for a movie and the time that it gets to theaters -- and most of them are bad," he told his Hillsdale listeners. 'So you need to control the type of writers you have, the type of directors you get, the type of actors you employ, and the type of editors that work on the final product.' Anschutz demanded, for instance, that director Taylor Hackford revise the 2004 Ray Charles biopic, Ray, toning down the film's focus on the performer's drug problems and sexual exploits. After initially threatening to quit, Hackford came around to Anschutz's more family-oriented vision. The resulting movie is an honest -- there's no effort to whitewash the drugs and womanizing -- but ultimately inspiring narrative of Charles's successful perseverance against the great odds of his own blindness and moral flaws and society's racism. The movie -- funded entirely by Anschutz, after every major studio had rejected it -- garnered six Oscar nominations, winning two, including Best Actor for Jamie Foxx, riveting in the title role. Anschutz is off to a gangbuster start, and not just because of Ray. This year's bittersweet Because of Winn-Dixie, based on the children's novel by Kate DiCamillo, tells the story of ten-year-old Opal (newcomer Annasophia Robb) and her preacher father (Jeff Daniels), who've just moved to a lower-middle-class Florida town as the movie opens. Opal's mother, hating being a preacher's wife, had abandoned the family several years earlier. The film unsentimentally captures the pain and loneliness that divorce causes children to feel. Portraying both small-town America and the Baptist faith with unpretentious sympathy, Winn-Dixie made back most of its modest $14 million production budget on its opening weekend and is currently one of the top-selling DVDs in the country. Anschutz's most ambitious effort yet is the forthcoming $150 million adaptation of C. S. Lewis's The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe, a Walden Media--Disney co-production opening in December -- the first in what Anschutz hopes is a long-running franchise. The Narnia books -- an extended allegory of Christ's resurrection--have sold 120 million copies worldwide, 'more than either Harry Potter or Lord of the Rings,' Anschutz notes, suggesting the eye-popping box-office potential. Walden will work closely with Christian organizations to market the film. 'Family-Friendly' philanthropy?Between 1995 and 2000, according to OpenSecrets.org, the website of the Center for Responsive Politics, the Anschutz Corporation, and assorted members of the Anschutz family, donated nearly $700,000 to the GOP and its candidates. Last November, Anschutz was ranked number 33 on Business Week's 50 Most Generous Philanthropists List. In addition to a gift of more than $50 million to the University of Colorado Hospital to build the Outpatient Pavilion and the Cancer Pavilion, over the years, Anschutz-related entities have helped bankroll a number of ultraconservative political organizations, including: Colorado for Family Values (CFV) -- the organization behind Amendment 2, Colorado's notorious anti-gay constitutional amendment approved by the voters in 1992 and later overturned by the US Supreme Court. The New York-based Institute for American Values (website), which campaigns for marriage and against single parenting; Enough is Enough (website), whose President and Chair of its Board of Directors is Donna Rice Hughes (the major figure in the sex scandal that ended the 1987 campaign of Gary Hart, in the Democratic presidential primary). Enough is Enough claims that it is "Lighting the way to protect children and families from the dangers of illegal Internet pornography and sexual predators." Morality in the Media (website), established in 1962 "to combat obscenity and uphold decency standards in the media." Anschutz's name also came up last spring when the National Committee for Responsive Philanthropy gave a report to House staff that called for legislation barring people under investigation for, or accused or convicted of, corporate crimes from serving on boards of private foundations. Up from KansasPhilip Anschutz was born in Kansas in 1939. His father, according to Wikipedia, "was a land investor who invested in ranches in Colorado, Utah, and Wyoming, and eventually went into the oil-drilling business." Anschutz graduated from the University of Kansas and moved to Denver, Colorado, where in 1965, he started The Anschutz Corporation, and began operations in the oil business. According to a bio published at HoratioAlger.com -- the website of The Horatio Alger Association of Distinguished Americans, "by 1976 he owned oil fields in Montana, Texas, Colorado, and Wyoming. He also bought uranium and coalmines, and cattle ranches." Later in the decade, Anschutz "put his knowledge of new seismic technology to work on prospective lands in northern Utah. His instincts paid off in one of the largest oil discoveries since Alaska's Prudhoe Bay. He sold a large part of his find to Mobil Oil, and promptly began further diversification out of the oil business into other businesses." He also heads Clarity Media Group, owns the San Francisco Examiner -- a shadow of its former self -- purchased in 2004, and a free tabloid in the nation's capital called the Washington Examiner. In early February, a posting at Think Progress, a project of the American Progress Action Fund, pointed out that the "new tabloid has a decidedly right-wing slant to its editorial page, with conservative opinion pieces like "Social Security robs future to pay for past" and "Abortion isn't a game, so stop playing." In mid-October, the company announced plans to launch the Baltimore Examiner in the spring. (Clarity has trademarked the Examiner name in 69 cities.) According to NewsMax.com, a conservative online news service, Anschutz "may be poised to create a publishing tsunami with the purchase of the Knight Ridder newspaper chain," the second largest newspaper publishing company in the U.S., which owns 32 dailies including the Philadelphia Inquirer, Miami Herald and Kansas City Star. When Anschutz "was negotiating the purchase of London's Millennium Dome, the BBC dubbed him a "corporate vulture," Nathan Callahan reported in the OC Weekly on May 2, 2003. According to Callahan, Anschutz is "part owner of the Los Angeles Lakers, the Los Angeles Kings and the Staples Center. The Union Pacific Corp.; the Forest Oil Corp.; Celine Dion's Las Vegas production company; a dozen professional ice-hockey teams; and more than 335,000 acres of agricultural land in Colorado, Wyoming and Texas are also part of the Anschutz portfolio." Anschutz is also the founder of the telecom company Qwest Communications International Inc. According to the OC Weekly's Callahan, "Early in 2000, the fiber-optics giant encouraged employees to keep their retirement savings in company stock even as senior executives were bailing out, selling shares worth hundreds of millions of dollars. According to SEC filings, Anschutz unloaded 6.1 million shares during that period. Qwest peaked at $64 per share. Six months later, the same share was valued at $1.95. During that time, Anschutz netted $213.5 million in profit" Anschutz "was branded the greediest executive in America by Fortune magazine ... topping a list that included ... Gary Winnick, founder of Global Crossing." Qwest eventually reached a settlement that required a $4.4 million payout to charity. Anschutz, who Wikipedia points out, "is known to be extremely guarded about giving personal information out to the press," also "owns one of the best collections of Western art ever assembled." "We expect them [movies] to be entertaining, but also to be life affirming and to carry a moral message," Philip Anschutz told an audience at the conservative Christian Hillsdale College last year. While "Hollywood as an industry can at times be insular and doesn't at times understand the market very well," he also "saw a chance with this move to attempt some small improvement in the culture." sign in, or register to email stories or comment on them.
|
MORE ORIGINAL RESEARCHBill Berkowitz PERC receives Templeton Freedom Award for promoting 'enviropreneurs'Right Wing foundation-funded anti-environmental think tank grabbing a wider audience for 'free market environmentalism' On the 15th anniversary of Terry Anderson and Donald Leal's book "Free Market Environmentalism" -- the seminal book on the subject -- Anderson, the Executive Director of the Bozeman, Montana-based Property and Environment Research Center (PERC - formerly known as the Political Economy Research Center) spoke in late-January at an event sponsored by Squaw Valley Institute at the Resort at Squaw Creek in California. While it may have been just another opportunity to speak on "free market environmentalism" and not the kickoff of a "victory tour," nevertheless it comes at a time when PERC's ideas are taking root.
Bill Berkowitz Neil Bush of Saudi ArabiaDuring recent visit, President’s brother describes the country as a 'kind of tribal democracy' In late February, only a few days after Saudi Arabia beheaded four Sri Lankan robbers and then left their headless bodies on public display in the capital of Riyadh, Neil Bush, for the fourth time in the past six years, showed up for the country's Jeddah Economic Forum. The Guardian reported that Human Rights Watch "said the four men had no lawyers during their trial and sentencing, and were denied other basic legal rights." In an interview with Arab News, the Saudi English language paper, Bush described the country as "a kind of tribal democracy."
Bill Berkowitz Newt Gingrich's back door to the White HouseAmerican Enterprise Institute "Scholar" and former House Speaker blames media for poll showing 64 percent of the American people wouldn't vote for him under any circumstances Whatever it is that former House Speaker Newt Gingrich has come to represent in American politics, the guy is nothing less than fascinating. One day he's espousing populist rhetoric about the need to cut the costs of college tuition and the next day he's talking World War III. One day he's claiming that the "war on terror" may force the abridgement of fundamental first amendment rights and the next he's advancing a twenty-first century version of his Contract with America. At the same time he's publicly proclaiming how "stupid" it is that the race for the presidency has already started you know that he's trying to figure out how to out finesse Rudy, McCain and Romney for the nomination. And last week, when Fox News' Chris Wallace cited a poll showing that 64 percent of the public would never vote for him, he was quick to blame those results on how unfairly he was treated by the mainstream media back in the day.
Bill Berkowitz American Enterprise Institute takes lead in agitating against IranDespite wrongheaded predictions about the war on Iraq, neocons are on the frontlines advocating military conflict with Iran After doing such a bang up job with their advice and predictions about the outcome of the war on Iraq, would it surprise you to learn that America's neoconservatives are still in business? While at this time we are not yet seeing the same intense neocon invasion of our living rooms -- via cable television's news networks -- that we saw during the run-up to the invasion of Iraq, nevertheless, a host of policy analysts at conservative think tanks -- most notably the American Enterprise Institute -- are being heeded on Iran by those who count - folks inside the Bush Administration.
Bill Berkowitz After six years, opposition gaining on George W. Bush's Faith Based InitiativeUnmentioned in the president's State of the Union speech, the program nevertheless continues to recruit religious participants and hand out taxpayer money to religious groups With several domestic policy proposals unceremoniously folded into President Bush's recent State of the Union address, two pretty significant items failed to make the cut. Despite the president's egregiously tardy response to the event itself, it was nevertheless surprising that he didn't even mention Hurricane Katrina: He didn't offer up a progress report, words of hope to the victims, or come up with a proposal for moving the sluggish rebuilding effort forward. There were no "armies of compassion" ready to be unleashed, although it should be said that many in the religious community responded to the disaster much quicker than the Bush Administration. In the State of the Union address, however, there was no "compassionate conservatism" for the victims of Hurricane Katrina.
Bill Berkowitz Frank Luntz calls Republican leadership in Washington 'One giant whining windbag'On the outs with the GOP, legendary degrader of discourse is moving to California He doesn't make great art; nothing he does elevates the human spirit; he doesn't illuminate, he bamboozles. He has become expert in subterfuge, hidden meanings, word play and manipulation. Frank Luntz has been so good at what he does that those paying close attention gave it its own name: "Luntzspeak."
Bill Berkowitz Spooked by MoveOn.org, conservative movement seeks to emulate liberal powerhouseFueled with Silicon Valley money, TheVanguard.org will have Richard Poe, former editor of David Horowitz's FrontPage magazine as its editorial and creative director As Paul Weyrich, a founding father of the modern conservative movement and still a prominent actor in it, likes to say, he learned a great deal about movement building by closely observing what liberals were up to in the late 1960s and early 1970s.
Bill Berkowitz Ward Connerly's anti-affirmative action jihadFounder and Chair of the American Civil Rights Institute scouting five to nine states for new anti-affirmative action initiatives Fresh from his most recent victory -- in Michigan this past November -- Ward Connerly, the Black California-based maven of anti-affirmative action initiatives, appears to be preparing to take his jihad on the road. According to a mid-December report in the San Francisco Chronicle, Connerly said that he was "exploring moves into nine other states."
Bill Berkowitz Tom Tancredo's missionThe Republican congressman from Colorado will try to woo GOP voters with anti-immigration rhetoric and a boatload of Christian right politics These days, probably the most recognizable name in anti-immigration politics is Colorado Republican Congressman Tom Tancredo. Over the past year, Tancredo has gone from a little known congressman to a highly visible anti-immigration spokesperson. "Tancredo has thoroughly enmeshed himself in the anti-immigration movement and with the help of CNN talk show host Lou Dobbs, he has been given a national megaphone," Devin Burghart, the program director of the Building Democracy Initiative at the Center for New Community, a Chicago-based civil rights group, told Media Transparency.
Bill Berkowitz Institute on Religion and Democracy slams 'Leftist' National Council of ChurchesNew report from conservative foundation-funded IRD charges the NCC with being a political surrogate for MoveOn.org, People for the American Way and other liberal organizations If you prefer your religious battles sprinkled with demagoguery, sanctimoniousness, and simplistic attacks, the Institute on Religion and Democracy's (IRD) latest broadside against the National Council of Churches (NCC) certainly fits the bill.
|
|||||||||||||||
Printer friendly
