Like any studio, Universal has had a tough time with movies they expected to be hits.  The Fast and Furious series is one of their killer franchises and they landed a sleeper hit with Bridesmaids, but the studio had to suck up bombs like Land of the Lost, The Wolfman, Robin Hood, Cowboys & Aliens, and even the geek-beloved Scott Pilgrim vs. The World.  Ron Meyer, Universal’s President and COO for the past sixteen years, spoke about the studio’s flops at the Savannah Film Festival.  He also talked about 3D, avoiding prestige pictures, and their controversial move to try and rush Tower Heist onto VOD.

Hit the jump for When Studio Execs Speak Honestly.

I don’t have much love for the Razzie Awards.  It’s not because I disagree with their choices as much as I find their choices predictable and safe.  Instead, they just phone it in with movies most people agree are terrible and then we move along with our day.  No controversy, no creativity, no reason to care.  Well, I don’t care.  Some people do just as some people think Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen and Land of the Lost are genuinely good movies even though they each scored seven Razzie nominations.

Other “worsts” include Old Dogs, All About Steve and G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra.  Acting nominations are even more non-sensical as they seem to pick actors in bad movies rather than bad performances.  Did people walk out of Bride Wars thinking Candice Bergen was one of the worst parts of that movie?  Was Will Ferrell one of the worst actors of the year because of Land of the Lost?  No, but this way you don’t have to actually watch movies and make an argument for these things.

Check out a full list of the nominees after the jump plus the nominees for Worsts of the Decade.  The losers will be announced on March 6th.

With only hours to go before Hollywood’s golden season draws to a close, I thought it was a good time to do the post-mortem on the summer of 2009.  By now you may have heard that this summer was Hollywood’s most-profitable ever with grosses topping $4.3 billion. But has it felt like the biggest summer ever?  Not really.  Blockbusters like “Transformers 2″ and “Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince” aside, 2009 was a season of expensive movies that didn’t live up to the hype and cheap movies that performed above all expectations.  Follow me now into the murky world of box office number crunching to see just how huge Hollywood’s hugest summer really was.

Back in January, when a little sleeper hit called “Paul Blart: Mall Cop” dominated the box office, I was left scratching my head.  What the hell was going on here? A little comedy, with a dearth of major stars, is topping $140 million?  Something seemed amiss. Five months later, however, I have no problem championing the similar ascendancy of another little comedy that could – “The Hangover”.  Todd Phillips’ follow-up to “Old School” briefly challenged Pixar’s “Up” for the top spot on Friday thanks to its $16.5 million debut.  As expected, Saturday’s figures helped “Up” rise to the top for a second week – but “The Hangover” was not left far behind.  Both films surpassed early estimates, which just leaves “Land of the Lost” to make fun of.

The first Friday in June had a little surprise for the box office – Todd Phillip’s “The Hangover” bested its higher-profile comedy competition, Universal’s “Land of the Lost”, as well as last week’s number one movie, Pixar’s “Up”.  A week with three non-sequel comedy releases would traditionally be ceded to the stronger holdover title, but with strong word of mouth and great reviews “The Hangover” managed to pull off a $16.5 million upset its first day out.  “Land of the Lost”, meanwhile, is a T-Rex sized disappointment at only $7.2 million so far.  Saturday matinee receipts should tip the weekend back in favor of “Up”, but for today its nice to see family values get trounced!   Check back tomorrow for the final word on the weekend

Opening today is director Brad Silberling’s “Land of the Lost”. So to help promote the film, I recently interviewed Will Ferrell as a reporter for our partner website Omelete. As most of you already know, Collider and Omelete are partners. That’s why you see both of our logos in the movie clips and video interviews.

During our interview, Will talked about growing up with the show, how dirty the film is, hosting “Saturday Night Live”, “The B-Team”, and more. If you’re a fan of Will’s, you’ll love the interview.

• Has he been to Brazil before
• We talk about how dirty the film is
• Was he a fan of the TV show
• SNL talk – how did that last sketch come about
• B Team talk – says it’s his next project which they star this fall. Adam McKay is directing. Adam and Chris Henchy wrote the script. Will star’s in it with Mark Wahlberg. Says it’s their version of a buddy cop movie. They play desk cop’s that never get in on the action. Will be rated PG-13.

I don’t blame Universal for trying to sell “Land of the Lost” as a family film.  This is a big-budget summer movie based on a campy 70s TV show and so you’re going to highlight the T-Rex and maybe Will Ferrell dumping a vat of dinosaur urine over his head.  What you won’t highlight is a scene where Ferrell’s character whispers to Cha-Ka the ape-boy, “Fuck you.”  It’s clear that this movie was conceived of as a subversive, R-rated comedy and Universal said, “Are you bugfuck insane?  We’re not spending a hundred million dollars on that!” The compromise is a film that you’re not expecting even if you can totally predict its lead actor.

Opening this Friday is director Brad Silberling’s “Land of the Lost”. As most of you know, the film is based on the classic series by Sid & Marty Krofft and it stars Will Ferrell as Dr. Rick Marshall and Danny McBride, Anna Friel, and Jorma Taccone also star.

I saw a screening and have to say…it’s a lot dirtier than you expect going in. In fact, I was quite surprised at how much they got away with for a PG-13 movie. If you thought this was just going to be some safe family film, you’re in for a surprise.

So to help promote the film, I recently interviewed Danny McBride as a reporter for our partner website Omelete. As most of you already know, Collider and Omelete are partners. That’s why you see both of our logos in the movie clips and the video interviews. So a big thanks to them for making this happen.

Anyway, Danny and I talked about making the movie, “Eastbound and Down”, his upcoming movie “Hench”, and a lot more. If you’re a fan of Danny’s, you’ll love the interview. Take a look after the jump:

Opening tomorrow is director Brad Silberling’s “Land of the Lost”. So to help promote the film, I recently interviewed Anna Friel as a reporter for our partner website Omelete. As most of you already know, Collider and Omelete are partners. That’s why you see both of our logos in the movie clips and video interviews.

During our interview, we talked about whether or not she was a fan of “Land of the Lost”, what did she think of the outfit she had to wear, making the movie, “Pushing Daisies”, what she has coming up and a lot more. The interview’s after the jump so take a look:

Many of you have no idea who Sid and Marty Krofft are. But to millions of people, Sid and Marty Krofft are geniuses. That’s because these two brothers are the men responsible for a number of classic 70′s shows that still get watched to this day. Perhaps you’ve heard of a few of their shows….

• H.R. Pufnstuf
• Land of the Lost
• Electra Woman and Dyna Girl
• Wonderbug
• The Bugaloos
• Sigmund and the Sea Monsters
• The Lost Saucer
• Lidsville
• The Banana Splits Adventure Hour

Anyway, their first big Hollywood movie gets released this Friday and it’s “Land of the Lost”. So to help promote the film, I recently got to sit down with the two brothers to discuss why it took so long for the show to hit the big screen. Of course we also discussed what else they might have coming up and they tell some great stories. The interview is after the jump so take a look:

Opening this Friday is director Brad Silberling’s “Land of the Lost”. The film is based on the classic series by Sid & Marty Krofft and it stars Will Ferrell as Dr. Rick Marshall. Danny McBride, Anna Friel, and Jorma Taccone also star.

So to help promote the film, I recently interviewed Anna Friel as a reporter for our partner website Omelete. As most of you know, Collider and Omelete are partners. That’s why you see both of our logos in our movie clips and video interviews.

Anyway, in the next day or two I’ll have the full interview online, but here’s what Anna said about her next two film projects. She first talked about “The Details” – which will star James McAvoy and Elizabeth Banks. After that she talked about William Monahan’s directorial debut called “London Boulevard” where she’ll play Colin Farrell’s sister. See what she had to say after the jump:

Opening this Friday is director Brad Silberling’s “Land of the Lost”. As most of you already know, the film is based on the classic series by Sid & Marty Krofft and it stars Will Ferrell as Dr. Rick Marshall and Danny McBride, Anna Friel, and Jorma Taccone also star.

I saw a screening and have to say…it’s a lot dirtier than I expected. In fact, I was quite surprised at how much they got away with for a PG-13 movie. If you thought this was just going to be some safe family film, you’re in for a surprise.

So to help promote the film, I recently interviewed director Brad Silberling as a reporter for our partner website Omelete. As most of you know, Collider and Omelete are partners. That’s why you see both of our logos in the movie clips and the video interviews. So a big thanks to them for making this happen.

Anyway, during my interview Brad revealed that the DVD/Blu-ray will have 35 minutes of deleted scenes and that he’ll eventually release an extended edition down the road. He also talked about how he worked with the MPAA to make sure the movie would get a PG-13 and a lot more. Take a look after the jump:

Opening next weekend is director Brad Silberling’s “Land of the Lost”. As most of you already know, the film is based on the classic series by Sid & Marty Krofft and it stars Will Ferrell as Dr. Rick Marshall and Danny McBride, Anna Friel, and Jorma Taccone also star.

I saw a screening last night and have to say it’s a lot dirtier than I expected. In fact, I was quite surprised at how much they got away with for a PG-13 movie. If you thought this was just going to be some safe family film, you’re in for a surprise.

Anyway, to help promote the film we’ve been provided with six movie clips and three featurettes. They’re all after the jump – along with the full synopsis. Take a look:

Just an hour ago I was at a Subway restaurant in Santa Monica on Pico Blvd. The reason I was there is Universal has transformed the location into a special “Land of the Lost” themed location – complete with themed tables, chairs, and they even had some Sleestaks walking around. If you live in the area, you might want to stop by and see if you can get in.

Anyway, the reason they were doing this promotion was to raise awareness of the upcoming “Land of the Lost” movie. So to help in that endeavor, director Brad Silberling was there and also Sid and Marty Krofft – the creators of the show and the producers of the movie. While I didn’t get to speak with Brad today (I will tomorrow or Saturday), I did get five minutes with Sid and Marty. Since I’ve already asked them a lot of “Land of the Lost” questions when I did a set visit last year, I decided to ask what every fan wants to know….what’s the status of their other properties getting turned into movies!

As you can see in the video interview after the jump, they told me “H.R. Pufnstuf” is being developed at Sony and it’s being written by Dennis McNicholas – who wrote the “Land of the Lost” movie. And the big news is they want Johnny Depp to play Wilhelmina W. Witchiepoo!

They also said “Sigmund and the Sea Monsters” is being developed by Dana Gould at Universal. I’d imagine a big opening for “Land of the Lost” is going to help move these properties forward.

We also talked about what making this film has been like and a lot more so take a look: