The Simpsons (deel 3)

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Op zaterdag 3 april 2004 11:09 schreef Evil_Jur het volgende:
Ik las dat de voice cast in staking is, en dat de productie behoorlijke vertraging aan het oplopen is... Beetje zwak, die verdienen allemaal al heel erg veel dacht ik toch.

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Op zaterdag 3 april 2004 11:09 schreef Evil_Jur het volgende:
Ik las dat de voice cast in staking is, en dat de productie behoorlijke vertraging aan het oplopen is... Beetje zwak, die verdienen allemaal al heel erg veel dacht ik toch.

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Op zaterdag 3 april 2004 15:35 schreef CaptainCab het volgende:
18 April: Matt Groening te gast bij the Simpsons

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LOS ANGELES, April 13 — On television Homer J. Simpson is an underachiever, the safety inspector at the Springfield Nuclear Power Plant, with the record for most years worked at an entry-level position. In real life Mr. Simpson and his family of subversives have, by the estimate of accountants employed by the actors who supply their voices, earned Fox upward of $2.5 billion as the stars of one of the longest-running prime-time series in television history.

Now those actors are demanding their share of the wealth. Insisting that "The Simpsons" would not be the same without them, the professionals behind the voices of Homer, Bart, Marge and the show's other animated characters are holding out for the kind of financial rewards earned by actors on hit sitcoms like "Friends" and "Frasier."

Hollywood executives say that the actors' insistence on not just a near tripling of their salaries — to $8 million a season — but also on a share of the show's profits is a first for an animated series, a genre that studios and networks have counted on for predictable costs and peaceable casts.

A senior Fox executive, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said that the actors' estimate of revenues for "The Simpsons" was "extravagantly high" and that the figures did not reflect the considerable expenses of a series that employs large numbers of writers, producers and animators. (He declined to discuss revenues for the show.)

But other television executives said the $2.5 billion figure was not out of line, given the syndication fees for "The Simpsons," its huge success in merchandising and its potential DVD sales.

According to Fox, "The Simpsons" is averaging 11.5 million viewers an episode, down 2 million viewers from last season. But the show is still the network's No. 1 Sunday series and ranks first in its time slot for adult viewers 18 to 49, a much sought-after age group. The show is also the longest-running animated series ever.

The fall season for "The Simpsons," normally 22 episodes, will be cut short because of the contract impasse, the Fox executive said. "We can't saddle the show with costs that make it uneconomical to produce," he added.

But money is not the only issue. At stake in the negotiations over "The Simpsons" is a potential precedent that could color the broadcast networks' competition with cable networks, which increasingly schedule cutting-edge animated shows aimed as much at adults as at children.

What faces the networks — and the actors — is the question of how important are the voices, and even personalities, of the performers portraying animated characters. Are they anonymous, perhaps interchangeable? Or are they as important to the success of an animated series as, say, the actors on "Will and Grace" and "Friends"? Animation might play a much smaller role on television if voice performers were to be paid as much as actors who appear in the flesh.

Six years ago, during an earlier round of strained contract negotiations between Fox and the leading actors on "The Simpsons," the studio hired casting directors around the country to find replacements but failed, said David E. Weber, the lawyer for Hank Azaria (who provides the voices of Moe, Apu and other characters), and John S. Kelly, the agent for Yeardley Smith (Lisa), in a joint interview.

"The issue is twofold," said Mr. Kelly, a partner in Bresler-Kelly & Associates in Los Angeles. "The personalities that the audience identifies with for each of these characters don't come from the drawings but from the personalities of the characters, which are provided by the actors. The second thing is there are 40-some regular characters on the show. They're all voiced by these six actors."

According to the financial analysis developed for the actors, Fox, which has financed the series from its start in 1989, has earned $2.5 billion to $3 billion from "The Simpsons," mostly from syndication, advertising, foreign license fees and merchandising. Several television agents said "Friends" might generate comparable figures in syndication.

"In contrast to numerous other successful shows, none of this is being distributed to the actors," said Mr. Weber, a partner in the Beverly Hills law firm Offer, Weber & Dern. "There's no back-end position at all," he said, using an industry term for profit sharing, "or the upfront fees have not been significantly raised as a recognition of past contributions to the financial success of the show."

"What we're really asking for is what's customary in the television business for actors on successful shows," he continued. "We're not getting it."

But the Fox executive said it was "an enormous stretch" for the actors on "The Simpsons" to compare themselves to stars like Ray Romano of "Everybody Loves Raymond" or the cast of "Friends." Those performers, the executive said, are significantly identified with their characters, perhaps to the detriment of their future careers.

Sitcom casts, he added, work almost exclusively on their shows, while the actors on "The Simpsons" generally work two half-days for each episode, leaving them time to play other roles in films, the theater and television with relative ease.

"They get paid extremely well," the executive said.

Aside from Ms. Smith and Mr. Azaria, the actors in negotiations are Dan Castellaneta (Homer), Julie Kavner (Marge), Nancy Cartwright (Bart) and Harry Shearer (Mr. Burns and others). They were initially paid $3,000 an episode, their representatives say, and now earn about $125,000 an episode. The actors are seeking $360,000 an episode, as well as a percentage of the show's profits.

"The bottom line is these people have been working on the show for 15 years," Mr. Weber said. "It started at such a low end that it was impossible to see this length of success and this length of service to the show. So there's a lot more to be made up for in the long run."

Recent sitcom stars like Mr. Romano, Jerry Seinfeld and Michael J. Fox have shared in the profits of their series. The arrangement allows them to continue to earn large sums from syndication fees after the shows cease production.

Actors on hit shows who are not granted profit percentages are often given huge pay packages instead. Jason Alexander, Julia Louis-Dreyfus and Michael Richards earned about $600,000 an episode in the final year of "Seinfeld," said several television agents. In the final two years of "Friends" each member of the cast has been earning more than $1 million an episode, they said.

Like many other successful network comedies, "The Simpsons" is partly owned by its creators. Matt Groening, a comic strip writer and artist, invented "The Simpsons" as a series of short vignettes for "The Tracey Ullman Show" on Fox. James L. Brooks, the writer and producer, helped turn the show into a half-hour series and and is still an executive producer. They have each earned at least $150 million, perhaps far more, from deals that cover not only syndication rights but also licensing, merchandising and video rights, said people with knowledge of the financial arrangements. (Potentially lucrative DVD rights are not covered in such deals, which date to the early 1990's.)

The Fox executive said it was unclear how much of the forthcoming season of "The Simpsons" would be cut. Production was set to begin in March but has been delayed. A March 19 letter to the actors' representatives, signed by Neal S. Baseman, senior vice president for business affairs at 20th Century Fox Television, said "continuing negotiations at this time" would "not be in the best interests" of the studio. The negotiations have been suspended.

The actors and their representatives have hired Sitrick & Company, a Los Angeles public relations firm that often deals with corporate crisis management to press their case for higher pay.

The actors' representatives and Sitrick executives declined to name the television industry financial consultant who wrote the detailed 12-page report on Fox's revenues from "The Simpsons." Sitrick & Company said the author was a respected financial analyst who worked for several television studios, including Fox, and therefore did not want his name made public.

The report says that Fox's syndication earnings from "The Simpsons" are close to $1 billion and that the network's prime-time advertising revenues from the series have exceeded $500 million.

If, as planned, "The Simpsons" remains on the Fox schedule through at least May 2005, the show will have completed 16 seasons, passing "The Adventures of Ozzie & Harriet" as the longest-running sitcom on television. "Ozzie & Harriet" ran from 1952 to 1966.

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Op zaterdag 3 april 2004 15:57 schreef MrBadGuy het volgende:
Het 4e seizoen wordt in Regio 1 op 15 juni uitgebracht, over de Regio 2 release heb ik helaas nog niks kunnen vinden. Bij Amazon.com kost deze 4 dvd-boxset $32,49. Dit zijn de releasedatums van alle seizoenen tot nu toe:

The Complete 1st Season 9/25/2001
The Complete 2nd Season 8/06/2002
The Complete 3rd Season 8/26/2003
The Complete 4th Season 6/15/2004

Hopelijk komt er eens wat meer tempo in, want met deze snelheid hebben we seizoen 16 met een beetje geluk in 2014

En nog en klein beetje info over de Seizoen 4 release:

http://www.amazon.com/exe(...)/103-1040612-1564620
http://www.thesimpsons.com/episode_guide/0401.htm

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Homer's Triple Bypass"
411 9F09
Original Airdate: 12/17/92

In a series of terrifying X-ray shots of Homer's chest, we see that his heart is dangerously clogged with plaque and doughnut residue and that he is in need of a triple bypass operation. The operation costs $40,000, but Homer cannot afford that much, so he goes to Dr. Nick Riviera, who agrees to do the operation for $129.95. During the operation, Dr. Nick loses his nerve and only Lisa, who has been studying the heart, can talk him through the procedure. Homer recovers and is able to live a long, doughnut-filled life

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Op zondag 18 april 2004 19:35 schreef PimD het volgende:
Coole poster van Futurama

waar heb je die gehaald ?

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With the cast of The Simpsons holding out for more money, Fox is beginning to map strategies for doing without prime-time's top 'toon, including moving some of its best performers into the breach. The six actors haven't shown up to work for a month, stalling production of the 16th season. They have completed work on six episodes for next season, including the annual "Treehouse of Horror" episode. With postseason baseball delaying The Simpsons' start until November, Fox should have enough episodes until January. But each week that passes puts the rest of the season further in the hole. Because it takes nine months after recording voices to send the tracks overseas and have scenes animated, the next season likely will be shortened from the usual 22 episodes. None of the alternatives are particularly attractive to Fox:

• Move American Idol or That '70s Show to Sunday at 8 pm. Idol is set to start its next season in January, so the timing would work well.

Losing The Simpsons, even temporarily, would leave a huge hole in Fox's schedule. Despite a 15% ratings decline this season, The Simpsons ranks second only to Idol in the network's lineup. Ending the show "would essentially be saying the young-adult audience is up for grabs on Sunday night."

• Replace lead voices. Producers killed off Maude Flanders when actress Maggie Roswell demanded more money in 1999. Yet it's highly unlikely that Fox would seek to replace the lead roles, because new voices would seem jarring to fans.

Few in the TV business expect the impasse to last long enough to call any of these contingencies into play, or to lead the studio to shelve the series entirely. The Simpsons, Fox TV's most valuable asset, brings in $2.5 billion each year.

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Op maandag 19 april 2004 16:31 schreef DarcMarc het volgende:
dus die speelfilm van the simpsons komt dus niet

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Op zaterdag 3 april 2004 15:35 schreef CaptainCab het volgende:
18 April: Matt Groening te gast bij the Simpsons

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LOS ANGELES - A month after stalled contract renewal talks led the voices of "The Simpsons" to stop work, both the actors and Fox are getting more "D'oh!"

Terms of the deal were not announced for the actors who provide the voices for Homer and Marge Simpson and other characters on the long-running animated series.

"We couldn't be happier to have reached a multiyear deal with the enormously talented cast of 'The Simpsons,'" series producer 20th Century Fox Television said Friday in a statement.

A spokesman representing the cast said they had no immediate comment.

Despite speculation the dispute would shorten the 2004-05 season, the studio said it was optimistic that all 22 planned episodes could be finished.

The loss of even a few episodes of "The Simpsons," a bulwark of Fox TV's schedule, would be financially painful for the network.

Each cast member was seeking about $360,000 an episode, or $8 million for the 22-episode, 2004-05 season, the trade paper Daily Variety reported previously. The actors were earning $125,000 an episode.

The contract dispute involves Dan Castellaneta (Homer); Julie Kavner (news) (Marge); Hank Azaria (news) (Moe, Apu and others); Harry Shearer (news) (Mr. Burns and others); Yeardley Smith (news) (Lisa) and Nancy Cartwright (Bart), the paper said.

The actors' previous deal, which covered seasons 13, 14 and 15, was reached without complication.

In 1998, however, the cast — except for Kavner, who had a previous deal in effect — sought significant pay increases. At that time, the performers made $30,000 an episode from a show that has proved a huge international moneymaker.