By Steven Zeitchik

We don’t know exactly how many jokes will be attempted about Aaron Sorkin’s Facebook movie (though we’re betting that writing on walls will figure in a number of them). What we do know is that it seems like kind of a goofy idea.

First question in this transition of the “Studio 60″ and “Sports Night” creator from television networks to social networks: the story. Young men creating successful Web sites does not immediately smack of the stuff of great drama; in fact, it does not immediately smack of the stuff of ordinary magazine articles (and we should know, we’ve tried to write a few of them). The acclaimed writer of “The West Wing” and “A Few Good Men” is known for, and skilled at, taking the taut social dynamics of an institution and showing its many complexities, contradictions and comedies. Entrepreneurs in a college dorm doesn’t quite fit the pattern.

(Actually, when we first saw the story we thought the movie would be about characters interacting _on_ Facebook, which, for all its Quarterlife-ish ambitions, had much more of a How We Live Now kind of feel to it.)

The second fuzzy area involves marketing. Sure, there may be no better way to blow a postmodern 21st-century mind than by marketing a movie about Facebook _on_ Facebook. But Facebook is also the kind of tool that’s so ubiquitous we’ve stopped wondering how it came to be and just accepted it as a fact of life. That could make a movie about it seem more urgent. Or it could make it seem like that much more of an afterthought. Are there are any popular sites, really, whose backstories we’d find interesting enough we’d like to see them given the film treatment? A biopic of Sergey Brin? A romantic comedy about the relationships of Chris DeWolfe?

But hey, Sorkin’s pulled it off before. We just hope they’ll find a snappy title that overcomes some of these problems — something other than, say, Mark Zuckerberg’s War.

By Steven Zeitchik

So we’re back after a week away, and are surprised to find that so much has happened — MGM is or isn’t for sale again! SAG is squabbling over elections! — in our absence.

Actually, we found more interesting goings-on in our vacation spot of choice, Iceland, where we wiled away some of these final days of August (and where we found that the locals party so hard they make a Sundance afterparty look like an AA meeting). Blame it on our blog-happy mindset, but there are a few interesting lessons that came to mind as we traveled through the at once remote and uber-cosmopolitan country.

Iceland has shown a surprising propensity to churn out entertainment talent — hyphenate Bjork, of course, but also figures like the rising Hollywood director Baltasar Kormakur (he directed the thriller “Jar City” and recently wrapped 26 Films’ Sam Shepard-Diane Kruger drama “Run for Her Life”) and hipster band Sigur Ros (whose songs have featured in numerous films, with Cameron Crowe using four in the Vanilla Skye soundtrack; we defy you not to like this). That all comes out of a country of fewer than 300,00 people, which is kind of the equivalent of it coming out of Bakersfield, or Newark.

The country itself has had a Hollywood role, too. Diverse landscapes, a lack of people (and regulations) and a rebate in the mid-teens have made the small island just east of Greenland an unlikely favorite of production managers. Eastwood filmed parts of “Flags of our Fathers” here. Nolan shot scenes of “Batman Begins” in the place. And a number of Bond movies have also called it home.

But before we go too Chamber of Commerce on you, there are some other thoughts that emerged from our trip — ones that have less to do with how the place has intersected with Hollywood than what the country shows about the prospects for a globalized Hollywood.

On its face, Iceland is the perfect target for all kinds of studio activity. It has a wildly high rate of English proficiency. It has the kind of weather and daylight conducive to moviegoing. It has a knowledgable film community (in its five years, the Reykjavik Film Festival, which takes place next month, has become an important stop on the fest circuit). There are more movie theaters per capita in Reykjavik that nearly another European capital.

And yet Hollywood faces plenty of obstacles in doing business in a country like this. Real-estate in Reykjavik has priced out the older downtown theaters and forced moviegoing to the suburbs, cutting out a piece of the audience. Comedy of course doesn’t always translate even in English-speaking places; there were posters for Tropic Thunder at multiplexes around the city but the locals seemed oblivious. A lack of chain stores has made DVD sales tricky (many movies are sold at gas-station convenience stores). And local production, which has ridden an indie boom over the last few years, has siphoned off moviegoers.

Of course, studios like Sony and Warners are building up their infrastructure for local-language productions overseas. But with the population of a country like Iceland as small as it is, it may be more effort than it’s worth.

Indeed, what the country may show — call it the Iceland Principle — is that for all the temptng factors and global ambitions, there may be some places Hollywood just can’t reach. And judging by how those places are doing without Hollywood, that may be just fine.

By Steven Zeitchik

Upon seeing “Man on Wire,” — James Marsh’s gripping documentary about Philippe Petit’s quixotic (but successful) attempt to stealthily rig a wire and walk between the Twin Towers in 1974 — for the third time the other day, following Sundance and Tribeca viewings, we were struck by how well the movie plays in the summer.

That’s not for the usually counterpogram-y reasons, the ones about how ‘It’s so different from anything else out there.’ In fact, quite the opposite. “Wire” is not nearly as different from a summer tentpole as you might think. Like, say, “The Dark Knight,” “Wire” also is a chronicle of one man’s sweeping (and potentially overreaching) ambition, centers on the dominance but ultimate feebleness of city institutions and offers breathtaking aerial shots to boot.

Petit has been turning up at screenings, and saying things, as he did at Tribeca, about his madcap vision that somehow all makes sense in the end. “I was really hungry for beautiful places to put a wire,” he told the TFF audience in May. “When I saw the towers they pulled me by the sleeve. It became my dream-slash-nightmare.”

The movie’s been chugging along nicely – after widening the last two weeks, Magolia has the pic to nearly $1 million, though its per-screens last weekend dropped  below $4000. Even if it ends up near $2 million, though, it will be a nice score for the Sundance pickup.

Speaking of Sundance, the next few weeks will be a huge test for a bigger Sundance pickup, “Hamlet 2″ the Steve Coogan vehicle (and, given how much he’s driving the thing, his plane, boat and hovercraft) about a comedically clueless drama teacher. The movie — with its spoofs of celebrity, high-school dramas and theater taboos — might be the world’s first ever first kitchen-sink satire.

Focus has already sold off chunks of international, defraying much of its $10 million spend on the pickup. Still, we’ll see if the heavy marketing campaign, centering on an ironic “Rock Me, Sexy Jesus” campaign hook, as well as its summer-vacation opening, pays off.

And speaking of summer vacation, we’re taking a little one of our own these next few days. We’ll be back next week. Until then, keep an eye out for the risky bizzers, and the wire-walkers.

By Borys Kit

A neat little trailer is making the rounds today that has geek tongues wagging. The video, which you can play below, has a veritable who’s who of geeks — from "Buffy the Vampire Slayer" creator Joss Whedon to "Lost" co-creator Damon Lindelof to Lost writer and comic creator Brian K. Vaughn to author Christopher Hitchens — talking about the purported connection between the murder of the biblical figure Abel and the murder of the father of Superman co-creator Jerry Siegel, as well as a tome God is said to have given Adam called the Book of Lies. It’s part of a viral marketing campaign for author and comic book writer Brad Meltzer’s new novel of the same name. The trailer wasn’t supposed to come out until September but leaked; we can imagine Hollywood producers are watching — and reading — with enthusiasm of their own.

By Steven Zeitchik

Now that “The Dark Knight” has finally been knocked off its month-long perch, assuring that it will merely share the title of most durable summer hit with “Saving Private Ryan,” it’s back to business-as-usual for August movies — here one week, next week the way of the Chinese track team. Tropic Thunder (aka the movie that  rode pseudo-offensiveness to real box office), scored $26m and pushed “Knight” down to a $17 million opening. Even in these soft late August days, it’s going to be hard for the rubberized one to rebound.

Even assuming Knight can maintain or slightly grow its numbers in the coming weeks, the schedule won’t be forgiving. Next week sees Knight squeezed from both the action side with Paul W.S. Anderson-Jason Statham chase-core remake “Death Race.” (Universal moved it up from September, and look for a big weekend; Anderson’s last three pics averaged $28m openings.) And Knight will feel heat on the comedy side, where Peter Cattaneo’s mid-budget “The Rocker” should take a bite out of Knight’s male repeat viewers.

The following week it doesn’t get easier, as Lionsgate goes wide with “Disaster Movie.” Arguably the only film that has ever spoofed monster movies and a former vice president (its tagline: “Al Gore was right”) at the same time, the movie comes in with a surprisingly strong commercial pedigree: writer-director team Jason Friedberg and Aaron Seltzer have opened their two previous helming-scribbling collaborations at #1.

Of course there’s no need to send condolences to Warners or Chris Nolan. It’s been a good ride for Knight, and not just for the usual reasons. The Batman pic showed endurance in a summer so without legs it was practically a dwarf. Exhibit A on this point came this weekend, when all returning movies that had been out less than a month –four in total — dropped by at least 40%. On the comparable weekend last year, only one in five did that.

But there are limits even to Knight’s power to carry over. To wit: Given how much intrigue has surrounded Heath Ledger, you’d think distributors would be salivating over his final pic, Terry Gilliam’s “The Imaginarium of Dr. Parnassus,” the way NBC has drooled over Michael Phelps. But conversation with sources indicate the movie (whose footage has yet to be seen by buyers) could have a tough go in completing a desirable domestic sale.

On the one hand, after all, it’s a chance for buyers to pick up an indie that will allow them to market not only Ledger but Johnny Depp, Colin Farrell and Jude Law, who of course stepped in to play Ledger’s role. But on the other hand, you have the surrealness of Terry Gilliam — the movie is, indeed, about parallel worlds, immortal doctors and traveling theater troupes — and, well, Gilliam. His last three directorial efforts averaged $16 million in total domestic box office.

And you may not exactly be picking up the movie at an indie price either: The budget for “Parnassus” is said to be north of $20 million, which means financier Grosvenor Park and producer Sammy Hadida would possibly be looking for a tidy low-mid eight figures. Perhaps that’s why one buyer said that ”in this market, unless I have a reason to think a movie like this is going to be a slam dunk I’m not going to take a flyer on it, even with Heath Ledger.”

But look for Lionsgate to make a play for domestic rights to the film. The minimajor already has international on the pic, so a U.S. buy could offer some welcome synergies on this marketing puzzle. And if Gilliam’s effort is really that  kooky, Lionsgate could feature some of the scarier elements in “Disaster Movie 2.”

By Steven Zeitchik

Political incorrectness is a funny thing. Literally, sometimes. But it’s also funny in a different way — it alternately amuses and irks with no discernible pattern.

The Farrelly Brothers, Judd Apatow and Sacha Baron Cohen all put provocative jokes in their films, covering a pretty wide range of ethnic groups and populations. Those jabs doesn’t elicit streams of protesters on morning-talk shows or Westwood streets. In fact, apart from certain religious groups, which, agree with them or not, tend to protest with consistency movies like Harry Potter, there are few pics in these four-quadrant days that engender any kind of broad controversy.

But “Tropic Thunder” has gone out and made a lot of people upset, or at least a lot of media outlets happy to cover the people who are upset. Which kind of has us wondering: in this post-Sarah Silverman era, when exactly does envelope-pushing become line-crossing?

We have about as much of an idea about the answer to this as we do the criteria of a good Olympic gymnastic routine. It seems like it has something to do with how much distance the audience has from the characters articulating the political incorrectness. The electronics-store buffoons in “The 40-Year-Old Virgin” say scabrous things. But that’s okay, because they’re supposed to be saying them; that’s a part of their character and we’re laughing at them for it. Ditto for “Borat,” whose persona is founded on, and derives humor from, calculated inappropriateness. (See Ben Stiller and “Thunder” writer Etan Cohen in the video below, who basically makes that point here; characters are mocking those who mock the mentally handicapped.)

Of course, with “Thunder” as with everywhere else, there’s no way to know how much of the laughter is aimed at the offender and how much comes from the joke itself.

We’re not saying one necessarily should be offended by the other comedies. And we’re not saying that one shouldn’t be offended by “Thunder;” if that’s the reaction, that’s the reaction. We’re just trying to understand the logic of equal-opportunity offensiveness. It seems to get trotted out unequally.

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By Steven Zeitchik

It was supposed to be a 400-meter team relay. It’s turning into more of a 50-meter individual event.

In a move somehow both surprising and logical, Paula Wagner is out as co-chief at UA, just 21 months after joining up with Tom Cruise at the rejigged, partly MGM-owned label –and almost two years to the day since Sumner Redstone fired Cruise and paved the way for the UA revival in the first place.

Who are the real winners and losers in the exit of the producer-turned-exec (turned-producer)? A quick rundown:

Wagner: Without the backing and cash of UA — and, let’s be candid, with a certain amount of egg sticking to her face – a segue to a producer job might be a little trickier than it would be for others. But she’s still got some solid projects set up at UA, including the promising futuro-thriller “Champions” from Guillermo del Toro. And look at it this way — would you rather try your hand shopping around new projects or spend another half-year coping with “Valkyrie” questions?

Cruise: Has there been a more tumultuous week for a Hollywood A-lister? Angelina Jolie replaces you on a tentpole, you contemplate a career trajectory shift with comedies about school-cafeterias, you get buzz for a cameo — o heavenly irony — for playing a histrionic studio exec and  your longtime producing partner leaves the company the two of you founded that was meant to give you more autonomy from the conglom suits. That would be a busy year for most stars. Ah, to be back in those Redstone catfight days of ‘06.

UA: By most accounts, there’s still plenty of money from the $500 million film fund. But there’s also an executive vacuum and major question marks. As Jay Fernandez and Leslie Simmons write in today’s THR: “Given the underperformance of ‘Lambs,’ the recent resignation of marketing head Dennis Rice, the dearth of greenlights and the PR quagmire enveloping ‘Valkyrie,’ the studio has had a difficult time engendering confidence.” Oh yes, those problems.

Valkyrie: Just when it looked like it had survived the worst of the Nazi-propganda associations, one of its biggest champions is out of a job, the marketing guru in charge of overseeing it has left, and the label behind it is in disarray. What to do about it now? Why, push up the release date so that it comes out in four months, of course. Of course.

MGM: The focus is on the money — namely, will MGM get access to it now that UA is in a scaled-down, Wagner-less state? Harry Sloan denies that this is in the offing. And indeed, it may be tough to justify to investors (and to Cruise) that MGM needs UA’s dough given how much the company is  spending under Mary Parent (and how conservatively UA has spent by comparison). But in other respects, MGM may not be as affected by the Wagner departure as much as it might seem, though if UA indeed makes fewer movies, MGM will have the benefit of not needing to share with its subsid resources and staff — distribution president Clark Woods, new joint marketing hire Michael Vollman — quite so much.

Minimajors: UA hasn’t exactly been prolific since Wagner and Cruise took the reins, but the fact that one player is in retrenchment could could open up the door, in terms of development and releases, for older minimajors like Lionsgate and newer players like Summit and Overture.

Charlie Chaplin and Mary Pickford: Probably not smiling, wherever they are. “You know, we kind of liked the perception of the UA name better when it was moribund.”

By Steven Zeitchik

Slash? From Guns ‘n Roses? He’s black. Well, half-black.

That’s the first morsel one learns in the startlingly engaging new HBO doc “The Black List,” which premiered Tuesday night at a star-dotted Time Warner Center event (pity that poor mortal in the back row, craning behind Kareem Abdul-Jabbar). But it’s by no means the biggest one.

Some movies take the inherently dramatic and make it pedestrian or predictable — we’d nominate Clint Eastwood’s upcoming “Changeling.” And then there are those films, like “The Black List,” which pull off the trickier obverse: take the potentially prosaic and turn it into a work of thoughtfulness and humor. Through nearly two dozen interviews with a range of famous African-Americans — Vernon Jordan to Chris Rock, Toni Morrison to Keenen Ivory Wayans (and of course Slash) — intimate personal details and provocative social theories are dexterously laid out.

Directed by photographer-filmmaker Timothy Greenfield-Sanders (whose other art form pays off here in the form of painterly framings of his subjects) and featuring interviews by former NY Times film critic and “List” producer Elvis Mitchell (who we never hear, even off-camera, but who elicits the most from his subjects) and with an assist from Darren Aronofsky (who apparently came up with a nifty editing trick), “The Black List” is much more than a totem of ethnic pride, though it’s that too — it’s an exploration of identity and ambition in contemporary and recent America. It may be the best thing, outside a good Obama speech, that one could watch to deepen and humanize their understanding of race.

Of course that makes it sound like the cinematic equivalent of eating broccoli, and the movie couldn’t be further from that. At its heart, really, it’s just a series of entertaining and informative conversations — about the kinds of things many Americans don’t normally converse about — with some of the world’s most famous African-Americans. It’s not even a film about race per se; that theme is woven subtly through the talks, and some of the featured celebs, like Kareem, almost bypass it entirely.

(It’s notable that among some of most famous African-American names in media and entertainment, there’s no sign of Spike Lee. Asked why he decided not to include him, Mitchell told Risky Biz that “Spike Lee is kind of the go-to guy. And Spike Lee is very good at promoting Spike Lee. We wanted to show people you might not see as often.”)

HBO, which picked up “List” at Sundance this year, is airing it on August 25, and will no doubt rerun it a number of times after that. It’s the sort of instance where a TV-first release is actually a good thing — the net’s 30 million-some audience will get a taste of something that, given the earnest-sounding subject matter, they may not run out to see in theaters. And yet there’s something about watching the  film on a big screen, as its successful fest plays at AFI Dallas and Sundance show, that trumps watching it on the one that sits above your cable box. (And yes, we may be dwelling in tough theatrical times for docs. But if Ben Stein’s creationist propaganda  can earn almost $8 million…)

It remains to be seen what kind of theatrical release “The Black List” will get beyond a qualifying run, especially since HBO is largely out of the theatrical game now. Either way, there’s reason to take heart from this movie, which offers yet more evidence among HBO’s summer of docs of why we should be so encouraged that a division like Sheila Nevins’ both exists and flourishes at the country’s largest pay channel and conglom.

The film carries the subtitle “Volume One,”  and Greenfield-Sanders told us that he and Mitchell are meeting with HBO next week for a discussion on whether there will be a second. He’s hopeful. So are we.