By Steven Zeitchik

Back when 2008 was on the way out and film bloggers everywhere were looking for something to write that didn't contain the words Slumdog Millionaire, we made the not-so-bold prediction that among the self-financed startups of the past few years — Overture, MGM, Weinstein Company and Summit , in the main– at least one wouldn't be in business by the time we were trying to find things  to write about other than next year's Slumdog Millionaire.

Ten months later — and before we've even begun to avoid the words Up in the Air–  it looks like that crystal-balling is coming true, though not always in the way we might have expected.

Most of the companies have taken their lumps. After a solid start to the year with "Valkyrie" — common wisdom has it as a middling performer, but it made $200m worldwide — MGM waited another nine months before it released another of its own movies. And then it had a rough time of it, opening "Fame" to just $10m this weekend. Given that it won't be releasing another movie until the first quarter of 2010, that means the revenue could be pretty slow in coming.

Overture has made sleepers out of specialized fare like "Sunshine Cleaning" and "The Visitor," but  continues to look for the home run. And while the MGM-ers-turned-Maloners are hoping George Clooney's "Men Who Stare at Goats" and/or Michael Moore's "Capitalism: A Love Story" finally knocks one out of the park, neither has yet given strong indications of being a slugger, more like a .280 hitter with occasional opposite-field power.

The Weinstein Company snuck out with a few wins — no one could have guessed "The Reader" would have gotten kudos and $35m, and of course "Inglourious Basterds" is a $243m global standout — but it's an understatement worthy of a French diplomat to say it still needs a lot more help.

By Steven Zeitchik and Borys Kit

Jessica Alba is becoming a Focker.

The actress is in negotiations to join the Ben Stiller-Robert DeNiro comedy "Little Fockers." She'd play the role of an attractive pharmaceutical rep whose looks wreak havoc on male characters in the story.

Paul Weitz is directing the third installment in the Universal and Tribeca Productions franchise. Universal is banking heavily on "Fockers," one of the studio's few go-to franchises and an important one given its shaky summer. Production is set to begin in the next few months, with a 2010 release date more than likely.

The picture is expect to pick up where 2004's "Meet the Fockers" left off, with Stiller's Gaylord Focker and Teri Polo's Pamela Byrnes having a child (or children — reports abound that they could be having twins). John Hamburg penned the latest version of the script.

Even if Alba's role isn't huge — and with so many other big actors (Stiller, DeNiro, Wilson) already set, it may not be — the move is a shrewd bit of casting for Universal. The franchise needs to rope in young men, and with the movie's promise of babies and family — not always said demo's main interest — it could use a Maxim-esque presence.

The WME-repped Alba, incidentally, is set to star in the Robert
Rodriguez thriller "Machete" for Sony as well as Garry Marshall's
romantic comedy "Valentine's Day" for New Line. Both are also movies that could — and need to — bring in the boys. That's what she does. The focker.

By Steven Zeitchik

Antoine Fuqua is the new warden.

The "Training Day" helmer is in negotiations to direct Aaron Guzikowski's hot spec script "Prisoners." The project is being fast-tracked, with preproduction set to begin shortly for a likely January or February shoot.

"Prisoners" is set up at Alcon, which will release it via Warner Bros. next October.

Guzikowski, repped by WME and Madhouse Entertainment, created a stir when "Prisoners" first went out earlier this year, with the script attracting interest from high-profile directors such as Bryan Singer. Mark Wahlberg and Christian Bale were also attached to star, and a number of studios were keen to pick up the package.

But producers eventually decided to sell to Alcon, which bested entities such as Summit and Relativity, and reconfigured it without cast and with a slightly lower budget (about $30 million-$40 million) so that it could move forward more quickly.

By Steven Zeitchik

Quietly but assuredly, like a tiptoeing cartoon rabbit, animation is becoming the unsung story of this year's boxoffice.

With Sony's "Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs" holding strong this weekend to get to $60 million, it now has an outside shot of hitting $100 million (not an excellent shot, but another couple of solid holds and it's almost there).

That, in turn, means the animation world could hit a milestone in 2009 — the first time that more than five movies will exceed $100 million. "Up," "Ice Age" and "Monsters vs. Aliens" already did it, and the "Alvin and the Chipmunks" sequel — er, squeakuel — will do it; the only question is whether "Meatballs" and Disney's hand-drawn "The Princess and the Frog" have the stuff.  Even without them, the sector could get over the hump thanks to Pixar's rerelease of the two "Toy Story" pics.

All this coin for cartoons may seems like an inevitability, but animation has come pretty far pretty fast; as recently as 2005 only three animated pics cracked the $100 million mark.

The burst of success has all sorts of implications for the biz. It means that it may make more sense than ever to put an animated specialist like John Lasseter in charge of one of the country's biggest studios. It means that there's a rising tide than can lift other boats — including indie animated studios like Imagi (behind Summit's upcoming "Astro Boy") and Exodus Film Group (behind MGM's "Bunyan and Babe"), not to mention spur specialty divisions to get in on the action (Focus Features' two biggest earners this year could wind up being animated pics).

By Steven Zeitchik

This time of year, there's usually a lot of pundit interest over which movie screener is sent to awards-voters ahead of all others. Misguided interest, we should say. Being the first screener out is as about meaningful in the long run as being the first person chosen in your junior-high punchball game.

Two years ago it was "The Namesake," "Once" and "Waitress" (collective Oscar noms: one)  that reached voters first. A couple years before that it was "Junebug," also hitting mailboxes in September. The quirky drama picked up an Oscar nom for Amy Adams, but really, would that have gone any differently if the screener went out in, say, early October?

No one's taken the plunge yet this year, though for a minute there it looked like Summit was trying to beat the rush. We received several reports late in the week that the studio has sent out copies of "The Hurt Locker" to various people in the industry.

With the movie one of the few awards-y titles already on voters' minds, it seemed like an odd move. Conventional wisdom would dictate to wait until later in the season, when voters could really use a reminder. But with the the landscape quiet for now — there hasn't been a heavyweight contender opening in the three weekends since Labor Day — there was also a certain logic. Voters are already anxious this year because they have twice as many spots to fill (like having twice as much homework) and they're finding mainly romcoms and zombie movies in these early fall days.  What better way to give them a little peace of mind than nudge them about a title they may already be thinking about anyway?

By Steven Zeitchik

It may seem like teen musicals are everywhere — and if Rich Ross takes over at Disney, they probably will be — but if "Fame" pulls up in third position this weekend, it could be time to sing a downbeat note.

As recently as a year ago the teen musical could do no wrong. Riding a pop-cultural tsunami to give meteorologists chills, the third installment of "High School Musical" stormed in to theaters with a $42m opening weekend and landed with a $252m global take, enough to outfit the world in cheerleader costumes.

But the tracking for "Fame" is pointing to a likely finish in the low teens this weekend — not a horrible showing but probably not what MGM had in mind when it made the reboot the linchpin of its original-production slate (more on them in a later post).

The middling outlook may be a function of brand — someone who was a teenager when the Irene Cara-Debbie Allen movie came out could be a grandparent by now (a 48-year-old grandparent, but a grandparent still), not exactly a good thing for a teen-targeted movie. And despite some clever promotions by MGM, the Fame name hasn't hugely penetrated teen consciousness.  A bunch of tough reviews haven't helped either.

By Steven Zeitchik

David Cronenberg is again buzzing with "The Fly."

The auteur is in talks to develop a reboot of the 1986 classic with Fox, the studio that released that film, writing and potentially directing the new pic.

The move marks an about-face for the Canadian director, who in the past has said he did not want to be involved on a remake of the film. Cronenberg did work on an opera version of "The Fly" that was staged first in Paris and then in Los Angeles.

The 1986 title, itself a remake of Kurt Neumann's 1958 sci-fi classic, starred Jeff Goldblum and became a huge hit for Fox, earning $40 million and turning into a phenomenon. It centered on Seth Brundle (Goldblum), an eccentric scientist who, after an experiment with teleportation goes awry, is transformed into a fly. Geena Davis starred as Goldblum's love interest and partner, Veronica.

By Steven Zeitchik

Beware of bloggers writing the "ten things we learned from a festival" piece, especially after a festival has ended.

That's why we'll write the "six things we learned from a festival" piece, mainly as a way to get into some films we saw in the usual end of fest rush. Plus, Toronto is all about the awards season to come, so don't look at it as a rundown of what happened but a preview of what will be.

Yes, that makes us feel better.

"The Road": It's better than many of the reviews had it. Sure, it's bleak — always funny to hear that thrown out like it's a dirty word — but so was "There Will Be Blood" and like a hundred other really good pictures. There are some issues, namely, director John Hillcoat going to the same bag of tricks a few too many times (man wandering a threatening apocalyptic landscape so long he can't tell good guys from bad, and reacts questionably when under duress). But there's still plenty of suspense and compelling moral ambiguity to this (impressively shot) survivalist tale, not to mention some touching moments between father and son. Actually "Blood" is not a bad comparison since, like that movie, this one also concerns a father trying to protect his boy in a frontier setting of sorts. Star Viggo Mortensen deserves an Oscar nod — the question is, with "Single Man" the newest plaything at the Weinstein Company, does his campaign take a backseat to Colin Firth's?