The model today is that as much as 70 percent of the financing of the picture would come from overseas. Now we're beginning to run out of suckers, because there are not that many people overseas who are willing to put up more than half the money for a movie.

The model today is that as much as 70 percent of the financing of the picture would come from overseas. Now we're beginning to run out of suckers, because there are not that many people overseas who are willing to put up more than half the money for a movie.

Do your homework and stand your ground.

Though gay lifestyles have certainly moved into the open, there's little evidence that society has become more open in its basic attitudes or that entertainers should feel cozy in emerging from the velvet underground.

Study the public behavior of top stars and you can detect a keen attentiveness to brand value.

Analyses of the movie marketplace points to an interesting phenomenon: High-profile movies are continuing to do well year-to-year in the U.S. and overseas - this past summer, for example, the top 10 movies registered at the same level as in '04.

I wasn't hanging around the movie theaters in New York where I grew up, a Manhattan brat.