Not that Maxim or Stuff actually encourage reading, but they are printed matter and do include words. Now I’m not knocking Dennis Publishing; they also publish the great music mag Blender as well as my favorite weekly news and media digest, The Week. But I get the feeling that their new film shingle, as reported by both Variety (via Yahoo!) and the far more reputable Defamer,will be influenced more by the lad-mag duo.
Nothing wrong with that. And if they move quickly, maybe they can try to get in on Howard Stern’s planned remakes of Porky’s and Rock ‘N Roll High School. But what I find curious is the name of the new film division: Moving Pictures, DPI. I mean, maybe they consider Demi Moore too old to ever be on the covers of either Maxim or Stuff, but why piss her off by stealing the name of her production company? And that’s the company at least slightly responsible for all three Austin Powers movies, although her former producing partners, the Todd sisters, are probably more responsible for that. Yeah, so Moving Pictures (the Demi Moore version) has taken a back seat to being a mom and loving Ashton, but couldn’t Dennis Publishing think up something more original? And tagging the company initials to the end doesn’t count. Hey Variety! Where’s the investigative journalism with this scandal here, huh?
Out of Focus 