Columbia Pictures Admits Reviewer Is Fake (NEWSWEEK story)
Vidiot
by John Horn
NEWSWEEK WEB EXCLUSIVE
Sony resorts to some questionable marketing practices to promote new movies
June 2 ã David Manning of The Ridgefield Press is one of Columbia Pictures'
most reliable reviewers, praising Heath Ledger of "A Knight's Tale" as "this
year's hottest new star!" and saluting "The Animal" as "another winner!" The
studio plastered Manning's raves over at least four different movie
advertisements, including "Hollow Man" and "Vertical Limit." But Manning's
own life story should be called "Charade," because he doesn't exist.
Challenged last week by NEWSWEEK about the reviewer's authenticity, Columbia
parent Sony Pictures Entertainment admitted that Manning is a fake, a product
of the studio's advertising department.
The Ridgefield Press (which was unaware of the deception) is a small
Connecticut weekly, but that's where any verisimilitude ends. An unidentified
Sony employee apparently concocted the Manning persona last July, using the
name of a friend, and attributed fictional reviews to him. Supervisors using
the quotes in movie ads didn't question Manning's legitimacy. "It was an
incredibly foolish decision, and we're horrified," Sony spokeswoman Susan
Tick said of the hoax. "We are looking into it and will take appropriate
action."
In Hollywood, where desperate marketing tactics are the norm, news of
the deception astonished even longtime executives. "I have run two studios
over two decades, and I have to say this is a first for me," says Joe Roth,
whose Revolution Studios produced "The Animal" for Columbia. "It's hard to
believe. It's terrible. Sony has to apologize and pull the ads." Dick Cook,
chairman of the Walt Disney Motion Pictures Group, says: "That certainly does
cross the line. We would never, never, never, ever do that."
Sony is removing Manning's quotes from "Knight's Tale" and "Animal"
ads, but some arts sections this past weekend were already printed before the
fakery was revealed.
The real question is why Sony had to conceive the counterfeit critic
to begin with, given the world of movie junkets, where normal reporting
standards don't apply. Reading the glowing newspaper-ad recommendations for
even the lamest movie, you might wonder if those quoted critics are real.
Unlike Manning, they are. Many are habitues of the junket circuit, an
all-expenses-paid gravy train where the studios give journalists free rooms
and meals at posh hotels and the reporters return the favor with puffy
celebrity profiles and enthusiastic review blurbs. Sometimes studio
executives will suggest what kind of quotes they need, and even shape the
reviews to suit the studio's goals. If a studio wants its movie pegged as
"This year's åAlien'," the reviewer delivers precisely that. No one
complains, and bad movies end up with great quotes.
The junket troops are a mostly anonymous crowd working for obscure
outlets like Wireless Magazine and Inside Reel, which helps explain why
nobody ã- even people within Sony and Revolutionãnoticed that Manning was a
sham.
"If he doesn't exist, he should at least have given us a better
quote," Roth joked. The Manning fabrication broke even Hollywood's lax rules.
But the real scandal is what's considered acceptable.
© 2001 Newsweek, Inc.