Yahoo! Has Six Minutes of The Illusionist

Yahoo!'s offering six minutes of The Illusionist, which I finally saw Thursday night. It's just what I'd heard it was at Sundance: a great-looking, well-acted crowd pleaser—there was applause after David Poland's industry screening at the Pacific Design Center, partly because the movie's ending is quite satisfying. My big question, one that I suspect producer Michael London (Sideways) is asking—is how well Yari Film Group Releasing will handle the distribution of the film, which opens August 18. Real estate mogul turned film financeer/producer Bob Yari refused to accept any of the multiple offers on the film and is releasing it himself. Yari hates giving away the proceeds on these movies, as he did with Crash. (There are numerous ongoing disputes over those proceeds.) But that doesn't mean he has the clout to collect his full share of the grosses from theaters. Even Newmarket had trouble collecting on The Passion of the Christ.