Today in Lunatic Hollywood Disputes

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“The Butler,” a film about a man who served eight presidents in the White House, opens this weekend. But wait. That’s not its full title. It’s actually called “Lee Daniels’ The Butler.” Is Lee Daniels an insane egomaniac? Nope:

First a word about the title’s clumsiness, and the story’s provenance. The director, Lee Daniels, is no stranger to clumsy titles. Four years ago he was nominated for an Oscar for “Precious,” a film whose contractual title was “Precious: Based on the Novel ‘Push’ by Sapphire.” His name appears in this contractual title because of a legal dispute over “The Butler,” a silent comedy released by Warner Brothers 97 years ago.

I figured there must be some fascinating backstory here, but in the end, not really. Those of you who have followed this all along should feel free to add interesting tidbits in comments, but as near as I can tell this really is just a lunatic Hollywood dispute based on bad blood between a couple of moguls over some previous deals. In the end, though, they really did have to change the title because Warner Bros. claimed exclusive rights to it based on a short silent film released in 1916. Don’t you just love Hollywood?

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We just wrapped up a shorter-than-normal, urgent-as-ever fundraising drive and we came up about $45,000 short of our $300,000 goal.

That means we're going to have upwards of $350,000, maybe more, to raise in online donations between now and June 30, when our fiscal year ends and we have to get to break-even. And even though there's zero cushion to miss the mark, we won't be all that in your face about our fundraising again until June.

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Because the bottom line: Corporations and powerful people with deep pockets will never sustain the type of journalism Mother Jones exists to do. The only investors who won’t let independent, investigative journalism down are the people who actually care about its future—you.

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