"The mid-sized picture is that of Jerusalem.
"By mid-January, picture has to lock, and either we win or we lose".
"The colossal elephant of Coney Island (1885)." The New York Public Library, Mid-Manhattan Picture Collection.
There are mid-century pictures, too, by Fairfield Porter and Alex Katz.
The décor is So Cal modern, with exposed beams, glazed black and red tile, orange banquettes, and mid-century pictures of Spanish dancers and toreadors.
It makes more sense for studios to spend $300m on a summer blockbuster than $50m on original mid-range pictures that must then be marketed to audiences.
Examiners conceded a grudging respect for the E grade gained by the FT, which – like someone sulkily stalking out mid-exam – pictured no celebrating students at all, preferring instead inanimate objects symbolising economics, chemistry, physics and maths.
Executives at rival studios, who did not want to be named discussing a competitor, maintained that mid-budget pictures represent an increasingly challenging business.
In today's franchise-driven marketplace, however, what's known in the business as mid-range pictures are getting increasingly difficult to finance, even ones written by a man twice nominated for a screenwriting Oscar ("The Queen," "Frost/Nixon").
Elsewhere in the mid-west, the picture is much the same.
If the film isn't viewed with hostility from the fade-in, it's an effective, mid-ranking genre picture.
