Anyone interested as to why H2 was in such great demand not from an audience, but a production company perspective, should have a go at the New York Times feature on the Weinstein bros., the men behind the franchise reboot.

Since opening its doors in 2005, the Weinstein Company has released about 70 films, and more than one quarter of them failed to break the $1 million box-office mark in the United States. Thirteen of these took in less than $100,000.

... They were corralled in 2005 by Goldman Sachs, which helped raise $1 billion for the company. At the time, filmmaking had acquired a certain cachet in private equity circles, and here was a chance to bankroll what were arguably two of the greatest movie producers in modern cinematic history.

... SO what happened? In part, the Weinstein Company is coping with the same problems facing every other studio, most notably the grim slowdown of the DVD market. But plenty of the Weinsteins’ wounds are also self-inflicted. Instead of using their lush, Goldman-fueled pile of start-up money to focus on filmmaking, the brothers ventured into such new realms as fashion (buying part of Halston, the once-storied label), online social networking (through A Small World, known informally as MySpace for Millionaires) and a piece of Ovation, the cable network.

To shore up their finances, the brothers received a bridge loan a few months ago estimated at $75 million from Ziff Brothers Investments, according to two people familiar with the loan who requested anonymity because they weren’t authorized to speak publicly about it. - NYT

It's a dirty, dirty pool, and filmmakers like Zombie and average horror film fans are the ones getting the shortest shrifts.

As always, there's more into the story then what meets the eye. Naturally, it doesn't necessitate a surge of re-evaluation into Zombie's contributions to the series, but should serve as a healthy reminder that when talking about studios and franchises, films are created and molded with more than merely creative decisions and reasonings.

No doubt Fortus is a similar professional as, say, Josh Freese. The fact that he gains regular employment as a recording/touring member speaks for itself, as does his versatility when it comes to the artists he works with. You're very much in the right in the sense that it takes a lot of technical skill (as well as people skill) to jump into an act, claim your pocket, merge within the sound and get organic on click. If you can do it, you're set for a career.

The problem with Fortus is that he's... well, impersonable. There's not much distinctive character to go around as far as his musicianship is concerned, because the guy's a chameleon. This, naturally, comes out as a necessity due to the nature of his chosen profession. He may carry the Stones influence on his sleeve like half the rock guitarists on the planet, but how genuine is that as opposed to his work with Rihanna or Nena?

Tommy does sessions and soundtracks as well, but his background in Replacements puts him on a completely different chart. I know, Fortus had the Richard Butler bands, but I'm still hard-pressed to see them as featuring any more of his own self as the latter-day groups like GNR. Tommy, however, contributed to The Mats' sound from the get-go, left markings everywhere, and thus, ensured musical identity and credibility which are difficult to ignore.

Robin, for all his technical shortcomings (at least earlier on), had NIN, which during the Downward Spiral days was particularly earnest and insistent in terms of musical integrity and live performance. Pitman's cool even by TooL association alone. Brain and Bucket had, well... Would be easier to list things they didn't have by the time they made it into GNR.

The funny thing is that while Fortus is not without his strengths, he's featured on the album much, much less than Paul Huge. Hell, he's been in the band since 2002 and even Ron outweights him in the liner notes!

With all due respect to his readily-apparent abilities, I consider Fortus a live member, like Frank, who did a few touches on the album. Not a significant contributor in the studio outfit by any stretch. Late arrival is not a valid excuse; Bucket and Brain have songwriting credits, and their songs do not feature Paul Huge - and Paul is practically on every song written during his time. The funny thing is, Fortus is absent as well. Robin, Ron and/or Bucket do a lot of rhythm parts.

The 2001 lineup with Ron would be something to behold as the new live act if we can't have Bucket aboard. It would bring out a real band instead of replacements (aside the obvious one) and might not even be hard to accomplish. Paul's hardly a busy man in terms of music, Robin will have his NIN tenure soon come to a close, Brain might be up for touring again.

Nothing personal against Fortus (or Frank - or Ashba), but having the original studio crew performing the CD songs as a tight unit would be better than anything Axl's current lineup (whatever it may now be) can offer - simply because they are the guys chiefly responsible for their respective parts, they know how to pull it off.

Instead, we get Mr Energizer Bunny not telling us about a cover of X Japan. You're sometimes really pushing it, Richie.

You'll notice there's two camps of writers in that project.

There's the 'name' writers. They can't be arsed to attend the signing, aside RC Matheson, who's mostly A-listed through recognizability; his dad's an insanely good scribe.

The B-list of those forgettable enough to attend include

Horror film buffs will recognize Garris, Red and Salva. The former two had their brief hey-day well over a decade ago. Having not seen the Jeepers Creepers', can't really comment on Salva, but judging by his company, his elevator doesn't go too far up.

Can't blame Del for trying to scrounge some advertisement, it may be embarrassing enough as it is. Only downside is that he's turning GNR into part of the joke.

Which is something GNR has never needed any help with.

This will make top news on certain GNR fansites. The horror... The horror...

Even though it was a joke, I might say it's not because of Buzz's personality per se, rather than the fact that by agreeing with him on anything within the subject matter means you're adopting a rather glum take on the current status of the band. That status, while agreeing with Buzz, is sad to acknowledge.

CD release should've marked a big fanfare - hell, we basically had our private 'fan-fair' with the Skwerl leaks several months prior. Everybody was excited to get the music and hear it for ourselves. The BestBuy dumping and Axl not touring, GNR not reconquering a place in modern rock, the band members not getting their overdue respect in public... Just disappointing.

He was the oldest surviving recruit of the reconstruction and should've been there to promote the album, both on and off-stage. 'Should've' is a relative term, as no real promotion took place.

But he definitely deserved better than what he ultimately got, which was a 'Get out of Jail Free' card from Reznor. Over a decade went past, and that's what he got. From Axl, he got nothing after his work was done.