Actor Rob Lowe has confirmed that he is involved with the acquisition of Miramax Films from Disney by Ronald Tutor, Colony Capital and others.

In the world of direct-to-DVD sequels that's shortly to bring us Lost Boys 3, all an enterprising studio needs is the rights to a good title and a director who's willing to work fast

Lost Boys 3, the second sequel to Kiefer Sutherland's 80s vampire hit, is coming out later this year. What? You missed Lost Boys 2? Don't worry, so did Kiefer (although it does feature his half-brother Angus). Lost Boys 2, which went straight to DVD in 2008, is a poor retread of the original, but recouped its $5m budget in less than a month, paving the way for a third film. Welcome to the world of DVD sequels, where profits are high, stakes are low, and quality lower.

Back in the 90s, the direct-to-video sequel industry mainly produced animated or family films, with Disney in particular happy to churn out weak sequels for everything from Bambi to Pocahontas. However, the decreasing costs of filming and distributing DVD movies over the last decade means business has been booming; last year alone saw the release of Donnie Darko 2, The Cell 2, The Grudge 3, Bring It On 5 and American Pie 7. This year we're getting continuing instalments of Death Race, 30 Days Of Night and Mean Girls. Almost all of the major studios have set up divisions to specifically produce cheap DVD sequels which suddenly appear, seemingly out of nowhere, on the shelves of HMV.

With substantially lower development, production and marketing costs, and eager audiences to milk, it's no surprise that a cultish action move like Starship Troopers has spawned two DVD sequels (so far). And the studios have been raking it in.

"What we're doing is extending brands," says Louis Feola, president of Paramount's Home Entertainment division Paramount Famous. Feola kicked off the whole business when he was at Universal almost two decades ago. In 1992, after a successful run of original video titles (notably the Callanetics exercise range), he successfully pitched some movie ideas to management, resulting in five animated Land Before Time sequels in as many years, as well as live action sequels to genre films like Darkman and Tremors. In 2004, he oversaw Bring It On Again, the first sequel to Kirsten Dunst's cheerleading comedy, which sold 2m DVDs and highlighted the potential for profit.

Thanks to the cinematic abominations which account for the vast majority of the market, direct-to-DVD sequels have a dire reputation. Many are exploitative exercises which exist purely to mine profit, mostly produced without involvement from the original directors or writers.

'I'll tell you what, if we name this thing 8mm 2, we can immediately sell 200,000 copies based on the title alone'

"Here's what happens," explains PJ Pesce, who's been hired to direct four DVD sequels in the past decade, of the less noble end of the market. "Sometimes an independent producer will make a movie, and studio marketing guys will see it and go, 'Huh, I'll tell you what, if we name this thing 8mm 2, we can immediately sell 200,000 copies based on that title alone.'"

That's more or less what happened with Lost Boys 2, which Pesce directed. Screenwriter Hans Rodionoff had written a treatment called The Tribe, about surfing werewolves. Studios including Warner Bros rejected it for being too similar to Joel Schumacher's 1987 vampire film The Lost Boys. Then someone at Warners had a brainwave, and The Tribe soon became Lost Boys 2: The Tribe. "The studio was like, 'Hey, we can just take that and turn the werewolves into vampires,'" says Pesce. "Hans said, 'Wait a second, in vampire mythology, vampires are not supposed to be able to cross running water; there's a logical disconnect there if you're gonna have surfing vampires.' And the producers were like, 'Oh, it doesn't matter.' But what can you do at that point? You're the writer, you have a wife, you have a kid, you gotta pay the bills. Do you walk away? Or do you keep working? You gotta work."

Some film-makers have publicly distanced themselves from DVD sequels. When online buzz about the Donnie Darko sequel started building in 2008, the original's director took to his MySpace blog. "I haven't read the script," wrote Richard Kelly. "I have absolutely no involvement with this production, nor will I ever be involved. I have no control over the rights from our original film, and neither I nor my producing partner Sean McKittrick stand to make any money from this film." S Darko, which picks up with Donnie's sister seven years after the events of the first film, is indeed an unrewarding mess, but it at least makes a token effort to replicate the distinctive tone of its predecessor.

Not so with American Psycho 2: All American Girl, a perfect illustration of why so many film fans hate these things. Hollow Man 2 didn't have too many people up in arms, but when you meddle with a respected film, especially one adapted from a respected book, people get upset. The tagline for American Psycho 2 ("Angrier. Deadlier. Sexier") wilfully misses the point, and things only gets worse. The narrative connection is tenuous at best (in the prologue, the protagonist's babysitter has a date with Patrick Bateman), and the film – starring Mila Kunis and William Shatner – is thoroughly rotten, a sequel in name only.

'I've even heard that they were thinking about doing American Psycho In LA, American Psycho In Las Vegas, making a whole franchise out of it' Bret Easton Ellis

"If they're not careful they could end up with something like the Pink Panther movies," said author Bret Easton Ellis. "I've even heard that they were thinking about doing American Psycho In LA, American Psycho In Las Vegas, and making a whole franchise out of it." (Thankfully, no other sequels have materialised to date.) As with Lost Boys 2, American Psycho 2 was adapted to fit the title from another script called The Girl Who Wouldn't Die.

"To be honest," its director later said, "it was a good pay cheque and I had a lot of bills."

Then again, there are director/producer-driven DVD sequels which, despite having substantially scaled-down budgets and shooting schedules, are genuinely creative endeavours. After From Dusk Till Dawn director Robert Rodriguez hired PJ Pesce to direct the 1999 prequel The Hangman's Daughter, written by Rodriguez's cousin, the pair worked together rewriting it, with Rodriguez and the original film's writer Quentin Tarantino executive-producing. While not a classic by any means, it sold well, and last year Pesce had another good experience helming Smokin' Aces 2, which saw him working alongside the original's director Joe Carnahan.

Just as Rodriguez did, Carnahan developed a sequel plan himself and convinced the studio to back it; he felt the first film was misunderstood, and wanted the sequel to help illuminate it. Smokin' Aces 2's action sequences are slick, and Tom Berenger gives it some weight, but it's still clearly a DVD sequel; the CGI effects aren't fantastic, and it's a decidedly claustrophobic affair. Making cheap films on tight schedules is naturally constricting, and the more ambitious ones highlight the constraints.

"It's very difficult to do action-orientated, heavy-effects movies on these budgets," says Feola, who so far at Paramount has just made comedies. You only have to watch the dreadful Starship Troopers 3 for proof of that; its sets wouldn't be out of place in a 1950s B-movie, and the effects are consistently unconvincing.

'You don't get to go over budget on these things. You don't get to go over schedule, not even by an hour. If you don't come in on time, tough'

"You don't get to go over budget on these," says Pesce. "You don't get to go over schedule, not even by an hour. If you don't come in on time, tough: they'll just figure out a way to cut it without those scenes. I look back on Lost Boys 2 and think that we were fucking insane to even attempt to make that movie in 21 days. I was in Thailand on Sniper 3 and there was one day that was particularly hellish. I put my head in my hands and the script supervisor said to me, 'Well at least you're getting to make your own movie.' I took my hands away from my face and looked at her as if she was from Mars. 'Are you out of your fucking mind? What are you, on fuckin' heroin? My movie? This is the studio's movie! Do you think if I was making my movie I would call it Sniper 3?!'"

But could the DVD movie boom finally be coming to an end? As downloading increases, DVD sales are plummeting, and particularly direct-to-DVD titles.

"What used to be a fairly stable business is going through a change," Feola admits.

He won't comment on Paramount Famous's current financial state, except to insist that the division is "active in development and production". Recession and technological evolution aside, the low quality of much of the output must also be held accountable if and when the bottom falls out of the market. Maybe Lost Boys 3 will be a sharply written, beautifully acted masterpiece and revitalise the whole industry. But don't hold your breath.

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Polly Toynbee claims (Comment, 28 July) the government wants to replace public funding of the arts with private. That is simply not the case – I have always argued that private funding should be in addition to, not instead of, public money. Why? Because state funding offers stability over many years which usually philanthropy cannot. It also, with a proper arm's-length relationship, allows creative risk-taking and artistic freedom that is not always possible with other forms of funding. But the arts, too, should play their part in helping to reduce the deficit.

So we need to protect the arts, which in this country are probably the finest offered anywhere in the world. We also need to explore whether the government can do anything else to help. That's why I returned the lottery to its original four pillars, which will lead to a significant boost in arts funding. That's why I am concentrating on removing costs from the parts of my budget that are not frontline. That is also why we are right to explore whether philanthropy can be increased, with the important caveat that this will be more difficult for smaller organisations, especially those outside London. Restoring the nation's finances is in the interests of all our sectors. We don't yet know what cuts we will have to make to our budget in the autumn spending review, but this government's support for the arts remains rock solid. The 2 million people in our creative industries and our reputation as a society that is both civilised and creative demand no less. 

Jeremy Hunt MP

Secretary of state for culture, Olympics, media and sport

• As a governor of the British Film Institute at the time of the creation of the UK Film Council, I have to demur from Colin McArthur's description of the BFI's support for the UKFC as "treacherous" because the council was "designed to supplant it" (Letters, 29 July). The council was not so designed, but rather it represented a rational plan to focus official support for the film industry. The BFI's cultural functions were left untouched. OK, I will admit to naivety. The Film Council rapidly became a quango to give quangos a bad name – its chief executive earning more than the director of the Tate. He and its bloated staff have palpably failed to build a self-sustaining film industry. But we were not to know that in 2000. Not all of us at that time despised the BFI "as a ghetto peopled by unworldly intellectuals". For me it was rather a matter of its patchy record of support for production. McArthur's touching belief in the "irony" of the BFI surviving the Film Council is probably just as naive as my belief a decade ago that the Film Council was a good idea. The BFI is surely just as threatened by this government's Kulturkampf as any other cultural organisation.

Professor Brian Winston

University of Lincoln

• Arts funding
• Jeremy Hunt
• National Lottery
• Film industry

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There's seemingly no end to the amount of Hollywood blockbusters out this summer; if only John Patterson could figure out who they're aimed at

This is turning out to be the summer when I learn that Hollywood is simply no longer interested in addressing my needs as a ticket-buyer. Were I not under a professional obligation to see as many movies as possible, I wonder if I would ever have left my couch.

This week is no different: indeed, the advance buzz on Knight And Day was so lacklustre that its producers – who'd already burned through no less than seven writers – were filming reshoots as late as six weeks before release day, and the sense of desperation evident in its strident marketing push was widely noted. The hitherto bulletproof Tom Cruise (and co-star Cameron Diaz) evidently appeal to an older audience nowadays – the kids just don't care who they are – and the marketing honchos at Fox retroactively claimed they were after an older "Nick and Nora demographic". Unhappily, that market segment also stayed away in their doddering droves.

There's a sense of finality about many of the summer's big releases. Cruise accepted $11m instead of his usual $20m, in exchange for points that will never now sharpen into actual money. Jump on a couch, blow your whole career: it's kind of amazing how calamitous reaching Theta III-level status in the Church of Scientology has been for Cruise's eminence and wallet, and it's inarguable that his days as a box-office titan are firmly in the rear-view mirror. His erstwhile peer Nicolas Cage, who pissed away his millions on trashy knick-knacks for years and then came a cropper in the '08 market crash, seems willing to sign on to literally anything – as long as its another of those green-screen/CGI epics that involve never having to leave the effects studio, like The Sorcerer's Apprentice. And former golden boy M Night Shyamalan – whom I pinpointed as a burnt-out fraud by the time he released Signs – has finally hit rock bottom with The Last Airbender, which registered a pathetic 8% aggregate on Rotten Tomatoes' Tomatometer (Knight And Day squeaked over the line at 54%). Good riddance.

We've already had a third Twilight, sullenly promoted by its facially immobilised megastarlet Kristin Stewart, and a third Narnia chronicle and an umpteenth Harry Potter loom on the horizon, with the latter's three leads now all looking about 46 years old. Threequels like these are joined by remakes, throwbacks, rehashes and rip-offs like Tron Legacy, Predators, The Expendables (with its all has-been cast) and the Nth iteration of Resident Evil. Even Angelina Jolie's Salt only managed to back its way into relevance thanks to the weirdly retro Russian sleeper-agent story a few weeks ago. And get this: if things had gone as originally planned, Salt would have been Tom Cruise's big summer rollout, not Angie's.

Where yours truly fits into all of the above is a complete mystery to me; it seems I'm surplus to Hollywood requirement.

• Tom Cruise

John Patterson
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La Planète Sauvage (Fantastic Planet)
Blu-Ray, Eureka

While many directors actively pursue movie careers, some just fall into them. Such people are always worth keeping an eye on as they often deliver something unusual. Director René Laloux's path to film-making is one no one else is likely to follow. Already a keen artist, he worked in a hospital for the mentally ill when a short animated film he made with the patients as art-therapy found its way on to French television. From there he embarked on more ambitious shorts before making this, his first feature in 1973, which won the special jury prize at Cannes. Set in an unspecified time, the human race (called Oms) have been taken to a faraway planet where they are treated as pets and/or pests by giant, blue-skinned humanoid creatures (the Draags). Our hero, Terr, is gifted to a Draag child and given a humiliating doll-like costume. But Terr starts to learn enough of the Draag culture to make plans to liberate his race. With designs by Roland Topor (who wrote The Tenant, later adapted by Roman Polanski) the planet is a wonderfully imaginative place, full of strange plants and creatures that mock natural selection, such as a curious beast that shakes small fish-like birds to death for no other purpose than its own amusement. Now out on Blu-ray, the disc includes a fascinating documentary on Laloux along with five of his short films and an audio option to isolate the incredible score by occasional Serge Gainsbourg musical foil Alain Goraguer.

Shutter Island

Leonardo DiCaprio, Mark Ruffalo and Ben Kingsley star in Martin Scorsese's twisty thriller set in a secluded 1950s psychiatric hospital.

DVD & Blu-Ray, Paramount

Remember Me

Of course we do R-Patz, even when you're in a fangless romance with Emilie de Ravin and Pierce Brosnan.

DVD & Blu-Ray, E1 Entertainment

Shelter

Multiple personality disorder horror with Julianne Moore and Jonathan Rhys Meyers.

DVD & Blu-Ray, Icon

I Love You Philip Morris

Jim Carrey and Ewan McGregor ham it up in this true-life comedy about an unlikely prison romance.

DVD & Blu-Ray, E1 Entertainment

• DVD and video reviews
• Animation

Phelim O'Neill
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Flytower Films, London

The BFI Southbank and IMAX are well-stocked enough, but you won't even have to go inside them to see some films over August. Just wander along the South Bank and look up at the National Theatre's flytower, where every Friday and Saturday, free movies will be projected on to this accidental outdoor screen. For a start, the idiosyncratic Matthew Robins will be performing/projecting his "shadow opera" The Death Of Flyboy (about an insectoid mutant who's in love with a robot) and other works, then there are screenings of archive material with an Anglo-Indian focus: rare documentary footage of pre-independence life in India and stunning "cast of thousands plus the odd tiger for good measure" 1929 Rajasthan epic A Throw Of Dice. On the British side is Free Cinema footage of lost 1950s London: sweaty jazz clubs, the Festival of Britain, or a surprisingly seedy sketch of Piccadilly Circus on a Saturday night.

National Theatre Flytower, SE1, Sat to 22 Aug

Great Scots, Glasgow

When Scottish film-makers find success, they're invariably reclassified as "British" (Danny Boyle, Andrea Arnold, etc), which could explain why this patriotic showcase was so well received at the Glasgow Film Festival in February. Now it's doing the rounds of Scottish cinemas, stopping in Glasgow before heading to Eden Court in Inverness next week. Two documentaries are of particular interest: Burning, a black-and-white concert movie of sonic architects Mogwai, and a rigorous study of unsung painter and illustrator William McLaren. Both are accompanied by remarkable short films. The First Movie follows Mark Cousins (who's Northern Irish, but it was produced in Scotland) on a magical mission to bring cinema to war-torn Kurdish Iraq, while John Forsyth's quintessential 1980s comedy Gregory's Girl needs no introduction.

Glasgow Film Theatre, Wed to 25 Aug

Unknown Pleasures, Manchester

You wouldn't think there were many pleasures left to know when it comes to Joy Division, what with their tragically curtailed lifespan and meagre output, but such is the long, dark shadow they've cast over the post-punk era, we can't stop raking over the ashes. And alongside two seminal Joy Division-related films, Anton Corbijn's Control and Michael Winterbottom's 24 Hour Party People, this event, marking the 30th anniversary of Ian Curtis's death, does, indeed, produce new goods. There's previously unseen footage of their much-bootlegged gig at Plan K in Brussels in 1980, and a panel discussion including Mark Kermode, Miranda Sawyer and Control screenwriter Matt Greenhalgh. Also, running until 7 August, there's an exhibition of photographs, personal exhibits and art installations inspired by Curtis and the band.

Macclesfield Silk Museum, Sat & Sun, visit joydivisionexhibition.com

Cyclescreen, Bristol

If you feel lost once the Tour de France finishes on Sunday, pedal to Bristol for your next fix of cycle porn. There's plenty of "vanilla" road cycling for the hardcore: documentary Tour Des Légendes gives you the heritage; Breaking Away gives you the 1970s Hollywood version (with Dennis Quaid). The pedal-powered cinema gives you bike shorts and green cred at the same time, and there are films on BMX, extreme mountain biking, round-the-world touring, the revival of stationary indoor roller-racing (Rollapalooza!), even cycling blind, plus on-hand advice.

Watershed, Thu to 8 Aug

Steve Rose
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The A-Team (12A)
(Joe Carnahan, 2010, US) Liam Neeson, Bradley Cooper, Jessica Biel. 119 mins

VERSUS

The Karate Kid (PG)
(Harald Zwart, 2010, US) Jaden Smith, Jackie Chan, Taraji P Henson. 140 mins

Who should you put your money on in the clash of the 1980s remakes? In the red corner, a meat locker full of wisecracking testosterone; in the blue, a Hollywood brat chop-socking it to the Chinese. Both bring their stories up-to-date (the A-Team are now post-Iraq special ops; the Karate Kid is set in Beijing, and more of a kung fu kid), while playing on the old shtick, and both overstay their welcome by a good half-hour. The A-Team strikes the right cartoony tone, but then bludgeons you into boredom with action. The Karate Kid at least earns its predictable payoff, despite the nepotism and tourist-brochure China. It's no knockout, but the Kid wins this bout on points.

Gainsbourg (15)
(Joann Sfar, 2010, Fra/US) Eric Elmosnino, Lucy Gordon, Laetitia Casta. 122 mins

Adapting his own comic book, Sfar zig-zags through the scandalously sleazy life of Serge with invention and panache, even if it starts to lose its direction in the latter stages. Much of this will go over non-French heads, too, but Elmosnino does a fine impersonation, and you can't go far wrong with Gainsbourg's famous friends, his risqué exploits and, of course, his music.

Down Terrace (15)
Ben Wheatley, 2009, UK) Julia Deakin, Robert Hill, Robin Hill. 89 mins

Domestic black comedy curdles into kitchen-sink suspense in this housebound lo-fi drama, as a volatile Brighton crime family try to work out who ratted on them, and take things too far. It's a little uneven, but strangely compelling.

Beautiful Kate (15)
(Rachel Ward, 2009, Aus) Ben Mendelsohn, Bryan Brown, Rachel Griffiths. 101 mins

A grown-up son's return to his Outback homestead, complete with grouchy dying father, opens up a rusty old can of family worms, with a Big Tragedy From The Past just waiting to be broached. Artsy images and a quality cast help it along, but taboo topics never felt so unsurprising.

Separado! (NC)
(Dyl Jones, Gruff Rhys, 2009, UK/Arg/Bra) 84 mins

Super Furries frontman Gruff heads to South America to hunt for a long-lost uncle (once a singing gaucho), trace Welsh connections and jam with eccentric outsider musicians in a gently psychedelic travelogue that's carried off by his self-effacing charm.

South Of The Border (15)
(Oliver Stone, 2009, US) 78 mins

Stone meets Hugo Chávez and other leftist leaders bent on the destruction of America, in a sympathetic, almost sycophantic South American tour designed to make Fox News explode with rage.

Frontier Blues (12A)
(Babak Jalali, 2009, Iraq/UK/Ita) Mahmoud Kalteh, Khajeh Araz Dordi. 97 mins

Deadpan but over-sparse collection of arthouse-friendly comical episodes from Iran's Turkmenistan border, featuring a cast of characters who could be a lethargic branch of Borat's extended family.

OUT NEXT WEEK

Undertow

Unorthodox gay-themed Peruvian ghost story – yes, another one. With Tatiana Astengo, Manolo Cardon.

Cats & Dogs: The Revenge Of Kitty Galore

Talking pets save the world, again.

Out from Wednesday

Coco Chanel & Igor Stravinsky

Biopic virtually picking up where Audrey Tautou's Coco Before Chanel left off.

Knight And Day

Tom Cruise pretends he's crazy in a good way, by abducting Cameron Diaz.

Eccentricities Of A Blonde-Haired Girl

Trifling romantic tale from Portuguese old-schooler Manoel de Oliveira.

Step Up 3-D

More taking it to the next level for the streetdance set.

COMING SOON

In two weeks … Argentina's Oscar-winner The Secret In Their Eyes …

In three weeks … Stallone leads action hero reunion The Expendables … While Angelina Jolie does her bit for action heroines with Salt …

In a month … Michael Cera rocks out in Scott Pilgrim Vs The World … It's funky up north in SoulBoy … Swedish journo Mikael Blomkvist meets The Girl Who Played With Fire …

The guide
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The Walt Disney Co. has agreed to sell Miramax Films to an investor group for about $660m (£420m), ending a 17-year association with the studio and a six-month bidding process.

Elizabeth Mitchell, Morena Baccarin, Scott Wolf, Laura Vandervoort, Morris Chestnut and Joel Gretsch discuss the second season of this ABC sci-fi hit.

The former Punisher actor discusses his role as the voice of the classic DC Comics Western anti-hero in the new animated short film.

Bruce Timm and Alan Burnett discuss the next wave of DC Showcase animated short films.