Roger Ebert's Thumb War

Mon., Aug. 27, 2007 12:12 PM PDT by Joal Ryan

Don't blame Roger Ebert if At the Movies isn't all thumbs anymore.

So says the famed critic after Ebert's TV bosses at Disney announced the show's judgmental digits were being kept under wraps due to a contract dispute.

"Contrary to Disney's press release," Ebert wrote on his Website, "I did not demand the removal of the Thumbs."

The capitalization was Ebert's.

The controversy of the thumbs went public last Friday when Disney-ABC Domestic Television, the distributor of At the Movies with Ebert & Roeper, issued a statement to the Associated Press noting that Ebert had "exercised his right to withhold use of the 'thumbs' until a new contract is signed."

Ebert fired right back.

"They [Disney] made a first [contract] offer on Friday, which I considered offensively low. I responded with a counter-offer," Ebert wrote. "They did not reply to this, and on Monday ordered the Thumbs removed from the show."

The thumbs were seen as recently as the weekend of Aug. 18-19, weighing in on the likes of Invasion and Superbad. But according to the AP, at least two week's worth of At the Movies episodes have now been shot minus the thumbs-up, thumbs-down designations. Additionally, the show's Website is currently a thumbs-free zone, not including its clip archives.

"This is not something I expected after an association of over 22 years [with Disney]," Ebert wrote. "I had made it clear the Thumbs could remain during good-faith negotiations."

Disney-ABC did not immediately respond Monday to a message left seeking new comment.

The thumbs, or Thumbs, have been part of Ebert's TV repertoire for more than 30 years, dating back to his and founding partner Gene Siskel's first local review show in Chicago. Then as now, the thumbs were called upon to signify whether a movie ultimately was a must-see, the coveted thumb-up, or a must-not-see, the inglorious thumb-down.

No mere ordinary fingers, the thumbs were trademarked by Ebert and Siskel, and traveled with them as they moved from local TV to public television to syndication.

Siskel died in 1999, but At the Movies and the thumbs lived on. Richard Roeper's digit began regularly costarring alongside Ebert's in 2000.

Ebert's recent health troubles--he's been left speechless since a series of maladies stemming from a reoccurrence of salivary cancer--have kept him away from the At the Movies balcony for more than a year. But of late, Ebert, 65, has returned to his reviewing duties for the Chicago Sun-Times, even subjecting himself to the zero-starred Jon Voight movie September Dawn, and hopes more surgery can restore his voice.

In its statement last week, Disney said it hoped Ebert would eventually return to At the Movies.

On that point, at least, the studio and Ebert agree.

"I love the show, and I love the Thumbs," Ebert wrote, "and I hope we will all be reunited soon."