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WWE Studio’s ‘Leprechaun: Origins’ Gets Theatrical Release (Exclusive)
27 minutes ago
The reboot of the “Leprechaun” horror franchise will scare audiences in theaters after all.
Lionsgate and WWE Studios, which had planned to release “Leprechaun: Origins” direct to home entertainment platforms on Aug. 26, will now also give the film a limited release in theaters on Aug. 22, after a presentation for the film was well received at Comic-Con in San Diego last month.
The release is expected to help serve as a marketing tool for the release on Digital HD, video-on-demand and pay-per-view platforms, and later on Blu-ray and DVD in September.
“Leprechaun: Origins” stars Dylan Postl, known in the WWE ring as “Hornswoggle,” as the creature; Stephanie Bennett (“Grave Encounters 2″), Andrew Dunbar (“Alien Trespass”), Melissa Roxburgh (“Diary of a Wimpy Kid: Dog Days”) and Brendan Fletcher (“Freddy vs Jason”), and revolves around two unsuspecting young couples who discover a town’s chilling secret while backpacking through the Irish countryside.
- Marc Graser
‘Guardians of the Galaxy’ Lifts U.S. Box Office After Weeks of Declines
3 hours ago
“Guardians of the Galaxy” injected life into a summer box office that was looking positively moribund.
The Marvel release landed in U.S. theaters with a smashing $94 million debut last weekend, crushing estimates that had pegged an opening in the $70 million range. Those otherworldly results lifted the overall domestic box office.
Going into the weekend, summer ticket sales were off more than 20% from last year’s record-breaker. Thanks to “Guardians,” they now are down 18%, according to Rentrak. The summer box office currently stands at $3.2 billion compared with $3.9 billion at the same point in 2013.
“Summer ain’t over,” said Paul Dergarabedian, senior media analyst at Rentrak. “To move the needle one percent in one weekend is a lot. If we can get so we’re 12 or 15 percent down by the end of summer, that’s a more manageable deficit.”
After eight straight weeks of declines, last weekend was up 34.6% over the previous year’s haul. »
- Brent Lang
‘Blacklist’ Actor Harry Lennix Launches Movie Production Company (Exclusive)
4 hours ago
Harry Lennix, who played a general in “Man of Steel” and the assistant director of the FBI Counterterrorism Division on NBC’s “The Blacklist,” has quietly become a prolific producer with three movie projects already completed.
“I decided that I needed to take control,” the Chicago native told Variety.
He’s starred in and financed “H4,” a street version of William Shakespeare’s “Henry IV”; “Mr. Sophistication,” chronicling the journey of a stand-up comedian inspired by Lenny Bruce and Richard Pryor; and “Revival,” a gospel concert movie starring Mali Music, described by Lennix as “‘Jesus Christ Superstar’ meets ‘The Wiz.'”
With longtime associate Steve Harris, the duo has formed Exponent Media Group and made a distribution deal for “H4″ and the concert movie to be shown through Nehst Media’s Digiplex chain early next year. He’s assembling investors for a film fund with plans for five more films »
- Dave McNary
David Kosse Named Chief of Channel 4’s Movie Production Arm Film4
4 hours ago
London — David Kosse has been appointed as director of Channel 4’s feature filmmaking division Film4.
Kosse joins from Universal Pictures where he is president, international, and will take up his new post on Nov. 1.
Kosse will oversee the development, financing and green-lighting of all feature films, and support for the production and distribution of all Film4-backed releases both in the U.K. and internationally.
Kosse replaces Tessa Ross, who announced her departure in March to become chief executive of the National Theatre. Kosse will report directly to Channel 4 chief executive David Abraham.
Recent films backed by Film4 include Steve McQueen’s “12 Years a Slave,” Mike Leigh’s “Mr. Turner,” Ken Loach’s “Jimmy Hall” and Jonathan Glazer’s “Under the Skin.”
Upcoming pics include Lone Scherfig’s drama about a boisterous Oxford student dining club, “The Riot Club,” and Kevin Macdonald’s adventure thriller “Black Sea,” starring Jude Law. »
- Leo Barraclough
Korean Box Office Dominated by Record Breaking ‘Roaring Currents’
10 hours ago
Seoul — Decent performances at the South Korean box office by “How To Train Your Dragon 2″ and “Kundo The Rampant” were overshadowed as local period actioner “Roaring Currents” delivered an unprecedented first weekend performance. A global phenomenon elsewhere, “Guardians of the Galaxy” only opened in fourth place.
Released on Wednesday July 30, “Roaring Currents” attracted 3.68 million spectators over the strictly defined Fri-Sun weekend, and finished the fuller five day weekend with a total of 4.759 million tickets sold. In cash terms that was a five day score of $35.5 million (KRW36.8 billion).
In a statement, distributor Cj Entertainment said that the film passed the symbolic 5 million ticket sales mark at 9.30 am today (Monday, Aug. 4).
The film was aided by a super-wide release of over 1,500 screens and the marketing firepower of the country’s largest distributor. That Cj is part of the same vertically and horizontally conglomerate that also includes South Korea’s biggest cinema chain, »
- Nemo Kim
Film Review: ‘Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles’
10 hours ago
If nothing else, Paramount’s attempt at a bigscreen “Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles” reboot should make for a fascinating case study in the power of fan outrage. Following the online uproar over their proposed deviations from the original material, among them a shortened title (“Ninja Turtles”) and a bizarre alien-planet backstory, producer Michael Bay and director Jonathan Liebesman have delivered a back-to-basics origin saga that is neither a particularly good movie nor the pop-cultural travesty that some were dreading. Much slicker-looking but less endearing than its ’90s live-action predecessors, the film manifests all the usual attributes of a Bay production — chaotic action, crass side jokes, visual-effects overkill, Megan Fox — but is nowhere near “Transformers”-level off-putting. It should be a pretty easy shell to audiences worldwide.
Conceived in the ’80s as a good-natured spoof of superhero mythologies by comicbook artists Peter Laird and Kevin Eastman, those crime-fighting chelonians known as Leonardo, »
- Justin Chang
Ann Hui to Receive Busan Festival Award
13 hours ago
Hong Kong – Hong Kong-director Ann Hui will receive the Busan Festival’s Asian Filmmaker of the Year Award.
Her latest work “The Golden Era,” which is also set as the closing film of the Venice festival, will be given a gala screening in Busan.
The festival, which presents the award annually to an individual who has significantly contributed to the development of the Asian film industry and Asian culture said that the award acknowledged Hui’s “contribution to Asian cinema, and … [the] spirit that produced outstanding works of the generation.”
Hui was among the leaders of Hong Kong’s ‘New Wave movement’ and pioneered the golden era of Hong Kong cinema. She is particularly skilled in portraying the joys and sorrows of the lower and middle class in Hong Kong, and lives of women through varied film genres.
Her films include “Love in a Fallen City” (1984), “Eighteen Springs” (1997), “Visible Secret” (2001) and »
- Patrick Frater
Japan’s Studio Ghibli Envisages Short Break, not Imminent Closure
13 hours ago
Tokyo — Veteran Studio Ghibli producer Toshio Suzuki discussed the famed animation house’s future in a documentary broadcast by the TBS network on its “Jonetsu Tairiku” program on Sunday evening.
Suzuki talked about the need for “big changes in all aspects of our operations.” One possibility he mentioned was a hiatus in the production department and taking what he described as a “short break” to assess the studio’s future.
He added that it “would be possible for us to keep making films indefinitely.”
Such short breaks are common in the Japanese animation business, in which companies hire animators on a per-project basis and dissolve the production teams, save for a few key staff, when the project is completed.
Studio Ghilbi was unusual in retaining a large number of full-time staff by industry standards, with annual personnel expenses totaling nearly $20 million by one estimate.
But with the retirement of studio »
- Mark Schilling
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