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French Film, TV Execs Debate Industry Challenges, Prospects At Arp Confab
1 hour ago
Paris– Canal Plus Group’s CEO Maxime Saada, Gaumont Intl. boss Cecile Gaget, “The Artist” helmer Michel Hazanavicius and the Cnc’s (National Film Board) Xavier Lardou were among the top film execs at the 25th edition of the Rencontres Cinematographiques confab hosted by the Arp (authors, directors, producers’ guild) in Dijon, France.
The conference marked Saada’s first high-profile debate since being tapped CEO of Canal Plus Group, the Vivendi-owned pay TV giant, in July.
Saada, who attended the first debate of the confab on Oct. 23 along with Gaget, Hazanavicius and French producer Mathieu Tarot, said Canal Plus Group and its film banner Studiocanal were to invest more in development to encourage producers to come up with stronger scripts and venture more often into genre, tackle more ambitious projects.
Although Canal Plus Group signed a five-year agreement last May to invest 12.5% of annual revenues in French or other-European films »
- Elsa Keslassy
‘The Martian’ Tops Foreign Box Office, ‘Ant-Man’ Nears $500 Million Mark
2 hours ago
“The Martian” topped foreign box office charts, adding $30 million to its total and pushing the science fiction epic toward the $400 million mark globally.
As it currently stands, “The Martian” is director Ridley Scott’s third highest-grossing picture when not adjusted for inflation, behind “Gladiator” ($457.6 million) and “Prometheus” ($403.3 million). Given that it has yet to touch down in China, the picture, which has made $385.1 million so far, should have no trouble becoming the filmmaker’s biggest hit.
In second place, “Hotel Transylvania 2” picked up $28.7 million, pushing its global haul to $315.8 million. At this rate, the animated sequel should pass its predecessor’s $358.4 million haul.
Marvel’s “Ant-Man” got a big lift from China, where the superhero picture is doing brisk business. It added $22 million to its $493 million global gross, with the bulk of that coming from the People’s Republic. It has made $81.9 million after just 10 days of release in the Asian nation. »
- Brent Lang
Kristen Wiig on ‘Ghostbusters’ Backlash: ‘It Just Bummed Me Out’
2 hours ago
When an all-female reboot of “Ghostbusters” was announced, many fans took to social media to decry the gender bending, and one of the new additions to the spirit-busting crew, Kristen Wiig, was not happy about the backlash.
In an interview with the La Times to promote her new film “Nasty Baby,” Wiig revealed that she was “bummed” about the gender-focused controversy, and said this is the first film that she’s been a part of that’s garnered so much attention.
“The fact there was so much controversy because we were women was surprising to me,” she said. “Some people said some really not nice things about the fact that there were women. It didn’t make me mad, it just really bummed me out. We’re really honoring those movies.”
Paul Feig, who is directing the reboot, had a similar experience after the film was announced. Feig told Variety »
- Alex Stedman
‘Steve Jobs’ Bombs: What Went Wrong With the Apple Drama
2 hours ago
When Amy Pascal allowed “Steve Jobs” to leave Sony for Universal, the studio chief fretted that she had let a modern day “Citizen Kane” slip through her fingers.
The strikingly literate biopic about the Apple co-founder was brilliant she noted, but after Leonardo DiCaprio and Christian Bale passed on the title role, it lacked a major star, limiting its commercial prospects. In the end, Pascal, whose job was already threatened by a string of flops like “After Earth” and “White House Down,” couldn’t justify the risk.
Fast-forward nearly a year. Pascal is out of a job, “Steve Jobs” has debuted to rapturous reviews, and the film is a strong Oscar contender. It’s every bit as good as Pascal thought it would be, but the then Sony chief’s wariness also appears to have been entirely justified.
“Steve Jobs” was too brainy, too cold, and too expensive to make it a success. »
- Brent Lang
‘Super Troopers 2’ Launches Production
2 hours ago
The Broken Lizard comedy troupe has begun production “Super Troopers 2,” six months after raising $4.4 million in a crowdfunding campaign for the sequel.
The campaign had been the second-most successful crowdfunding campaign for a movie. It was funded through Indiegogo with over 50,000 contributors and raised 77% of the $5.7 million record for crowdfunding for a film, set by the “Veronica Mars” movie on Kickstarter in 2013.
Perks offered as incentives that were sold on the first day included a producer title for $10,000, a speaking actor role for $10,000, a trip to the ballpark with the main actors for $15,000 and the patrol car to be used in the filming for $35,000.
“Super Troopers 2” met the initial goal of $2 million in 26 hours. Fox Searchlight agreed to release the sequel if the $2 million goal was met.
“Super Troopers 2” reunites all five Troopers from the original film — Jay Chandrasekhar, Kevin Heffernan, Steve Lemme, Paul Soter and Erik Stolhanske. »
- Dave McNary
Morelia: Tim Roth, Mexico’s Michel Franco, in Pic Partnership Talks
3 hours ago
Morelia – Laurelled with big prizes at Berlin, Cannes and Venice – Mexico’s Lucia Films, co-founded by Michel Franco (“After Lucia,” “Chronic”), is in talks with Tim Roth for at least two films as Lucia also eyes its entry into TV production.
Rolling off the Franco-directed “Chronic,” a Cannes best screenplay winner, and Gabriel Franco’s Berlin Best First Feature winner “600 Miles,” both starring Roth, the alliance would see Roth boarding as a producer Franco’s next movie as a director, which is scheduled to roll in May. Ripstein, who produced “Chronic,” and Venezuela’s Lorenzo Vigas, whose “From Afar” took this year’s Venice Golden Lion, would also be involved in a production capacity, Franco said at Mexico’s Morelia Fest, where “Chronic” received its Mexico premiere.
Franco’s would then produce an upcoming movie directed by Roth, which Roth said he was keen to shoot in Mexico.
Given the »
- John Hopewell
Reese Witherspoon: The World is ‘Ready’ for ‘Legally Blonde 3’
3 hours ago
Ready to bend and snap once again? Reese Witherspoon may be.
In an appearance on “Fashionably Late with Rachel Zoe,” Witherspoon said she’d like to see the indomitable Elle Woods take on the Oval Office.
“I think we’re ready to see Elle and see what she’s up to lately,” she said, responding to a fan question.
“A lot of writers over the years have come up with different ideas for it,” Witherspoon went on. “I actually think it’s kind of great right now because we’re talking about women in politics and how important that is to get more women. And I think it’d be kind of a cool thing to have her be a Supreme Court justice or someone who runs for office.”
The actress acknowledged that her opinion alone wouldn’t be enough to greenlight another sequel, adding, “Call MGM!,” the studio behind the movies. »
- Alex Stedman
‘Paranormal Activity: The Ghost Dimension’ Flop Shouldn’t End Early VOD Experiments
4 hours ago
“Paranormal Activity: The Ghost Dimension” represented a bold distribution experiment and an unprecedented alliance between a major studio and a handful of exhibitors.
By cutting theater chains in on digital revenues, Paramount, the studio behind the horror franchise, was allowed to release the film online 17 days after it left most screens. It could have revolutionized the movie business, offering up a new model for the way that Hollywood releases its more modestly budgeted offerings for mass consumption. Unfortunately, it was a gambit that failed to pay off.
Resistance from three of the country’s four biggest chains limited the film’s theatrical footprint. It opened to just $8.2 million on 1,656 screens, roughly 1,000 fewer locations than the previous film in the horror series. That was the worst kick-off in the franchise’s six-film history and significantly below tracking that suggested it might open to $20 million if it had more screens.
“My gut »
- Brent Lang
Police Union Calls for Boycott of Quentin Tarantino After Cop Brutality Protest
4 hours ago
After Quentin Tarantino took part in a anti-police brutality rally in New York this weekend, the city’s police union is firing back at the director, calling for boycott of his movies.
Tarantino fired up the crowd with a speech, accompanied by images of those who have been killed by police, prominently Justin Smith, who was killed in 1999 while in police custody after spitting on officers.
“I’m a human being with a conscience,” said the “Hateful Eight” director at the rally, according to media reports. “And if you believe there’s murder going on then you need to rise up and stand up against it. I’m here to say I’m on the side of the murdered.”
“This is not being dealt with in anyway at all,” he added. “That’s why we are out here. If it was being dealt with, then these murdering cops would be »
- Alex Stedman
Afm: Henry Ian Cusick’s ‘Frank vs. God’ Making Market Premiere
4 hours ago
Bba Studios’ spiritual comedy “Frank vs. God,” starring Henry Ian Cusick, will make its market premiere at the American Film Market with 4squarefilms handling international sales.
Stewart Schill directed from his own script, in which a former hotshot lawyer decides to serve God with a lawsuit after his house is destroyed by a tornado and his insurance company deems the incident “an act of God.” Producers are Alan Pruzan, Scott Schill, Jillian Stein, Jeff Merriman-Cohen and Dan Springen.
Cusick is known for “Lost” and “The 100.” Ever Carradine also stars.
Schill directed “Brittle Glory,” starring Tony Curtis, and has TV credits on “Charmed,” “Dexter,” “Battlestar Galactica” and “American Horror Story.”
“Frank vs. God” won the audience award at the Fort Lauderdale and Maui film festivals last year.
»
- Dave McNary
Box Office Massacre: ‘Last Witch Hunter,’ ‘Paranormal Activity 6’ and ‘Steve Jobs’ Flop
8 hours ago
It was a pre-Halloween massacre at the multiplexes.
Four new films, including “Paranormal Activity: The Ghost Dimension” and Vin Diesel’s “The Last Witch Hunter,” crowded into theaters this weekend and were swiftly pulverized and left for dead. Another, “Steve Jobs,” expanded after a brisk limited run in a few key cities, only to be given the cold shoulder by the general public.
Their failures allowed a trio of holdovers — “The Martian,” “Goosebumps” and “Bridge of Spies” — to retain the top three spots on the box office chart.
“The quality of many of these films was so atrocious that it didn’t matter where you opened them,” said Jeff Bock, a box office analyst with Exhibitor Relations. “They were never going to do well.”
When the dust settled it was Ridley Scott’s “The Martian” in first place, adding $15.9 million to the Fox release’s impressive $166.4 million domestic haul. Sony »
- Brent Lang
Pan Nalin’s ‘Angry Indian Goddesses’ Wins Rome Film Fest’s People’s Choice Award
8 hours ago
Pan Nalin’s all-female Bollywood buddy movie “Angry Indian Goddesses” continued its successful run on the fall film festival circuit, winning the Bnl People’s Choice Award on Sunday at the 10th Rome Film Festival.
The Rome win for “Goddesses” follows its world premiere at Tiff, where it came second to Lenny Abrahamson’s “Room” in the People’s Choice awards there. Pic got an eight-minute standing ovation at its Rome premiere last week.
Starring Sarah-Jane Dias, “Goddesses” tells the story of Frieda, a strong-willed fashion photographer who summons her friends to Goa, where she surprises them by revealing her plans to get married. As the holiday turns into a raucous bachelorette party, the women share secrets, fight and ultimately bond.
“It makes me particularly happy that this film was voted the winner, because one of the goals I had set for myself was to offer the audience high quality »
- Damon Wise
Morelia: Gabriel Ripstein on Tim Roth Starrer ‘600 Miles’
9 hours ago
Morelia – Variety first interviewed Gabriel Ripstein about “600 Miles” when he was still “delighted, very surprised and very excited” at being told his film would open Berlin’s Panorama: A remarkable achievement for a director who had never directed anything before “600 Miles,” not one short. There’s been much water under the bridge since then. “600 Miles” went on to win Best First Feature at Berlin, win the Guadalajara Festival’s Mezcal Prize for best Mexico feature, and be chosen as Mexico’s Academy Award entry. Ripstein also produced Lucia Films partner Michel Franco’s “Chronic,” which took best screenplay at Cannes. Lucia Films, with Guillermo Arriaga, co-produced Venice Golden Lion winner, “From Afar.”
A drama-thriller-come-road movie and relationship drama, “600 Miles” has Roth playing Atf agent Hank Harris, who is following a young gun trafficker between the U.S. and Mexico. After a risky mistake by Harris, Rubio makes a desperate decision: »
- John Hopewell
Film Review: ‘Behemoth’
15 hours ago
Maverick indie helmer Zhao Liang continues his muckraking tour of China’s social and environmental woes with the stunningly lensed, cumulatively moving “Behemoth.” Acting as a modern-day Dante on a tour through Inner Mongolia’s coal mines and iron works, Zhao (“Together,” “Petition”) eschews narrative for an impressively self-shot poetic exercise in controlled righteous outrage, emphasizing the contrasts between rapidly dwindling green pastures and dead landscapes disemboweled by toxic mining. The human toll is also here in the final sections, making starkly clear the price impoverished workers pay for back-breaking labor. Zhao’s quiet yet powerful indignation will play to the arthouse crowd, and his striking visuals should ensure that “Behemoth” receives berths beyond environmental fests.
Auds will split over whether the passages from “The Divine Comedy” excerpted here add a weight of pretension, but most will be able to compartmentalize that not-ungrounded gripe and focus on the skilled lensing and the disturbing message, »
- Jay Weissberg
Film Review: ‘Extraordinary Tales’
15 hours ago
Five stories of the macabre tend more toward monotony in the strikingly animated but rather wishfully titled “Extraordinary Tales.” Spanish writer-director Raul Garcia has brought considerable care and artistry to bear on this omnibus of the ominous inspired by the writings of Edgar Allan Poe, though not even the use of a different drawing style for each yarn can ward off a creeping sense of inertia; with a few exceptions, this death-obsessed affair never fully sparks to life. Released in Stateside theaters just in time for Halloween, the GKids pickup should appeal to young adults and toon buffs inclined toward non-mainstream animated fare, even if it only intermittently captures a sense of Poe’s telltale art.
A veteran animator who has worked on any number of Disney features (“Aladdin,” “The Lion King,” “The Hunchback of Notre Dame”) and co-directed 2008’s “The Missing Lynx,” Garcia has adapted Poe’s fiction in admirably straightforward fashion, »
- Justin Chang
Film Review: ‘The 33’
17 hours ago
Five years ago, the world held its collective breath as 33 miners, trapped for 69 days after a cave-in at the San Jose Mine in Chile’s Atacama Desert, emerged one-by-one from a capsule lowered 2,300 feet below the surface. As a real-time TV event, it was every bit as riveting as O.J. Simpson in the white Bronco, but considerably more inspiring, thanks to the bravery of the miners and the persistence and ingenuity of the rescue effort. Based on Hector Tobar’s book “Deep Down Dark,” “The 33” aims for a comprehensive survey of efforts above ground and below, but winds up looking less like a sober docudrama than a ginned-up Irwin Allen disaster movie. The inherent uplift of the story may survive the wafer-thin characterizations and the conspicuously non-Chilean ensemble, but box office success is hardly an ace in the hole.
The trouble begins almost immediately, as director Patricia Riggen (“Girl in Progress »
- Scott Tobias
Tokyo: ‘Sayonara’ Filmmakers Debate Future of Robot Actors
22 hours ago
Are the days of flesh-and-blood actors numbered? Audiences at Tokyo International Film Festival (Tiff) now have a chance to answer the question for themselves.
Festival-goers were this weekend treated to what makers claimed is the first movie to feature an android performing opposite a human actor.
Koji Fukada’s “Sayonara,” which had its world premiere Saturday as part of Tiff’s competition section, showcases the thespian talents of Geminoid-f, an eerily lifelike female android created by roboticist Hiroshi Ishiguro.
The film is adapted from a short play by Oriza Hirata, first staged in 2010 by Hirata’s Seinendan Theater Company. Japanese-speaking actress Bryerly Long, who starred opposite Geminoid-f in the original stage production, reprises the role in the movie.
“In some ways, this is a new form of puppet theater,” Long said at a Tiff press conference, as her android co-star sat quietly to one side.
Ishiguro – who also has an android copy of himself, »
- James Hadfield
Tokyo Film Review: ‘The Actor’
22 hours ago
One of those “actors are real people, too” romantic comedies, a la “Lost in Translation” or “Win a Date With Tad Hamilton,” in which a jaded showbiz type mellows after falling for a genuine down-to-earth gal, Satoko Yokohama’s “The Actor” puts a Japanese twist on a relatively common Western plot, while giving local thesp Ken Yasuda the juiciest role of either his or his onscreen persona’s career. Crafted according to local commercial customs, yet remarkably playful in its own right, the film blurs the lines between its protagonist’s best-known roles — a mix of samurai, gangsters and so forth — and the off-script personal life he’s trying to cobble together offscreen. The result proves clever enough for the Japanese market, and yet a wee bit tricky for foreigners to follow.
Though reasonably well respected for his ability to improvise in character, Takuji Kameoka (Yasuda) seems to have forgotten who he really is, »
- Peter Debruge
Tokyo: Gundam Still Has Relevance, Says Yoshiyuki Tomino
23 hours ago
Yoshiyuki Tomino, the 73-year-old creator of the “Mobile Suit Gundam” robot anime franchise, engaged in a rapid-fire exchange of ideas that hopscotched from an analysis of Tomino’s enduringly popular series to topics ranging from future energy sources to the human-robot relationship.
Honored this year with a major retrospective at the Tokyo International Film Festival, he was speaking Friday at the Shinjuku Piccadilly theater at a talk event that pitched him opposite 27-year-old media artist and University of Tsukuba assistant professor Yoichi Ochiai.
Preceding the onstage interview was a screening of episodes of the “Gundam Reconguista in G” anime series. Broadcast from October 2014 to March, 2015, it was the first new “Gundam” series for television Tomino had written and directed since 1999.
Tomino stoutly defended the show’s traditional hand-drawn 2D style as “a culture developed in the 20th Century.” “I made (the series) as a work that will be my legacy, »
- Mark Schilling
Focus Features Options ‘This Is Your Life, Harriet Chance!’
23 hours ago
Focus Features has optioned Jonathan Evison’s novel “This Is Your Life, Harriet Chance!,” Variety has confirmed.
Evison made the announcement on his Facebook page on Wednesday, saying, “Focus Features has optioned Harriet Chance and has big plans for it . . . humbled and grateful yet again.”
“Chance” follows the titular Harriet, age 78, who decides to go on an Alaskan cruise that her husband had planned before his death.
One of Evison’s other novels, “The Revised Fundamentals of Caregiving,” is also getting the big-screen treatment. An adaptation is in the works with Paul Rudd and Selena Gomez attached to star. Rob Burnett will direct from his own screenplay, which follows two men with Duchenne Muscular Dystrophy who become friends.
»
- Marianne Zumberge
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