All articles by Adam Minns – Page 16
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UK Film Council backs Dog Soldiers follow up
Neil Marshall, director of UK werewolf hit Dog Soldiers, is returning to the horror genre with Outpost, one of a fresh slate of projects to receive development funding from public funding body the UK Film Council this week.In a premise similar to Marshall's hit debut, which follows a squad of ...
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UK Film Council plans nationwide film school network
The UK Film Council is understood to be planning a nationwide network of state-of-the-art film schools.The ambitious initiative is expected to be proposed next month when the Council, the UK's leading source of National Lottery cash, unveils the results of a high-powered training working group it launched in February with ...
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Reda resigns from Winchester board
Winchester Films' US-based CEO Hadeel Reda has left the board of directors of its UK parent Winchester Entertainment and is shedding her title of chief executive officer.Reda is to pursue independent producing but will continue overseeing Winchester's ongoing US projects and seek projects for the company's international sales team."I've been ...
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UK Film Council launches digital cinema initiative
The UK Film Council's distribution and exhibition fund has launched its much-anticipated initiative to co-fund a nationwide network of digital screens.The National Lottery-fund scheme will invest £13m in setting up 250 digital screens. The screens will be located in approximately 150 existing cinema sites around the country, over a quarter ...
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UK lottery franchises get extensions
The UK Film Council has granted extensions to two of the three National Lottery franchises - The Film Consortium and Pathe Pictures - to spend their remaining lottery grants.The third franchise, DNA Films, is still negotiating with the council but the talks are part of a more complicated deal between ...
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Metrodome takes UK rights to Northfork
Buoyed by Donnie Darko, which last week helped slash its annual losses by two thirds, UK media concern the Metrodome Group has acquired another surreal US Sundance film, Northfork, from Paramount Classics. Metrodome picked up UK theatrical and home video rights to the film, which stars Nick Nolte, Daryl Hannah, ...
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Qwerty takes on Kinsey, Searchlight, Myriad to distribute
Michael Kuhn’s Qwerty Films has boarded Bill Condon’s Kinsey which is set to start shooting on July 28. Qwerty will produce and finance the film which stars Liam Neeson and Laura Linney, with Fox Searchlight Pictures taking rights in North America, UK, Italy and Latin America.Kuhn closed a ten-picture distribution ...
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Spurgeon named finance director at UK's South West Studios
Former FilmFour finance director Chris Spurgeon has taken up the post of finance director at start-up UK film and TV studio South West Film Studios.Joining Spurgeon at the $9.4m (£5.76m) Cornwall facility is Kate Hughes, former head of corporate marketing & publicity for FilmFour. Hughes becomes marketing director at the ...
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New UK distributor, Georgia Films, launched
UK-based tax financier Lucky UKFS, headed by Philippe Martinez of US production-sales outfit Bauer Martinez Studios and Alan Latham, has appointed distributor Martin Myers to launch a new UK distributor, Georgia Films.The venture is kicking off with a September release for Citizen Verdict, Bauer Martinez's thriller about a reality TV ...
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UK's Metrodome reduces losses by 30%
UK media concern Metrodome Group slashed its losses over the last financial year, largely driven by its UK release of US indie film Donnie Darko.The company, which has been refocusing on distributing film and TV product, posted losses for the full year after taxation of $1.8m (£1.1m), almost a third ...
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UK's Script Factory launches training programme for writers
Lawless Heart director Neil Hunter and producers Andrea Calderwood, Robyn Slovo and Kate Ogborn are to act as mentors for young writers on a new teaching programme launched by writers training The Script Factory.The week-long workshop kicks off on July 14 and will benefit ten up-and-coming young screenwriters.The writers will ...
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T3's first day gross of $16.5m sends Intermedia shares soaring
Having climbed 19% lastweek, Intermedia shares had rocketed a further 18% by press time yesterday asopening figures for Terminator 3: Rise Of The Machines came in. The film, which grossed $4m on Tuesdaynight previews, took $12.5m on its first full day on release yesterday throughWarner Bros, bringing its first day ...
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Internationalmedia stock gets boost from T3 expectations
Shares in IM Internationalmedia, Intermedia's corporate parent, rose 19% this week ahead of the US release yesterday of the company's high stakes behemoth, Terminator 3: Rise Of The Machines.Shares in the US-German film operation were at Euros 1.61 at press time late yesterday afternoon, 1.23% down from Tuesday's close of ...
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Osbourne to star in Malice In Sunderland
Kelly Osbourne, of hit TV series The Osbournes, is to star in Malice In Sunderland, a contemporary reworking of Alice's Adventures In Wonderland.Simon Fellows is to direct the UK-German co-production, with shooting scheduled to shoot later this year. Mark Byrne of the UK's What's The Story is producing, while Christian ...
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Black hole looms for UK finance
With debate raging over what should replace the UK's influential tax deferrals, only two things are certain. Firstly, many in the industry support preserving a status quo that last year saw investors shelter $2.7bn (£1.6 bn) through sale and leaseback schemes and, to a far smaller extent, riskier production schemes.Secondly, ...
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Equator posts $2m pre-tax loss for 2002
Equator Group, the UK media concern which earlier this year ended take-over talks with Handmade Films, has posted a pre-tax loss for last year of $2m (£1.2m).The red ink was in contrast to a profit of $789,000 (£475,000) the year before. Equator's sales also dropped steeply, falling to $613,000 (£369,000) ...
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Loach's Fond Kiss secures tax funding
Ken Loach's current production, Ae Fond Kiss, has secured just over 40% of its $5m (£3m)budget through UK tax fund Azure.The funding comes in Azure's traditional form of equity and a traditional sale and leaseback under the UK's Section 48 tax deferral mechanism. The production, the third in Loach's Glasgow ...
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Morris appointed new UK film minister
Estelle Morris has effectively succeeded UK film minister Kim Howells following a government reshuffle.Morris has a higher ministerial ranking than the outspoken Howells, although, along with film and creative industries, her brief as arts minister covers such diverse matters as museums and street crime.Culture Secretary, Tessa Jowell confirmed that Lord ...
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UK National Film Theatre to be digital cinema test-bed
The British Film Institute (BFI) has secured funding from the Department of Trade and Industry for a digital cinema test-bed at the National Film Theatre (NFT).The so-called Digital Test Laboratory is being set up just as BFI parent the UK Film Council develops plans for a nation-wide circuit of digital ...
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Odyssey to embark on world sales for Piccadilly Jim
Odyssey Entertainment is to handle worldwide sales on PG Wodehouse adaptation Piccadilly Jim for the UK's Mission Pictures, the companies announced on Wednesday.The period comedy of manners and mistaken identity sees Crush director John McKay directing a cast including Sam Rockwell from a script by Oscar winning screenwriter Julian Fellowes. ...