All articles by Jeremy Kay – Page 1350
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New Vancouver producer Irreverent begins first feature Gay Like Me
Newly-formed Vancouver-based development and production company IrreverentMedia is preparing to begin shooting in spring on its first feature, the suburbanmockumentary Gay Like Me.THINKFilm has acquiredCanadian rights on the $3.4m project, which was developed with the support of BCFilm and Movie Central. The producers expect to close out financing in Berlin.Michael ...
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Miramax seals third big deal of Sundance with Night Listener
Miramax Films has made it first Sundance acquisition under theDaniel Battsek regime, paying in the region of $3m for North American rights toPatrick Stettner's Armistead Maupin adaptation The Night Listener."Night Listener is a smart thriller with commercial appeal that is bothfascinating and topical and fits perfectly with Miramax's intention todistribute ...
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Branagh's Magic Flute starts shooting at Shepperton
Principal photography got underway on Jan 19 at Shepperton Studiosoutside London on Kenneth Branagh's adaptation of Mozart's The Magic Flute.Conceived and directed byBranagh, the $27m production features a newly-adapted libretto by Stephen Fryand takes place on the eve of the first world war as a pair of lovers hold thedestiny ...
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Paltrow, Wigmore sign deal with Moxie to direct commercials, music videos
Gwyneth Paltrow and Mary Wigmore have signed an exclusive dealwith Moxie Pictures to co-direct commercials and music videos.The move follows the Sundance premiere of their short film Dealbreaker, which is causing a buzz here in theshorts programme."We look forward to working with such talented filmmakers notonly here in the US ...
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UK distributors start spending at Sundance
UK deals dominated Sundancetoday [Tuesday] as the BBC announced it had bought Kirby Dick's documentary ThisFilm Is Not Yet Rated, Momentumpicked up Jody Hill's comedy The Foot Fist Way, and Pathe UK took Luc Jacquet's upcoming The Fox& The Child.The BBC will air ThisFilm Is Not Yet Rated to UKaudiences ...
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IFC launches 24 films for simultaneous theatrical/cable release
As 2929 Entertainment prepares to launch its experimentalday-and-date release of Steven Soderbergh's hi-def picture Bubble this week, IFC has entered the fray witha similar initiative.This year the New York-based company plans to simultaneouslyrelease in theatres and on cable 24 pictures that would typically struggle inthe cut-throat and overcrowded world of ...
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Picturehouse buys North America on Pan's Labyrinth
Picturehouse has picked up allNorth American rights to Guillermo del Toro's dark fairytale Pan's Labyrinth.Set in 1944 rural Spainduring Franco's facist regime, the story centres on the young daughter of anofficer who concocts an imaginary world to deal with the realities of post-warrepression. Mirabel Verdu, Sergi Lopez, Ivana Baquero and ...
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Kacandes joins Paramount specialty arm as head of physical production
Producer Georgia Kacandeshas joined John Lesher's new-look Paramount specialty division as executivevice president of physical production.Kacandes, who is currentlyserving as executive producer on New Line's Jack Black comedy Tenacious D InThe Pick Of Destiny, will overseeall aspects physical production and report directly to Lesher."I have known Georgiafor many years and ...
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Weinstein Co takes English-speaking world on Factory Girl
The Weinstein Company hasacquired North American, UK, Australian, New Zealand, and South African rightsfrom L.I.F.T. Productions to George Hickenlooper's Edie Sedgwik biopic FactoryGirl.The picture is currently inproduction in Shreveport, Louisiana, and is being financed by L.I.F.T. andproduced by Holly Wiersma and Aaron Richard Golub.J Malcolm Petal, Kimberly CAnderson and Morris ...
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Fortissimo picks up international rights to Kirby Dick doc
Fortissimo Films has pickedup worldwide rights excluding the US to Kirby Dick's film ratings documentary ThisFilm Is Not Yet Rated, whichreceives its world premiere at Sundance this week.The Independent Film Channel(IFC) production explores the MPAA's ratings system and asks whether it favoursaffiliated studios. The ratings system's wildly divergent attitudes over ...
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IFC takes North American rights to Hamer's Factotum
IFC Films has picked up all North American rights to Bent Hamer'sCharles Bukowski adaptation Factotum, which had originally been bought after its Cannes worldpremiere by Picturehouse but which was returned to the market last week.The picture, which screened at Sundance this weekend, has earnedMatt Dillon plaudits for his portrayal of ...
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Sundance launches arthouse anniversary initiative
The Sundance Institute has launched The Sundance Institute ArtHouse, a partnership with national arthouse theatres that will screen filmsfrom the festival past and present as part of the year-long celebration of theInstitute's 25th anniversary.14 theatres in cities ranging from Orlando, Florida, to Nashville,Tennessee, and Bellingham, Washington, are among those that ...
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Penguins director Jacquet announces Fox movie
Luc Jacquet has announced in Sundance what his next film will beafter his worldwide documentary smash March Of The Penguins - a narrative-documentaryhybrid with the working title The Fox And The Child.Filming on the Euros11m project is scheduled to run from March2006 to March 2007 in France, Italy and Romania ...
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Narnia leads international box office for fifth weekend
The Chronicles Of Narnia extended its international supremacy to a fifth consecutiveweekend as it added an estimated $13.3m through Buena Vista International (BVI)to raise the running total to $342.6m.Boasting a worldwide total just shy of $614m, Narnia currently ranks as the 27th biggest filmof all time after it overtook The ...
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Sony Classics swoops on Russian Oscar entry The Italian
Sony Pictures Classics (SPC) has picked up North American rightsfrom Lenfilm to Andrei Kravchuk's feature directorial debut and Russian 2006 submissionfor the foreign language Oscar The Italian.Set in 1942, The Italian charts a five-year-old orphan's efforts to avoid adoption byan Italian family as he tries in vain to locate his ...
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Sundance wakes up with Sleep, Tired deals
In the second major acquisition at this year's Sundance, WarnerIndependent Pictures has paid $6m for North American and UK rights to Michel Gondry's surreal romance The Science Of Sleep.WiP chief Mark Gill and his team swooped after the French-producedpicture's world premiere here on Sunday night, which drew rapturousapplause for attending ...
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Screen Gems tops US with Underworld sequel
The Sony stable enjoyed an excellent weekend at the North Americanbox office as Screen Gems' supernatural sequel Underworld: Evolution romped to the top of the charts andColumbia's Fun With Dick And Jane crossed $100m in its fifth weekend.Underworld: Evolution opened number one far ahead of the competition on an estimated$27.6m, ...
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THINKFilm strikes US marketing partnership with MySpace.com for Beastie Boys doc
North American distributorTHINKFilm is partnering with the online lifestyle portal MySpace.com to promoteits upcoming Beastie Boys concert film Awesome; I Fuckin' Shot That.The process began prior toSundance, when MySpace users were invited to make a music video for one of twoBeastie Boys songs - "Sabotage" and "Shake Your Rump". The ...
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Sundance deals heat up with a ray of Sunshine
In the first big play ofSundance 2006 Fox Searchlight has taken worldwide rights to Little MissSunshine in a deal believed to be inthe region of $10.5m.The deal is also reported, by the New York Times, to have given the participants 10% of all gross revenues on the film, a total ...
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Icon enjoys brisk sales on Winona Ryder comedy
Icon Entertainment International has closed a raft of sales onFinn Taylor's dark comedy The Darwin Awards, which premieres next week at the SundanceFilm Festival.Rights have gone to Concorde/Tele-Muenchen in Germany, PresidioCorp in Japan, Dea Planeta in Spain, Nordisk in Scandinavia, LumiereDistribution in the Benelux, and EEAP in Eastern Europe.Additionally, Odeon ...