All articles by Jeremy Kay – Page 1464
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Disney crisis: Eisner gets 43% no-confidence vote from shareholders
Disney chiefMichael Eisner defended his 20-year record in front of shareholders atyesterdayC;s stormy annual meeting in Philadelphia as calls for his departuregathered pace.According toreports, 43% of shareholders withheld their support for Eisner - who is bothchairman and chief executive officer - representing a strong no-confidence voteand something of a coup ...
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Disney crisis: Eisner gets 43% no-confidence vote from shareholders
Disney chiefMichael Eisner defended his 20-year record in front of shareholders atyesterdayC;s stormy annual meeting in Philadelphia as calls for his departuregathered pace.According toreports, 43% of shareholders withheld their support for Eisner - who is bothchairman and chief executive officer - representing a strong no-confidence voteand something of a coup ...
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Batman Begins begins in Iceland for Warner Bros
Gary Oldman hasjoined the cast of Warner Bros' Batman Begins, which began shooting in Iceland thisweek and is being directed by Christopher Nolan.Oldman will play Lieutenant James Gordon, a detective onthe Gotham police force, and joins an illustrious cast that includes ChristianBale as Bruce Wayne/Batman and Michael Caine as his ...
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Universal's Polly set for big openings in Germany, Mexico
Universalexecutives will be hoping the stars continue to shine on Along Came Polly this weekend when the romantic comedygoes out wide in Germany and Mexico through UIP.The picture, which opened top in the UK last weekend andremained number one in its second weekend in Brazil, opens in Germany on Mar ...
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Turner to script BloodRayne for Uwe Boll
AmericanPsycho co-writerGuinevere Turner is writing the screenplay for Uwe Boll's adaptation of BloodRayne, based on the bestselling video gameabout a human-vampire hybrid who hunts down supernatural enemies.Shooting on the$15m production is due to kick off in the Greater Vancouver area and EasternEurope in late summer.Turner, whoseother writing credits include Go ...
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Rentrak hires Springer for global box office tracking system
RentrakTheatrical, a subsidiary of Oregon-based information management companyRentrak, has hired industry veteran Rob Springer to head up the expansion ofits global box office tracking system Box Office Essentials.Springer, whomost recently served as executive director of sales administration atParamount, will be based in Los Angeles and is a key appointment as ...
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Eisner stripped of chairman's title
Walt Disney's powerful chief executive officer Michael Eisner was forced last night to hand over the chairman's title to George J. Mitchell, in order to placate a rising tide of shareholder resentment over what they see as his imperious management style and a poor company performance.The embattled Eisner was put ...
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Newmark sets domestic release dates for Wake, Pizzas
Newmark/EchelonEntertainment Group has set the US release of Henry LeRoy Finch's drama Wake for late April and Vinnie Sassone'sromantic comedy A Tale Of Two Pizzas for the autumn.In Wake, four brothers gather for a debauchednight of drinking and perversion only to realise they are attending a awake. Martin Landau stars ...
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Return Of The King adds $11m to bring gross to $663.1m
On the weekendthat The Lord Of The Rings: The Return Of The King won all 11 of the Oscars for which ithad been nominated, Peter Jackson's trilogy finale leapfrogged 2001's HarryPotter And The Sorcerer's Stone to become the second biggest international picture of all time.It added $11mfrom 3,148 screens in ...
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10% more buyers at this year's AFM than last year, says market
Total attendance at thismonth's AFM climbed by 5% to 7,212 compared to 6,834 last year, while thenumber of buyers rose 10% from 1,309 to 1,434, organisers said yesterday (2).There were 642 registeredcompanies compared to 598 last year and the number of individual exhibitorsrose from 3,419 in 2003 to 3,672, a ...
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Scary 3 has a monster opening in Germany
Scary Movie 3 enjoyed a massive $7.4m number one bow in Germany on626 screens through Buena Vista International (BVI) at the weekend for thebiggest release of the year there so far this year.It was also the biggest everbow opening for a Miramax production and contributed to a $12m weekend haulfrom ...
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Forman to receive lifetime award from San Francisco
Milos Formanwill receive the Film Society Award for Lifetime Achievement in Directing atthe 47th San Francisco International Film Festival, which runs from Apr 15-29.The Award willbe presented by Danny DeVito on Apr 22 at a black tie gala in honour of Formanand Oscar winning actor Chris Cooper, who will receive ...
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Ebeling, Behring complete management buyout of MCOne
Sven Ebeling and HagenBehring, co-chief executive officers of Media Cooperation One (MCOne), one ofGermany's largest independent video and DVD distributors, have completed amanagement buyout of the company.Ebeling and Behring,co-founders and shareholders of MCOne, last month acquired the remainingmajority shares of the company previously owned by DBI, the equity division ofDeutsch ...
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Bellochio's latest joins Kahn at Wellspring
Followingyesterday's news that it has acquired all US rights to Cedric Kahn's Berlintitle Red Lights (FeuxRouges), New York-basedindependent Wellspring has taken US rights to Italian director MarcoBellocchio's Good Morning, Night (Buongiorno, Notte).The deals forboth pictures were negotiated by Wellspring's head of acquisitions MarieTherese Guirgis and head of theatrical distribution Ryan ...
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Walk On Water is joint Roadside/Goldwyn domestic buy
RoadsideAttractions and Samuel Goldwyn Films have jointly acquired North Americanrights to Eytan Fox's political thriller Walk On Water.The picture, a hit at Berlin this year, is the follow-upto Fox's worldwide success, Yossi And Jagger.The story centreson an Israeli assassin who goes undercover as a tour guide in order to trackdown ...
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Gothika starring Cruz opens top in Spain for CTFDI
The horrorpicture Gothikastarring local star Penelope Cruz opened top in Spain at the weekend on $2.5mon 262 screens through Columbia TriStar Film Distributors International(CTFDI).The decent debutwas part of a $4.1m weekend haul for the picture, which raised itsinternational running total to $23.9m.Elsewhere, thedrama Big Fishgrossed $2.7m for a $19m running ...
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Passion's domestic weekend tally tops out at heavenly $125.2m
Confirmed figures releasedtoday (March 1) reveal The Passion Of The Christ grossed an astonishing $125.2m in its first five days, making it thebiggest Wednesday-to-Sunday five-day US opening of all time.Released through NewmarketFilms, Mel Gibson's self-financed crucifixion epic took $26.6m on its openingWednesday (25) and added $22.9m on Friday (27), $33.1m ...
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Polly is top in UK and Brazil, scores $4.3m weekend
Universal's AlongCame Polly opened top inthe UK through UIP at the weekend on an estimated $1.8m from 369 sites.The opening was15% bigger than that of Meet The Parents in 2000 and 21% bigger than American Pie in 1999.Polly held on to number one in its second weekin Brazil, adding $300,000 ...
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Paltrow gets decade of achievement award at ShoWest
Gwyneth Paltrow is to behonoured with the ShoWest 2004 Distinguished Decade of Achievement in FilmAward at the 30th anniversary film expo in Las Vegas later this month."For the past decade,Gwyneth Paltrow has delivered one sensational performance after another," MitchNeuhauser, co-managing director of the event, said in a statement."With such varied ...
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Cinelibre takes worldwide rights on Greenwald's War In Iraq doc
Cinema Libre Studio willhandle worldwide rights on veteran director-producer Robert Greenwald's highlytopical documentary Uncovered: The War In Iraq.Greenwald, whose creditsinclude Unprecedented and StealThis Movie, partnered withMoveOn.Org and the Centre for American Progress to produce the picture, whichis due to get its world premiere at Cannes.Uncovered: The War InIraq is set ...