All articles by Mike Goodridge – Page 111
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Schamus wins screenwriting honour at Nantucket
James Schamus, the Oscar-nominatedscreenwriter of Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon and The Ice Storm, will be honoured with NBC's screenwritertribute at this year's Nantucket Film Festival which will take place June20-23, 2002.The festival, which isdedicated exclusively to screenwriting and the concept that the writer'scontribution is at the core of all good ...
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Nick Nolte, Josh Lucas, Sam Elliott join The Hulk
Nick Nolte, Sam Elliott andJosh Lucas have joined the cast of Ang Lee's big screen version of TheHulk which started principalphotography this week.The film, which is scriptedby James Schamus and produced by Gale Anne Hurd, Avi Arad, Schamus and LarryFranco, stars Eric Bana as Bruce Banner whose inner demons transform ...
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Regent teams with NZ company Daybreak on two films
LA-based Regent Entertainmenthas struck a co-production deal with New Zealand's Daybreak Pacific Ltdto produce two features Cupid's Prey and Heaven's Pond inNew Zealand. The deals were brokered by Jeffrey Schenck, COO of Regent, GeneGeorge, president of Regent Worldwide, and Grant Bradley, a partner inDaybreak.Cupid's Prey is a thriller starring Katrina ...
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MGM launches channels in Portugal, Russia, S Korea
Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer'sMGM Networks is launching MGM-branded channels in Russia, Portugal, Malta andSouth Korea. The move follows the launch in the middle east earlier this yearand doubles the number of countries in which MGM has established a channel presenceto date.The MGM Movie Channel isscheduled to launch in May in Portugal on cable ...
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Ice Age hits hot $28.8m int'l gross in ten days
20th CenturyFox's Ice Age has racked upan international gross of $28.3m after just ten days in the marketplace. TheCGI-animated US smash opened day-and-date with the domestic release on March 15in Mexico, Singapore and Indonesia, but this weekend it went out throughoutEurope, Latin America and Asia bringing its regional totals to ...
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AFMA throws open doors to foreign language sellers
AFMA - which is thenew moniker for the American Film Marketing Association - has thrown itsmembership open to non-English-language film distributors after years of beingrestricted to licensors and distributors with at least some English-languagefilm or TV product.The decision, reached by theAFMA board of directors, strikes the "English-speaking" clause forboth levels ...
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Warner Bros boards first Italian film with Verdone
Warner Bros Pictures hasboarded its first ever Italian-language film production Ma Che Colpa AbbiamoNoi (It Can't Be All OurFault) directed by Carlo Verdone.The studio is partnering on the comic drama with Virginia Films, the productionoutfit run by Verdone and Marco Scaffardi.Production has already begun(March 15) on the film which ...
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Black actors Berry, Washington triumph at Oscars
A Beautiful Mind, the hit drama which tells the life story of mathematics genius John Forbes Nash Jr, was named best picture and its director Ron Howard best director at last night's 74th annual Academy Awards, held for the first time at its new home the Kodak Theatre in Hollywood. ...
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Memento, Bedroom dominate Indie Spirit Awards
Christopher Nolan's independent smash Memento dominated the IFP/West Independent Spirit Awards, which were presented in a tent on a beach in Santa Monica on Saturday. The awards which honour films and film-makers who embody independence and challenge the status quo traditionally take place the day before the Academy Awards. This ...
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Lord Of The Rings passes $500m international mark
New Line International's The Lord Of The Rings: The Fellowship Of The Ring crossed the $500m gross barrier in international territories over the weekend, bringing its worldwide total to nearly $800m and making it the fifth biggest international hit of all time.Fellowship now trails Titanic ($1.2bn), Harry Potter And The ...
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Producer, executive Rene Silvera dies at 76
Producer and executive Rene Silvera has died in Paris after several months of illness at the age of 76. He died on March 19.Silvera was associated for many years with French comic genius Jacques Tati and was co-producer of Playtime. In the 1960s, he became the European representative for Cinerama ...
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New Line's Blade II axes down the competition
New Line Cinema continued its extraordinary run of success with another number one hit. Blade II sliced to the top of the North American box office over the weekend with a gross of $33.1m which almost doubles the opening gross of the original film in 1998. Blade II is now ...
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Pre-Oscar marketing fever goes global
March is the richest month for Oscar-nominated films in the North American market, as cinema-goers scramble to see the contenders before March 24. The international picture, however, is different. Mike Goodridge looks at the films with nominations in key categories and how they are being opened across the world to ...
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Le Divorce cast finalised for Merchant Ivory
Director James Ivory andproducer Ismail Merchant have begun production on Le Divorce, a contemporary social comedy about two Americansisters in Paris, which is being fully financed by Fox Searchlight Pictures. Playing the two sisters areKate Hudson and Naomi Watts and the cast also includes Glenn Close, StockardChanning, Sam Waterston, Bebe ...
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Sony premieres Spider-man trailer on the web
Columbia TriStar MarketingGroup is to premiere the new theatrical trailer for Spider-Man on the film's dedicated website www.sony.com/Spider-Man starting nextWednesday before it hits theatres across the world. "This internetexclusive is also our way of saying thank you to the online community that hasso enthusiastically followed and supported the development ...
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Laissez-Passer opens 6th LA French film festival
Bertrand Tavernier's Laissez-Passer (Safe Passage), which played in competition at the Berlin International FilmFestival, will have its US premiere kicking off the sixth annual City OfLights, City Of Angels Film Festival in Los Angeles on April 8.The film, for which JacquesGamblin was named best actor at Berlin, will be introduced ...
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Magnolia takes domestic rights to Sur Mes Levres
Eamonn Bowles' new USdistributor Magnolia Pictures has acquired North American rights (excludingFrench-speaking Canada) to Jacques Audiard's award-winning French film SurMes Levres (Read My Lips) starring Vincent Cassel and Emmanuelle Devos.Sur Mes Levres, which won three Cesar awards in Paris earlier thismonth including best actress for Devos, is a thriller about ...
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Artisan hires Will Rokos to write new Billy Liar
Will Rokos, theOscar-nominated co-writer of Monster's Ball, has signed on with Artisan Pictures to write thescreenplay for Artisan's update of Keith Waterhouse's novel BillyLiar, which was turned into a hitplay by Waterhouse and Willis Hall and the classic 1963 film directed by JohnSchlesinger.Paul A Kaufman, who broughtthe project to Artisan ...
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K3G dominates Indian Academy technical categories
Kabhi Khushi Kabhie Gham, the Indian epic which has already been a globalsuccess, came out on top in the tehnical categories for the InternationalIndian Film Academy (IIFA) Awards which were announced yesterday byPricewaterhouseCoopers. The technical awards weredecided on the basis of film industry polling held on Feb 23 and 24 ...
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75 lose jobs as Miramax cuts staff by 16%
Miramax Films, a division ofThe Walt Disney Co, laid off about 16% of its staff on Friday in a massiverationalization effort which stunned the industries in New York City, where thecompany is based, and Los Angeles, where it maintains a busy office. The cullcame just eight days before this year's ...