All articles by Mike Goodridge – Page 113
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Carrie Fisher to host BAFTA/LA Britannia Awards
Carrie Fisher, the writer and actress who famously played Princess Leia in the Star Wars trilogy, will host the British Academy Of Film & Television Arts/Los Angeles (BAFTA/LA)'s 11th annual Britannia Awards show on April 12. Star Wars creator George Lucas is being honoured at the awards show with the ...
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2001: the greatest year in history, says Valenti
The state of the industry is robust, declared Motion Picture Association Of America president and CEO Jack Valenti at exhibition conference ShoWest yesterday. Despite the terrorist attacks of Sept 11, the economic recession and the traumatised exhibition sector, "2001 was the greatest box office year in film history," he said.In ...
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Sal Ladestro gets senior vp stripes at CTFDI
Sal Ladestro has been promoted to senior vice president of marketing and distribution, acquisitions and local productions, for Columbia TriStar Film Distributors International. Ladestro will report to Nigel Clark, senior executive vice president of marketing at CTFDI, on all matters relating to marketing, and to Mark Zucker, senior executive vice ...
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Ocean's Eleven breaks $200m int'l barrier
Warner Bros International cruised past the $200m mark over the weekend with Oceans Eleven, bringing the film's worldwide total to over $390m. The estimated weekend take for Steven Soderbergh's star-studded caper was $16.7m, bringing the film's total to $210m.The success of Oceans Eleven adds to Warner International's achievement on Harry ...
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PGA votes for Moulin Rouge, WGA Park, Mind
Two more talent guilds dished out their annual awards over the weekend, adding fuel to speculation about which films will take home Academy Awards later this month. Last night (Sunday), the Producers Guild Of America (PGA) shook things up by naming Moulin Rouge its best picture of 2001 beating favourites ...
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We Were Soldiers tops chart for Paramount and Icon
Mel Gibson's star shone bright at the North American box office over the weekend as We Were Soldiers, his latest war epic financed by his own company Icon Entertainment with Paramount Pictures, opened at the number one spot with $20.2m. Gibson stars as Lt Col Hal Moore, on whose book ...
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Franchise wins 1st court battle with Intertainment
Franchise Pictures has won acourt victory against Germany's Intertainment Licensing GmbH, asubsidiary of the publicly traded Intertainment AG. The two companies have beenembroiled in legal battle for over a year now regarding the terms of an outputdeal Franchise had sealed with Intertainment in 2000.Yesterday's judgmentsees Intertainment liable for $6.5m for ...
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Massis does multi-picture deals in Italy, Israel
Alex Massis' NewYork-based marketing and sales outfit The Film Source has closed multi-picturedeals with Dall'Angelo Pictures in Italy, Israel Cable Programming (ICP)in Israel and Pengloss in Switzerland.The video/DVD and TV dealsclosed at NATPE and the Berlin Film Market consisted of four classic Mario Bavahorror films (Lisa & The Devil, Baron ...
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ContentFilm teams with Furst, WMA on digital pics
Ed Pressman and JohnSchmidt's New York-based production outfit ContentFilm has formed atwo-year strategic alliance with LA-based producer Sean Furst and his FurstFilms. And in an unusual angle to the deal, Rena Ronson and Cassian Elwes ofWilliam Morris Agency division WMA Independent will provide "strategicsupport" by sharing its resources with the ...
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ShoWesters to view footage of digital Star Wars II
Exhibitors at nextweek's ShoWest convention will get a world-first glimpse of footage fromGeorge Lucas' Star Wars: Episode II - Attack Of The Clones as part of a presentation by its producer RickMcCallum on shooting digitally with the Sony 24P camera.The convention'sOpening Night Dinner will be hosted next Tuesday (March 5) ...
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Doug Wick named ShoWest producer of the year
Douglas Wick, the producerof Columbia Pictures' summer release Stuart Little 2, has been named 2002 producer of the year byexhibitors' convention ShoWest. Wick will receive the award at theconvention's gala awards banquet in Las Vegas on March 7.Wick's credits includeRidley Scott's Gladiatorfor which he won an Oscar for Best Picture, ...
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AFM buyer numbers down but screenings, sellers up
The American Film Market(AFM) closed yesterday and organizing body AFMA announced the closingattendance figures as down 6% from 7,127 in 2001 to 6,714 in 2002. Registeredbuyers were down at 1,327 from 1,447 in the previous year, although the numberof non-US registered buyers was down only 2% from 2001.The number of ...
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Miramax to go Full Frontal this August
Miramax Films has moved theUS release date of Steven Soderbergh's low budget ensemble piece FullFrontal from its scheduled March 8to August 2 which not only coincides exactly with the 1989 release date ofSoderbergh's first film sex, lies, & videotape but also opens the film up to a possible worldpremiere in ...
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Premiere Group unveils first titles starting June
Mitchell Goldman's USdistribution outfit The Premiere Marketing & Distribution Group -which he announced at AFM last year - has finally unveiled its debutslate which will kick off with Slap Her, She's French, a comedy originally housed at Fox Searchlight, onJune 7. Action drama Madisonstarring Jim Caviezel will follow on Aug ...
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Stuart Ford named acquisitions co-head at Miramax
Stuart Ford who is currentlysenior vice president of acquisitions and international operations at MiramaxFilms has been promoted to co-head of acquisitions alongside Agnes Mentre,executive vice president and co-head of acquisitions and co-productions.Together with Mentre, Ford will oversee Miramax's busy acquisitionsdepartment.Ford, who is based in NewYork, will report to Mentre and ...
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Eclipse announces new worldwide sales arm
Eclipse Entertainment has launched Eclipse Releasing, a new worldwide sales company to handle product from the publicly-traded Eclipse Entertainment Group, with Sridhar Sreekakula supervising sales. Sreekakula was formerly a sales executive at Menahem Golan's 21st Century Film Corporation, at Southern Star Film Sales and at Titan Films International.First title for ...
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Michael Jackson to make movies with Mark Damon
Michael Jackson is gettinginto film production through an unlikely alliance with international salesveteran Mark Damon. The pop superstar's Neverland Entertainment willinvest between $15m and $20m in Damon's production, financing and salesoutfit MDP Worldwide Entertainment Inc which is publicly traded on the TorontoStock Exchange.The agreement will seeNeverland become a major shareholder ...
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Boorman's wizardry casts Overseas spell
Director John Boorman is going back to Camelot with Knight's Castle, a $35m family fantasy movie about a boy's quest for Excalibur, being financed byFirst Look Media and Cinerenta.Based on the book by Edward Eager, the film is being produced with Boorman and Kevin Corrigan's Merlin Films and sold internationally ...
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Columbia TriStar buys international on Mindhunters
Columbia TriStar Motion Picture Group has acquired the majority of international rights to Renny Harlin's action thriller Mindhunters from Intermedia. CTSMPG bought rights in France, Italy, the UK, Japan, Korea, Latin America and Australia & New Zealand among other territories to the movie that is being distributed by Dimension Films ...
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Madonna's Maverick Pictures teams with Splendid
Splendid Pictures, the new production and sales outfit formed on the merger of Germany's Splendid Medien and LA-based Cutting Edge Entertainment, has announced its first-look deal with Maverick Films, the film production arm of Madonna's company Maverick.Splendid will finance and produce Maverick's projects for the next year with an option ...