All News articles – Page 4592
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MGM bullish with third quarter figures announcement
Powered by a 30% increase inworldwide video shipments of titles like Barbershop 2 and Agent Cody Banks 2, and the Jul 1 launch of the MGM Channel in Spain,MGM top brass remained upbeat as they announced third quarter operatingfigures.Third quarter revenues were$401.3m for the period ending Sept 30 2004 compared ...
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AWP takes the world on Satan's Little Helper
Los Angeles-basedinternational production and distribution company American World Pictures hasacquired worldwide rights to Satan's Little Helper, the first horror picture in more than 20 years bycult filmmaker Jeff Lieberman.The Halloween-themed picturemade its debut at the Tribeca Film Festival earlier this year and centres on anaive child who becomes the unwitting ...
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Latvian, Croatian films tie for best film prize in Denver
Rich Devaney's debut feature and inner city drama BrooklynBound won the Emerging Filmmaker Award andDanny Schechter's WMD: Weapons Of Mass Deception took the Maysles Brothers Award for Best Documentaryat the 27th Starz Denver International Film Festival.LailaPakalnina's Latvian school-set drama Python tied for the Krzysztof Kieslowski Awardfor Best Feature Film with ...
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Bush's Brain to screen pre-election on Sundance
Bush's Brain, the profile of George W Bush's chiefpolitical strategist Karl Rove, will screen on the Sundance Channel on the eveof the presidential election on Nov 1.Directed andproduced by Joseph Mealey and Michael Paradies Shoob, the documentary is basedon the bestselling book by journalists James Moore and Wayne Slater.Bush's Brain ...
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UK faces co-production reality-check
UK filmcommissioner Steve Norris has called for the British qualifying certificationof UK co-productions to be taken over by the UK Film Council.Speaking during apanel discussion on co-productions at Screen International's UK Film FinanceSummit in London last week (Oct 21), Norris said that the UK film industryneeded to develop a co-production ...
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Reynolds, Reeds leave Curb to start Fabrication
KjehlRasmussen's fledgling Hollywood-based distributor Fabrication Films has pickedup its first two features for worldwide distribution and will bring them to theAFM in Santa Monica next week.The company,which plans to distribute six to nine titles a year including US theatricalreleases, has acquired all worldwide rights to Jay Anania's mystery Her NameIs ...
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European regional funding network swells its ranks
The UK's Screen South, Sweden's Film I Vast and Spain's IVACLa Filmoteca are among eight regional film funders who have swelled the ranksof the Cine-Regio network of European funding agencies to bring the membershipup to 13.Part-financed by the European Union's Interreg IIICprogramme, the Cine-Regio network was launched at the beginning ...
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Int'l Box Office: Fahrenheit 9/11 passes $100m
Albeit off thechart, Michael Moore's Fahrenheit 9/11became the first documentary to achieve $100m from international markets duringlast week. The film added $392,745 over the weekend with Japan and recentlaunch territory Hong Kong currently providing the highest numbers. The filmhas taken $100.8m and may get some boost still from next week's ...
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EU drops antitrust case against six Hollywood studios
The European Commission (EC) has called on NBC Universal andParamount Pictures to drop what it regards as unfair conditions in their outputdeals with European broadcasters.The EC's departing Competition Commissioner Mario Monti saidyesterday that his organisation had dropped its investigation into thepractices of the other six "major Studios", Buena Vista International ...
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Verhoeven's Blackbook postponed
Dutch director Paul Verhoeven has postponed the filming ofhis new thriller Blackbook (Zwartboek).Shooting should have started this week, but the 66 year old director recently underwenta heart operation and will be recuperating for at least a couple of weeks.Producer San Fu Maltha has rescheduled shooting of the filmfor April 2005, ...
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Universal takes New Police Story for Japan, Korea
Universal Pictureshas acquired all rights to New PoliceStory, starring and produced by Jackie Chan, for Japan and Korea.Co-produced byChan's JCE Movies and the China Film Group, the US$15m action blockbuster isdirected by Benny Chan and also stars Nicholas Tse, Daniel Wu, Charlie Youngand Charlene Choi.The deal wasnegotiated by Keizo Kabata ...
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BVI's King Arthur rules in China
King Arthur, which has been a star performer forBuena Vista International (BVI) this year, scored the distributor's thirdbiggest ever debut in China at the weekend.The epicadventure opened on an estimated $870,000 on 335 screens, ranking behind PearlHarbor and Pirates OfThe Caribbean in theall-time opening pantheon.Overall thepicture grossed $1.5m for a ...
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Bavaria closes further Bombon sales
Bavaria Film International (BFI) has closed further sales onArgentine director Carlos Sorin's Bombon - El Perro following its market screening at MIFED.Deals for all of the Germanspeaking territories were concluded with Alamode Film (Germany), Poly Film(Austria) and Trigon Film (Switzerland), while all rights were also sold toMikado Film (Italy), Arthaus ...
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MGM teams with NTV-PLUS in Russia channel
MGM Networks hasannounced a deal with Russia's largest Pay-TV provider NTV-PLUS to localise anddistribute a Russian-language version of the MGM channel to NTV-PLUS'direct-to-home subscribers.The agreementfollows the launch in 2002 of MGM Channel in the former Soviet Union countrieson a number of cable and MMDS systems."We have beenassiduously trying to expand ...
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Czech features dominate Cottbus market
New Czech feature projects dominate this year's ConnectingCottbus East-West co-development market which will be held during theFilmFestival Cottbus - Festival of East European Cinema (Nov 2-6) from November4-5.Five of the 13 projects selected from nine countries for themarket will be pitched by Czech production houses, including Bionaut Films (TheCarp), Endorfilm ...
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Emmerich strikes first look deal with German fund
Director Roland Emmerich (The Day After Tomorrow) has signed a "first look" agreement withthe German private media fund VIP for his own in-house developed film projectsas opposed to those offered to him by Hollywood studios.As part of the agreement, the German-born director and VIP'sAndreas Schmid are planning to set up ...
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Parker to head Marrakech festival jury
Alan Parker is to head the jury at the fourth edition of theMarrakech Film Festival (Dec 6-12).Fourteen international films will be shown in the officialcompetition although their names have yet to be announced. The festival hasalso programmed tributes for Italian actress Claudia Cardinale, Egyptiandirector Youssef Chahine and Scotsman Sean Connery.In ...
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UK tax fund, Foresight, pulls out of two projects
UK tax fund Foresight has had to pull out of Michael Winterbottom's Tristram Shandy and FilmFour's quirky Brothers Of The Head, citing what it says is the latest problem to hit the UK financing sector.The fund has just bankrolled Terry Gilliam's Tideland but had to abandon the other two films ...
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IMAX lands in Pakistan
Imax Corp. and the Pakistaniprovince of Punjab have signed a deal that will see the first-ever Imax cinemain the country. The new facility, which will be capable of presenting 3D filmsas well, will be located in Lahore as the anchor tenant of a leisure centre thePunjab Government is developing. The ...
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UK/IRELAND 26 October
Aliens and predators may have fought their way into secondplace in the UK/Ireland chart but they were still no match for UIP's animatedsharks.Shark Tale heldthe lead for a second weekend, dropping 36% from its opening week, notincluding previews. It has quickly established a strong $22.7m (£12.4m)cumulative gross.Alien Vs Predator(AvP) got ...