All News articles – Page 4643
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Kidd's PS to open Venice Critics' Week
PS I Love You, Dylan Kidd's follow-up to Rodger Dodger, will open Critics' Week at the upcoming Venice Film Festival(Sep 1-11).The romantic comedy, written by Kidd and Helen Schulman,stars LauraLinney as a 38-year-old admissions director at New York's ColumbiaUniversity who believes that her former boyfriend has been reincarnated.Earlier this month, ...
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Star Trek spoof smashes German records
(T)Raumschiff Surprise - Periode 1, Michael "Bully" Herbig's sequel to his2002 blockbuster Manitou's Shoe,has posted the best ever opening in Germany with over 625,000 admissions in thefirst 24 hours of release.The German produced film is asend up of the Star Trek series. Accordingto distributor Constantin Film, 164,000 cinema-goers had attended ...
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Spider-Man 2 finally dethrones Shrek 2
The Asian marketplace onceagain showed its strength this week while the Hollywood blockbuster sequelscontinued to battle for pole position.Spider-Man 2 finally took the lead from Shrek 2 inits third week after launching in a slew of European and Middle Easternterritories including the UK and France. In the process the webslinger ...
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Japan's Amuse Soft pays record sum for Secrets
South Koreancomedy Everybody Has Secrets -- an official remake of GerardStembridge's Irish-UK co-production About Adam (2000) -- has clinchedKorea's biggest ever sale to Japan.Amuse Soft Entertainmentbought the title for a $2.5m guarantee together with a commitment to spend atleast $3m in p&a costs.'The salewas handled directly by Chung Tae-won, head ...
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Douglas gets Independent by Nature award at Aspen
Michael Douglaswill receive the 26th Aspen Filmfest's Independent By Nature Award for his"significant contribution to film culture" at the opening night ceremony onSept 29."As a performerand a producer, Michael Douglas has played a significant role in definingcontemporary American film-making at its versatile, risk-taking best,"executive director Laura Thielen said in a ...
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SAG stages public foreclosure auction for seven films
The ScreenActors Guild (SAG) has taken the unprecedented step of recovering residualsowed by so-called "problem producers" to union members by selling rights toseven films at a public foreclosure auction.As part of SAG'scollective bargaining agreements, producers frequently guarantee payments toperformers and use the film rights as a form of collateral.In thisinstance, ...
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China box office stunned by Flying Daggers
Chinese director ZhangYimou's martial arts epic House Of FlyingDaggers has become the biggestever opener in China.Released on 360 printsacross China, the hugely anticipated period film was the number one earner overthe weekend (July 16-18), collecting $6.7m (RMB55m).The opening figure passedthe previous record held by Zhang's Hero,which earned $6.2m (RM52m) on ...
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Venice chief gorges on feast of choices
The Venice Film Festival'straditionally late announcement of its line-up means that other festivals suchas Edinburgh, Montreal and especially neighbour Locarno have had to secondguess which films the powerful Venice event will select. This year the MarcoMueller effect may be adding to that conundrum.Venice's Mueller appears to besuffering all the pains ...
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Love In The Time Of Cholera headed to the screen
ScottSteindorff's Stone Village Pictures has acquired film rights to Nobel Prizewinner Gabriel Garcia Marquez's acclaimed romance Love In The Time OfCholera.Steindorff will produce and package the project, atypically magic realist tale of unrequited love, before submitting it tostudios and financiers.The deal is saidto be worth more than $1m and, with ...
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Sky Italia strikes landmark deal with Italian producers
After months of negotiations, Italy's only pay-TVplatform, Sky Italia, has signed a landmark deal with Italian producers toinvest Euros 46m in Italian cinema over the next two years.Under thedeal, Sky will buy all Italian films whose pay-tv rights became available fromJanuary 1, 2004 and which have registered over 25,000 admissions ...
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Tartan Video USA signs distribution deal with TLA
Tartan VideoUSA, the division of Hamish McAlpine's Tartan Films USA, has signed anexclusive deal whereby Philadelphia-based TLA Releasing becomes the sole US distributorof all Tartan Video USA's DVD and video product.Tartan Video USAis set to launch this autumn and executives expect to release 35-40 titles eachyear on DVD and video, ...
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Steamboy under pressure on Japanese debut
Katsuhiro Otomo's long-awaited new animation Steamboy- which cost a record-breaking $22m (Y2.4bn) to make - grossed a weak $2.2m on its three-day opening weekend fromJuly 17 on 262 screens nationwide.With the summer holiday just kicking off, distributor Tohonow expects Steamboy to earn around $13.9 million.By comparison Hayao Miyazaki's Spirited Away ...
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High profile Korean slate wins Happinet funding
Korean distributor-turned producerChungeorahm Film has signed an investment deal with Japanese distributor HappinetPictures worth $1.7m of production finance.The deal spans all six films onChungeorahm's intial production slate including disaster movie The River, by Memories Of Murder-director Bong Joon-ho, Hong Sang-soo's untitledsixth film, My Tutor Friend-directorKim Kyung-hyung's forthcoming RomanticComic Book and ...
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Chaplin's Limelight buys Cannon library of 27 titles
Limelight Films, theLA-based production, financing and distribution company headed up by CharlieChaplin's granddaughter Keira Chaplin, has acquired the remaining CannonLibrary.The 27-title libraryincludes No Place To Hidestarring Drew Barrymore, Rescue Mestarring Stephen Dorf, and The Hitman, which stars Chuck Norris.Limelight owns worldwiderights to the library, while Warner Home Video owns North ...
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Michael Koelmel avoids jail sentence
The court case against Michael Koelmel concluded thismorning (July 22), with the Kinowelt co-founder receiving a suspended sentenceof one year and ten months from Munich's District Court.The courtaccepted four counts of embezzlement and the claim that Koelmel wilfullydelayed the filing of insolvency. However, Koelmel was cleared of fraud.In addition to ...
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New Babelsberg chiefs outline studio strategy
International feature film production is toremain a top priority at the Babelsberg studios, the new owners Carl Woebckenand Christoph Fisser said yesterday.The pair were speaking at a press conferenceafter their first meeting with studio management and representatives of theworkforce.The two owners' first public appearance came asthe news broke that Gerhard ...
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Telefilm Canada chief resigns for executive vp role at CBC
In a surprise move, RichardStursberg, the executive director of Telefilm Canada, has resigned after onlytwo-and-a-half years to accept a position at the Canadian Broadcasting Corp.Stursberg, who was appointedto Telefilm's top job in January 2002, has been embattled of late, havingintroduced a controversial reward system based on a film's performance at ...
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Roma Studios ravaged by fire
A fire hasravaged Roma Studios, destroying the set of ABC's ancient Rome series, Empireand a large part of the studio.It took 12fire engines five hours to extinguish the fire, which destroyed an area of2,800 square metres. Damage is estimated to in the region of 'tens ofthousands of Euros,' according to ...
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Fahrenheit 9/11 scores in Middle East
Michael Moore'scontroversial Fahrenheit 9/11 debuted at number one at the United ArabEmirates' box office last week, its first opening in an Arab state in theMiddle East.Its distributor,UAE-based Front Row Entertainment, said the film brought in over 26,000admissions for a gross box office of $211,000 in five days on 16 screens.The ...
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German fund to raise Euros 230m for Universal
Germany's Hannover Leasing(HL) is to partner again with Universal Studios on its second Montranus mediafund, which is to be launched this September to raise at least Euros 230m forinvesting in several feature films by the US studio.The first Montranus mediafund was, says HL, fully placed "within only a few weeks."To ...