All News articles – Page 5070
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Sun Gateway fund opens up for English-language productions
Features by Michael Radford, Sandy Johnson and Amy Lyndon have been lined up as possible projects for backing by the new Sun Gateway Entertainment (SGE) private media fund.The German fund, which aims to raise Euros 50m this year for up to seven English-language feature film and TV productions, is managed ...
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Focus takes the world on Inarritu's 21 Grams
Focus Features, the newly formed specialised arm of Universal Pictures, has acquired worldwide rights to Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu's long-awaited English-language debut 21 Grams. The hotly contested deal, closed today (Monday), marks the first time that Focus has acquired worldwide rights to a film since it was founded earlier this year ...
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Devdas falls short of UK Bollywood opening record
Distributor Eros International enjoyed its biggest success in the UK at the weekend with the much anticipated release of Devdas.The Bollywood film grossed a massive $723,054 (£466,370) from 54 sites (on 74 screens) from Friday to Sunday (July 12-14) for a mighty site average of $13,390 - the highest of ...
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Wellspring buys US rights to Cannes player Carnage
Wellspring Media has acquired US rights to the dark French comedy Carnage which played in Directors Fortnight at Cannes this year. The film is the feature directorial debut of Delphine Gleize and stars Chiara Mastroianni and Angela Maline in the story of the aftermath of a tragic bullfight.Gleize is ...
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The Eye is eyed up for remake treatment
Danny and Oxide Pang's chiller The Eye could be the next Asian picture lined up for Hollywood remake treatment.Under a deal brokered by Roy Lee of Vertigo Entertainment, remake rights are to be acquired by Tom Cruise and Paula Wagner's Cruise/Wagner company with a view to the film being made ...
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CTFDI scores $17.4m with MIIB, breaks all-time record with Spider-man
Men In Black II (MIIB) took an estimated $17.4m at the international box office over the weekend as Columbia TriStar Film Distributors International rolled out its sci-fi romp to 12 territories bringing its running total to $34.7m. With an unconfirmed best-ever opening in South Korea for a non-Korean language picture ...
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Scooby is Warner's second biggest all-time UK opening
Scooby-Doo continued to snap up the international competition for Warner Bros over the weekend, opening in the UK with $8.1m (£5.2m) from 474 screens, according to studio estimates released today (Sunday). If the figure is confirmed tomorrow it will be Warner's second highest UK opening behind Harry Potter And The ...
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Perdition hits big, but can't gun down Men In Black
Men In Black II (MIIB) clung on to top spot at the North American box officeover the weekend with an estimated $25m gross, although a spectacular opening for Road To Perdition on half the number of screens came close to dethroning it. The Columbia Pictures sci-fi sequel averaged $6,923 ...
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France's TF1, M6 team up for Canal Plus bid
French private broadcasting groups TF1 and M6 are considering joining forces with Pathe in order to acquire Vivendi Universal's Canal Plus Group, a source 'close to the deal' told French weekly Le Nouvel Observateur.TF1's chairman Patrick Le Lay and M6's president Nicolas de Tavernost have already both voiced their interest ...
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Can this summer's blockbusters break the pattern of 2001's one-week wonders'
Two more blockbusters passed the US domestic $100m mark this week. However, this summer is in danger of following last year's pattern of providing a couple of early pace setters followed by a series of 'one-week wonders'.Steven Spielberg's Minority Report passed the $100m mark on Tuesday, becoming the director's 11th ...
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$9m large-format Bugs! goes into production
Bugs!, a $9m 3-D giant-screen documentary film, has started principal photography in the jungles of Malaysia.A live-action film about the hidden world of insects, Bugs! will use macro-photography and 3D imagery to convey the tiny dramas of bug life on a grand scale - and will be hoping to repeat ...
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Fortune Star joins with DreamWorks for Hong Kong Cafe
Fortune Star, the new production division of News Corp's Star TV group, is teaming up with DreamWorks to distribute Hong Kong Cafe, a one-hour TV series celebrating Hong Kong action movies and martial arts. The series will feature clips from Star's 600-title library which includes films starring Jackie Chan, Bruce ...
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Vivendi Universal chief financial officer resigns
Guillaume Hannezo, Vivendi's Universal's chief financial officer has resigned, French newspaper Le Monde reported on Friday July 12.The unconfirmed report said that Hannezo had tendered his resignation on Tuesday (July 9) and was expected to leave within the next few weeks.Hannezo's departure had been widely anticipated as he was a ...
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New minister of culture heralds turning point for Polish film industry crisis
Last week's appointment of Waldemar Dabroski as the new Polish Minister of Culture may signal an end to the political divisions that have been crippling the Polish film industry. Dabroski, who as minister for cinematography in the early 1990's was responsible for establishing the government-backed agency for film production, is ...
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Year Of The Devil wins Karlovy Vary's Crystal Globe
The Karlovy Vary International Film Festival wrapped in the Czech Republic on Saturday, with the Crystal Globe, the festival's main prize, going to a Czech film, Petr Zelenka's Year of the Devil. It was a weekend of surprises and disappointments in the Bohemian spa town. Zelenka's film, a part fiction, ...
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Italian government moves to overhaul entertainment laws
The Italian government has presented a draft law to Parliament proposing a number of dramatic changes to the country's entertainment laws, including the introduction of a tax shelter.The draft law proposes that public funding for Italian movies should be capped at 50% of the budget. The current state funding ...
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UK's Channel 4 rejected FilmFour rescue offer
Channel 4 rejected a last-minute rescue deal with Germany's Senator Film and UK tax financiers Matrix that was geared at allowing the broadcaster to slash its investment to $15m (£10m) but still save FilmFour as a going concern with an annual war-chest of $45m (£30m).This decision to reject the partnership ...
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IM Internationalmedia releases second quarter results ahead of schedule
IM Internationalmedia generated Euros 75m - 85m in the first half of 2002 thanks to The Dangerous Lives Of Altar Boys and overages from such films as Traffic and The Wedding Planner, according to preliminary figures for the second quarter which will be officially released on August 29.IM reported that ...