All News articles – Page 5107
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Boy doesn't give in to Panic at UK box office
UIP continued to reign at the UK box office over the weekend with About A Boy dropping off just 28% from its opening weekend. With three-day figures of $3.3m (£2.2m) from 448 sites, the Hugh Grant title also scored the highest site average of any film on release this week, ...
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Via Digital, Canal Satelite Digital merger rumoured in Spain
In the face of the pending closure of local digital terrestrial pay TV platform Quiero TV, rumors have flared once again in Spain that rival digital satellite platform owners Telefonica and Grupo Prisa are courting a fusion between Via Digital and Canal Satelite Digital (CSD).Insiders say that Spain's conservative government, ...
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Jack Matthews named CEO at Premium Movie Partnership
Jack Matthews has been named new chief executive at the Premium Movie Partnership (PMP), owner and operator of movie channel Showtime, Australia's most popular pay-TV channel and the biggest supporter of Australian features in the sector. The role means Matthews represents joint owners 20th Century Fox, Columbia TriStar, Paramount Pictures, ...
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Japan's Kadokawa Shoten, Toshiba team to provide digital content
Kadokawa Shoten Publishing, whose media empire includes film producer and distributor Asmik Ace, has linked with electronics maker Toshiba to provide film and other contents for digital broadcasts. As part of the tie-up, Toshiba bought a 1% stake (270,000 shares) in Kadokawa in March, with the intention of increasing ...
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Justice to head Invicta co-production division
Independent producer Matthew Justice is to become full-time head of Invicta Filmworks, the co-production offshoot of UK finance firm Invicta Capital. Justice, whose producing credits include The Last Minute, Blade and Death Machine, has been consulting for Invicta since October last year. "Aside from my work on co-productions through Invicta ...
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Ian McShane joins in with Paper, Scissors, Stone
Ian McShane, last seen in Sexy Beast, has taken a lead role in the psychological thriller Paper, Scissors, Stone, which went into production today (May 6) in Canada. Carly Pope, Brendan Fehr, Adrian Paul, and Rena Owen had already been cast in the film about a girl whose fascination with ...
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New UK media laws presented to parliament
Foreign media groups like News Corp and AOL Time Warner could soon own UK terrestrial television stations, thanks to new legislative proposals tabled by the British government on Tuesday.The radical proposals would lift a ban on non-European ownership of terrestrial TV, clearing the way for foreign media groups to buy ...
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Spider-Man makes history: $114m in three days annihilates all-time record
The all-time box office opening record was obliterated over the weekend as Spider-Man from Columbia Pictures took an estimated $114m, becoming the first movie to pass the magical $100m mark in its opening weekend. It beat the previous record-holder Harry Potter & The Sorcerer's Stone by an astonishing $24m.Naturally it ...
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Spider-man spins web of records in 17 territories
Spider-Man's historic US opening was mirrored by some record international bows over the weekend, with $13.3m from 700 prints in 17 territories across Asia, Eastern Europe and the Middle East. Columbia's comic book adaptation, which was directed by Sam Raimi and stars Tobey Maguire as the web-slinging superhero, scored ...
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Jannike Ahlund appointed new director of Sweden's Goteborg Film Festival
Jannike Ahlund has been appointed director of Sweden's Goteborg Film Festival, the annual focus of the Nordic film industry which celebrated its 25th anniversary in January.She replaces Gunnar Bergdahl, who stepped down earlier this year after 15 years with the festival. Ahlund has a 20-year association with the festival, but ...
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Malaga festival's best film award-winner pulled from screenings
The Other Side Of The Bed and Julio Wallovits' and Roger Gual's low-budget debut feature Smoking Room shared the top awards at the fifth annual Spanish Film Festival of Malaga (April 26-May 4). Inexplicably, however, co-producer Telecinco pulled multiple-award winner The Other Side Of The Bed from the screenings, leaving ...
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Hong Kong's Celestial Pictures builds team for vertical integration
Fledgling Hong Kong studio Celestial Pictures has appointed industry veteran Gordon Cheung as executive vice president of distribution.Cheung was formerly executive vice president of Hong Kong digital effects house, Centro Digital Pictures, where he was responsible for sales and distribution of the company's own productions. He also spent 10 years ...
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Ullmann withdraws as director from $9.5m Nordisk biopic
Actress-turned-director Liv Ullmann has withdrawn from the $9.5m historical biopic on Ole Bull, a Norwegian violinist and composer who died in 1880, which is currently in pre-production at Nordisk Film. The high-profile production based on a script by local author Ketil Bjornstad and backed by Norway's most famous violinist Arve ...
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VFX experts converge on FMX conference
Visual effects experts from Europe, Japan and the USA including Olcun Tan (Black Hawk Down), Karen E. Goulekas (Spider-Man), Thomas Duval (Amelie), and Tim McGovern (Total Recall) will speak about past and present projects and artistic visions in the conference section of this year's Film and Media Exchange (FMX) in ...
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TIME media law division expanded by DLA & Partners
Major European law alliance DLA & Partners (D&P), who established an international law alliance with one of Scandinavia's largest law firms Lindh Stabell Horten (LSH) last May, is to expand LSH's media arm, TIME, to include European and Asia clients. TIME, (Tele-communication, IT, Media and Entertainment), has been one of ...
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Transylvania launches first international film festival
Transylvania will host its first international film festival between June 3-9 in the city of Cluj, with a competitive strand for first and second features. The competition program comprises twelve titles, including: Peter Callahan's Last Ball (USA) Sean Garrity's Inertia (Canada)Cristi Puiu's Marfa Si Banii (Romania)Eric Assous' Sexes Tres Opposes ...
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Tomorrow La Scala! for UK's Portman Film
The UK's Portman Film has picked up Francesca Joseph's Un Certain Regard film Tomorrow La Scala! for international sales.The low budget comedy - made for around£500,000 - is about an ambitious young director staging a musical of Sweeney Todd in a maximum security prison. Joseph, who makes her feature debut, ...
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Warner France increases investment in local comedies
Warner Bros. Pictures France has signed an exclusive distribution deal with French production house Les Films Christian Fechner for four upcoming comedies. 'We're excited to be in business with a film-maker of Christian's stature as we continue our in-country local-language production and distribution initiative,' said Francis Boespflug, managing director, Warner ...
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European production, admissions & BO market share unite in growth
The European film industry "flourished" last year on a number of levels, including an average 9% hike in local market shares for European films, according to new research. The findings were published by the European Audiovisual Observatory (EAO) in data that measured feature film output, box office and market share ...
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Spain's Via Digital re-asserts commitment to (fewer) Spanish films
Telefonica-backed digital satellite platform Via Digital publicly responded Thursday to growing concern in the Spanish film industry about the pay-TV sector's steep reduction in financing for both local productions and foreign acquisitions.At a press conference given at the Spanish Film Festival of Malaga to announce Via's and sister broadcaster Antena ...