All articles by Sandy George – Page 44
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Dendy's Sarfaty new head of indie cinema group
The organisation that helped make Australia's majordistributors more accountable for how they deal with small exhibitors has a newpresident and a new name.Mark Sarfaty, head of the arthouse chain Dendy Cinemas, sayshe wants to use his new role as president to further strengthen the voluntarycode of conduct so that it ...
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AUSTRALIA 28 September
A Shark Tale wasthe most popular film at the box office on the weekend taking A$2,541,304 forUIP from a substantial 310 screens. Audiences in Australia -- and New Zealand-are the first to see the animated DreamWorks title and it was helped along byschool holidays starting the day after its Thursday ...
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NEW ZEALAND 28 September
There were two opening films in the top three on theweekend. A Shark Tale took NZ$587,383from 52 screens to claim the top spot on behalf of UIP and A Cinderella Story grossed NZ$184,805 from 35 screens for Roadshowto grab third place honours.The third film that opened over the weekend and ...
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Crooner Connick Jr takes lead in Oz Boomerang
US crooner Harry Connick Jr has signed to play a disgracedcorporate cowboy who pays a street kid to help him commit suicide in BoomerangDeal, to be directed by Phillip Marzella from his own script.It will be Australian director Marzella's follow-up to Low-FatElephants, which he wrote, directed and produced in 2000 ...
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AUSTRALIA 20 September
At no time this year until now has there been eight openersin the top 20 list or five in the top 10. The Olympics can take some of thecredit for that, and it turned out to be a wise decision by distributors givenhow well the Australian team did.The only Australian ...
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Cameras to roll again on River Queen
Director Vincent Ward's River Queen is going backinto production in New Zealand after a two-month hiatus.Cameras roll again from October 4 and continue for eightweeks according to Silverscreen Films, which is producing alongside The FilmConsortium.Filmingwas delayed in late July due to the illness of lead actress Samantha Morton.She was hospitalised ...
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...as Australian Labor Party pledges industry funds
The Australian Labor Party today pledged that if it wins theOctober 9 election it will provide one-off cash injections of $35m (A$50m) for theFilm Finance Corporation (FFC) and $14m for the Australian Film Commission(AFC), half of which will be for a low budget feature fund.The FFC got $43m in taxpayer ...
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Ghost Rider heads for Australia
The attractiveness of runaway production to local economieswas made clear in Australia today with the Victorian Government announcing thatColumbia Pictures Entertainment is to film $40m GhostRider in Melbourne.Premier Steve Bracks and the Minister for Innovation JohnBrumby said Ghost Rider, a Marvelcomic adaptation to be directed by Mark Steven Johnson ...
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NEW ZEALAND 13 September
The Villageconvincingly outsold Dodgeball whenthey both launched last weekend, but the 20th Century Fox comedy turned thetables on its BVI competitor second time around. Dodgeball took NZ$275,743 from 50 screens to top the charts and The Village took NZ$234,410 from 56screens.To add insult to injury, TheVillage could only claim fourth ...
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AUSTRALIA 13 September
The only two openers in the chart were 20th Century Fox's Dodgeball and UIP's Terminal and both were among the top five films of the weekend. DodgeBall took A$2,343,763 from 255screens to lead the chart with an impressive screen average of A$9,191 and Terminaltook A$1,275,197 from 205 screens to come ...
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Ledger, Collette starring pics win Oz funding
The Film Finance Corporation Australia (FFC) has cleared theway for cameras to roll on two new films, investing in Candy starringHeath Ledger and Like Minds starring Toni Collette.Ledger and rising star from Abbie Cornish (Somersault)play lovers full of lust and self-destructive tendencies in thelong-gestating drama Candy, which also features Geoffrey ...
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AusFILM recruits Fox Studio Australia chief
Fox Studios Australia chief executive Michael Harvey hasbeen named deputy chair of AusFILM, the organisation responsible for attractinginternational production to Australia.Ian Robertson, of Sydney law firm Holding Redlich, remainschair.Two new board members have also been appointed: Helene Nicolfrom Melbourne-based television commercials production house Great SouthernFilms, and Greg Smith, director of ...
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AUSTRALIA 6 September
Two of the three most popular films in cinemas on theweekend are openers. They are BVI's TheVillage, which grossed A$3,117,621 from 290 screens, and Columbia TriStar's13 Going On 30, which grossedA$1,783,128 from 221 screens. Separating them was UIP's The Bourne Supremacy, which sold A$2,585,052 work of tickets to 311screens on ...
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Spooked scores NZ distribution
Arkles Entertainment has acquired New Zealand distributionrights for director Geoff Murphy's local conspiracy thriller Spooked.Cliff Curtis (Whale Rider) plays the lead role of ajournalist who becomes obsessive about investigating a mysterious fatal carcrash on the Auckland Harbour Bridge. The starting point for Murphy's scriptwas the true events depicted in Ian ...
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King Kong goes before the cameras
Director Peter Jackson and actors Naomi Watts, Adrien Brody,and Jack Black faced the media yesterday at Jackson's Wellington studio complexto mark the beginning of principal photography on King Kong.Camerasofficially roll on Monday on the remake of the 1933 classic, which is beingfinanced by Universal Pictures and will be released on ...
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NEW ZEALAND 31 August
While UIP's The BourneSupremacy, in its first weekend in the charts, took about 10 times morerevenue than second placed Fahrenheit9/11, the documentary did climb two places despite being in its fifth weekon release.The Bourne Supremacygrossed NZ$618,691 from 54 screens, registering a screen average of NZ$11,457,while Fahrenheit took NZ$68,712 from19 screens ...
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Acclaimed directors lead Australia's upcoming slate
The directors of three of the most highly acclaimedAustralian films of recent years, Ana Kokkinos, Rowan Woods and Ray Lawrence,are named within the country's upcoming slate of financed but still-to-be-madefilms.The Book OfRevelation, Ana Kokkinos's second film after Head On, and Little Fish,Rowan Woods' second film after The Boys,are being represented ...
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International buyers clamour for Lord Of War
Lord Of War,billed as one of the biggest independent features currently in production inthe world, has relocated to South Africa after two weeks of shooting in NewYork.Executive producer and Arclight Films managing director GaryHamilton says he has already sold the US$50m action thriller starring NicolasCage and Ethan Hawke into "virtually ...
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AUSTRALIA 23 August
Besides Hellboyand The Ladykillers, three otheropeners registered in the chart. Roadshow's BeforeSunset (11th ) grossed A$166,871 from 24 screens, and Rialto's Coffee & Cigarettes (16th) grossedA$88,634 from just 11 screens. At A$6,952 and A$8,057 respectively, the screenaverages on both these films were the two highest in the chart apart from ...
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NEW ZEALAND 23 August
The top 20 films in New Zealand together sold less ticketson the weekend than any other top 20 group of films this year. Despite thislack-lustre result, the five most popular films grossed within NZ$10,000 ofeach other, intimating that it was a hard-fought race at the top.Two openers, JerseyGirl from BVI/Miramax ...