Small MPU – Page 1823
-
News
Marcus Nispel hired to direct Texas Chainsaw Massacre
Famed German music video and commercials director Marcus Nispel has signed to direct the reconceptualisation of Tobe Hooper's cult classic The Texas Chainsaw Massacre which is set to begin shooting in Austin, Texas, this July.The film is being produced by Michael Bay's lower budget production outfit Platinum Dunes and Ted ...
-
News
Stowe takes starring role in BVI, Random Harvest's Octane
Madeleine Stowe is to star in Octane, the first production through the partnership between Buena Vista International and UK tax-based financier Random Harvest.Also in the cast are Norman Reedus, Bijou Phillips, Jonathan Rhys-Meyers and Mischa Barton. The production, made under Random Harvest's genre label Four Horsemen Films, starts shooting next ...
-
News
Roberts, Sheils to head distribution at UK's Metrodome
Ben Roberts and Audrey Sheils will head distribution activities at the UK's Metrodome after Alan Partington left the company last month.Roberts has been promoted to director of sales and acquisitions, while Sheils becomes director of theatrical marketing. Recent pick-ups include Good Machine International's Lovely And Amazing, Lions Gate's comedy The ...
-
News
Asian films are focus of two out of three new Oz FIPRESCI awards
Australia's three major east coast festivals - Brisbane, Sydney and Melbourne - will each present a prize under the FIPRESCI banner from this year. The Film Critics Circle of Australia (FCCA) instigated the move and has begun recruiting the local component of the three three-person international juries.The Melbourne International Film ...
-
News
Cannes adds two heavyweights to special screening programme
The Cannes festival filled out its special, out-of competition screenings programme with two heavyweight additions, Star Wars: Episode II - Attack Of The Clones and Brian De Palma's Cannes-set thriller Femme Fatale.George Lucas's Star Wars: Episode II - Attack Of The Clones will be shown twice in the Salle Bunuel ...
-
Reviews
Femme Fatale
Dir: Brian De Palma. Fr-US 2002. 110mins. With its chances and coincidences, doubles, dream sequences and alternative endings, Femme Fatale is an enigmatic European art-movie lightly disguised as a Hollywood genre thriller. There is certainly enough eye-popping sex and spectacle to steer it to decent box-office returns. In France ...
-
News
German cinemas report boost in box office, drop in admissions
Box office receipts at German cinemas increased 6.3% year-on-year to Euros 271.4m in the first quarter of 2002 - although admissions slipped by 2.2% (1m) to 45.2m, according to official figures released by the German Federal Film Board (FFA).The FFA explained that the discrepancy between revenues and admissions was probably ...
-
News
Goodsill joins Kamp at Odyssey Entertainment
Former Icon Entertainment International chief Ralph Kamp has been joined by Louise Goodsill at the head of newly-launched sales operation Odyssey Entertainment.Goodsill is president and chief operating officer, while Kamp is chairman and chief executive. Odyssey, which formally launches at Cannes, has also assembled three key executives: head of production ...
-
News
Ambiel resigns from Expand Images
Dominique Ambiel, board chairman of Vivendi Universal's French television production division Expand Images, has resigned. His departure, over differences in the management of the company, was followed by board member Xavier Gouyou-Beauchamps.StudioCanal's CEO Richard Lenormand will announce a replacement . Ambiel, a former advisor to right-wing culture minister Francois Leotard ...
-
News
Ali G gets high in Netherlands chart
UK hit Ali G IndaHouse debuted outside its home territory last weekend, storming straight to the top of The Netherlands' chart.Distributor UIP launched the comedy, which is the feature debut for Sacha Baron Cohen's alter ego, in The Netherlands on May 2 and recorded an impressive four day debut of ...
-
News
Portugal's Gaia Film Festival reveals inaugural competition line-up
The newly launched Gaia International Film Festival of Portugal is carving a niche as the first stop for international summer releases in the Portuguese market with a high-profile line-up of 12 feature films competing in this year's first annual edition (June 14-22).Among the titles to compete for the festival's non-monetary ...
-
News
Anouk Aimee to head Cannes' France Culture Prize jury
French actress Anouk Aimée, who starred in Claude Lelouch's 1966 Acacdemy Award-winner A Man And A Woman, will chair the jury of the France Culture prize, to be awarded during the Cannes film festival.The prize, which crowns both a French and a foreign 'film-maker of the year' is to be ...
-
News
Foreign films get Hollywood on the re-make
When Sony Picture’s Mr. Deeds opens in North America next month its prospects will depend largely on the appeal of its star Adam Sandler, as opposed to the fact that it’s a remake of Frank Capra’s 1936 comedy Mr. Deeds Goes To Town.Meanwhile, the development department at Sony Pictures, which ...
-
News
Germany's KirchPayTV files for insolvency
The crisis-ridden KirchGroup's pay TV unit KirchPayTV has been forced to file for insolvency a month after the KirchMedia holding company filed for insolvency and self-administration.The pay-TV unit and several of its subsidiaries opened insolvency proceedings in a Munich court today (Wednesday May 8). Kirch Marketing Services was expected ...
-
News
Thin Red Line producer Roberdeau dies, age 48
JohnRoberdeau, nominated with his long-time partner Robert Michael Geisler for anAcademy Award for Best Picture as producers of Terrence Malick's TheThin Red Line (1998), died onMonday, May 6th at Manhattan's Cabrini Medical Center of aheart attack. He was 48.Inpartnership with Geisler since 1979, Roberdeau had recently announced thepair's acquisition of ...
-
News
Abraham returns with Strike, strikes Universal deal
Following his departure from Beacon Communications recently, producer Marc Abraham has started a new production outfit called Strike Entertainment alongside his former Beacon COO Thomas Bliss and former Beacon senior vice president of development Eric Newman. The three are partners in the new company which has struck a four-year, first-look ...
-
News
Graham Chapman life story to be filmed by HippoFilms
LA-based independent production outfit Hippofilms has optioned rights to the life story of late British writer/actor Graham Chapman, a founder member of Monty Python. David Eric Brenner of Hippofilms is to direct and co-script the film.The film will address Chapman's early years at Cambridge and medical school, his struggles with ...
-
News
Spanish media giants agree to merge their pay-TV operations
Spain awoke this morning to the prospect of a dramatic revolution in its media landscape, with the announcement that industry giants Grupo Prisa and Telefonica have agreed to merge their pay-TV units. According to the terms of the deal, which must now be approved by both groups' administrative boards, as ...
-
Reviews
Smoking Room
Dirs: Julio Wallovits, Roger Gual. Spain. 2002. 89mins.This low-budget debut feature film seemingly came out of nowhere to quietly storm last week's Spanish Film Festival in Malaga, where it created buzz among critics, crowds and even international buyers gathered for a sidebar market. The film marks the debut of ...
-
Reviews
Thunderpants
Dir: Peter Hewitt. UK-Germany. 2002. 84mins. The big selling point of Thunderpants for its target audience will also be the main deterrent for their chaperones: the idea of a nondescript, none-too-bright 10-year-old boy with a single extraordinary talent for farting. Our hero's peer group will, of course, love this premise. ...