Small MPU – Page 665
-
News
Gaumont on the mend with healthy financial results
French majorGaumont has announced its first half figures for 2005 with a healthy 25%increase in revenues compared to the same period last year. The film companyposted revenues of Euros 46.2mn and a profit of Euros 5.3m in the first sixmonths of 2005.Gaumont, whichis coming back into its own following a ...
-
News
Hitler Cantata gets festival slots in Montreal, Tokyo
Jutta Bruckner's Germandrama Hitler Cantata, the storyof composer Broch and how he was commissioned to write a cantata for Hitler's50th birthday, has been selected for the Montreal World FilmFestival in Aug and for an official competition slot at the Tokyo InternationalFilm Festival in Oct.The festival slots wereconfirmed by the film's ...
-
News
Fabrication closes multiple sales on Game
LosAngeles-based sales company Fabrication Films has completed a raft of sales onDavid Anspaugh's real-life sports drama The Game Of Their Lives.Film division presidentWendy Reeds reported sales to 21st Century in Australia, Wise Policy in Japan,Aurum in Spain, NoShame Films in Italy, Conquest Films in Brazil, and HollywoodEntertainment in Greece.Rights also ...
-
News
Sony launches Stealth in Russia, Mexico, Korea
UIP executivesexpect to record two significant milestones this weekend, as Paramount's WarOf The Worlds is poisedto pass the $300m gross mark and DreamWorks International's Madagascar prepares to cross $200m.Both titles have been market leaders over the past monthor so, and have grossed $298.9m and more than $190m respectively.Meanwhile FantasticFour will ...
-
News
Brown named programming director at Miami
Film critic andformer HBO executive and Dwight Brown has been appointed programming directorat the Miami International Film Festival (MIFF). Brown will scout, screen andrecommend films for the festival in all categories, oversee staff, seek out newtalent, and develop outreach programmes and special presentations."Our rapidlyexpanding festival needs a programming executive and ...
-
News
Lions Gate announces second family film Sylvester
Lions GateFamily Entertainment (LGFE) has announced its second feature film project Sylvester, based on the late William Steig'saward-winning children's book "Sylvester And The Magic Pebble".LGFE acquiredthe rights from Simon & Schuster Children's Publishing and will begindevelopment immediately on the story of a donkey that finds a magic pebble.'To havethis much ...
-
Reviews
On A Clear Day
Dir: Gaby Dellal. UK2005. 99mins.British cinema has alwaysloved its underdogs. Gaby Dellal's big-hearted debut feature is yet anotheryarn about a small-timer fighting back against a society that marginalises him.In this case, the protagonist is a 55-year-old newly unemployed Glaswegian whostrives to redeem his life by swimming the English Channel.Confidently directed, ...
-
Reviews
The Rising: The Ballad Of Mangal Pandey
Dir: Ketan Mehta. India.2005. 150minsThe story of the IndianMutiny gets a swashbuckling spin, complete with musical numbers, in TheRising, a film that director Ketan Mehta originally planned to make in1988.The presence of Aamir Khan -star of Lagaan, one of the few Bollywood films to achieve a healthydegree of non-niche prominence ...
-
News
Locarno lands BAK support for the next three years
Switzerland's Federal Office of Culture (BAK) hasannounced that it will extend its annual $935,000 (CHF 1.2m) support to the Locarno International Film Festival for another threeyears.The news comesshortly before this year's event opens on August 3 with KetanMehta's TheRising - Ballad Of Mangal Pandey.The grant represents12 percent of the festival's ...
-
News
Grosvenor Park weighs in behind Highlander trilogy
The new trilogy of Highlander films being prepared byDavis-Panzer Productions and Sequence Films are to use a "one-stop"financing structure created by Grosvenor Park.Highlander V,budgeted between $12-$14m, is due to start shooting in Lithuania inOctober. Although there will be some Lithuanian backing, Grosvenor Park is effectively fully financing theproject. Bret Leonard ...
-
News
Zhang Yimou to chair Tokyo Film Festival jury
China's Zhang Yimou will chair the jury for the18th edition of the Tokyo International Film Festival (October 22-30) with hisnew film, Riding Alone ForThousands of Miles, opening the proceedings.Miles stars Ken Takakura as anelderly Japanese man who journeys to a provincial city in China to film a traditional Beijing opera ...
-
News
Capitol gains Zoetrope slate
UK-based Capitol Films has linked with VCL and MGM to handle international sales on the American Zoetrope slate that the German company agreed to co-finance and distribute internationally prior to Cannes.The pact encompasses 10 films over three years, with MGM handling North American distribution through United Artists Films. The three ...
-
Reviews
Stealth
Dir:Rob Cohen. US. 2005. 119mins.RobCohen's latest big-budget B-movie has the cheesiness of the director's XXXand The Fast And The Furious but none of the saving graces that helpedturn those two outings into entertaining as well as widely appealing summerhits. An airborne action adventure with a US military setting and the ...
-
News
UK announces new tax proposals: Section 42 to go
The UK Government has signaledits intent to do away with Section 42 as well as Section 48 in a set of long-awaitedproposals for new tax incentives for the British film industry. In future, low-and high-budget films would be bedealt with under a "single coherent regime".At the same time, theDepartment for ...
-
News
Wedding Crashers finally takes domestic box office crown
New Line's Wedding Crashers roared to the top of the domestic charts and passed $100m inits third weekend as Sony's high-tech action romp Stealth virtually stalled on take-off and openedweakly in fourth place on $13.5m.Disney's superhero family picture Sky High opened well enough in third place on$14.6m, while Warner Bros' ...
-
News
Wedding Crashers tops box office against three newcomers
New Line's Wedding Crashers roared to the top of the domestic charts and passed $100m inits third weekend as Sony's high-tech action romp Stealth virtually stalled on take-off and openedweakly in fourth place on $13.5m.Disney's superhero family picture Sky High opened well enough in third place on$14.6m, while Warner Bros' ...
-
News
Charlie has spectacular $13.1m opening in UK
Life is sweet for Warner Bros Pictures International as asensational UK debut helped Charlie And The Chocolate Factory dominate the markets outside NorthAmerica over the weekend.Tim Burton's Roald Dahl adaptation grossed an estimated $19.8m onmore than 2,300 screens in 15 countries for an early international cumulativetotal of $36.3m.However there was ...
-
News
Colonna leaves The Firm to join Brillstein-Grey
Sarah Michelle Gellar’smanager JoAnne Colonna has left The Firm to join the senior ranks ofBrillstein-Grey Management.Colonna, whose other clientsinclude Andy Garcia, Brittany Murphy, Brendan Fraser and Anna Paquin, servedsix years at Artists Management Group (AMG) and The Firm, which eventuallyacquired it, as co-head of the talent department.It is understood she ...
-
Reviews
The Dukes Of Hazzard
Dir: Jay Chandrasekhar.US. 2005. 102 mins. Itwould have been easy just to make fun of The Dukes of Hazzard, the supremely corny early eighties US TV seriesabout Bo and Luke Duke, two young buck good ole boys from deep in the heart ofGeorgia. Surprisingly though, this Warner Bros/Village Roadshow big ...