2009 Digest: Screen rounds up the year's key stories

They are cheap, easy to manage and won’t upstage the special effects, let alone sabotage the expensive promotional campaign with a leaked on-set tirade at the cinematographer or an ill-advised bounce on Oprah’s sofa. Just look at the global box office this year of Star Trek ($385m worldwide) (pictured), The TwilightSaga: New Moon ($500m and counting), The Hangover ($459m) (pictured), Paranormal Activity ($107m in the US alone) (pictured), Transformers: Revenge Of The Fallen ($833m) (pictured), and 2012 (nearly $600m). All were made with unknowns or relative unknowns – as is Avatar ($232.2m after just six days) (pictured).  The concept is the star now – after all, no one went to see 2012 because it was a John Cusack movie  And slew of high-budget films made with expensive talent including Funny People, starring Adam Sandler ($62m), Surrogates, with Bruce Willis ($61m) and Duplicity, starring Julia Roberts, ($78m) disappointed around the world this year.

As the star vehicles crashed to earth, Slumdog Millionaire (pictured) in the UK ($52m), Agorain Spain ($31m), Le Petit Nicolas (pictured) in France ($47m), Vicky The Viking ($41m) in Germany, Rookies ($88m) in Japan, Haeundae ($58m) in South Korea, and vampire love story Let The Right One In and the Millennium trilogy (pictured) throughout the Nordic region, soared.  Local stories distributed by local companies with local market insight are finding favour with international audiences increasingly indifferent to second-tier Hollywood product. Event movies will dominate globally but as the US studios realise releasing some of their films in 100-plus territories may not add up financially right now, they are leaving room for local-language product – and distributors -  to move in. Of the big European markets, only Italy has experienced disappointing returns on their home-grown titles but that was before the lucrative Christmas season. It’s also worth noting both The Imaginarium Of Doctor Parnassus ($10.7m) (pictured) and Dorian Gray ($7m) performed better in Italy for Moviemax and Eagle Pictures respectively than in any other European territory in which they have been released.

Even in the UK, a slew of well-financed distributors including Optimum Releasing and Lionsgate UK are moving into financing and production in order to tap into the local production pipeline. Optimum is producing a new adaptation of Brighton Rock, among others, while Lionsgate has a London-based crime thriller called Blitz starring Jason Statham (pictured). Even Artificial Eye has pre-bought UK rights to Lynne Ramsey’s much-anticipated We Need to Talk About Kevin, starring Tilda Swinton (picruwhich will hopefully start shooting early in 2010. Working on the project from the outset is a better deal for the distributor and allows them to wield more control over the finished film. 

India’s Reliance Big Entertainment sealed a slew of deals to bankroll projects from some of Hollywood’s biggest names. Julia Roberts’ Red Om Films and Brett Ratner’s Rat Entertainment were added to the roster, along with the production entities of Nicolas Cage, Jim Carrey, George Clooney, Chris Columbus, Tom Hanks, Brad Pitt and Jay Roach.  A slate of more than 20 projects is now understood to be in development. 

The young British actress Carey Mulligan (pictured) was the sensation of Sundance in Lone Scherfig’s An Education(pictured), the story of a young woman’s blossoming under the influence of a caddish older man in 1960s London. Touted as the new Audrey Hepburn by le tout Hollywood, Mulligan has since gone on to snag the female lead opposite Shia LaBeouf in Oliver Stone’s Wall Street 2: Money Never Sleeps, following roles in Public Enemies and Brothers and is now one of the most sought-after UK stars in Los Angeles. The best actress award she won at the recent British Independent Film Awards (BIFA) in London is unlikely to be the only silver-wear she picks up this awards season and she has already been nominated for a best actress Golden Globe.

Mulligan is just one of the UK’s strong contenders for Globe, BAFTA and Oscar accolades this year. Others include Emily Blunt in The Young Victoria (pictured) and Helen Mirren for Michael Hoffman’s The Last Station in which she plays Countess Sofia Tolstoy, roles for which both have already snagged a Globe nomination along with Mulligan, Sophie Okonedo for Skin (pictured), Tony Fabian’s moving film about a young woman born black to white parents in 1950s South Africa, Colin Firth (pictured) for his poignant portrayal of a bereaved gay man in Tom Ford’s directorial debut A Single Man (another Globe nominee), and Christian McKay’s dazzling debut as Orson Welles in Richard Linklater’s Me And Orson Welles.

Luc Besson and Pierre-Ange Le Pogam’s Paris-based mini-studio Europa Corp reinforced its position as a global force to be reckoned  - one of the very few to do so without the backing of a US studio - with the surprise success of the English-language revenge thriller Taken, which grossed $82m  internationally and $145m in the US this year. One US studio wasn’t keen on casting Liam Neeson as the avenging father but Europa prevailed  - with Fox’s support- and the rest is box office history. Europa is also the company behind the hugely successful Transporter series starring Jason Statham, who is fast becoming one of the industry’s most bankable, if perhaps most unlikeliest, stars.  Meanwhile Besson’s Arthur And The Revenge Of Maltazard is presently top of the French box office with an opening gross of $11m.

After the 2008 success of Mamma Mia and Sex And The City, this year older, female cinema-goers (and more women than ever with green-lighting power at the studios) helped propel Julie & Julia ($119m) (pictured) and New Moon ($500m-plus) (pictured) to global blockbuster status. Next year, international audiences can feast on Nancy Meyers’ It’s Complicated, starring - who else?  - Streep, as well as Sex And The City 2.

Kathryn Bigelow is one of the front-runners to bag an Oscar nomination this year for The Hurt Locker, two female directors had films in competition at Cannes – Andrea Arnold’s Fish Tank and Jane Campion’s Bright Star, London-based Chinese filmmaker Xialuo Guo’s She, A Chinese won the top prize at the prestigious Locarno film festival in Switzerland in the summer, Sam Taylor-Wood’s Nowhere Boy opened the London Film Festival and is in the running for multiple BAFTAs along with Lone Scherfig’s An Education, and Jordan Scott’s Cracks. It’s not exactly a revolution and it is a pity it is even news - but it is progress.

Some of the best home-grown films of the year in the UK were made by first-time film directors, which bodes well for the future creative health of the territory’s film industry.  They include Sam Taylor-Wood (Nowhere Boy), Eran Creevy (Shifty), Tom Harper (The Scouting Book For Boys), Armando Iannucci (In The Loop), Nick Moran (Telstar), Duncan Jones (Moon) , Jordan Scott (Cracks) (pictured), Tom Hooper (The Damned United), Daniel Barber (Harry Brown), and Malcolm Venville (44 Inch Chest). Now they just need to make that all-important second film. Duncan Jones, aka Zowie Bowie, for one, has signed up to direct the sci-fi thriller Source Code, starring Jake Gyllenhaal, for the US’ Mark Gordon Company and France’s Vendome Pictures.

In the age of illegal downloads, films on mobile phones, video on demand, online social networking and about a billion other things for cinemagoers to do with their time, 3D is the holy grail of the distribution and exhibition sectors - event cinema that preserves the theatrical experience at a premium price. 2009 was the year 3D releases, driven by family animations, finally proved their worth. The release of Monsters Vs Aliens (pictured), Ice Age 3 and Up revealed a 3D release will grow the audience rather than simply cannibalise the existing 2D one. In other words, international exhibitors and distributors realised cinemagoers were prepared to pay higher ticket prices to see a film in 3D and to even see a film twice in both realisations. Avatar, for which the first footage was seen at CineExpo in June, is set to be the film that merges storytelling and technology to such a profound degree it finally convinces the many undecided international exhibitors to make the investment to convert to 3D. Even in China, where the authorities want to position the country as a global leader in digital media, Hollywood 3D films are allowed to bypass the country’s strict import quotas if they have a 3D-only release.

Fox International became the first distributor past the $1bn mark in international revenues in 2009, propelled by Ice Age 3, Night At The Museum 2 and X-Men Origins: Wolverine. It was followed by Warner Bros for the ninth consecutive year (no wonder it is splitting the adaption of the seventh and final Harry Potterbook into two separate films and releases), while Sony Pictures Releasing International became only the fifth distributor in history to notch up $2bn in international ticket sales in a single year. It has 2012 ($510m and counting), Angels And Demons ($352.5m) and Terminator Salvation ($246m) to thank. It is surely only a formality before it is joined by Fox International riding high with Avatar.

After North America and India, Japan is the third biggest box office market in the world, way ahead of the UK, Germany and France.  Japanese audiences used to adore Hollywood and its stars: back in 1997 Titanic did huge business in Japan, with Leonardo DiCaprio worshipped as a demi-God. But although the Japanese box office is growing impressively in the face of global recession, it is being driven by huge local films and stars rather than US blockbusters. Only the latest Harry Potter film has grossed more than $35m this year – $84m - with local titles such as Rookies notching up nearly $100m. Japanese films tend to be based on hit TV shows, manga and novels and with Japanese audiences seeing a low 1.3 movies per capita annually and paying the highest ticket prices in the world, they choose safely.

By and large the US studios no longer care about the specialty business, as evidenced by the decision by the new-look Walt Disney Co to close down Miramax, the latest in a line of specialty division casualties over the past 18 months or so. And yet hope springs eternal: Bob Berney and Bill Pohlad’s Apparition is a hungry, well-connected buyer, albeit one still awaiting its first notable hit, and all eyes will be on new distribution operations at CBS Films, the Film Department, and the soon-to-be-announced venture from Tribeca Enterprises.