All articles by Colin Brown – Page 11
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News
Romanian studio backs down from DiCaprio boast
Romania's Castel Film Studios has backed down from claims made earlier this week that Leonardo DiCaprio would be appearing in Librium, the sci-fi thriller that is due to shoot in Bucharest this Summer for Dimension Films.Admitting to the same wishful thinking that makes casting credits so non-contractual at film markets, ...
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US micro distribs snare Ratcatcher, Hit & Runway
In a sign that US micro-distributors are starting to fill the acquisitions void left by the studio specialist divisions as they gravitate to more commercial higher-budgeted fare, two emergent releasing boutiques have separately added two long-overlooked festival favourites to their forthcoming slates.Marking its third acquisition over the past six weeks, ...
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DiCaprio linked to Miramax sci-fi thriller
Leonardo DiCaprio's unexpected attachment to Dimension Film's Librium has allowed that sci-fi project to proceed with plans to shoot certain scenes this coming Summer in the same Bucharest Parliament building that once housed the reviled Communist tyrant Nicolae Ceausescu.According to a statement released on Monday by the Deputies Chamber board, ...
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Jolie to play cyberbabe Lara Croft in Tomb Raider
Oscar winner Angelina Jolie will play cyber action-babe Lara Croft in Paramount Pictures' live action version of the blockbuster video game Tomb Raider that will start shooting this summer at the UK's Pinewood Studios.Jolie, who recently won the Best Supporting Actress Oscar for her role in Girl, Interrupted, beat out ...
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Reviews
Human Resources (Ressources Humaines)
Dir: Laurent Cantet. France. 1999. 100 mins.Prod Co: A La Sept Arte/Haut et Court production with the participation of Centre National de la Cinematographie, Procirep, BBC Films. Int'l Sales: Celluloid Dreams. US sales: Menemsha Entertainment. Prods: Caroline Benjo, Carole Scotta. Exec Prod: Barbara Letellier. Scr: Laurent Cantet, Gilles Marchand. DoPs: ...
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News
Chris Columbus to direct first Harry Potter film
Chris Columbus has been chosen by Warner Bros. to direct the first of the Harry Potter book adaptations, closing the chapter on one of the most competitive Hollywood job contests in recent memory.Columbus, director of such commercially successful family films as Home Alone and Mrs. Doubtfire, is expected to begin ...
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Lions Gate launches expansion drive under new CEO
Frank Giustra has stepped aside as chief executive officer of Lions Gate Entertainment, the Canadian mini-studio he founded nearly three years ago, and passed on the managerial reins to former Sony Pictures TV chief Jon Feltheimer.The power transfer, which took affect Tuesday night, is intended to kick Lions Gate's already ...
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News
Unapix taps Abramowitz for new US theatrical arm
New York''s ambitious Unapix Entertainment has hired film marketing specialist Richard Abramowitz, most recently senior executive vice president of Carl Ichan's Stratosphere Entertainment, to spearhead the company''s new push into US theatrical releasing.As president of Unapix Films Theatrical, Abramowitz will oversee the release of six feature films over the next ...
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News
Artisan seeks to raise $140m from Nasdaq IPO
Artisan Entertainment has announced that its seeking to raise $140m from its upcoming initial public offering and has applied to trade its shares on the NASDAQ exchange under the symbol "RTSN". Merrill Lynch & Co., Bear Stearns & Co and ING Barings have been engaged as Artisan's IPO underwriters.According to ...
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News
Natural Nylon's NYC sibling builds digital studio
Natural Nylon Films, the New York production company that describes itself as the sister company to London's star-laden Natural Nylon Entertainment, has reinvented itself as a digital entertainment studio with its own 5,000 sq.ft. production facility in the heart of Manhattan's Silicon Alley.The New York branch of Natural Nylon is ...
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News
Blockbuster adds overseas rights to shopping list
Blockbuster Entertainment, which has just added The Opportunists to its haul of Sundance festival pick-ups, now wants to extend its aggressive acquisition policy to include all English-language rights to independent films that can be branded internationally as video store exclusives.The world's most extensive home entertainment rental chain, with approximately 6,900 ...
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News
Sony Pictures Classics converts to Tao Of Steve
Sealing yet another Sundance acquisition, Sony Pictures Classics has acquired the North American distribution rights to Jenniphr Goodman's The Tao Of Steve from New York's Good Machine.The crowd-pleasing romantic comedy, about a group of friends living in Santa Fe, New Mexico who use the philosophies of Lao-Tzu, Kierkegaard and Marx ...
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Online Film Fest premieres Figgis' DV feature
Mike Figgis' experimental Time Code, the first digital video production to be fully financed and released by a Hollywood studio, will have its world premiere at the Yahoo! Internet Life Online Film Festival on March 22 in Los Angeles.A dark comedy thriller about Hollywood filmmaking, Time Code was backed by ...
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News
Merger mania ignites again in Hollywood
Sony's chief executive officer Nobuyuki Idei has denied any intention to sell either his music operations or his movie studios, insisting last night that they are "a cornerstone in our overall strategy.""We want to be very clear in stating that our entertainment businesses, Sony Music Entertainment and Sony Pictures Entertainment, ...
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News
Le Studio grabs Tao for multiple territories
France's Le Studio Canal Plus has caught the deal-making fever present among international buyers at this year's Sundance, snapping up multiple territory rights on Jenniphr Goodman's The Tao Of Steve from Good Machine International.Le Studio has acquired rights for France, Germany, Spain, Benelux and Switzerland to the film, a competition ...
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News
American Psycho
Dir: Mary Harron. Canada/USA. 2000. 104 minsUS Dist: Lions Gate Films. Int'l Sales: Lions Gate. Scr: Mary Harron, Guinevere Turner. Prods: Edward R. Pressman, Chris Hanley, Christian Halsey Solomon. Exec Prods: Michael Paseornek, Jeff Sackman, Joe Drake. DoP: Andrzej Sekula. Prod Des: Gideon Ponte. ...
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News
AtomFilms trusts in Sundance short
In the first internet licensing deal announced at a web-crazed Sundance Film Festival this year, AtomFilms has paid a modest upfront fee to acquire both on- and off-line rights to Jason Reitman's 16 minute short feature, In God We Trust. AtomFilms, a Seattle-based web operation that specialises in distributing short ...
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News
Sundance 2000: slim pickings for US distributors
Thebuying mania that has become one of the signatures of the Sundance FilmFestival is likely to be focused on just a small handful of festival titlesthis year, say those who have caught an early glimpse of this year's line-up.Normallythe presence of at least four well-financed indie distributors - Artisan, USA,Lions ...
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1999: big hits, big misses
While 1999 will be remembered as yet another record-shattering year in terms of theatrical box office grosses, it will also bear witness to a growing worldwide disparity in fortunes between the handful of huge hits and the mass of movie misses.The seventeen blockbusters that crossed the magic $100m gross point ...
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News
Who'll get mail next'
The creation of AOL Time Warner provided a catalytic jolt to the world's stock markets, seemingly putting every major media and Internet company in play this week after lighting a fire under their share prices. Analysts were predicting not so much a ripple effect as a tidal wave of mergers ...