Small MPU – Page 1375

  • News

    Jamie Bell heads supernatural WWII action drama

    2001-10-25T02:42:00Z

    Jamie Bell, the child star of international hit Billy Elliot, is to head the cast of The Great War Project (working title), a supernatural action drama which tops the slate of Film and Music Entertainment (F.&.M.E.).The picture is the story of eight young soldiers trapped in the WWI trenches who ...

  • News

    Amelie joins cast of foreign-language Oscar race

    2001-10-25T02:49:00Z

    The foreign-language Oscar race hotted up yesterday as Jean-Pierre Jeunet's Le Fabuleux Destin D'Amelie Poulain aka Amelie was named the French submission for the Academy Award, ending speculation that other French films might deprive the phenomenal hit of its chance in the Hollywood spotlight.The submission now gives US distributor Miramax ...

  • News

    Trainspotting author joins Four Way Pictures

    2001-10-25T02:56:00Z

    UK author Irvine Welsh, currently writing the follow-up book to his bestseller Trainspotting, has joined director Antonia Bird, actor Robert Carlyle and journalist Mark Cousins as a partner at talent-led production company Four Way Pictures.Welsh is writing a new screenplay, The Meat Trade, for the two-year old company, set up ...

  • News

    Telefonica signs output deal with Warner Bros TV

    2001-10-25T03:00:00Z

    Telefonica Media, the multimedia subsidiary of Spanish telecoms giant Telefonica, has signed a non-exclusive, multi-year output deal with Warner Bros International Television (WBIT) for free-to-air, pay TV and PPV rights to WBIT product beginning in January 2002. The deal gives Telefonica Media (TM, soon to be renamed Admira) non-exclusive rights ...

  • News

    IMAX format films to showcase at Berlinale 2001

    2001-10-25T03:04:00Z

    A selection of past and present large format IMAX films are set to be shown in a special sidebar at next year's Berlinale.The showcase, which will be spread over three days during the festival, will be screened at the two IMAX cinemas at the festival's Potsdamer Platz venue - in ...

  • News

    ProSiebenSat.1 suffers nine-month profit dive

    2001-10-25T03:14:00Z

    The slowdown in the German advertising market has pushed down the earnings of the ProSiebenSat.1 Group in the first three quarters of 2001. Consolidated revenues of Euros 1.419 billion were posted as of September 30, down 4.5% on last year's Euro 1.486 billion. While the consolidated pre-tax result was Euros ...

  • News

    Blockbuster has 92% rise in third-quarter earnings

    2001-10-25T03:36:00Z

    Blockbuster the global video rental giant, has reported a 92% increase in third-quarter earnings as it continues to benefit from the increasing growth and higher margins of the burgeoning DVD market.The company said that it expects that its DVD business, where margins are some 10% higher than that of video, ...

  • Reviews

    Focus

    2002-07-12T00:00:00Z

    Dir. Neal Slavin. US 2001 104 minutes.Based on Pulitzer Prize-wining playwright Arthur Miller's 1945 novel, Focus offers a timely, yet heavy-handed look at the paranoia, fear, and ignorance that fuels religious and racial intolerance. In light of the tragic events of September 11th and the subsequent attacks ...

  • News

    SunriseMediaStar fund lines up partners

    2001-10-25T23:37:00Z

    Pierce Brosnan's Irish production outfit DreamTime, veteran producer Wayne Duband's Screen Corporation Limited (SCL), France's TF 1 and Ireland's Mc Films are being lined up as production partners for the new Euros 50m private film fund SunriseMediaStar.Sunrise's managing director Nadia Saleh plans to provide financing for between six to seven ...

  • News

    Danish Film body may sack critical consultants

    2001-10-25T23:43:00Z

    The Danish Film Institute (DFI) has suspended two of its film consultants, Thomas Danielsson and Gert Duve Skovlund, for publicly rubbishing a new production, Jolly Roger, which they themselves had awarded state funds worth $900,000 (DKR 7.5m).It all began with an editorial in the Danish newspaper: Information, criticising the consultants ...

  • News

    Bergman marries up again with Ullman, Josephson

    2001-10-25T23:46:00Z

    Sweden's most renowned filmmaker, 83 year-old veteran Ingmar Bergman, has written a TV-movie for national broadcaster SVT Fiktion entitled Anna, which is set to shoot in 2002. The chamber-piece, which Bergman is to direct, will star regulars Liv Ullmann and Erland Josephson as well as Borje Ahlstedt and Julia Dufvenius ...

  • News

    peppermint adds six titles to Mifed slate

    2001-10-25T23:53:00Z

    German sales company peppermint has added another six titles to its new film division's MIFED slate bringing the line-up to 14 films for its market premiere.Leading the raft of the latest peppermint pickups is US production outfit Interlight's $28m film noir thriller White Jazz, which is currently in pre-production and ...

  • News

    Korea enjoys biggest industry boom since 1960s

    2001-10-25T23:57:00Z

    Not since the 1960s has Korean cinema enjoyed a boom that compares to this year. Four local features - Friend, My Sassy Girl, Kick The Moon and My Wife Is A Gangster - make up the top-grossing releases of the year to date. The market share for Korean films in ...

  • News

    Spirited Away conjures $200m in Japan

    2001-10-26T00:08:00Z

    Japanese animation sensation Spirited Away has crossed the mammoth $200m mark in Japan, the first non-US feature ever to do so and, still going strong at the top of the box office, is on track to overtake Titanic's all-time box office record of $213 million (Y26bn). The fantasy , which ...

  • News

    Paramount Classics goes for Mostly Martha

    2001-10-26T01:48:00Z

    Paramount Classics has acquired North American, other English-speaking and Lation American distribution rights to Mostly Martha, the German-language romantic comedy written and directed by Sandara Nettelback, from Bavaria Film International. The film, which world premiered at the Locarno Film Festival and then screened at the Toronto International Film Festival, stars ...

  • News

    Warner Germany strikes deal with Target Media

    2001-10-26T01:53:00Z

    Warner Bros Pictures Germany has entered into a long-term, multi-picture deal with Target Media Entertainment covering the production and distribution of German- and English-language films to be released in Germany, Austria and Switzerland. Target Media is a recently established, Berlin-based joint venture betweeen Cartoon Film, Comet Film, Cometstone International and ...

  • News

    London: Intermedia in discussions to buy IEG

    2001-10-26T02:17:00Z

    Intermedia, the independent giant which floated on Frankfurt's Neuer Markt 18 months ago, is in discussions to buy Graham King's Initial Entertainment Group (IEG), the independent maverick which has backed mega-projects such as Steven Soderbergh's Traffic, Martin Scorsese's Gangs Of New York and Michael Mann's Ali.Buyers at London Screenings this ...

  • News

    Miramax strikes a host of long distance sales

    2001-10-28T16:23:00Z

    Miramax International may have opted not to attend London and MIFED but it is closing deals by phone in New York and has sold a four-picture package to Gaga Communications for Japan. Gaga, the only Japanese buyer attending the markets in force, stopped in New York en route to London ...

  • News

    Rai seeks US distribution reciprocation

    2001-10-28T16:26:00Z

    In a bid to boost the presence of Italian films in the US theatrical market, Rai Cinema is including a clause in all the acquisition and co-production contracts it signs with US partners stipulating that they must in turn agree to distribute of a number of selected Rai titles in ...

  • News

    News Corp withdraws Hughes/DirecTV offer

    2001-10-28T16:30:00Z

    News Corp has formally pulled out of the race to buy US satellite pay-TV giant DirecTV, leaving Echostar Communications as the only other likely bidder. "We have no option but to withdraw immediately our fully negotiated and financed proposal,'' said chief executive Rupert Murdoch in a statement. "Hughes [DirecTV's immediate ...