In today’s film news roundup, Peter Jackson’s “They Shall Not Grow Old” has boosted its box office, Jillian Clare’s “Pretty Broken” is getting a release, Foley artist MaryJo Lang is honored and Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti is trying to expand opportunities in the entertainment industry.
WAR DOCUMENTARY
Fathom Events and Warner Bros. are reporting that the Martin Luther King Jr. Day screening of Peter Jackson’s World War I documentary, “They Shall Not Grow Old,” brought in $2.6 million at 1,335 North American sites.
The cumulative domestic box office for “They Shall Not Grow Old” has reached $8.3 million in three days, which included Dec. 17 and Dec. 27. That’s well above the prior event-cinema record of $4.6 million for 2015’s “Dragon Ball Z: Resurrection F.” On Jan. 21, “They Shall Not Grow Old” was the No. 4 film at the domestic box office, with the highest per-screen average of any film in release. Fathom specializes in event cinema and is jointly owned by AMC, Cinemark and Regal.
Jackson began developing the project in 2014, using the voices of 120 British soldiers who were recorded in the 1960s, and colorized actual footage from World War I. Warner Bros. will be releasing “They Shall Not Grow Old” for regular engagements on Feb. 1 in 150 markets and approximately 500 theaters.
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ACQUISITION
Freestyle Digital Media has acquired North American rights to the dramedy “Pretty Broken,” which will be released on VOD and theatrically in Los Angeles on March 1.
Jillian Clare portrays an unemployed, college drop-out on the verge of divorce who finds herself couch surfing at her childhood home while her family grieves the death of her father. Stacy Edwards plays her mother. Tyler Christopher, Preston Bailey, Peter Holden and Adam Chambers also star.
SOUND HONOR
Cinema Audio Society President Mark Ulano has selected MaryJo Lang as the President’s Award Honoree, presented at the discretion of the president to an individual dedicated to the advancement of sound.
Lang, now retired, was a foley mixer at Warner Bros. Studios for more than 25 years and worked on motion pictures that won the Oscar for best sound mixing and/or best sound editing, including “Braveheart,” ”The Matrix,” ”The Dark Knight,” “Inception” and “The Ghost and the Darkness.”
GARCETTI APPOINTMENTS
Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti has appointed WME partners Theresa Kang and Amir Shahkhalili along with Kevin Iwashina, senior associate at Endeavor Content, to the city’s Entrepreneur-in-Residence program.
The trio is tasked with expanding Garcetti’s Evolve Entertainment Fund, a public-private partnership that creates new career opportunities for communities that have been historically excluded from the entertainment industry.
The appointments were announced Thursday, the opening day of the Sundance Film Festival, where they will build new awareness around EEF, and work to recruit new partners.