Month: June 2019

The cast and producers behind “When They See Us” sat down for a very special conversation with Oprah Winfrey on Sunday night at Netflix’s FYSEE location in Hollywood. But the night’s discussion wasn’t just about the stars of the limited series – Winfrey also sat down with the five men, formerly referred to as “The
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ANNECY  —  Three European animation powerhouses – Didier and Damien Brunner’s Folivari, Canal Plus and Studiocanal – are linking to develop “The Baker Street Four,” a premium tween/family animation series marking a striking spin off from the Sherlock Holmes franchise. “My Life as a Zucchini” French producer Blue Spirit will serve as the animation studio,
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MADRID  —  It’s no coincidence that Netflix has chosen Annecy, a fairy tale-looking town nestling in the French Alps, to unveil scenes from its first two animated movies; or that Warner Bros. Animation will world premiere at Annecy’s Intl. Animation Film Festival its first Looney Tunes Cartoon; or that Didier Brunner, the doyen of Europe’s
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June 9, 2019 10:49PM PT ANNECY  —  Frédéric Puech, one of the movers and shakers on the French animation scene, has ankled Planet Nemo Animation, the Ankara production-distribution company he founded 15 years ago to create Play Big, a distribution company launched in partnership with Paris and Lille-based services and production entity Something Big. As
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ANNECY — Announced on the first day of Annecy Intl. Animation Film Festival, Nickelodeon is launching the “Intergalactic Shorts Program,” aimed at developing the next generation of animation talent from around the globe. The venture is to be spearheaded by Nickelodeon’s EVP animation production and development Ramsey Naito, along with newly-hired producer Conrad Vernon (“Sausage
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ANNECY, France — Having traveled from the floor of Bikini Bottom to the shores of Lake Annecy in France, SpongeBob SquarePants is kicking off his 20th year at Europe’s most important animation festival with a Nickelodeon panel and accompanying sneak peek of the upcoming special “SpongeBob’s Big Birthday Blowout.” A few lucky Annecy Intl. Animation Film
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The Tony Awards celebrated the best of Broadway during a ceremony that was packed with music, dance and celebrations of the theater world’s diversity with calls for more diversity, too. But there was a lot going on that the cameras didn’t catch before, during and after the big show. Here are some of the highlights…
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ANNECY  —  Again, we’re not saying these are the best shorts at Annecy this year. That will be left to the festival’s juries to decide. They most certainly, however, underscore the current creativity of animation, its healthy diversity. The selection is, moreover, limited to official sections so does not take in DreamWorks Animation’s “Marooned,” which
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Aton Soumache’s On Entertainment (“Playmobil”) is allying with Joann Sfar, the revered French comicbook artist and filmmaker, on an ambitious live action mini-series inspired by French aviator and author Antoine de Saint Exupery’s 1943 philosophical and self-reflective parable “The Little Prince.” The project, which is still at an early development stage, is being conceived as
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Bushwick Bill, a member of the veteran Houston rap trio Geto Boys, has died at the age of 52, his rep confirmed. The rapper, who was born Richard Shaw, revealed last month that he had been diagnosed with stage 4 pancreatic cancer in February. Reports that the rapper had died began circulating early Sunday after fellow Geto
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The last time James Corden hosted the Tony Awards, the CBS late-night host was understandably subsumed by events onstage and off; not merely were his last bits on the Tonys stage, in 2016, occurring against the backdrop of a “Hamilton” sweep, but they were also happening in the wake of a massacre of predominantly gay
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Mythical Greek tuner “Hadestown” led the way at the 73rd annual Tony awards winning a total of eight prizes, including best musical. The night’s other big winner, IRA thriller “The Ferryman,” picked up top honors for best play and best director for Sam Mendes. On the acting side, comic legend Elaine May received her first-ever
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Paradigm chief Sam Gores told employees of the agency on Sunday that he has shut down acquisition talks with UTA. Gores said in his note that UTA offered to buy the music and literary divisions of Paradigm but he opted not to sell, and with it a client roster that includes author Stephen King, and
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Linda Fairstein, the newly-embattled prosecutor in the Central Park Five case, declined to participate in the Netflix series “When They See Us” because the production consulted with the five young men wrongfully convicted, one of the filmmakers says. Jane Rosenthal, a producer on the well-received Ava DuVernay project about the infamous 1989 rape of a
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An increasingly hostile trade war with China has Hollywood film financiers and distributors just as nervous as producers and star talent these days. As the Trump administration continues with threats and prohibitions, the theatrical film business specifically is wringing its hands over the possibility of being shut out of the massive Chinese marketplace — to
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Disney-Fox’s “Dark Phoenix” failed to rise in North America, but the latest “X-Men” saga looks off to a slightly better start overseas, where it earned $107 million from 53 international markets. Combined with a disastrous $33 million at the domestic box office, “Dark Phoenix” had a global debut of $140 million. The $200 million movie
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ANNECY – Brazil’s “Beyond the Legend,” Venezuela’s “Karetabla” and Chile’s “Witches’ Business” are among the thirteen animation projects selected to participate at the 5th Bridging the Gap (BTG), a Canary Island-based intensive animation workshop. Since its first edition in 2015, Tenerife animation lab Bridging the Gap has promoted fifty international feature films and animation series.
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The North American box office fizzled this weekend as Universal and Illumination’s “The Secret Life of Pets 2” and Disney and Fox’s “X-Men” installment “Dark Phoenix” battled it out at theaters. Neither packed much of a punch, with both films debuting well below expectations. “The Secret Life of Pets 2” nabbed first place with $47.11
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Viewers obsessive about spoiler alerts will be thwarted by the very title of “Fire Will Come”: You know exactly what climax is coming in Oliver Laxe’s rustically beautiful rural parable, but its dreamy, mesmeric power lies in the waiting. An exactingly paced slow burn before it becomes, well, a very fast one, this second feature
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