For a small country with a film industry that is export-driven, the quality of New Zealand’s incentives is critical.Despite the kudos and tourism dollars delivered by producing the New Line’s “Lord of the Rings” franchise and “The Hobbit,” by 2013 New Zealand knew that its incentives had lost their competitive edge. In 2014, the government
Movies
“When Hitler Stole Pink Rabbit,” directed by Caroline Link, an Oscar-winner with “Nowhere in Africa,” has attracted several presales ahead of its market premiere at AFM. The film’s sales agent, Beta Cinema, has also revealed a host of deals on other titles. “Pink Rabbit,” an adaptation of the memoir of author and illustrator Judith Kerr
TF1 Studio has scored several pre-sales on Ludovic Colbeau-Justin’s “The Lion,” the anticipated action comedy starring Dany Boon and Philippe Katerine. Currently in post-production, “The Lion” has been picked up for Canada (TVA films), Spain (Dea Planeta), Benelux (Alternative Films), Switzerland (Pathe Films), Greece (Spentzos Film), Portugal (Nos Lusomundo Audiovisuais), CIS (Top Film), Poland (Monolith),
Box office record-breaker and pioneer that it was, “Avatar” was in many ways a dry run for the mega-production that is now under way in multiple studios across New Zealand. James Cameron and his long-term producer partner Jon Landau have mounted an unprecedented exercise in logistics, use of resources and ambitious film-making techniques in order
Betty McLeish (Helen Mirren) is a widow in her 70s who lives in a home full of tasteful pastel furniture in a calmly boring suburb of London. She’s sweet, pretty, pert, and polite, with glowing skin framed by an impeccable gray-white coif; if Doris Day had been a conventional middle-class Englishwoman, she might have looked
Cinema Libre Studio has acquired Chinese drama “Enter the Forbidden City” and will release it in the U.S. in early 2020. Directed by female filmmaker Hu Mei and written by Zou Jingzhi (Zhang Yimou’s “Coming Home,” Wong Kar Wai’s “The Grandmaster”), the historical epic won the Chinese American Film Festival’s top prizes for best director
The $16.7 billion Asia Pacific market is the world’s No. 1 box office region, commanding a 40.6% share of the global total despite trade tensions between the U.S. and China, MPA and former Australian prime minister Kevin Rudd said at the Asia Society’s U.S.-Asia Entertainment Summit in Los Angeles. “Whether you like it or not,
Bob Weis, the president of Walt Disney Imagineering and creative executive of the Shanghai Disney Resort, has outlined a cooperative rather than competitive view of newcomers to China’s theme park industry. “A rising tide raises all boats,” Weis told Variety on the sidelines of the Asia Society’s U.S.-Asia Entertainment Summit in Los Angeles. “The more there
November 6, 2019 10:00PM PT “Bring Me Home,” which marks the big-screen return of leading Korean actress Lee Young-ae — rarely seen since her 2005 role in “Sympathy for Lady Vengeance” — has become a hot pre-seller for rights sales agent Finecut. Produced by 26 Company, the film is a thriller about a woman who
London-based financier and producer Anton, which already fully finances a slate of its own feature films and short-form content, as well as co-financing big-budget TV shows like HBO/BBC’s “His Dark Materials,” is moving into the development and production of its own scripted series, Anton founder Sebastien Raybaud tells Variety. The 8-year-old company, named after Russian
Warner Bros. Entertainment marketing chief Blair Rich sat for a thoughtful and candid conversation about the ups and downs of an eventful year at her studio on Wednesday, when the executive was honored with Variety‘s first-ever Marketing Visionary Award. At the inaugural Visionaries Breakfast, presented by Spotify at the Sunset Tower Hotel in West Hollywood,
If you’ve seen “Joker” you’ll know one of the key scenes is when Arthur Fleck (Joaquin Phoenix) is on the subway and in a “defining moment” transforms into Joker. The entire sequence is like a “fever dream moment,” as cinematographer Lawrence Sher describes it. From the camera angles to the lighting and colors, even the
In today’s film news roundup, Dean Devlin raises funds, Jason Cassidy gets a promotion and Music Box buys Werner Herzog’s documentary about Bruce Chatwin. FINANCING Dean Devlin’s Electric Entertainment has closed a $60 million syndicated corporate credit facility. SunTrust Robinson Humphrey is serving as the sole lead arranger and SunTrust Bank is the administrative agent. The
Sunny skies are a given during the American Film Market. Westside Los Angeles and Santa Monica restaurants provide ample ways to enjoy the fair weather from the newly opened rooftop bar and restaurant at the Santa Monica Proper Hotel to Chez Jay’s freshly installed patio to the sociable picnic tables along the Third Street Promenade,
Star power is always a draw at the American Film Market, led this year by Rachel Weisz playing Elizabeth Taylor in See-Saw’s “A Special Relationship.” It’s a roll of the dice for independently financed projects. A pair of Diane Keaton projects — “Book Club” and “Poms” — were major draws at the last two AFMs.
Jason Cloth, founder and CEO of Toronto-based Creative Wealth Media, is backing two major studio slates (Warner Bros. and MGM) and has committed more than $750 million to major films and TV series through its Bron Creative partnership. Notable projects include “Fences,” “The Morning Show,” “Bombshell,” “The Addams Family,” “A Simple Favor,” Tom Hanks’ “Greyhound,”
Warner Bros.’ “Doctor Sleep,” a sequel to Stanley Kubrick’s seminal horror film “The Shining,” is hoping to scare some life into the box office. Outside of Warner Bros.’ “Joker,” fall offerings such as Paramount and Skydance’s “Terminator: Dark Fate” and Disney’s “Maleficent: Mistress of Evil” haven’t been as warmly embraced by moviegoers. As a result,
Variety has been given access to the first-look image for John Patrick Shanley’s “Wild Mountain Thyme,” starring Emily Blunt and Jamie Dornan. The film, which has just wrapped production on location in Ireland and New York, is being sold at AFM by HanWay Films. The film, an adaptation of Shanley’s Broadway smash hit “Outside Mullingar,”
Dwayne Johnson and Dany Garcia’s Seven Bucks Productions have partnered with 101 Studios, A Really Good Home Pictures, Coonskin Cap Productions and Gary Lewis to produce “Unstoppable,” the true-life story of sports hero Anthony Robles. “Our entire Seven Bucks team is passionate about sharing stories that inspire and resonate on a global scale. We’ve had
Pulling together $100 million to finance an elaborately staged, historical film without major studio support was a herculean feat for “Midway” filmmakers. At Tuesday night’s premiere in Westwood, Calif., director Roland Emmerich told Variety that he took a significantly smaller salary to helm the World War II film. “We did this really frugal,” Emmerich explained.
Popular Spanish filmmaker Kike Maíllo (“Eva,”“Toro”) is set to direct “A Perfect Enemy,” a psychological thriller based on Amelie Nothomb’s bestselling novel “The Enemy’s Cosmetique” with “Cold War” star Tomasz Kot and “The Good Liar” actress Athena Strates set to headline. Pulsar Content, the newly launched Paris sales company, has boarded the project and is
Charades, the Paris-based sales banner, has boarded a pair of stylish English-language genre films: Steven Kostanski’s science fiction comedy “Psycho Goreman” (pictured), and “Cosmogony,” a psychological thriller directed by Vincent Paronnaud (“Persepolis”). “Cosmogony” follows Eve, who meets what she thinks is a charming guy in a bar. Yet things go terribly wrong once she realizes
With major award nomination deadlines looming, Noah Baumbach’s critically acclaimed Netflix divorce drama “Marriage Story” is emerging as a strong contender. The stars at the center of the festival favorite, Adam Driver and Scarlett Johansson, have both been hailed for their tour de force turns as a theater director and his actress wife caught in
When talking about Fox’s “Ford v Ferrari,” starring Christian Bale as race car driver Ken Miles and Matt Damon as auto designer Carroll Shelby, director James Mangold stresses the collaborative nature of filmmaking: “The triumph of our editing team is also a triumph of our stunt teams and design teams and cinematographer. They’re all interlocked.”
As the stars of Terrence Malick’s “A Hidden Life,” August Diehl and Valerie Pachner, walked the red carpet at the film’s world premiere at the Cannes Film Festival, the famously reclusive writer-director was nowhere to be seen. Nor did he appear in video footage of the six-minute standing ovation that his film received that night. But
The Paris prosecutor opened a preliminary investigation Wednesday into Christophe Ruggia, the filmmaker who has been accused by French actress Adele Haenel of sexual harassment and unwanted touching for several years from the time she was 12. “Following the publication of an article in Mediapart on Nov. 3, the Paris prosecutor’s office has opened a
While Hollywood And Wall Street have been bracing for more than two years for a slew of competing streaming services, a new survey has some revelations about the marketplace these platforms will soon enter. Conducted in September by viewer tracking service TV Time and UTA IQ, the survey, “Beyond the Big Three,” says a considerable
November 6, 2019 9:05AM PT Central Partnership has picked up international sales rights to “Chernobyl. Abyss,” directed by Danila Kozlovsky, and produced by Alexander Rodnyansky and Sergey Melkumov, who were both Oscar-nominated for Andrey Zvyagintsev’s “Leviathan” and “Loveless.” The drama is the first major Russian feature film to focus on the aftermath of the explosion
November 6, 2019 9:00AM PT Sebastien Raybaud’s production, finance and sales house Anton has picked up worldwide sales rights to music documentary “Laurent Garnier: Off the Record,” and is presenting the project to buyers at the American Film Market. The documentary looks at the life of one of the godfathers of house music, the pioneering
November 6, 2019 9:00AM PT Ben Affleck has been cast in “Hypnotic,” an action thriller written and directed by Robert Rodriguez. Affleck will play a detective who becomes entangled in a mystery involving his missing daughter and a secret government program, while investigating a string of impossible high-end heists. Solstice Studios and Studio 8 unveiled