Search Results for: “Prometheus”

Cannes: Exclusive Media Acquires Sales Rights To ‘Passengers’ With Keanu Reeves And Reese Witherspoon Starring

By THE DEADLINE TEAM | Tuesday May 7, 2013 @ 11:27am PDTTags: Big Deals Film, Cannes Film Festival, Cannes Wrap-Up, Exclusive Media, Keanu Reeves, Passngers, Reese Witherspoon

Reese Witherspoon ArrestEXCLUSIVE: Exclusive Media has picked up international rights to Passengers, the sci-fi romance starring Keanu Reeves and now Reese Witherspoon that Game Of Thrones and Boardwalk Empire director Brian Kirk is directing in his major feature film debut. Wayfare Entertainment is financing and producing the pic from a script by Prometheus scribe Jon Spaihts. The story follows a spacecraft transporting thousands of people to a distant colony planet that has a malfunction in one of its sleep chambers. As a result, a single passenger (Reeves) is awakened 90 years before anyone else. Faced with the prospect of growing old and dying alone, he eventually decides to wake up a second passenger (Witherspoon), marking the beginning of what becomes a unique love story. The script was developed by Stephen Hamel and Reeves at their production shingle Company Films. Hamel will produce the pic with Wayfare CEO Ben Browning. Start Media’s Michael Maher and Lynwood Spinks will executive produce. CAA is repping domestic rights to the pic.

Related: ‘Passengers’ To Star Keanu Reeves, With Brian Kirk Directing Read More »

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E! Orders WWE Divas, Jessie James & Eric Decker Reality Series, Ross Mathews Talk Show, Will Develop ‘The Soup’ Spinoff

By NELLIE ANDREEVA | Monday April 22, 2013 @ 5:59am PDTTags: E! Entertainment, Hello Ross, The Soup Investigates, The Wanted Life, Total Divas
Nellie Andreeva

E! today at its upfront presentation unveiled a slate of new unscripted series, specials and projects in development. Newly greenlighted shows include Total Divas, about the women behind the WWE Divas; Love And Other Contact Sports: Eric And Jessie, chronicling the pending nuptials of singer Jessie James and Denver Broncos wide receiver Eric Decker; and Hello Ross, an interactive talk show hosted by Chelsea Lately‘s Ross Mathews and produced by Chelsea Handler’s production company. Hello Ross stems from a development deal E! signed with Mathews two years ago. Additionally, E! officially announced a June 2 premiere date for The Wanted Life, its new half-hour unscripted series about the personal and professional lives of pop group The Wanted, which is executive produced by Ryan Seacrest under his production deal with E!. The Wanted Life debut will follow the eighth-season premiere of E!’s top-rated series, Keeping Up With The Kardashians, also exec produced by Seacrest. To further hype his new show, Seacrest also will do a special with The Wanted to air a few days before the premiere.

E!’s unscripted development slate include The Soup Investigates, a spinoff series of E!’s The Soup, a pop culture-themed spoof of the investigative TV genre featuring The Soup host Joel McHale and a team of reporters. E! also has put in development a sketch comedy show starring comedian James Davis and produced by Funny Or Die, a comedic show exploring pop culture stereotypes produced by Jack Osbourne, and Vin Di Bona and a parlor game-style game show from Shine America. E!’s new slate comes a month after E! president Suzanne Kolb tapped Jeff Olde as head of programming. Here are details about all E! unscripted new series and specials as well as projects in development: Read More »

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Sci-Fi Pic ‘Passengers’ To Star Keanu Reeves, With Brian Kirk Directing And Wayfare Entertainment Producing

By MIKE FLEMING JR | Thursday April 18, 2013 @ 11:13am PDTTags: Big Deals Film, Brian Kirk, Jon Spaihts, Keanu Reeves, Passengers, Wayfare Entertainment
Mike Fleming

EXCLUSIVE: Game Of Thrones and Boardwalk Empire director Brian Kirk has just been set to helm Passengers in his major feature film debut. Wayfare Entertainment has come aboard to finance and produce the sci-fi pic that will star Keanu Reeves in a script by Prometheus scribe Jon Spaihts. The story follows a spacecraft transporting thousands of people to a distant colony planet that has a malfunction in one of its sleep chambers. As a result, a single passenger (Reeves) is awakened 90 years before anyone else. Faced with the prospect of growing old and dying alone, he eventually decides to wake up a second passenger, marking the beginning of what becomes a unique love story. That second passenger, a female, has yet to be cast. Read More »

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‘Luther’ And ‘Pacific Rim’ Star Idris Elba Is In Play At The Big Agencies

By MIKE FLEMING JR | Tuesday April 16, 2013 @ 12:47pm PDTTags: Idris Elba, Luther, Pacific Rim, UTA
Mike Fleming

After quietly leaving UTA last week, Idris Elba is the hot actor in play, and it’s suspected he’ll either land at WME or CAA. Elba seems poised to finally make that transition from great actor to movie star, so he’s a real catch. But the gang at UTA certainly did their job; the agency booked him into Prometheus, Thor, Pacific Rim and Mandela: The Long Walk To Freedom, the latter a film the agency packaged around director client Justin Chadwick. By the time he’s done starring in Guillermo del Toro’s Pacific Rim this summer and following up by playing Nelson Mandela in the Oscar-bait Weinstein Company release later this year, Elba should finally reach that level of stardom that has inexplicably eluded him. I must say that after watching his turns in The Wire and especially Neil Cross’s British crime series Luther, I find it baffling it has taken this long; how many actors out there are as good as this guy? Elba has also established himself as a serial agency jumper in the U.S. He moved from ICM to CAA, back to ICM, and then chose UTA over WME and CAA two years ago. He remains managed by Anonymous Content and agented by Ken McReddie Associates in the UK.

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China Outpaces Japan To Become World’s No. 2 Movie Market: MPAA

By DAVID LIEBERMAN, Executive Editor | Thursday March 21, 2013 @ 6:46pm EDTTags: Box Office, China, Japan, MPAA

China moviesThe data in the MPAA‘s Theatrical Market Statistics report for 2012 are striking: China accounted for $2.7B in box office sales last year, up from $2.0B in 2011. That vaults the country past Japan at $2.4B, a slight increase from 2011′s $2.3B. “China is building 10 screens a day,” MPAA chief Chris Dodd says. “There’s a voracious appetite for product and our films have done well.” He cited recent agreements that enable Hollywood studios to show 30 films a year in China, up from 14. But he says what’s more important is that “there is no restriction on joint ventures which can allow for greater opportunity for product to get in.” Dodd says he just met with the head of the Wanda Group, a major theater owner there (and here, since its acquisition last year of AMC Entertainment). “He’s trying to fill seats and knows that American product draws a terrific audience in China.”

Related: Kids And Young Adults Drive Uptick In 2012 Movie Attendance: MPAA

Some studios were frustrated last year when some of their biggest hits were pitted against each other in China. For example, Warner Bros’ The Dark Knight Rises, Sony’s The Amazing Spider-Man, and Fox’ Prometheus opened within a week of each other. “Ironically, they all did very well,” Dodd says, although he acknowledges that he considers … Read More »

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Weinstein Co Acquires Nelson Mandela Movie

By MIKE FLEMING JR | Friday February 22, 2013 @ 5:00am PSTTags: Big Deals Film, Nelson Mandela, The Weinstein Company
Mike Fleming

The Weinstein Company (TWC) and Anant Singh announced today the acquisition, by TWC, of the North American, Australian and New Zealand distribution rights to the film of Nelson Mandela’s life based on his autobiography MANDELA: LONG WALK TO FREEDOM. The film is directed by Justin Chadwick (THE FIRST GRADER, THE OTHER BOLEYN GIRL) and produced by Anant Singh.

Singh began communicating with Mandela about making a film based on his life while he was still in prison and acquired the film rights to Mandela’s book at the time of its publication in 1996 and development on the film began immediately when Academy Award® Nominee, writer William Nicholson (LES MISERABLES, GLADIATOR, SHADOWLANDS) signed on. The completion of MANDELA: LONG WALK TO FREEDOM sees the culmination of Singh’s most ambitious project to date.

On awarding the film rights to Singh, Mandela has said, “Anant Singh is a producer I respect very much. Given the resources and backing, he will produce a work of the highest standards and excellence, and it is for that reason, I opted for him.”

MANDELA: LONG WALK TO FREEDOM, shot in South Africa, started principal photography at the end of May 2012 in KwaZulu-Natal and went on to shoot for 16 weeks at authentic locations in Cape Town, Johannesburg and Mandela’s home province, the Eastern Cape with the shoot ending in mid-September 2012.

Commenting on the deal, Singh said, “TWC is the best North American distributor for MANDELA: LONG WALK TO

… Read More »

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OSCARS: Hammond’s Down-To-The-Wire Predictions For 2013 Winners & Losers

By PETE HAMMOND | Monday February 18, 2013 @ 7:45pm PSTTags: Awardsline, Oscars
Pete Hammond

Can’t we just end all this suspense about winners or losers and call it one massive tie this year? The 2012 crop of Oscar nominees, and films in general, is so impressively dense with quality it seems a shame the Academy has to pick just one winner in each category. But that’s the name of the game we play this time of year, and with ballots going out just as I had to turn this piece in, it is still a fluid situation as to just what the final results will be. With so many movies spread across many categories that are genuine contenders, a split vote resulting in some surprising twists and turns is possible, even though the various guild awards give strong clues about industry sentiment. If the past is any indication, I am aware some readers might take these predictions as gospel and bet the farm on it in their Oscar pools, so I offer a disclaimer before we begin. I am not responsible for any monetary loss you might incur, nor do I expect 10% of any winnings. I am just trying to read the winds of Oscar after several months of analyzing every tea leaf. Here is where I have a hunch it stands, but please note I have made a few tweaks since the original version of these predictions were published in last week’s print edition of AwardsLine (I switched in production design and makeup/hairstyling). Results at BAFTA, WGA, and several other guild award shows have now been taken into account since then, but it is all still a crap shoot in one of the craziest Oscar years in memory.

BEST PICTURE

All season long, this has been about as wide open a race, and as competitive a field of contenders, as we have seen in many years. With nine nominees, the same number as last year, it has taken a while to figure out a surefire winner. But with key awards from the PGA, DGA, WGA, BAFTA and SAG, in addition to best picture honors at the Golden Globes and Critics Choice Movie Awards, Argo has clearly emerged as the frontrunner, a remarkable turn of events considering its director, Ben Affleck, was snubbed by the Academy’s directing branch Jan. 10. Oh, what a difference a few weeks makes. The big question is, can the Warner Bros. juggernaut maintain momentum and win Oscar’s top prize, even without that directing nomination? If so, it would be only the second film to win without a directing nom, following Driving Miss Daisy’s feat at the 1990 ceremony. With the best picture category holding the strongest possibility for success among Argo’s seven nominations, could it actually win here and nowhere else? Not likely, but it’s possible, especially in a year in which I think the Academy will be spreading the wealth. Lincoln, with a leading 12 nominations (a good, if not always correct, indicator), Silver Linings Playbook, and Life of Pi are probably still in the mix here as well but…

The Winner: Argo

The Competition: Amour, Beasts of the Southern Wild, Django Unchained, Les Misérables, Life of Pi, Lincoln, Silver Linings Playbook, Zero Dark Thirty

RELATED: OSCARS: Best Picture Nominees Had Uphill Production Battles

BEST DIRECTOR

With the quirky director’s branch going out of their way to snub DGA nominees Kathryn Bigelow, Tom Hooper, and DGA winner Ben Affleck, we know for sure we can’t count on the usual spot-on correlation between the DGA winner and the eventual victor in this category. Affleck actually would have been my prediction to win here, but, alas, he’s not even nominated, which means voters might very well be splitting their vote for director and picture this year — certainly not unheard of in recent years but increasingly rare. As directors of the two films with the most nominations, Steven Spielberg for Lincoln and Ang Lee for Life of Pi, are the likely frontrunners, with Silver Linings Playbook’s David O. Russell coming up on the outside. If initial frontrunner Lincoln has been eclipsed in the Best Picture race, this is the place voters could come to kneel at the Spielberg-ian altar. Or not. Lee’s triumph in even managing to bring the “unfilmable” Pi to the screen just screams “directing”, and that could play very well here.

The Winner: Ang Lee, Life of Pi

The Competition: Michael Haneke, Amour; Benh Zeitlin, Beasts of the Southern Wild; Steven Spielberg, Lincoln; David O. Russell, Silver Linings Playbook

BEST ACTOR

This is Daniel Day-Lewis’ to lose at this point. Playing such a well-known biographical figure is, of course, a big plus. But Day-Lewis brought a lot to the table and remains the guy to beat in an impossibly fine field of contenders. Day-Lewis’ biggest drawback is that he has already won this prize twice, and a third would be unprecedented for lead actors in Oscar history. Also no actor has ever won an Oscar for playing a U.S. president, another potential first. The Academy might want to reward equally deserving newcomers to the category like Hugh Jackman or Bradley Cooper instead, but judging from the pile of precursor awards Day-Lewis has already won, it looks like you can bet a very large pile of $5 bills that he will make Oscar history with honest Abe.

The Winner: Daniel Day-Lewis, Lincoln

The Competition: Bradley Cooper, Silver Linings Playbook; Hugh Jackman, Les Misérables; Joaquin Phoenix, The Master; Denzel Washington, Flight

RELATED: OSCARS: Best Actor/Best Actress Race Handicap

BEST ACTRESS

I got this one wrong last year when Meryl Streep (The Iron Lady) beat Viola Davis (The Help), and this is another tough one. The race for lead actress is hotly competitive, with both Silver Linings Playbook’s Jennifer Lawrence and Zero Dark Thirty’s Jessica Chastain claiming other early awards and also impressing with strong performances (Naomi Watts is magnificent in The Impossible, but that film got no other nominations, putting it at a disadvantage here against four other actress nominees from Best Picture contenders). Plus, never underestimate the so-called “babe factor” (thanks to the Academy’s dominant male membership) that this category often, but not always, favors. A win here for either one could be a chance to give either of their movies an important award, while shutting them out elsewhere. The real wild card in this race is 85-year-old Emmanuelle Riva, whose performance in the foreign language film Amour has been widely praised and admired, particularly by her fellow actors, who comprise the Academy’s largest voting block. As the oldest Best Actress nominee ever (she actually turns 86 on Oscar Sunday), she could trigger a sentimental factor and a feeling that the others will have another shot someday. SAG champ Lawrence probably has the edge and is where the smart money’s going, but a split in this very fluid category could provide one of the evening’s most interesting stories. So going way out on a limb…

The Winner: Emmanuelle Riva, Amour

The Competition: Jessica Chastain, Zero Dark Thirty; Jennifer Lawrence, Silver Linings Playbook; Quvenzhané Wallis, Beasts of the Southern Wild; Naomi Watts, The Impossible
Read More »

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OSCARS: VFX Nominees Discuss Key Sequences

By THE DEADLINE TEAM | Monday February 18, 2013 @ 5:30pm PSTTags: Life of Pi, Marvel's The Avengers, Prometheus, Snow White and the Huntsman, The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey

Thomas J. McLean is an AwardsLine contributor

This year’s nominees show how visual effects have spread from summer blockbusters to genres as diverse as superheroes, different flavors of fantasy, more traditional sci-fi territory, and even the art-house film. For each nominee, there’s a moment that makes it worthy of an Oscar nomination. Here, the visual-effects supervisors on the nominated films break down the key challenges and talk about the sequence that clinched the nomination.

The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey

The nominees: Joe Letteri, Eric Saindon, David Clayton, R. Christopher White

No. of visual-effects shots: 2,176

Tech breakthrough: The complexity and number of techniques used to create the digital creatures. “It’s a combination of lots of things to get a creature to that point”, says Letteri. “It’s muscles, it’s skin, it’s facial capture, it’s performance capture”. All those things had to come together to bring to convincing life six leading digital characters with dialogue. Read More »

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Camera Makers Red Digital Turn Focus To Sony With Patent Suit

By DOMINIC PATTEN | Wednesday February 13, 2013 @ 1:02am PSTTags: Sony Corp

Days after settling an email-hacking lawsuit with rival camera makers ARRI, Red Digital today sued Sony Corp for patent infringement. The high-tech camera manufacturer’s complaint (read it here) Tuesday claims that three cameras made by defendants Sony Electronics and Sony Corporation of America “all embody the subject matter claimed in Red’s asserted patents without any license.” The federal court filing adds that “Red is informed and believes and thereupon alleges that the sale of Sony’s unauthorized, infringing cameras has resulted in lost sales, reduced the business and profit of Red, and greatly injured the general reputation of Red.” Alleging two instances of “willful and wanton” patent infringement on technology used in its Red One camera, Red is seeking a court order that its patents are “valid and enforceable” as well as an injunction against Sony’s F65, F55 and F5 cameras to stop their further sale and have them destroyed.

Formed by sunglasses and sportswear billionaire Jim Jannard in 1999, Red’s cameras have quickly become an industry standard in the increasingly digitally based movie business, with the company’s Red One and other products used recently to shoot the likes of The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey, the Ridley Scott-directed Prometheus, the History Channel miniseries Hatfields & McCoys and the Steven Soderbergh-directed The Informant. Read More »

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OSCARS: Charlize Theron, Channing Tatum, Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Daniel Radcliffe To Be “Special Guests” On Telecast

By THE DEADLINE TEAM | Thursday February 7, 2013 @ 3:13am PSTTags: Charlize Theron, Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Oscars

BEVERLY HILLS, CA – The Oscars will feature special appearances by Academy Award® winner Charlize Theron, Channing Tatum, Joseph Gordon-Levitt and Daniel Radcliffe at the upcoming Awards ceremony.

“We are quite excited to have Charlize, Chan, Joe and Dan join us on the show,” said telecast producers Craig Zadan and Neil Meron. “We are happy to feature them as special guests in our production.”

This will be Gordon-Levitt, Radcliffe and Tatum’s first time appearing on the Oscar show.

Read More »

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Berlin TOLDJA! Charlize Theron Locked For ‘Dark Places’

By NANCY TARTAGLIONE, International Editor | Thursday, 7 February 2013 02:24 UKTags: Berlin, Charlize Theron, Dark Places, Exclusive Media

Deadline has been out in front on most of the star packages being unveiled in Berlin, including the revelations that Johnny Depp will star in Black Mass, Colin Farrell is joining Anthony Hopkins in Solace, and that Jeremy Renner will star in Kill The Messenger. We broke the story Monday that Charlize Theron would be signing on to star and produce the film adaptation of the Gillian Flynn novel Dark Places, and it was just confirmed by Exclusive Media. Here’s the official word:

Los Angeles, CA (February, 2013) – Academy Award winning actress Charlize Theron (SNOW WHITE AND THE HUNTSMEN, PROMETHEUS, MONSTER) will star in and produce the film adaptation of Gillian Flynn’s best-selling novel Dark Places to be written and directed by Gilles Paquet-Brenner (SARAH’S KEY), it was announced today by Exclusive Media’s Co-Chairmen Nigel Sinclair and Guy East.

Exclusive Media’s Guy East and Nigel Sinclair will produce and fully finance the film alongside Theron’s production company Denver and Delilah Productions with partners Beth Kono and AJ Dix; Stephane Marsil’s Hugo Productions and Mandalay Vision’s Matthew Rhodes. Tobin Armbrust and Alex Brunner of Exclusive Media will executive produce with Peter Safran, and Mandalay’s Cathy Schulman will also produce in some capacity.

Stephane Marsil has developed and produced all of Gilles Paquet-Brenner’s films starting with 2001’s PRETTY THINGS which garnered star Marion Cotillard a César nomination. When Gilles

… Read More »

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Ex-Exec Michael Costigan Returns To Sony In Producing Pact

By MIKE FLEMING JR | Tuesday February 5, 2013 @ 4:31pm PSTTags: Big Deals Film, Michael Costigan, Scott Free, Sony Pictures
Mike Fleming

EXCLUSIVE: Sony Pictures Entertainment has made a two-year exclusive first-look deal with Michael Costigan and his COTA Films. It brings him back to the lot where he spent nine years as an executive working on such films as Charlie’s Angels, Gattaca, The People Versus Larry Flynt, Girl, Interrupted and Bottle Rocket.

The deal was brokered by Columbia Pictures president Doug Belgrad and president of production Hannah Minghella.

Costigan left Sony and was exec producer of Ang Lee’s Brokeback Mountain, before he took the role of president for Ridley and Tony Scott’s Scott Free, where he served from 2005 to 2012. There, he was exec producer of Prometheus, The Counselor, Robin Hood, Body Of Lies and American Gangster from the Scott brothers, and he produced the Mark and Jay Duplass pics Cyrus and Welcome to the Rileys. More recently, he produced Stoker, the Park Chan-wook-directed film that stars Mia Wasikowska, Nicole Kidman and Matthew Goode, and the Zal Batmanglij-directed The East, which stars Brit Marling, Ellen Page and Alexander Skarsgard. Both those films premiered at Sundance. Costigan also produced Out Of The Furnace, the Brad Ingelsby-scripted drama directed by Scott Cooper and starring Christian Bale, Casey Affleck and Woody Harrelson.

Related: Scott Free President Michael Costigan Leaving To Be Producer Read More »

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BFI Reports Mixed UK Box Office & Production Statistics For 2012

By NANCY TARTAGLIONE, International Editor | Thursday, 31 January 2013 14:46 UKTags: BFI, Skyfall, The Woman in Black

The British Film Institute has released box office and production stats for the UK in 2012 that offer up a mix of good, bad and unsurprising news. Box office was up just a touch after being dented by summer events that turned attention away from the multiplex. At the same time, investment from abroad dropped drastically after a record 2011 that included the shoots of The Dark Knight Rises, Dark Shadows, Skyfall, Prometheus, Snow White And The Huntsman, World War Z and Wrath Of The Titans.

The overall UK spend of features that started production in 2012 was £927M ($1.47B), a 29% drop on 2011’s record-breaking £1.29B. A total of 26 so-called inward investment movies, including Warner Bros.’ All You Need Is Kill, Red 2 for Lionsgate/Summit, Paramount’s Jack Ryan and Universal’s Fast And Furious 6 and Kick Ass 2, contributed £631M compared to the 34 films in 2011 which spent £1B. Simon Oakes, producer of 2012′s top indie, Woman In Black, thinks the trend is cyclical. “I don’t think this is a forever stat. We’ll probably see this year that it will come back up again. Look, if there was an intention not to spend money by the U.S. studios in the UK, Warner Bros. wouldn’t have spent money on Leavesden,” Oakes tells me about the £100M+ Warner invested on a London-adjacent studio facility after the end of the Harry Potter franchise. Read More »

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NATPE: Glen Mazzara Says “Ask AMC” Why He Was Dropped From ‘Walking Dead’

By DOMINIC PATTEN | Tuesday January 29, 2013 @ 11:42am PSTTags: AMC, Glen Mazzara, NATPE, The Walking Dead

Former The Walking Dead showrunner Glen Mazzara said today that if you want to know why he suddenly lost his job on the hit show last year, he’s not your guy. “When people involved with the show are looking at the long-term plan, you know, they want something different. And what those differences are, you’d have to ask AMC,” he said Tuesday during a session at NATPE. Mazzara exited Walking Dead in December when AMC renewed the breakout series for a fourth season. “I was a hired gun coming in to support the creator of the show and, through odd circumstances, I ended up becoming the showrunner. I was just glad that I was able to contribute and not mess up the show, I see that as a win,” he added to laughs from the crowd. Earlier this month, Walking Dead supervising producer Scott Gimple was announced as Mazzara’s replacement. Mazzara was appearing on a panel in Miami with Lost co-creator/showrunner Damon Lindelof on the second day of the conference. The second part of The Walking Dead’s third season starts February 10.

Related: Kurt Sutter Slams “Small Minded” AMC Over ‘Walking Dead’ Showrunner Exit
Read More »

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Sound Editors Announce Nominations For Golden Reel Awards

By THE DEADLINE TEAM | Thursday January 17, 2013 @ 6:49pm PSTTags: Golden Reel Awards, Motion Picture Sound Editors

Four movies dominated nominations for the Motion Picture Sound Editors Golden Reel Awards. Argo, The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey, Life Of Pi and Skyfall were each nominated for four awards. The Dark Knight Rises, Django Unchained and Lincoln took 3 nominations apiece. The Golden Reels recognize sound editing in 22 categories encompassing feature films, television, animation, computer entertainment and student work. Also this year, the MPSE has chosen director Ang Lee to receive its Filmmaker Award and to honor Foley artist John Roesch for with a Career Achievement Award. The 60th MPSE Golden Reel Awards ceremony will take place February 17 at the Westin Bonaventure Hotel and Suites in downtown Los Angeles. Complete list of nominees follows:  Read More »

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Last Shoe Drops: The Hollywood Reporter’s Jimmy Finkelstein Finally Removed — Is Sale Next?

By NIKKI FINKE, Editor in Chief | Tuesday January 15, 2013 @ 10:00am PSTTags: Big Deals Film, Big Deals TV, Guggenheim Partners, Prometheus Global Media

Guggenheim Partners today announced the hiring of a badly needed digital media CEO, presumably to put some fiscal diet discipline over its assets including The Hollywood Reporter‘s bloat. In the process it has removed the last remaining Prometheus Media equity owner managing THR after its 2010 purchase. Gone with the wind is Jimmy Finkelstein, who tried unsuccessfully to turn the publication into a profitable venture. Guggenheim announced that it has acquired the remaining stake in Prometheus Media from Pluribus Capital, which was founded by Finkelstein, who previously served as  Chairman of Prometheus Media. So here’s what happened: it’s been well known that the disliked Finkelstein clashed often with Guggenheim, which for the past year installed its own bean-counters to monitor the celebrity sheet. And inexplicably in July Guggenheim placed Dottie Mattison in charge, even though she is known for loving the Red Carpet limelight more than overseeing the journalism of the job. Finkelstein had a reputation around the Reporter as a nasty piece of work, so there will be lots of dry eyes to see him go. He never understood that, to make the publication profitable, costs had to be slashed and not constantly soared, to Guggenheim’s horror. The fault lies with Guggenheim’s Todd Boehly, whose lousy idea it was to buy into Hollywood — and now can’t wait to get out so he can continue investing in sports. (His newly acquired Dick Clark Prods just effed-up Sunday’s Golden Globes production-wise.)

One of the problems was that Finkelstein, who owned legal trades years ago, overestimated his own ability to turn a profit in today’s crowded consumer media marketplace. Although it’s true that The Hollywood Reporter has enlarged its one-off traffic, it still is not widely consumed by the entertainment community. Instead Hollywood and the businesses that rely on it are addicted to lean and mean Deadline Hollywood, which focuses exclusively on showbiz instead of celebrity. THR‘s plan under original Prometheus Media CEO Richard Beckman was to publish a subscription-based magazine. That quickly fizzled, and the Reporter print edition is distributed free for the most part (and to zip codes like Florida). Beckman, who was hired in 2010, was demoted in 2011 and then kicked to the curb in June. Finkelstein would have met the same fate earlier except he was an equity owner in Prometheus Media and convinced naive Guggenheim to let him try to affect a turnaround. Now his removal paves the way for Guggenheim to finally sell the Hollywood trade, something the investor has wanted to do almost from the beginning of its asset acquisition which was always plotted as a fixer-upper to be flipped.

Meanwhile, Penkse Media Corp (owner of Deadline Hollywood) is still waging its lawsuit against The Hollywood Reporter for copyright infringement.

Here’s Guggenheim’s release today: Read More »

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OSCARS: Nominations By Studio, Distributor

By NIKKI FINKE, Editor in Chief | Thursday January 10, 2013 @ 8:11am PSTTags: 20th Century Fox, Disney, Oscars, Sony Pictures

MOTION PICTURE NOMINATIONS BY STUDIOS AND DISTRIBUTORS
UPDATED Count and Annotated Count

Count
20th Century Fox (including Fox Searchlight) – 31
Sony Pictures Entertainment (including Sony Pictures Classics) – 24
Walt Disney Co (including Pixar and Marvel and DreamWorks) – 17
The Weinstein Company – 17
Universal (including Focus Features and Working Title) – 17
Working Title – 12
Warner Bros Pictures (including New Line) – 10
MGM – 8
Sony Pictures Classics – 8
Participant Media – 7
Focus Features – 6
Fox Searchlight – 6
New Line Cinema – 3
Paramount Pictures (including DreamWorks Animation) – 2
Cinedigm – 1
Kino Lorber – 1
Magnolia Pictures – 1
Ouat Media – 1
Premium Films – 1
Relativity Media – 1
Submarine Deluxe – 1
Summit Entertainment – 1
Lionsgate (including Summit) - 1
Sundance Selects – 1
Tribeca Film – 1
Marvel Studios – 1
Pixar – 1

Related: OSCARS: Nominations By Picture
Related: OSCARS: 85th Academy Award Nominations

Annotated Count
Fox Film (31)
Best Picture – Beasts of the Southern Wild - Dan Janvey, Josh Penn and Michael Gottwald, Producers
Best Picture – Life of Pi - Gil Netter, Ang Lee and David Womark, Producers
Best Picture – Lincoln – Steven Spielberg and Kathleen Kennedy, Producers
Lead Actor -Daniel Day-Lewis in Lincoln
Supporting Actor – Lincoln – Tommy Lee Jones - Lincoln
Best Lead Actress – Beasts of the Southern Wild - Quvenzhané Wallis
Supporting Actress -Lincoln – Sally … Read More »

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OSCARS: Nominations By Picture

By NIKKI FINKE, Editor in Chief | Thursday January 10, 2013 @ 7:03am PSTTags: Les Miserables, Life of Pi, Lincoln, Oscars

Related:
OSCARS: Nominations By Studio, Distributor
OSCARS: Who Got Snubbed By Academy?
OSCARS: 85th Academy Award Nominations

Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences
MOTION PICTURE NOMINATIONS BY PICTURE – 85TH AWARDS

Lincoln - 12 nominations
DreamWorks Pictures/20th Century Fox Production (Walt Disney/20th Century Fox)
Daniel Day-Lewis – Performance by an actor in a leading role
Tommy Lee Jones – Performance by an actor in a supporting role
Sally Field – Performance by an actress in a supporting role
Cinematography
Costume design
Directing
Film editing
Original score
Best picture
Production design
Sound mixing
Adapted screenplay

Life Of Pi - 11 nominations
Fox 2000 Pictures Production (20th Century Fox)
Cinematography
Directing
Film editing
Original score
Original song – “Pi’s Lullaby”
Best picture
Production design
Sound editing
Sound mixing
Visual effects
Adapted screenplay

Les Misérables - 8 nominations
Universal Pictures and Working Title Production (Universal)
Hugh Jackman – Performance by an actor in a leading role
Anne Hathaway – Performance by an actress in a supporting role
Costume design
Makeup and hairstyling
Original song – “Suddenly”
Best picture
Production design
Sound mixing

Silver Linings Playbook - 8 nominations
Weinstein Company Production (The Weinstein Company)
Bradley Cooper – Performance by an actor in a leading role
Robert De Niro – Performance by an actor in a supporting role
Jennifer Lawrence – Performance by an actress in a leading role
Jacki Weaver – Performance by an actress in a supporting role
Directing
Film editing
Best picture
Adapted screenplay

Argo – 7 nominations
Stage 16 Pictures Production (Warner Bros.)
Alan Arkin – Performance by an actor in a supporting role
Film editing
Original score
Best picture
Sound editing
Sound mixing
Adapted screenplay

Zero Dark Thirty - 5 nominations
Columbia Pictures Production (Sony Pictures Releasing)
Jessica Chastain – Performance by an actress in a leading role
Film editing
Best picture
Sound editing
Original screenplay

Amour – 5 nominations
Les Films du Losange/X Filme Creative Pool/Wega Film Production (Sony Pictures Classics)
Emmanuelle Riva – Performance by an actress in a leading role
Directing
Best foreign language film (Austria)
Best picture
Original screenplay

Skyfall – 5 nominations
Eon Productions Ltd./Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Pictures/Columbia Pictures Production (Sony Pictures Releasing and MGM)
Cinematography
Original score
Original song – “Skyfall”
Sound editing
Sound mixing

Django Unchained - 5 nominations
Weinstein Company and Columbia Pictures Production (The Weinstein Company)
Christoph Waltz – Performance by an actor in a supporting role
Cinematography
Best picture
Sound editing
Original screenplay

Anna Karenina – 4 nominations
Working Title Films Production (Focus Features)
Cinematography
Costume design
Original score
Production design

Beasts of the Southern Wild - 4 nominations
Cinereach and Court 13 Production (Fox Searchlight)
Quvenzhané Wallis – Performance by an actress in a leading role
Directing
Best picture
Adapted screenplay

The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey - 3 nominations
New Line and Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Pictures Production (Warner Bros. and Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer)
Makeup and hairstyling
Production design
Visual effects

The Master - 3 nominations
Ghoulardi Film Company/Annapurna Pictures Production (The Weinstein Company)
Joaquin Phoenix – Performance by an actor in a leading role
Philip Seymour Hoffman – Performance by an actor in a supporting role
Amy Adams – Performance by an actress in a supporting role
Read More »

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OSCARS: Who Got Snubbed By Academy?

By DOMINIC PATTEN | Thursday January 10, 2013 @ 5:53am PSTTags: Ben Affleck, Christopher Nolan, Kathryn Bigelow, Oscars, Skyfall

Some Oscar dreams flourished and some were dashed with this morning’s announcement of the 85th annual Academy Award nominations. Academy voters can be as harsh as they can be predictable, and some snubs seem designed to sting. Thankfully some take it with a degree of humor. “I just got snubbed for a flu shot at CVS,” tweeted Prometheus co-writer Damon Lindelof today. Here are some of the directors, films and actors who got left out today even though they might have deserved better.

Related: OSCARS: 85th Academy Award Nominations

Kathryn Bigelow – The Zero Dark Thirty director was the first woman to win a Best Director Oscar for The Hurt Locker– she won’t be repeating that feat this year even though her film about the hunt for Osama bin Laden was nominated for Best Picture. “Kathryn Bigelow was robbed. So f—ed up. #recount,” tweeted ZD30 producer Megan Ellison after the nominations were announced Thursday.

Leonardo DiCaprio – He got a Supporting Actor nomination from the Golden Globes for his Calvin Candie in Django Unchained but nothing today — cast mate Christoph Waltz got the nod.

Marion Cotillard – No Best Actress for her Rust and Bone performance?

The Intouchables – A big hit at home and France’s submission for Best Foreign film, this comedy-drama Weinstein released movie got treated like an untouchable.

Ben Affleck – No Best Director or Best Actor for Argo. Really? Even though it got a Best Picture nomination?

Related: OSCARS: Nominations By Studio & Distributor

Skyfall – Yes it’s a James Bond movie. But, as the PGA recognized, it is a Sam Mendes-directed Bond movie starring Daniel Craig, Judi Dench, Ralph Fiennes and Javier Bardem. It would have been a nice addition to the tribute the Academy plans for the Bond movies’ 50th anniversary during the Oscarcast, but Oscar himself was neither shaken nor stirred beyond Adele’s best song nom.

Cloud Atlas – Not even a technical nomination? The Academy must have really hated it.

John Hawkes – His performance in The Sessions made this past nominee seem a sure thing for a Academy Award nomination – what happened Oscar?

Rise Of The Guardians – That must have really hurt over at DreamWorks Animation this morning.

Related: OSCARS: Nominations By Picture

Quentin Tarantino – The Golden Globes gave the Django Unchained helmer a nomination and the Academy gave the movie itself a Best Picture nomination today but no Best Director for Quentin? Too much controversy?

Perks Of Being A Wallflower – If any movie called out for Best Adapted Screenplay, it was this coming of ager directed and written by Stephen Chbosky based on his own acclaimed 1999 novel. And yet Oscar offered no perks at all.

Christopher Nolan – Holy Oversight, Batman! Even though Inception was nominated for Best Picture in 2010 and he’s picked up a pair of writing noms, The Dark Knight Rises director has never received a nomination for his helming work — including on the hugely successful Batman franchise. And just like with 2005’s Batman Begins and 2008’s The Dark Knight, Nolan was again left off the Best Director list. Read More »

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