BBC One is moving ahead with Ladies Paradise, an eight-episode series loosely based on Emile Zola’s novel Au Bonheur Des Dames. Set in England’s first department store, the series tells the rags-to-riches story of Denise Lovett (Joanna Vanderham, Above Suspicion), a young girl who works in the store and gets caught up in the charms of the modern world. Denise is a 19th-century Working Girl – big-hearted, smarter than she’s taken to be and more ambitious than those pretty eyes suggest. BBC One put the series on the fast track a year ago with the hire of Bill Gallagher (Lark Rise) to write it. Marc Jobst is set to direct. Vanderham is with WME.

The 65th Cannes Film Festival officially kicked off today with dual press events by Paramount for The Dictator and DreamworksAnimation for Rise Of The Guardians (distributed by Paramount) that provided the only real visible major Hollywood presence. Leave it to Sacha Baron Cohen to cause major trouble and a massive traffic jam as he marched down the Croisette with camel in tow in character as Admiral General Aladeen. An army of paparazzi followed his journey from the Carlton Hotel, to the Le Voilier brasserie across the way (where the entire entrance is plastered with signage from the movie), to Ralph Lauren’s shop next door (where the camel and photogs were left outside). Of course, staging a major Cannes photo stunt like this is expected with his movie opening in the U.S. today. What better way to drum up publicity than to launch a takeover of the Croisette? Like what happened at the Oscars and Cinemacon, things threatened to get out of control as traffic snarled in both directions as far as the eye could see, and the Gendarme grew nervous. But that didn’t faze Baron Cohen who stopped to shake hands with DWA’s Jeffrey Katzenberg at the Carlton’s outdoor cafe. Reaching out to Baron Cohen who was a voice actor in DWA’s Madagascar 3 premiering here Friday, Katzenberg was heard yelling “Mr. Dictator! Mr. Dictator!” Never believing too much publicity is enough publicity, Baron Cohen was also scheduled for a Carlton Beach press conference later to continue The Dictator’s international push.

Just before this stunt, Paramount and Dreamworks Animation showed off 25 minutes of its big holiday movie, Rise Of The Guardians. Although footage previously was presented to the press in LA and NY as well as to exhibitors at Cinemacon, this was the most detailed look yet at the ambitious toon co-starring Isla Fisher (Baron Cohen’s wife). Called an “animated Avengers“, it was labeled by another co-star Alec Baldwin as  “the Justice League of childhood” because the film unites a group of iconic heroes including Santa Claus, the Easter Bunny, the Tooth Fairy, and Jack Frost in order to fight the classic Boogey Man. Guardians has the look and feel of the kind of movie that could turn into a major animated Oscar contender. Giving it even more cred are its executive producers Guillermo Del Toro and William Joyce, who won the animated short  Oscar this year. The film’s voice cast also includes Chris Pine, Hugh Jackman, and Jude Law.

Pine, Baldwin, Fisher, and director Peter Ramsey participated in a Q&A after the footage was shown. Baldwin called the film the most beautiful animation he’s ever seen on screen and praised Dreamworks for consistent quality (guess he wants to keep working there). Asked which ‘guardian’ most influenced his life, Baldwin named Marty Singer, the entertainment litigator. And if there was any doubt about the status of 30 Rock, he said, “I have loved doing my TV show, and we are coming back for just half a season and then it’s over. But they are the funniest people I have ever met in my life.”

Katzenberg uses Cannes every year to promote his product so he introduced the event in person. At the breakfast reception beforehand, he expressed excitement about both of DWA’s films this year. Madagascar 3: Europe’s Most Wanted opens June 8th as part of the Festival’s official selection. As for Guardians,  Katzenberg told me DWA had a sneak of the film last week in Orange County at the AMC At The Block and the results were great. He’s been looking for truly original material and says this film really fits the bill of the Dreamworks Animation philosophy. As The Avengers continues to prove daily, putting a group of iconic figures together in one movie can do wonders at the box office. Katzenberg obviously is hoping that kind of cinematic lightning will strike here, too.

Samuel Goldwyn Films acquired U.S. rights to the Stephen Gyllenhaal-directed Grassroots, a character driven comedy about the power of the people and the virtues of standing up for what you believe in. Jason Biggs, Joel David Moore, Lauren Ambrose, Cobie Smulders, Tom Arnold, Christopher McDonald and Cedric The Entertainer star.

Gyllenhaal and Justin Rhodes wrote the script and Peggy Raiski, Michael Huffington, Matthew R. Brady, Bren Stiefel and Peggy Case produced. Goldwyn has slated a June 22nd release.

Pic is set in pre-Twitter 2001, as a political unknown named Grant Cogswell (Moore) decides he must take down
Seattle City Councilman Richard McIver (Cedric the Entertainer). Grant has only one dream, but it’s a big one: an elegant monorail gliding silently above the city’s wet streets, with only a tiny footprint – “like a kids’ lemonade stand!”
– on the ground. He is apoplectic with rage over McIver’s mass transit proposal: a ground rail train he thinks will destroy lower class neighborhoods, wreak environmental harm on the local salmon population, and destroy the city. Grant has no chance until he lures recently fired alternative-weekly reporter Phil Campbell (Biggs) to run his campaign, who recruits an army of young people to spread the word.

Domestic distributors will have a wide variety of choices at Cannes this year, from completed films in competition, to packages that have begun production or are only at the script stage with loose commitments from filmmakers and stars. Most of the buyers I spoke to claim they are in no rush to bid up the joint, but the pace of buying usually depends on several variables.

Will Harvey be buying? Last year, Harvey Weinstein, coming off a Best Picture win for The King’s Speech, reloaded with awards caliber films that included eventual Best Picture winner The Artist, as well as The Iron Lady, Lawless (which is in competition) and the Paul Thomas Anderson-directed The Master. The Weinstein Company comes in with a full slate for 2012, as do distributors like Fox Searchlight, Sony Pictures Classics and Focus Features. But all are looking for 2013 product. Some other variables: will CBS Films, which made the big buy of last Toronto with Salmon Fishing in the Yemen, be aggressive here? FilmDistrict is back after restaffing its executive roster after the exits of Bob and Jeanne Berney; will Peter Schlessel’s division be as hungry for product as last year, when it acquired Looper? And how will upstart distributors like Mickey Liddell’s LD Entertainment factor into the mix as that company looks to fill the pipeline? The final variable will be the element of surprise: after unveiling their intention to make Inside Llewyn Davis with no domestic distributor, will Joel and Ethan Coen walk away from Cannes with a deal?

Here are the titles most often mentioned by distributors:

THE WOLF OF WALL STREET–Director, Martin Scorsese. Cast, Leonardo DiCaprio, Jonah Hill, Kyle Chandler. Based on the story of Jordan Belfort and his rise and fall in the stocks game as he was done in by a hard partying lifestyle that left him broke and in jail for 22 months.

AMERICAN DREAM–Director, James Gray. Cast, Joaquin Phoenix, Marion Cotillard, Jeremy Renner. In 1920, two sisters immigrate to New York from Poland, but they get separated at Ellis Island because one falls ill. The other falls prey to prostitution, until a magician tries to save her from that fate.

SERENA–Director, Susanne Bier. Cast, Jennifer Lawrence, Bradley Cooper. George Pemberton and his new bride, Serena, as they set out to depression-era North Carolina to create a timber empire. It doesn’t end well.

INSIDE LLEWYN DAVIS–Director, Joel & Ethan Coen. Cast, Oscar Isaac, Carey Mulligan, Justin Timberlake, John Goodman. Folk musician Llewyn Davis is embittered over his subpar career during the 60s folk music scene in downtown New York.

TRACERS–Director, Daniel Benmayor. Cast, Taylor Lautner. An athletic bike messenger in debt to the mob finds his way into parkour.

ME AND YOU–Director, Bernardo Bertolucci. Cast, Tea Falco. A 14 yr-old with difficulties relating to his family and the world around him hides for a week in the basement of his house. His fragile and rebellious step-sister turns up and forces him to engage.

MUD–Director, Jeff Nichols. Cast, Michael Shannon, Matthew McConaughey, Reese Witherspoon. A Stand By Me story focuses on a charismatic but dangerous fugitive named Mud, who forms a bond with a 14-year old determined to help him escape the law and bounty hunters.

THE PAPERBOY–Director, Lee Daniels. Cast, Matthew McConaughey, Zac Efron, John Cusack, Nicole Kidman. Based on the Pete Dexter novel, a young man returns to his small Florida hometown to help his reporter brother uncover the truth about a man on death row.

MANIAC–Director, Franck Khalfoun. Cast, Elijah Wood. Frodo Baggins as serial killer?

THE WE AND THE I–Director, Michel Gondry. A group of schoolkids travel into the future by accident, and discover a machine that keeps them younger.

PHANTOM–Director, Todd Robinson. Cast, Ed Harris, David Duchovny, William Fichtner. A Soviet sub captain holds the world’s fate in his hand as he leads a covert mission that could lead to nuclear war.

ARTHUR NEWMAN, GOLF PRO–Director, Dante Ariola. Cast, Colin Firth, Emily Blunt. A man hates his job and his ex-wife and son hate him. So he stages his death and starts over as Arthur Newman. He meets a girl who is also trying to elude her past.

BYZANTIUM–Director, Neil Jordan. Cast, Gemma Arterton, Saoirse Ronan. A mother and daughter, both vampires, form a deadly pact.

THE COMPANY YOU KEEP–Director, Robert Redford. Cast, Redford, Shia LaBeouf, Julie Christie, Sam Elliot, Terrence Howard, Richard Jenkins, Anna Kendrick, Brit Marling, Stanley Tucci, Nick Nolte, Chris Cooper, Susan Sarandon. A political activist underground for 30 years tries to escape capture and goes on the run to save his daughter while reconciling his own past.

GREAT EXPECTATIONS–Director, Mike Newell. Cast, Ralph Fiennes, Helena Bonham Carter. A young orphan is given a chance to rise from his humble beginnings thanks to a mysterious benefactor and tries to get the heiress he’s loved since childhood to love him back.

THE ICEMAN–Director, Ariel Vromen. Cast, Michael Shannon, Chris Evans. The true story of Richard Kuklinski, loving husband, devoted father, and notorious contract killer, believed to have killed more than 250 people between 1954 and 1985.

IMOGENE–-Director, Shari Springer Berman, Robert Pulcini. Cast, Kristen Wiig, Annette Bening, Matt Dillon. A playwright stages a suicide in an attempt to win back her ex, only to wind up in the custody of her gambling-addict mother.

KILLING SEASON–Director, Mark Steven Johnson. Cast, Robert De Niro, John Travolta. Former wartime adversaries go mano a mano in the wilderness.

THE LONGEST WEEK–Director, Peter Glanz. Cast, Olivia Wilde, Jason Bateman, Billy Crudup. A wealthy and spoiled young man is cut off by his parents and moves in with an old friend, only to fall in love with his buddy’s girlfriend.

LOVELACE–Director, Jeffrey Friedman, Rob Epstein. Cast, Amanda Seyfried, Peter Sarsgaard, James Franco, Sharon Stone, Chloe Sevigny, Chris Noth, Sarah Jessica Parker. The life story of Linda Lovelace, star of Deep Throat.

MARILYN’S FRAGMENTS–Director, Liz Garbus. Cast, Adrien Brody, Viola Davis, Uma Thurman, Paul Giamatti, F. Murray Abraham, Evan Rachel Wood, Linsday Lohan. A new look at iconic movie star Marilyn Monroe

MR. PIP –Director, Andrew Adamson. Cast, Hugh Laurie, Kerry Fox. In the Papua New Guinea province of Bougainville during an ongoing war between soldiers and rebels over copper mining, a young girl becomes transfixed by the Charles Dickens novel Great Expectations when it is read at school by the only white man in the village.

PASSION, Director, Brian De Palma. Cast, Noomi Rapace, Rachel McAdams. A remake of the French film Love Crime, a woman fakes a breakdown to murder her boss, and is preyed on by her blackmailing assistant.

ROMEO AND JULIET–Director, Carlo Carlei. Cast, Hailee Steinfeld, Douglas Booth, Paul Giamatti. The Shakespear classic.

UNTITLED FOUND FOOTAGE COMEDY–Director, Marlon Wayans, Mike Tiddes. Cast, Wayans, Essence Atkins. Paranormal Activity gets a good spoofing.

BEFORE I GO TO SLEEP–Director, Rowan Joffe. Cast, Nicole Kidman. A woman unable to remember her life regains her memory and discovers everything she thought was true is a lie.

THE BLING RING–Director, Sofia Coppola. C: Emma Watson, Leslie Mann. Teens rob the homes of Hollywood stars, using the internet to track the victims’ movements.

CALI–Director, Nick Cassavettes. Cast, Kristen Stewart. A couple fakes a snuff film and disappears, only to be forced into a return to save the girl’s younger sister.

CAN A SONG SAVE YOUR LIFE?–Director, John Carney. Cast, Mark Ruffalo, Keira Knightley, Hailee Steinfeld. After a couple moves to New York to pursue music careers, he dumps her for a recording contract, but she gets a second chance when a producer finds her singing in a local bar.

DARK PLACES–Director, Gilles Pacquet-Brenner. Cast, Amy Adams, Imogen Poots, Jay Baruchel. Adams plays Libby Day, who as a child watched her family get slaughtered. She’s forced to go through this trauma again.

DOM HEMINGWAY–Director, Richard Shepard. Cast, Jude Law. Back on the streets after years in prison, a London gangster tries to collect for keeping his mouth shut.

UNDER THE SKIN–Director, Jonathan Glazer. Cast, Scarlett Johansson. An alien takes the synthetic form of an alluring woman.

THE DOUBLE–Director, Richard Ayoade. Cast, Jesse Eisenberg, Mia Wasikowska. A young man is driven to a break down by the appearance of a lookalike.

EMPEROR–Director, Peter Webber. Cast, Tommy Lee Jones, Matthew Fox. Post WWII tale in which General Douglas MacArthur and an aide are charged with deciding whether to execute Emperor Hirohito as a war criminal.

EMPIRE STATE–Dito Montiel. Cast, Liam Hemsworth, Dwayne Johnson. Story of the largest cash heist in U.S. history and the young man who pulled off the $15 million heist in 1982.

GRACE OF MONACO–Director, Olivier Dahan. Cast, Nicole Kidman. Grace Kelly transforms from Hollywood star to monarch by helping Prince Rainier III and France’s Charles De Gaulle settle a dispute over tax laws in the early 1960s.

HOW I LIVE NOW–Director, Kevin Macdonald. Cast, Saoirse Ronan. A 15 year New Yorker is sent for a summer with cousins in England, and falls in love with her cousin Edmund before their season is shattered by the outbreak of war.

KNIGHT OF CUPS–Director, Terrence Malick. Cast, Ryan Gosling, Christian Bale, Natalie Portman, Cate Blanchett, Rooney Mara. Two intersecting love triangles weaves a tale of sexual obsession and betrayal set against the music scene in Austin, Texas.

UNTITLED TERRENCE MALICK (formerly LAWLESS)–Director, Terrence Malick. Cast, Ben Affleck, Javier Bardem, Rachel McAdams, Olga Kurlyenko, Barry Pepper, Rachel Weisz. A romance about a man who reconnects with a woman from his hometown after his marriage to a European woman falls apart.

MISSION: BLACKLIST–Director, Jean-Stéphane Sauvaire. Cast, Robert Pattinson. A young man tries to trap Saddam Hussein.

MOOD INDIGO–Director, Michel Gondry. Cast, Audrey Tautou. A woman suffers from an unusual illness caused by a flower growing in her lungs.

A MOST WANTED MAN–Director, Anton Corbijn. Cast, Philip Seymour Hoffman. Adaptation of John Le Carre novel about a Chechian Muslim who surfaces in Hamburg and is caught up in the war on terror.

MUCH ADO ABOUT NOTHING–Director, Joss Whedon. Cast, Nathan Fillion, Clark Gregg. The Avengers helmer takes on a modern retelling of Shakespeare’s classic comedy.

THE NECESSARY DEATH OF CHARLIE COUNTRYMAN–Director, Fredrik Bond. Cast, Shia LeBoeuf. A young man’s dying mother persuades him to travel to Bucharest to find himself, and he gets caught up with criminals and a jealous husband.

ONLY LOVERS LEFT ALIVE–Director, Jim Jarmusch. Cast, Tilda Swinton, John Hurt, Mia Wasikowska. A centuries long love affair between two star crossed vampires.

OPEN GRAVE–Director, Gonzalo Lopez-Gallego. Cast, Sharlto Copley. A man wakes up in a pit full of dead bodies, and must figure out if he or one of his rescuers is the murderer.

PARANOIA–Director, Robert Luketic. Cast, Harrison Ford, Gary Oldman, Liam Hemsworth, Lucas Till, Richard Dreyfuss. A boss blackmails one of his young employees to spy on a rival.

PINNOCHIO 3D–Director, Guillermo del Toro. Animated retelling of the classic tale.

THE TWO FACES OF JANUARY–Director, Hossein Amini. Cast, Viggo Mortensen, Oscar Isaac. A thriller centered on a con artist, his wife, and a stranger who try to flee a foreign country after one is caught up in the murder of a police officer.

THE INVISIBLE WOMAN–Director, Ralph Fiennes. Cast, Fiennes, Felicity Jones, Kristin Scott Thomas. A story of Charles Dickens’ secret mistress.

(Cannes) May 16, 2012 –– John Woo and Terence Chang’s Lion Rock Productions and Nikkatsu Corporation will co-produce DAY OF THE BEAST, a remake of Seijun Suzuki’s 1963 classic Youth of the Beast centering on the dealings of Yakuza, the Japanese mafia. Woo (Mission: Impossible II, Face/Off) will direct and produce the script by Rob Frisbee along with Terence Chang, and Nikkatsu’s Naoki Sato. Lori Tilkin, Aki Sugihara and Yoko Asakura are executive producing. The English language production was announced as Nikkatsu, Japan’s oldest major movie studio, celebrates its 100th Anniversary this year.

John Woo said, “This remake is my salute to the great films and filmmakers produced by Nikkatsu’s 100 years in cinema history. It is exciting for me as well as an honor.”

Nikkatsu president Naoki Sato said, “Among Nikkatsu’s 6,000+ film library, this is one of our most revered titles. We have a tremendous amount of respect for Mr. Woo and are excited he is directing this film for the international market. We think this is a great way to start off the next 100 years of filmmaking history!”

Lion Rock’s Terence Chang said, “Seijun Suzuki’s Youth of the Beast is one of my favorite films, and I have been obsessed with remaking it for over 10 years! I have to thank Nikkatsu for this partnership and for making this dream come true!”

DAY OF THE BEAST follows a western outsider with a grim past as he becomes embroiled in a global turf war between a vicious new breed of Yakuza and old school Cold War Russian mobsters. It’s an action-packed saga of loyalty, revenge and redemption which erupts in the heart of Tokyo.

Steve Coogan has signed on for Northern Soul, a film about the underground music movement in 1970s England. Coogan is best known to US audiences as the director who gets blown up in Ben Stiller’s Tropic Thunder – and for his Michael Caine impression in last year’s The Trip. In the Loop director Armando Iannucci is also prepping a feature based on Coogan’s UK TV personality, Alan Partridge. Elaine Constantine is directing Northern Soul which will be produced by Debbie Gray. Elliot James Langridge, Josh Whitehouse, James Lance, Christian Mckay, Roisin Murphy and singer Lisa Stansfield also star. The Little Film Company is handling sales in Cannes with shooting to start in June.

Fortissimo has boarded Deep Blue Sea director Terence Davies’ Sunset Song which will star Peter Mullan and Agyness Deyn. The film is based on the Lewis Grassic Gibbon novel about a young woman trying to keep her family together as the first World War looms. Bob Last’s Holdings Ecosse Ltd developed the project with Davies. It’s set to go into production towards the end of the year and will be produced by Sol Papadopoulos and Roy Boulter of Hurricane Films with Last executive producing.

Media Content Capital has made an 8-figure investment and will become a shareholder of QED International, the financing and sales company run by Bill Block. The funds will be used to ramp up development, sales and financing operations as QED produces and or acquires four to seven films a year and grows to handle third party productions. The investment will allow Block to pay minimum guarantees to acquire offshore rights to completed film.

QED burst on the scene several years ago with the sleeper hit District 9 and the Oliver Stone-directed W. Among the films QED is currently financing and producing are the action thriller Ten, starring Arnold Schwarzenegger, which Open Road recently acquired for U.S. release; the Neil Blomkamp directed Elysium, starring Matt Damon and Jodie Foster for Columbia Pictures; and the crime thriller I, Alex Cross, starring Tyler Perry, Matthew Fox, Rachel Nichols and Ed Burns for a Lionsgate/Summit release this October.

On the investment, Block said it “gives us the balance sheet to support filmmakers in getting their movies made and allows us to expand our business and platform to better serve our clients and the creative community.”

Said Media Content Capital’s Sasha Shapiro: “We believe content is increasing in value around the world. QED’s risk mitigation approach to financing new films is appealing to us. We look forward to working with Bill and the QED team in growing the business.”

FilmDistrict has acquired Intrepid Pictures’ horror feature Oculus, to be directed by Mike Flanagan from a script he co-wrote with Jeff Howard based on Flanagan’s acclaimed short film. Trevor Macy and Marc D. Evans will produce and are fully financing the project and the company’s Anil Kurian will executive produce. International sales are being handled by Focus Features International at Cannes. Production is set for a late summer start.

The logline: Ten years ago a horrifying family incident left two young children orphans. Although authorities charged the brother with murder, his sister believed that the true culprit was a haunted antique mirror. Now completely rehabilitated and in his twenties, the brother is ready to move on but his sister is determined to prove that the haunted mirror was responsible for destroying their family.

“When we read the script for Oculus and saw Mike’s short, we were excited about his potential to create a film that would deliver real scares to horror fans,” said Schlessel. “We look forward to working with Trevor and Marc and their team at Intrepid on the project.”

This year, there will be way more pictures to be bought in the Cannes market. Agents say there will be dozens of packages, promo reels and scripts for talent-attached packages. And there will be way more upstart international sales companies hawking them. Some buyers, and sellers for that matter, are looking at the list of packages — including multiple films starring the likes of Gerard Butler and Matthew McConaughey — and wondering if some of those new sales companies will have reputations tarnished if some of those proposed films don’t make it into production because the sales aren’t there.

Related: Can Cannes Make A Major Mark On The Oscar Race Two Years In A Row?

One thing for sure: The pace of buying will be slower. Aside from more product, there are at least 10 new companies to see, all run by seasoned executives.

Among them: Good Universe, headed by ex-Lionsgate and Mandate execs Joe Drake and Nathan Kahane; Annapurna-backed Panorama Media, led by former 2929 president Marc Butan and ex-Inferno exec Kimberly Fox; Speranza 13 Media, run by former New Line International president Camela Galano; Mister Smith, run by ex-Summit International president David Garrett; The Solution, with former GK Films exec Lisa Wilson; former Hyde Park International president Mimi Steinbauer’s Radiant Films International; Optimum founder Will Clarke’s Altitude; Embankment Films, hatched by former Icon and Hanway execs Hugo Grumbar and Tim Haslam; and uConnect, led by former Lakeshore International president Peter Rogers. Oh, and Aldamisa International also recently hired veteran Miramax and Disney exec Jere Hausfater as chief operating officer.

While fiscally strapped territories like Italy are hurting, there is a feeling that a lot of buying will get done, further evidence of a continued independent recovery. To some, there is also a feeling of déjà vu, to the time when hedge fund money was flowing and bad movies with talent attachments that never should have gotten made ended up not even getting released theatrically.

Related: Few Hollywood Studios Marketing At Cannes 2012

While bullish, sales companies aren’t oblivious to this. Hausfater warned that there’s a risk of going “back to the days when movies get sold and don’t get made. A number of the companies will survive but they can’t all make it.” FilmNation’s Glen Basner contends the competition with all the new companies “will be good, extremely healthy. Competition forces you to do the best. It’s the life cycle of the business – new companies come in and go away. We just have to do what we do really great.” Steinbauer predicted consolidation down the line. “There are a lot of titles out there,” she said, “and you have to look at what’s real and what’s come together.”

Foresight’s Mark Damon, who did brisk business in Berlin with the Denzel Washington-Mark Wahlberg-starrer 2 Guns, said the appetite will be similar here for star-driven fare. “You notice how hungry people are for this kind of product; they’re eager to close before the market at levels that are great,” said Damon, who’s brought the Peter Berg-directed Lone Survivor. His associate Tamara Birkemoe adds the influx of new companies was “due to happen because the economy is going up so there are more people buying. I think it’s a good thing; most new companies have high level product.” Still, adds Damon, “The real question is how much of the new product is going to work.”

Still, sellers don’t come to the Croisette to sling pessimism. “Some buyers have remarked that there is more product here than they’ve seen in the last 30 years,” said Inferno’s Bill Johnson. “We feel pretty fortunate that ours stands out from the crowd. And Japan seems to be very strong, which is a surprise, and Russia is very hot and competitive, as is Latin America. What you’re really seeing is the continuation of a trend where more ‘real movies’ are falling out of the studio system, giving well capitalized independent distributors an opportunity to compete with the studios.”