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Sky Creates Content Distribution Arm With Acquisition Of Parthenon Media Group

By NANCY TARTAGLIONE, International Editor | Friday July 27, 2012 @ 1:40am PDTTags: BSkyB, David Tennant, Emma Thompson

As it increases its investment in original British fare, Sky has acquired Parthenon Media Group to establish an international distribution arm within the company. Parthenon founder and CEO Carl Hall will oversee the new business. Sky has said it intends to up its annual spend on British content creation to £600M by 2014. Funds generated by sales of its original programming will be funneled back into UK production. Among shows commissioned this year are dramas and comedies starring Hayley Atwell, Brenda Blethyn, Stephen Fry, Richard E. Grant, John Hurt, Eddie Marsan, Stellan Skarsgård, David Tennant, Emma Thompson and Olivia Williams. Sky1 comedies Stella, Starlings and Trollied have all been ordered for a second run and drama Hit & Miss, starring Chloe Sevigny, started its run in May. The indie Parthenon has distributed and produced factual and children’s programming since 2002 and has 1,400 hours in its catalog, according to its website. As of June 30, 2011 it had gross assets of £18.2M, although financial terms for the Sky deal were not disclosed.

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Tom Hanks Now Getting Serious For ‘Saving Mr. Banks’

By MIKE FLEMING JR | Monday April 9, 2012 @ 4:12pm PDTTags: Big Deals Film, Emma Thompson, Saving Mr. Banks, Tom Hanks
Mike Fleming

EXCLUSIVE: Deadline told you back in February that Tom Hanks was in the mix to play Walt Disney in the John Lee Hancock directed and Kelly Marcel-scripted saga of how Walt Disney waged a 14-year courtship to persuade Australian … Read More »

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Emma Thompson, David Tennant, Olivia Williams Lined Up For New U.K. Series

By NANCY TARTAGLIONE, International Editor | Friday February 24, 2012 @ 4:15am PSTTags: David Tennant, Emma Thompson, Olivia Williams

The UK’s Sky Arts, which earlier this year announced it would triple its budget, has commissioned a series of one-off original TV dramas and comedies that will fall under the Playhouse Presents label. Among the notable projects, Walking The Dogs sees Emma Thompson play Queen Elizabeth in a comedy-drama about an intruder who made his way into her bedroom in 1982. Walking The Dogs is based on the night Michael Fagan broke into Buckingham Palace, entered the Queen’s boudoir and chatted with her for a while until the police took him away. The title refers to Fagan’s window of access – a guard who was supposed to be positioned outside the Queen’s door was out walking her dogs. Eddie Marsan (Tyrannosaur, Sherlock Holmes: A Game Of Shadows) and Russell Tovey, who has a role in the Emma Thompson-penned Effie, are co-stars. Other shows just announced by Sky Arts, part of the BSkyB group of channels, will include such British talent as David Tennant, Olivia Williams, Stephen Fry and Hayley Atwell along with some non-Brits like Stellan Skarsgard and Harry Shearer. The latter is starring in Nixon’s The One, a verbatim account of Richard Nixon’s Read More »

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Emma Thomspon In Final Talks To Join ‘Beautiful Creatures’

By BRIAN BROOKS | Thursday February 9, 2012 @ 6:18pm PSTTags: Beautiful Creatures, Emma Thompson, Viola Davis

Two-time Oscar winner Emma Thompson is in final negotiations to star in supernatural love story Beautiful Creatures. Directed by Richard LaGravenese (P.S. I Love You) from his own adaptation of the New York Times best selling novel of … Read More »

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Dakota Fanning And Emma Thompson Team For 1850s Victorian Drama ‘Effie’

By MIKE FLEMING JR | Tuesday August 16, 2011 @ 3:39pm PDTTags: Dakota Fanning, Derek Jacobi, Emma Thompson, Terrence Malick
Mike Fleming

EXCLUSIVE: Dakota Fanning will star in the title role of Effie, the Emma Thompson-scripted period biopic about the unfortunate marriage between Euphemia Gray and the famed critic John Ruskin in 1850s London. Richard Laxton (An Englishman in New York) is directing. Though the teenager was gorgeous, Effie’s husband never consummated the marriage over five years because Ruskin was for some reason disgusted by her body. After suffering through a loveless marriage and browbeating by her in-laws, Effie fell in love with Ruskin’s protégé, painter John Everett Millais.

Greg Wise will play Ruskin, and Tom Sturridge will play Millais. Thompson plays Lady Eastlake, who takes Effie under her wing when it was clear the union was destroying the young woman. Julie Walters and Derek Jacobi play Ruskin’s parents, and Edward Fox is in talks to play Lady Eastlake’s husband, Sir Charles Eastlake. He was the main patron of the Royal Academy, which held sway over what constituted fine art. He was already fed up with Ruskin and his radical ideas before that love triangle rocked the art community. Production will begin Oct. 17 in Scotland, London and Venice. The film’s being produced by Don Rosenfeld with Andreas Roald. They raised the $10 million budget through private equity. Read More »

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‘Men In Black III’ Brings Back David Koepp

By MIKE FLEMING JR | Wednesday March 2, 2011 @ 12:39pm PSTTags: David Koepp, Emma Thompson, Josh Brolin, Men In Black III, Tommy Lee Jones, Will Smith
Mike Fleming

Sony Pictures has brought in David Koepp to do several weeks of work on the script of Men in Black III, the film that took a production hiatus and starts up again March 28. The picture still has to shoot … Read More »

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Alice Eve Joins ‘Men In Black III’ As Young Emma Thompson

By MIKE FLEMING JR | Wednesday February 16, 2011 @ 4:50pm PSTTags: Alice Eve, Emma Thompson, Josh Brolin, Men In Black III, Movie Deals, Movies, Will Smith
Mike Fleming

When Men in Black III re-starts production next month, Alice Eve will play the younger version of Men in Black Agency head Emma Thompson in the time travel storyline. The British actress plays Olivia, hired as secretary for the Agency … Read More »

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Emma Thompson Joins ‘Men In Black 3′

By MIKE FLEMING JR | Thursday September 30, 2010 @ 2:28pm PDTTags: Emma Thompson, Josh Brolin, Men In Black 3, Movie Deals, Movies, Sony Pictures Entertainment, Tommy Lee Jones, Will Smith
Mike Fleming

Men in Black 3 is casting up. I’m told that Emma Thompson will be taking a lead role of Oh, the head of MIB. She’ll join Will Smith, Tommy Lee Jones and Josh Brolin in the Barry Sonnenfeld-directed film for Sony Pictures Entertainment.  She’s negotiating. Principal photography begins in mid-November.

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