ITV

Category: International

  • 21 Jump Street grosses $ 35 million; at No. 1

    21 Jump Street grosses $ 35 million; at No. 1

    MUMBAI: Sony and MGM‘s co-production 21 Jump Street opened to a stellar $35 million at the domestic box office.
     
    Starring Jonah Hill and Channing Tatum, the film bagged the best debut ever for a non-sequel, non-summer R-rated comedy and also as one of the best bows on the books for an action-buddy comedy or a television-to-film adaptation.

    Overseas, Jump Street released in 11 markets grossing $7 million, including a standout $4.3 million in Australia, where it launched ahead of past R-rated comedies The Hangover, Tropic Thunder and Bad Teacher. In the UK, the film grossed $2.5 million.

    The film easily wrested the domestic weekend crown from Universal and Illumination‘s hit Dr. Seuss‘ The Lorax, that has ruled the domestic box office the last two weekends.

    On the No. 2 position, Lorax continued to do good business with $22.8 million in its third outing for a domestic gross of $158.4 million.

    Disney‘s John Carter continued to struggle grossing $13.5 million in its second weekend for a weak 10-day domestic total of $53.2 million. Overseas, the film grossed $40.7 million including a strong $10.4 million debut in China for an international total of $126.1 million and worldwide gross of $179.3 million.

    Even with the strong performances of Jump Street and Lorax, the domestic box office dipped behind last year‘s level for the first time this year. Revenue was down 8 per cent, due to less depth in the holdover marketplace. Box-office observers credit strong reviews and good word-of-mouth for Jump Street‘s better-than-expected numbers.

  • Di Caprio in Martin Scorsese’s next

    Di Caprio in Martin Scorsese’s next

    MUMBAI: Leonardo DiCaprio is set to star in Martin Scorsese‘s The Wolf of Wall Street, that is based on the memoir by Jordan Belfort.
    The film will tell the tale of a hard-partying drug-fuelled stock broker who was indicted in 1998 for security fraud and money laundering and consequently served a 22 month prison stretch.
    DiCaprio and Scorsese have been trying to get the project off the ground since 2007, but now a firm timeline has been set, with the movie shooting in New York in the summer. Scorsese will produce the project as well as direct, with a script by Terence Winter.
    Earlier, the 36-year-old actor has worked with the acclaimed director in four films.The pair have previously worked together on Gangs of New York, The Aviator, The Departed and Shutter Island.
    DiCaprio recently completed filming Baz Lurhman‘s The Great Gatsby alongside Carey Mulligan and Tobey Maguire.

  • George Clooney arrested

    George Clooney arrested

    MUMBAI: George Clooney and his father have been arrested at a protest outside the Sudanese Embassy in Washington.

    The protesters were accusing Sudan‘s president Omar al-Bashir of provoking a humanitarian crisis and blocking food and aid from entering the Nuba Mountains in the county‘s border region with South Sudan.

    Clooney and others, including Democratic U.S. Rep. Jim Moran of Virginia and NAACP President Ben Jealous, were arrested after being warned three times not to cross a police line outside the embassy.

    They were handcuffed and placed into the back of a U.S. Secret Service van.

    Clooney said earlier that he hopes to draw more attention to the issue and that if action is not taken in the next three to four months “we‘re going to have a real humanitarian disaster.”

  • Gerard Butler to co-produce White House action drama

    Gerard Butler to co-produce White House action drama

    MUMBAI: Gerard Butler, known for his recent films like Machine Gun Preacher and The Bounty Hunter, is heard to be developing a White House-set action film called Olympus Has Fallen for Millennium Films.
     
    The film is about a Secret Service agent who must foil a terrorist attack on the president‘s residence.
     
    The 300 star is developing the project from writers Creighton Rothenberger and Katrin Benedikt. The production house is currently seeking a director for the project.


    The film has Butler co-produce the project with Millennium‘s Mark Gill.


    Butler‘s most recent films have been box-office disappointments. He is currently working in the upcoming surfing film Of Men and Mavericks.

  • Colin Farrell to play Sir Lancelot

    Colin Farrell to play Sir Lancelot

    MUMBAI: Colin Farrell is in talks to play mythological British knight Sir Lancelot in a fantasy film adaptation of King Arthur legend. Warner Bros has revived the film after initially putting the film on the backburner over budgetary concerns.
     
    The 35-year-old Farrell, known for his films like Phone Booth and In Bruges, is slated to star in the movie as King Arthur‘s most trusted knight, while David Dobkin will helm the period drama.
     
    It may be remembered that Joel Kinnaman was initially cast as Lancelot opposite Kit Harrington.
     
    Arthur & Lancelot isn‘t the only Warner Bros movie focused on the King Arthur era. Filmmakers Guy Ritchie and Bryan Singer are also working on their own adaptations of the British history.

  • Universal to release Jurrasic Park on 19 July 2013

    Universal to release Jurrasic Park on 19 July 2013

    MUMBAI: A day after it was reported that Paramount has preponed the release date of the Tom Cruise starrer One Shot from February 2013 to Dec. 21,Universal studios has sprang a surprise when it announced that it was advancing the release of the 3D version of Steven Spielberg‘s 1993 adventure film Jurrasic Park from 19 July, 2013.

    The studio also announced that it would release the Tom Cruise starrer Oblivion from July 10, 2013, to April 26.

    Joseph Kosinski (Tron: Legacy) is directing Cruise in Oblivion, a fantasy about a former soldier who is the last person left on Earth after a war with an alien race. When he encounters a crashed spacecraft with a lone survivor, the two set off on an epic adventure.

    One Shot from February 2013 to Dec. 21was boarding the re-release bandwagon and release the 3-D version of Steven Spielberg‘s Jurassic Park on 19 July 19 roughly around the 20th anniversary of the film‘s original debut in theaters on 11 June 11, 1993.

  • Academy sets dates for 2013 Oscars

    MUMBAI: The Academy of Motion Pictures Arts and Sciences has set the dates for the 2013 announcement of Oscar nominations and also the award ceremony.
     
    While the nomination announcement will take place on 15 January, a week earlier than that of the gone by years , the awards will take place on 24 February as usual being the fourth Sunday of February.
     
    This will push the as-yet-unannounced voting deadlines to earlier dates as well, and is perhaps part of a longer term plan to push up the actual ceremony.
     
    The move also means that there will be an extra week between the nominations and the ceremony.

  • Madagascar 3 to premiere at Cannes

    Madagascar 3 to premiere at Cannes

    MUMBAI: Madagascar 3: Europe‘s Most Wanted will have its world premiere at the Cannes Film Festival in May.

    The Paramount and DreamWorks Animation film, which will release on 8 June, will be the first major studio title to surface in connection with Cannes, a popular place to launch summer tentpoles.

    So far, only the opening-night film has been officially announced, Wes Anderson‘s Moonrise Kingdom, which Focus Features is releasing in the U.S.

    An official announcement about Madagascar 3 is expected in the coming days.

    Earlier, Paramount and DreamWorks Animation‘s Kung Fu Panda made its world premiere at the festival in 2008.

  • Mario Puzo estate forbids Paramount to stop sequel of The Godfather

    MUMBAI: The estate of Mario Puzo, who wrote Godfather that was adapted into the classic Francis Ford Coppola film, The Godfather, has brought hurdles in the way of Paramount Pictures‘ attempts to stop a new licensed literary sequel.
     
    Last Monday, the Puzo estate filed an answer and counterclaim in New York federal court that alleged Paramount doesn‘t have as much hold on the Godfather franchise as the studio asserts. The Puzo estate now wishes to terminate its original 1969 rights granted to Paramount that would certainly have huge implications well beyond mere books.
     
    Paramount filed its own lawsuit last month that sought an injunction to prevent the publishing of a book reportedly titled The Family Corleone about Vito Corleone‘s rise to power in Depression-era New York, scheduled to be released in July.
     
    The studio alleged in its lawsuit that the previous Godfather book sequel had tarnished the legacy of the famous mafia story and that it had agreements with the Puzo heirs not to come out with any more new sequels.
     
    The Puzo estate, in its answer Monday, hit back at Paramount, denying many of the studio‘s claims including that the Godfather 3 film was highly acclaimed.

  • Paramount rearranges releases

    Paramount rearranges releases

    MUMBAI: Paramount has rearranged its release calendar. Through this move, the studio has preponed the release of the Tom Cruise starrer One Shot from February next year to 21 December this year.

    As a result of the rearranging, the studio has postponed the release of the Brad Pitt zombie action film World War Z to 21 June, 2013. The film was earlier scheduled to release on the day when One Shot will now release.

    Paramount vice chairman Rob Moore said it made perfect sense to reposition One Shot considering how well Ghost Protocol did. He also said One Shot, directed by Christopher McQuarie, will be done before World War Z.

    Ghost Protocol grossed $688.8 milion worldwide and was a franchise best. It also helped to restore Cruise‘s star status in the U.S..

    Based on Lee Child‘s best-selling book, One Shot is about an investigator drawn into the case of a former military sniper who is charged with killing five people.

    Another major headline from the studio is that its Nickelodeon label is reviving the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles film franchise that Jonathan Liebesman will direct that Michael Bay is producing.