ITV

Category: International

  • Boston critics name Brad Pitt as best actor

    Boston critics name Brad Pitt as best actor

    MUMBAI: Boston critics voted Brad Pitt and Michelle Williams as best actor and actress. While Pitt was voted best actor for playing Oakland A‘s manager Billy Beane in Moneyball, Williams was named best actress for playing Marilyn Monroe in My Week with Marilyn.

    In the best supporting actor category, Albert Brooks was named as best supporting actor for Drive, while Melissa McCarthy was voted as best supporting actress for her role in Bridesmaids.

    Martin Scorsese was chosen best director for his 3D movie Hugo.
     
    The Moneyball team of Steven Zaillian, Aaron Sorkin and Stan Chervin picked up the screenwriting award.

    Other category wards are as follows: best cinematography, Emmanuel Lubeski, best documentary, The Tree of Life, best foreign language film James Marsh‘s Project Nim, best animated film, Dennis Villeneuve‘s Incendies, best filming editing, Christian Marclay in Rango and best new filmmaker, Sean Durkin.

  • New Year’s Eve stumbles on opening

    MUMBAI: As every year, December started on a sluggish note with Garry Marshall‘s star-studded film New Year‘s Eve failing to gather enough footfalls. The film grossed a poor $13.7 million.


    Though they knew of the sluggish period, Warner Bros. and New Line still expected New Year‘s Eve to earn $20 million or more in the film‘s opening.


    “The box office was just in really bad shape. While we had the No. 1 movie, we were No. 1 in a very soft market,” Warner Bros. president of domestic distribution Dan Fellman has reportedly said.


    Overall box revenues for the weekend reached an estimated $78 million, the lowest since early September 2008, when revenues only reached $68 million over the Sept. 5-7 weekend.


    This weekend was down 15 per cent from the same period a year ago and 4 per cent from last weekend.


    In the US, New Year‘s Eve scored better than Marshall‘s Valentine‘s Day that opened to a massive $72 million over the four-day Valentine‘s Day/President‘s Day weekend in 2010.

  • 15 films in Academy’s visual effects list

    15 films in Academy’s visual effects list

    MUMBAI: Narrowing the race for films in the ‘Visual Effects‘ category, the Academy of Motion Pictures Arts and Sciences has declared the names of fifteen films that would view to be among the finalists.

    The films that have been selected are Captain America: The First Avenger,Cowboys & Aliens, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 2, Hugo, Mission: Impossible – Ghost Protocol, Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides, Real Steel,Rise of the Planet of the Apes, Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows, Sucker Punch, Super 8,Thor, Transformers: Dark of the Moon,The Tree of Life and X-Men: First Class.

    Going by the quality of the visual effects, films like Rise of the Planet of the Apes, Hugo, Transformers: Dark Side of the Moon and Harry Potter and the Death Hallows, Part 2 would definitely be among the finalists.

    The next step is that in early January, members connected to the Academy‘s Visual Effects, who selected the abovementioned films, will narrow the list to 10. All members of the Visual Effects branch will be invited to view 10-minute excerpts from each of the 10 short listed films on January 19 and after the screenings, the members will vote to nominate five films for final Oscar consideration.

    The 84th Academy Awards nominations will be announced live on January 24 next year.

  • Failure of Happy Feet Two results in lay-off of 600

    Failure of Happy Feet Two results in lay-off of 600

    MUMBAI: After the dismal performance of Happy Feet Two at the box-office, six hundred of the 700 employees at the Sydney-based digital production studio Dr D Studios, which was behind the animated film, have reportedly been told that they would be soon laid off.

    Happy Feet Two, a sequel to 2006‘s Academy Award-winning film Happy Feet that grossed $384.3 million off a budget of $100 million had amassed a meagre $30.3 million worldwide.

    There may be a silver lining for some of the employees in the notice. They have reportedly been offered a job at Kennedy-Miller Mitchell Films, a new company that has Dr. D Studios as a joint partnership with Omnilab Media. The company is likely to get off the ground early next year.

    Released on November 18, Happy Feet Two has not found much success. It opened in 3,606 theaters and came in second at the box office during its debut weekend after grossing $21.2 million.

    Dr. D Studios, that specialises in digital feature film production and high-end special effects, reportedly had hoped to compete with Peter Jackson‘s Weta Digital in neighboring New Zealand.

  • Anthony Hopkins to play Hitchcock

    Anthony Hopkins to play Hitchcock

    MUMBAI: Veteran Anthony Hopkins has been roped in to play legendary director Alfred Hitchcock in a new biopic titled Alfred Hitchcock & the Making of Psycho.

    The film will chronicle Hitchcock‘s experiences while filming the thriller Psycho that became an instant classic when it was released in 1960 and many film fans claim it is the director‘s greatest work.

    On the other hand, it is being said that Dame Helen Mirren is in talks to play Hitchcock‘s wife, Alma Reville.

    The film, based on Stephen Rebello‘s book of the same name, would be directed by Sasha Gervasi.

  • Former Cameron employee sues filmmaker

    MUMBAI: A former employee of James Cameron‘s Lightstorm Entertainment, Eric Ryder has sued both the filmmaker and his production house claiming that he has been excluded from participating in the success of Avatar though he spent two years developing the film.


    Ryder filed the suit in the Los Angeles Superior Court claiming that in 1999, while he was a Lightstorm employee, he wrote a story called K.R.Z. 2068 as well as created treatments, photos, 3-D imagery and character elements for a planned movie the company was developing.


    The K.R.Z. project was to be an “environmentally-themed 3-D epic about a corporation‘s colonization and plundering of a distant moon‘s lush and wondrous natural setting,” he alleged in the complaint, it is understood.
     
     
    The story allegedly included “a corporation spy,” “anthropomorphic, organically created beings populating that moon,” and a relaitonship between the spy and one of the beings that culminates in the spy becoming a leader of the group‘s revolt against the corporation‘s mining practices.


    The complaint contains allegations of breach of implied contract, fraud, negligent misrepresentation, international interference with prospective economic advantage and negligent interference with prospective advantage.

  • DIFF opens with MI: Ghost Protocol

    DIFF opens with MI: Ghost Protocol

    MUMBAI: the 8th Dubai International Film Festival opened with the screening of the Tom Cruise starrer Mission Impossible: Ghost Protocol.

    Cruise, who shot some of the key events including a daredevil stunt hanging from the Burj Khalifa in the movie, attended the screening making him the biggest Hollywood star to attend the festival.

    Also present were Anil Kapoor and music director A R Rahman. Kapoor plays a cameo of an Indian playboy in the film.

    Said Cruise, “It is easy to climb a building and jump out of it but I am scared of falling. I trained with helmets and pads but when I had to shoot actually at the Burj Khalifa I told myself ‘Ok, this is the moment of truth‘ but it is very entertaining for the audience,” Cruise said, adding that he likes to celebrate locations through his movies.

    For the knowledge of Indian fans, most of the shots depicting Mumbai in the film were actually shot in Dubai. “Locations add to the film and we try to shoot there but one of the magic of movies is that you can create that environment,” Cruise said about creating Mumbai outside India.

    The festival, which is screening 171 films from over 56 countries, has a special section ‘Celebrate India‘ dedicated to the films from the country.

  • Duthie is BigPond Adelaide fest’s CEO

    MUMBAI: The BigPond Adelaide Film Festival has appointed ABC‘s Amanda Duthie as its incoming director and CEO. Duthie replaces Katrina Sedgwick who will relinquish office at the end of the year. Duthie is currently the content head of arts and entertainment at the ABC.


    Said chairpersion of BAFF Board Sandra Sdraulig in a statement, “Finding someone to fill the very large shoes of Katrina Sedgwick, the Festival‘s founding director and creative dynamo who has evolved BAFF into one of the world‘s most exciting film events was a daunting task.


    I feel absolutely confident that Amanda Duthie is that person, an individual with extraordinary skills, energy, knowledge and networks who we are absolutely delighted will guide the Festival into the future.”


    Excited by the appointment Duthie said, “I am so thrilled to have the opportunity to join this dynamic and respected Festival, which I have attended many times as a film lover.


    The BigPond Adelaide Film Festival is the most exciting arts and big screen content gig in the country and I am thrilled to be offered the position. Katrina Sedgwick has created an internationally acclaimed film event and I will honour it with the same passion and enthusiasm for Australian and international stories. I look forward to joining the team in Adelaide in the new year.”


    Beginning her career as executive producer and series producer at SBS through the 90s, Duthie left the organization to work as associate producer of Beyond the Fatal Shore, a PBS-BBC-ABC production.


    In December 2003, Duthie joined the ABC as commissioning editor and executive producer of arts and entertainment before being appointed head of content arts and entertainment in 2008. Here she worked closely with the Adelaide Film Festival jointly investing in films such as Bob Connolly‘s Mrs Carey‘s Concert, Beck Cole‘s Here I Am and Matthew Bate‘s Stunt Love besides investing $200,000 in the festival‘s Hive Production fund projects.

  • 19 animation films get Annie noms

    19 animation films get Annie noms

    MUMBAI: The 39th Annual Annie Awards has announced the name of ten films that have received Best Animated Feature nominations this year.


    The ten films that were nominated are: A Cat in Paris, Arthur Christmas, Arrugas, Cars 2, Chico & Rita, Kung Fu Panda 2, Puss In Boots, Rango, Rio and The Adventures of Tintin.


    “We are really excited about the expanded list of nominations this year…in all 28 categories. All of the major animation studios are represented, as are some of the independent productions from Europe and South America. This certainly is a testament to the wide reach and appeal of animation and the people who create it,” said ASIFA-Hollywood president Frank Gladstone in a statement.


    The Annie Awards produced by the International Animated Film Society, ASIFA-Hollywood cover 28 categories that include Best Animated Feature, Best Animated Special Production, Commercials, Short Subjects and Outstanding Individual Achievements.

  • Spielberg working on script of Tintin sequel

    Spielberg working on script of Tintin sequel

    MUMBAI: With The Adventures of Tintin: The Secret of the Unicorn doing very well all across the globe, filmmaker Steven Spielberg has already started working on the script for a sequel to the 3-D film.

    According to producer Kathleen Kennedy, she and Spielberg are busy with the new script and hope to have the film release by summer 2015 at the latest. “Oh yeah it is being moved forward, in fact Steven and I were talking about it this morning. We‘re working on a script right now, we‘ll see a script probably February or March.

    If we can do some camera capture this summer, which I think we could do, then we would be on track to have the movie either Christmas 2014 or summer 2015, and so that‘s what we‘re looking at right now,” Kennedy has reportedly said.