Category: International

MUMBAI: Christopher Nolan has announced that the title of the third instalment of the blockbuster Batman franchise will be called The Dark Knight Rises.

Neither will the film be in 3D format nor will the villain, The Riddler, fill in the Joker‘s shoes in the third outing that would be about the caped crusader‘s efforts to keep Gotham city crime-free.

The Dark Knight Rises will be distributed by Warner Bros.
The first film in the series titled Batman Begins released in 2005, but it was the second part The Dark Knight that caught the public eye and went on to gross over a billion dollars worldwide when released in 2008. It also got Australian actor Heath Ledger a posthumous Oscar for his stupendous performance. 

Nolan steers clear of the 3D technology that took Hollywood by storm after the success of James Cameron‘s Avatar as he wants to focus on the high definition cameras and IMAX technology.

The director, whose last outing Inception created ripples worldwide, stated that the third Batman film would follow many of the same characters from the previous films as well as a few new ones.

The Dark Knight Rises is slated to release on 20 July 2012.

MUMBAI: James Cameron will write and direct the second and third parts of his highly successful film Avatar that would release in 2014 and 2015 respectively.

20th Century Fox has reached an agreement with Cameron to make the sequels of the film, the biggest box office hit that amassed $2.8 billion in sales since it opened in December last year.

The sequels will go on the floors at the end of 2011 and both the filmmaker and the Studio have planned to release the second instalment in December 2014 and the third a year later.

Cameron, incidentally, had redefined the art of special effects with Avatar which took more than a decade to produce because of the advances in technology required to realise his vision.

MUMBAI: Kim Dong-ho, till recently head of Pusan International Film Festival (PIFF) has been given a friendship award by Tokyo International Film Festival (TIFF) for his contributions to the film industry in Asia and support of the Tokyo festival.

Following the screening of Camellia, a special invitation film in the Winds of Asia- Middle East section, the award was given by TIFF and TIFFCOM chairman Tom Yoda to honour Kim’s 15-year tenure as head of PIFF.

Camellia, a three-segment omnibus about romance in Busan, was screened as the closing film at the 15th PIFF on Oct. 15. The omnibus by three directors from Korea, Thailand and Japan, is a part of the Pusan Promotion Project, lead by Kim.

“Even before I assumed the post of chairman at TIFF, Mr. Kim Dong-ho, festival director of PIFF, had supported TIFF,” Yoda said adding, “He has watched over our film festival with deep friendship. I feel that we are extremely fortunate to have a great friend like him.”
 

MUMBAI: Billionaire financier Carl Icahn has upped his offer to buy the entire debts of MGM. That amounts to a 8 cent premium above the debt‘s current trading value and a similar rise from Icahn‘s offer last week.MGM owes more than 100 debt holders almost $4 billion and has been seeking approval from the creditors of a company-proposed financial reorganisation plan. MGM has been seeking ways of restructuring its finances for more than a year.

The “prepackaged” bankruptcy plan would turn outstanding debt into lender equity and hand operating reins of the studio to Spyglass Entertainment co- toppers Gary Barber and Roger Birnbaum.

But Icahn is backing a rival proposal by Lionsgate, that seeks the merger of Lionsgate and MGM to give the former a 45 per cent stake in the new entity. Lionsgate‘s biggest shareholder, Icahn already has accumulated more than $400
million in MGM debt.

MGM lenders have, till Friday, to vote to approve or reject the Spyglass-proposed MGM reorganisation. An MGM source said there is little chance of a second extension of the voting deadline; the first deadline had been set for last Friday.

MGMs current owners — including Providence Equity, TPG Capital, Sony, Comcast, DLJ Merchant and Quadrangle — would see their equity positions in the studio wiped out in virtually any MGM restructuring.
 

MUMBAI: A large group of the Chinese government officials and private Chinese film industry leaders are expected to attend the US-China Film Summit in Los Angeles on 2 November.

Organized by The Asia Society of Southern California and the state-run China Film Co-Production Corp, the timing of the gathering of senior Chinese filmmakers and policymakers with Hollywood producers focused firmly on China‘s growing movie market.

Set to take place at the Writers Guild of America, the summit, subtitled Co-Production and Cooperation, will follow the29 October opening of Feng Xiaogang‘s Chinese hit Aftershock in select US theatres.

While China‘s box-office is up 86 per cent so far, much of that can be tied to rising ticket prices and Hollywood imports such as Avatar despite imports being limited to 20 a year by Beijing.

Talk of co-productions that skirt the government import cap as a means to growth is at a fever pitch, especially as France, New Zealand and Singapore all signed film treaties with China in the last eight months.
 

MUMBAI: Michael Jackson, the King of Pop, made an astonishing $275 million in the last year that has put him on top the Forbes list of top-earning dead celebrities. The take was in the form of the worldwide box-office haul of the Sony film This Is it.

Second on the list is Elvis Presley, who earned $60 million while at the third place is J.R.R. Tolkien, who sold a combined 500,000 copies of his The Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit books in the last year alone even though he died 37 years ago.

Following is Peanuts creator Charles Schulz having earned $33 million while John Lennon is fifth at $17 million.

The Forbes list includes thirteen names.

MUMBAI: The Social Network, the Facebook film reigned the North American box-office for the second straight weekend.

A couple of new films in the form of romantic comedy Life As We Know It and Secretariat failed to gain muster, with the former drawing in $14.6 million while the latter rounded out the top three positions with $12.6 million.

In comparison, The Social Network garnered $15.5 million. The film played in just under 2,800 locations to record a per-theatre average of around $5,600. Ticket sales dipped by about 30 per cent, a minimal drop by Hollywood standards from last week’s final haul of $22.4. In two weeks, The Social Network has roped in $46.1 million that Columbia said covers its production cost, putting the film on a solid path to profitability.

Warner Bros’ Life As We Know It, starring Katherine Heigl and Josh Duhamel drew in $14.6 million from 3,150 locations averaging over $4,600 per theatre, while Secretariat rounded up the weekend with $12.6 million from around 3,200 venues for $4,100 per theatre.

Last week’s No. 2 Legend of the Guardians: The Owls of Ga’Hoole slipped two steps to No. 4 spot with $7 million pushing its cumulative ticket sales to $39.4 million after two weeks.

At the No. 5 spot was horror master Wes Craven’s My Soul to Take in 3D. The film slashed its way to $6.9 million in ticket sales and a per-theatre average of around $2,700.

MUMBAI: Feng Xiaogang will be honoured by the Filmmaker of the Decade award by the annual CineAsia trade show. Its managing director, Robert Sunshine, will fete the Chinese director on 9 December in Hong Kong at the closing ceremony of the three-day movie business convention.

Xiaogang, whose current Huayi Brothers Media hit Aftershock about the devastating 1976 Tangshan earthquake, is the top-grossing domestic film of all time grossing 660 million yuan ($99.1 million) at the Chinese box -office was the first Chinese director to gross more than $1 billion in ticket sales.

“It is a great honor for CineAsia to be able to single out the achievements of director Feng Xiaogang by presenting him with the Filmmaker of the Decade Award at this year‘s event,” Sunshine said in a statement.

The event runs from 7 to 9 December at the Hong Kong Convention and Exhibition Center.

MUMBAI: Steven Spielberg will direct an adaptation of Robopocalypse for DreamWorks and Disney.

The epic post-apocalyptic feature, based on the novel by Daniel H. Wilson wil have screebplay by Drew Goddard who had written Cloverfield.

The film, set to go on the floors in January 2012, will release in 2012 through Touchstone Pictures.
 

MUMBAI: After a revolt on the sets against Mel Gibson, Liam Neeson will replace the Oscar recepient to play a cameo role in the sequel of The Hangover. It has now been confirmed that the actor would play a tattoo artist in the sequel.

Gibson, whose reputation has been damaged by leaks of threatening phone calls to his ex-girlfriend, was shunted out of the film this week after objections from the cast. The actor also offended Hollywood‘s Jewish community in 2006 with an anti-Semitic tirade that followed a drunk driving arrest.

The original movie was a popular hit and raked in more than $467 million at global box offices. It was being rumoured that Hangover actor Zach Galifianakis may have forcefully spoke up about not wanting to work with Gibson in the sequel.

Gibson, who won Oscars for directing and producing Braveheart and had a hit with The Passion of the Christ, returned to acting in January in Edge of Darkness after an eight year absence from films.