Category: International

MUMBAI: Early tracking soon after the release of the Robert Downey, Jr., Gwyneth Paltrow, Don Cheadle starrer Iron Man 2 suggests that the film might have the biggest opening weekend in history.

Iron Man 2 (IM2) that opened on Friday at a record 4,380 locations in North America will surpass the $102.1 opening of the original version two years ago. 

Reports say that IM2 grossed around $1.7 million at sold-out midnight screenings in North American with an additional $3.5 million from screenings that began as early as 8pm in New York on Friday.

IM2 began rolling out in Europe last weekend, where it has already sold more than $100 million worth of tickets.

MUMBAI: Team Todd, Plum Pictures, Benaroya Pictures and Four Of A Kind Productions have announced that Paramount Famous Productions has picked up the entire US and Canada distribution rights of The Romantics. 

The film, that premiered at the Sundance Film Festival in January, has been produced by Daniela Taplin Lundberg, Jennifer Todd, Suzanne Todd, Michael Benaroya, Ron Stein and Daniel Hendler and written and directed by Galt Niederhoffer.

Featuring an all star cast including Katie Holmes, Josh Duhamel, Anna Paquin, Malin Akerman, Adam Brody, Dianna Agron with Candice Bergen and Elijah Wood, The Romantics is about a tight knit group of college friends who reunite for a wedding of two of their own.

Paramount Famous Productions president Louis Feola says, “We are thrilled to be in business with the talented team at Plum Pictures and their partners. We have been tracking several of Plum‘s projects and “The Romantics” is a great way to start”.
 

MUMBAI: Terrence Howard will play the role of Nelson Mandela in the Jennifer Hudson-starrer Winnie based on the story of Winnie Mandela, the South African leader‘s former wife.

The $ 15 million historical, a South Africa/Canada co-production is being directed by Darrell Roodt and will go on the floors on 31 May in Cape Town, Johannesburg and Robben Island where Nelson Mandela was held prisoner for 18 years.

His films include Ray, Lackawanna Blues, Crash, Four Brothers, Hustle & Flow, Get Rich or Die Tryin‘, Idlewild, The Brave One. He co-starred in Iron Man and reprised the role in the video game adaption.

MUMBAI: So much has How To Train Your Dragon earned at the box-office that it has become a multimedia franchise and a sequel to the film is scheduled for screens in the second half of 2013.

A live arena show, something similar to Walking With Dinosaurs is also in the works. Also in development are a TV series and an online virtual world based on Dragon. 

“Dragon is at $180 million in domestic grosses and on track to equal the box-office performance of Kung Fu Panda that amassed $215 million domestically and is getting a somewhat similar franchise treatment. Panda, though, boasted a $60 million opening weekend compared with $44 million for Dragon that cast doubt on a sequel for the latter.” Katzenberg said.

Katzenberg also noted that Dragon has such impressive legs at the box-office because it is DreamWorks Animation‘s best-reviewed film. It is in the “beloved category,” he noted. The CEO also talked up Megamind, saying the November 5 release starring Brad Pitt, Tina Fey and Will Ferrell will do for the superhero genre what Shrek did for fairy tales.

MUMBAI: Weinstein brothers‘ first Asian production has secured a Chinese release date. Shanghai starring John Cusack, Chow Yun-fat, Gong Li and Ken Watanabe will hit Chinese theaters in mid-June, nearly two years after its shooting wrapped up in 2008.

The Mikael Hafstrom film, about an American intelligence official who investigates a friend‘s death in Japanese-occupied Shanghai in the months before the attack on Pearl Harbor, has been repeatedly bogged down by delays.

The film that was not allowed to be shot in China, without any valid reasons from Chinese authorities, had to make do with sets in London and Bangkok.

Editing took longer than usual because Hafstrom had to combine visually different footage from London and Bangkok and had to go through several composers.

Shanghai, however was cleared by the Chinese censors without any cuts.

Release dates for the US and other countries weren‘t immediately revealed.

MUMBAI: Hitman screenwriter Skip Woods is in talks to write the script of a new version of Die Hard for 20th Century Fox.

The New York cop known for consistently being in the wrong place at the right time has already had four run-ins.

In his last outing, Live Free or Die Hard, McClane battled web terrorists to $378 million in worldwide gross, 20 years after Hans Gruber did the maiden role.

Though there‘s no word yet on the new project‘s story line of the film that former Fox executive Alex Young is producing.

Woods has co-written several high-profile projects for Fox, including X-Men Origins: Wolverine and the forthcoming TV-series adaptation The A-Team. He also wrote the original screenplay for Swordfish.
 

MUMBAI: Hollywood heartthrob Robert Pattinson‘s rise to fame is being chronicled in a new comic titled ‘Fame: Robert Pattinson‘ published by Bluewater Comics.

The comic book will trace his career from his first performance in ‘Tess of the D‘Urbervilles‘ at London‘s Barnes Theatre as a teenager to his ‘Twilight‘ films. A recently released sneak peak of the book includes the first look of the new cover and six pages of the content. 

The 23-year-old actor‘s life in Hollywood is presented in multi-colour cartoons in the comic book which will hit shelves on May 26.
Earlier, Pattinson‘s Twilight co-star Kristen Stewart and other notable artistes like Daniel Radcliffe as well as Lady GaGa have also entered the comic book segment.

MUMBAI: A number of Hollywood celebrities including Steven Spielberg, Robert De Niro and Francis Ford Coppola, in a signed petition, have demanded the release of jailed Iranian filmmaker Jafar Panahi.

“We … stand in solidarity with a fellow filmmaker, condemn this detention, and strongly urge the Iranian government to release Mr. Panahi immediately,” read the petition.

The petition also signed by Michael Moore, Robert Redford, Ang Lee and Martin Scorsese wants Iran‘s filmmakers be “celebrated and not censored.”

Panahi was taken away by security forces on 1 March after they raided his home during a dinner party.

The director is known for his socially critical films such as Crimson Gold and The Circle, that annexed the Golden Lion in at the 2000 Venice Film Festival. Panahi also won the Silver Bear and a grand jury prize at the Berlin International Film Festival in 2006 for Offside, which concerned a group of female soccer fans who sneak in to see a men‘s match.

Several countries, including Canada, have called for his release.

MUMBAI: Donah Bassett, a negative cutter in Hollywood for more than forty years expired on Tuesday. She was 83.

Bassett took a job as a film technician at Technicolor Film Laboratory in 1954 and established her own company known as Donah Bassett and Associates in 1976, worked on more than 200 films including classics such as Raging Bull, Reds, The Natural, Amadeus, Blue Velvet, Wall Street, A League of Their Own and Legends of the Fall.

She retired in 1996 and two years later moved to Arizona to study oil painting at local workshops and the Scottsdale Art School. Her work has been shown in numerous exhibitions and galleries in California and Arizona.

Bassett is survived by her brother, Charles Taft; children Chris Scudder, Cathy Bassett Goldman and Craig Bassett; six grandchildren and 11 great-grandchildren.

MUMBAI: Eclipse, the third instalment of the The Twilight Saga will have its world premiere on June 24 at the Los Angeles Film Festival. The film stars Robert Pattinson, Taylor Lautner and Kristen Stewart.

Directed by David Slade, the third person to helm a Twilight film, the movie will be a part of the 16th annual Los Angeles Film Festival, and will screen at the Nokia Theatre in downtown Los Angeles.