Category: International

MUMBAI: HBO Documentary Films has lapped up the domestic TV rights of the feature-length documentary My Trip to Al Qaeda.

The film, directed by Oscar winner Alex Gibney, described as part documentary and part performance piece, is a joint venture of Gibney and Pulitzer Prize-winning author and journalist Lawrence Wright. 

Based on Wright‘s one-man play and developed from Wright‘s 2006 book ‘The Looming Tower: Al-Qaeda and the Road to 9/11‘ My Trip to Al Qaeda chronicles fundamentalist Islam‘s rise to power and the dilemma he faces as a writer in maintaining his objective.

The film, a 2010 Tribeca Film Festival selection and HBO‘s second collaboration with Gibney will be shown on HBO in fall 2010.

MUMBAI: Merchant Ivory Prods. is donating its archives – which encompasses – to the

The George Eastman House International Museum of Photography & Film in Rochester, New York will house 2,600 items including more than 40 films of Merchant Ivory Productions including titles like A Room With a View and Howard‘s End.

At the opening of the 360|365 George Eastman House Film Festival on 5 May, director James Ivory will be honored with the title of George Eastman Honorary Scholar. The festival will also present Ivory’s latest film, The City of Your Final Destination that stars Anthony Hopkins and Laura Linney. 

It may be recalled that Ismail Merchant, who died in 2005, had met representatives of Eastman House personally to plan the gift that includes original negatives, interpositives and 35mm archive prints made from the original negatives of some of Merchant Ivory’s films.

According to Ivory, it was Merchant’s dream to back this original material up with his own collection of his relevant contracts, correspondence, and other business papers that give an idea of how their production company operated successfully for more than four decades in four continents.

MUMBAI: Sigourney Weaver has lashed out at Academy Awards bosses, arguing that James Cameron should have won the Best Director award at this year‘s ceremony instead of his ex-wife Kathryn Bigelow.

Bigelow became the first ever female to take the top accolade for her gritty war drama The Hurt Locker, fighting off competition from her former husband‘s fantasy Avatar. 

Weaver, who stars in Cameron‘s sci-fi epic, is convinced that the Hurt Locker director only won the award because she was a woman.

The actress is also disappointed that The Hurt Locker beat Avatar in the Best Picture category – insisting that the epic missed out on the trophy because it is “fashionable” for films that “nobody saw” to take the top prizes.

Weaver added, “In the past, Avatar would have won because they (Oscar voters) loved to hand out awards to big productions, like Ben-Hur. Today it‘s fashionable to give the Oscar to a small movie that nobody saw.”
 

MUMBAI: A contractor cleaning an old New Hampshire barn destined for demolition came across seven reels of nitrate film inside, including a solitary copy of a 1913 silent film on Abraham Lincoln.

When Lincoln Paid, a 30-minute film about the mother of a dead Union soldier asking Lincoln to pardon a confederate soldier whom she had initially turned in, stars the brother of John Ford who directed The Quiet Man, The Grapes of Wrath and other classics.

“I was up in the attic space, and shoved away over in a corner was the film and a silent movie projector, as well,” Peter Massie, a movie buff, said of his discovery in the western New Hampshire town of Nelson. “I thought it was really cool.”

It was the summer of 2006, and the film canisters sat in his basement for a while before Massie thought of contacting nearby Keene State College, where film professor Larry Benaquist thought it was a rare find.

In fact, it was one of eight silent films starring Ford as Lincoln.

After working with the George Eastman House film preservation museum in Rochester, New York the college determined that the film, directed by and starring Francis Ford, did not exist in film archives.

The college, which plans to screen the film on 20 April, received a grant from the National Film Preservation Foundation to restore it. It took a Colorado lab a year to complete the task.

MUMBAI: DreamWorks Studios has bought the rights of the Slater written airport-thriller that is being produced by Alex Kurtzman and Roberto Orci who had earlier produced Eagle Eye for the company.

Motion Theory‘s Mathew Cullen and Sean Sorensen are executive producers, with Cullen attached to direct.

Slater recently wrote the screenplay for the Paramount/MTV Films thriller Handsome Devil.

Kurtzman and Orci, who have a first-look deal at DreamWorks, have also co-written and producing the studio‘s forthcoming action film Cowboys and Aliens that director Jon Favreau will begin shooting soon in New Mexico. The film is set for release in July next year.

The pair is also working on the screenplay for a Star Trek sequel for Paramount.
 

MUMBAI: Oscar-winning director Ron Howard, known for his films like Splash, Cocoon, Apollo 13, The Da Vinci Code, Frost/Nixon, Parenthood, A Beautiful Mind and Backdraft will receive a lifetime achievement honour at the 46th Chicago International Film Festival on 12 June.

Howard will receive the Silver Hugo Career Achievement Award at a presentation at the Museum of Science and Industry.

“For the better part of four decades, Ron Howard has maintained a reputation as one of the world‘s most admired directors,” festival founder and artistic director Michael Kutza said.

“He has mastered all genres including action spectaculars, moving dramas, chilling thrillers and character-driven comedies. Howard‘s films have left a significant imprint on film history and have changed the way we look at movies,” Kutza added.

Earlier recipients of this award include Steven Spielberg, Orson Welles, Francois Truffaut, Sigourney Weaver, Nicolas Cage, Jodie Foster, Robin Williams and Clint Eastwood.
 

MUMBAI: The Hollywood Foreign Press Assn. has come out with its timetable for the 68th annual Golden Globe Awards that will be held on 16 January next year.

The Association said that the deadline for film and TV submissions is 5 November and nomination ballots must be received by 10 December. Nominations will be announced on 14 December.

On 11 November, Cecil B. DeMille Award would be announced, 8 December has been fixed for the final screening date for motion picture contenders on 27 December, final ballots would be mailed and on 12 January 2011, results of the final ballots would be out.

MUMBAI: In the second straight weekend, Clash of the Titans clung to the top spot pushing the overseas gross total of the epic to $119.2 million. Globally, Titans has pocketed $229.7 million to date.

Titans opened at No. 1 in Russia roping in $12.4 million from 919 screens, in France it drew $7.6 million from 615 sites and from Germany it logged in $6.4 million from 672 situations.

In second place was DreamWorks Animation‘s How to Train Your Dragon that drew $23.7 million from 7,033 venues in 55 markets with nearly 70 per cent of the gross earning coming from 3,357 3D locations. The film‘s global gross total stood at $148.1 million to date.

In Australia the film got a No. 1 ranking with $3.2 million from 358 spots, an increase of 42% from the prior weekend, with 68% of the action coming from 3D venues. “Dragon‘s” worldwide cume stands at $282 million.

At No. 3, with a sixth-stanza tally of $19 million from 7,152 screens in 51 territories, was Disney‘s Alice in Wonderland that continues to climb the all-time box-office charts.

Director Tim Burton‘s 3D re-imagining of the Lewis Carroll classic has grossed $461.5 million so far in the overseas.

The film‘s worldwide box-office stands at $780.8 million making it the 29th most popular title in film history and the fourth biggest title ever released by Disney.
 

MUMBAI: Seeing DreamWorks Animation SKG Inc‘s strategy for Dragon failing, it‘s come to light how Hollywood, that spends more than $4 billion a year promoting movies, is under pressure to cut costs and experiment.

From Time Warner Inc‘s Warner Bros to Walt Disney Co, Hollywood‘s stalwarts have been employing Youtube and Twitter, consolidating advertising staff and using fans to spread the message through viral marketing.

Hit by the downturn, Hollywood had cut its ad spending by 8 per cent to $4.39 billion in 2009 after cutting it short by 3 per cent in 2008. It is likely that more cuts would come about in the first half of this year.

Dreamworks spent $160 million to $175 million to market Dragon and then had to revamped its promotional materials and TV commercials right before the film released. However, its campaign fell flat with audiences.

The movie logged in $43.7 million in its domestic debut weekend compared to a projected $65 to $70 million.

In the wake of a revised campaign, Dragon has held up well and its critical praise and has earned $104.7 million in ticket sales so far.

Faced with weak DVD sales, studios like Disney and Viacom Inc‘s Paramount have cut costs by combining marketing for DVDs and theatrical releases, whereas earlier they used to have separate teams to do so.

MUMBAI: Looks like Elizabeth Taylor is going to marry for the ninth time.

The 78-year-old Hollywood legend Elizabeth Taylor is engaged to manager Jason Winters, 49.

Winters, a talent manager from Sterling Winters Management, recently bagged the job as Janet Jackson‘s new manager.

In 2007, Liz gushed to columnist Liz Smith about Jason, saying, “Jason Winters is one of the most wonderful men I‘ve ever known and that‘s why I love him. He bought us the most beautiful house in Hawaii and we visit it as often as possible.”

Some of Liz‘s previous marriages include Conrad Hiton (the grand-uncle of Paris and Nicky Hilton), Eddie Fisher (Carrie Fisher‘s father), Richard Burton (two separate times) and most recently Larry Fortensky – from whom she split 1996.

A representative of the actress confirmed that Liz and Jason were indeed a longtime couple but did not divulge beyond that.