ITV

Category: International

  • Daniel Craig eyes psychological thriller

    MUMBAI: The latest James Bond has proved a critical and commercial success in his two turns in the iconic role, for Casino Royale and Quantum of Solace. But he has been deliberate in choosing his next live-action role.

    Now comes word he is in early talks to star in Dream House a psychological thriller set up at Morgan Creek to be directed by Jim Sheridan, though principals stress that the two sides have not reached a deal.


    In the David Loucka script, Craig would play a man who moves his family to an idyllic small town, only to find his house haunted by its former inhabitants, who were murdered there.


    With a pedigreed director like Sheridan, the movie would accomplish the goal of branching Craig out into a more prestige direction post-“Quantum” while keeping him in the realm of the commercial.


    Like other Bond actors, Craig has faced a crossroads coming off Bond hits. His two other roles, Munich and Defiance saw him essentially take on a more art house version of the Bond character of hit man and vigilante.


    Craig already has shown interest in more boutique fare, recently signing for the Broadway drama A Steady Rain. His name also surfaced in connection with The Eagle of the Ninth, Kevin Macdonald‘s period pic for Focus Features.

  • Martin Lawrence lines up projects


    MUMBAI: Martin Lawrence is having a busy TV development season, with his production company Runteldat fielding a couple of comedy projects.


    At Fox, Lawrence is behind an animated comedy, which is being penned by Rodney Barnes, that is based on his experiences growing up in the Washington, D.C.-Maryland area.


    At Starz, he has a single-camera interracial family show based on the comedy of Gary Owen. Both projects have script commitments.


    Additionally, Lawrence is developing a multicamera family comedy set at a funeral home that is expected to be taken out to other networks.


    The Fox animated half-hour, which is being produced by 20th Century Fox TV, will follow the misadventures of 13-year-old Martin as he comes of age in D.C.


    Lawrence quickly connected with Barnes, who grew up in Maryland. Barnes, who was a co-exec producer of Til Death,Everybody Hates Chris and the animated The Boondocks is repped by Paradigm and Principato-Young.


    The interracial comedy project for Starz is about a white guy from a trailer park who marries a well-to-do black woman. It is inspired by Owen‘s real-life experience and stems from Runteldat‘s stand-up series for Starz, Martin Lawrence Presents 1st Amendment Stand-up which has featured Owen.

  • Netflix stands out in recession


    MUMBAI: Netflix Inc. is a standout in the recession. The DVD-rental company added more subscribers than ever during the first three months of the year. Its stock has more than doubled since October.


    But Netflix‘s chief executive officer, Reed Hastings, thinks his core business is doomed. As soon as four years from now, he predicts, the business that generates most of Netflix‘s revenue today will begin to decline, as DVDs delivered by mail steadily lose ground to movies sent straight over the Internet. So Hastings, who co-founded the company, is quickly trying to shift Netflix‘s business.

  • Analyst rates TW best stock

    MUMBAI: It might be a little early for long-suffering shareholders to celebrate, but Miller Tabak analyst David Joyce says shares of both companies have a good shot at more than doubling during the next two years.

    In a recent research note to clients, Joyce put the 20 media stocks he covers in order, best to worst, using such criteria as risk, exposure to advertising and where we are as a country and industry in terms of the recession cycle.


    The pattern that emerges is that he is bullish on cable TV providers and likes dual revenue streams — as long as one of those streams isn‘t newspaper advertising.


    Rounding out Joyce‘s top five picks are Comcast, Liberty Global and RCN Corp. Cable providers Knology, Mediacom Communications and Cablevision Systems


    are sixth, seventh and 10th, respectively.

    That so many cable companies crack the analyst‘s top 10 is ironic given his concern that the Internet represents stiff competition to television. He says, though, that Internet users rely on cable infrastructure, so those businesses have protection.


    Shares of Time Warner closed at $24.55 on Tuesday, and Joyce sees them climbing to $36 in a year and $54 in two years. Catalysts include AOL “becoming a distinct entity,” strong cable networks bucking a weak advertising trend and a broad and deep studio business offsetting weakness in publishing.


    At the other end, Joyce‘s least-favorite media stock is Sirius XM Radio, though his two-year target suggests its stock price could increase threefold or more. Risk in that rosy scenario is great, though, hence its last-place position.


    Joyce says Sirius XM‘s subscriber growth will suffer with a declining auto and retail market and that a large reverse stock split could come by year‘s end. Plus, the 40% pro forma equity taken by Liberty Media Capital represents too much dilution for Joyce‘s liking.


    Rounding out his bottom five are Clear Channel Outdoor, Entravision Communications, Dolby Laboratories and Lionsgate.


  • Media stocks seen sinking

    MUMBAI: Big media stocks took a dive yesterday amid market declines in the U.S. and Europe driven by renewed economic concerns and doubts that the recent market rally can continue.

    U.S. markets have moved higher since a low point in early March, and media and entertainment stocks often have outpaced the overall gains amid recent signs that the worst of the economic downturn might be over.


    Still, economic growth seems unlikely to return until later this year and likely will be anemic, raising questions about how sustainable the upward momentum in markets is. That has led to market stutters as of late as investors look for more direction. Media and entertainment investors also have waited for signs of a real improvement in advertising trends.


    The Wall Street Journal highlighted the raging debate among investors over U.S. stock markets‘ outlook, pointing out technical indicators that are red flags for further gains.


    Also, the World Bank cut its economic forecasts for most regions.


    “The world is entering an era of slower growth,” it said, predicting a global economic decline of 2.9 per cent this year. This will turn into global growth of 2 per cent in 2010 and 3.2 per cent in 2011, it said. Many developing countries will lose their status as engines for the global economy over the near term, it suggested.


    All this pressured stocks, as the broad-based S&P 500 index tanked 3.1 per cent. It now is down about 10 points for the year-to-date period. The Dow fell 2.4%, and the Nasdaq lost 3.4 per cent of its value.


    Media and entertainment stocks got caught in the downdraft as the THR Showbiz 50 index decreased 3 per cent to 725.49. Many big-media stocks suddenly are left behind their 2008 closing prices again despite their rally since March.


    Amid sector biggies, CBS Corp. shed 6.8 per cent to $6.84 and is now down 14.7 per cent year-to-date, and News Corp. shares fell 5.2 per cent to $10.11 (6.6 per cent for the year). Time Warner and Walt Disney shares dropped 3.7 per cent each to $24.22 (down 10.7 per cent for the year) and $22.66 (down 0.1 per cent), respectively. Viacom declined 5.3 per cent to $23.22 (up 15.4 per cent for the year).


    The European picture wasn‘t pretty either. In London, the FTSE 100 lost 2.6 per cent and the German DAX fell 3 per cent.


    Shares of News Corp.-controlled U.K. satcaster BSkyB declined 2.9 per cent to ?4.31 ($7.04), while broadcaster ITV saw its stock fall 2.1 per cent to ?35.25 ($57.60). German pay TV firm Premiere, in which News Corp. has been raising its stake, gained 2.2 per cent to €2.75 ($3.81) as Goldman Sachs raised its price target, but German broadcaster ProSiebenSat.1 lost 3.8 per cent to €3.85 ($5.34).

  • Harry Potter confronts DVD pirates

    MUMBAI: Harry Potter, the teen wizard whose films have generated billions of dollars and become one of Hollywood‘s biggest franchises, is known for battling the evil Lord Voldemort. Now he‘s about to confront an even darker foe: A soft DVD market.

    Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, the sixth installment in the Warner Bros. film series, will be released on 15 July and expectations are that it will be one of the year‘s biggest blockbusters. The previous five Potter films have generated $7.2 billion in worldwide box-office and DVD sales reaping huge profits for the studio and Potter‘s creator, author J.K. Rowling.


    But the movie world that Half-Blood Prince will enter is markedly different from the one that its predecessor, Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix faced when it was released in 2007.


    Over the last two years, DVD sales, which have long propped up the movie business, have sharply declined. The slump in the DVD market has undermined Hollywood‘s business model and cast a shadow over what used to be the industry‘s bright spot.


    “There‘s been a fairly substantial shrinkage in the overall DVD market since the last Harry Potter‘ film released,” said Tom Adams, a home video industry analyst. According to Adams, DVD sales were down 9 per cent in 2008 and he‘s projecting that they will fall an additional 8 per cent in 2009.


    Though the Potter movies have historically been huge DVD sellers, each successive sequel has sold far fewer units than its predecessor. Sales of the last release were off 15 per cent in the first eight weeks compared with sales of the first film during the same time span. Even a small decline in DVD sales is a challenge for expensive movies because it raises the bar to profitability that much higher.


    And the bar for Harry Potter is higher than ever. Warner Bros. spent $250 million to produce Half-Blood Prince and will invest $155 million to market and distribute the movie, according to people familiar with the situation.

  • Simultaneous worldwide release a dilemma for films

    MUMBAI: Two of this summer‘s biggest hit movies illustrate the lucrative possibilities of a simultaneous worldwide release — as well as its limits.

    Sony greenlighted its Tom Hanks starrer Angels & Demons – based on author Dan Brown‘s less well-known follow-up to The Da Vinci Code – specifically because of its international expectations.


    Staging a simultaneous worldwide bow in May, the results haven‘t disappointed: Angels has soared to $329 million internationally, combining with a more earthbound $128 million in North America.


    “The world has become so small, and a film like Angels & Demons is able to tap into a worldwide audience,” said Sony worldwide distribution president Rory Bruer, who‘s in the Netherlands here this week for the annual Cinema Expo confab. “But you have to look at what‘s best for the picture.”


    Indeed, though executives at all studios now routinely scrutinize foreign box-office projections when developing projects and planning campaigns, one need look no further than Terminator Salvation to realise some films will always elude easy alignment around the world.


    Warner Bros. opened the iconic sci-fi sequel Stateside on May 21, but Sony — which holds most foreign rights on Salvation — held it back a couple weeks in most foreign territories to allow Angels a more open playing field.
    Salvation has earned $200 million internationally, so it‘s hard to see where the delay hurt its worldwide haul.


    On an industry-wide basis, domestic and international receipts now roughly even out. But Angels shows how disproportionately lucrative foreign campaigns can be, while Paramount‘s sci-fi reboot of Star Trek — a $239 million domestic grosser that‘s done just half as much business internationally — shows how individual films still can defy glib generalizations, Still, a growing global trend is clearly afoot.

  • Restored Universal Studios back in business

    MUMBAI: A treasured landmark movie setting was unveiled last Thursday, with a champagne-popping comeback seen only in Hollywood.

    Courthouse Square sprang to life on the restored Universal Studios Hollywood backlot with characters previously filmed on the hometown setting, from the wild-haired Doc Brown in Back to the Future to the jiggly Professor Sherman Klump in The Nutty Professor.


    Those Tinseltown characters and others streamed out of a rehabilitated three-story brick courthouse on cue, followed by the USC Marching Band playing 76 Trombones. They greeted a tram filled with the first visitors to see the area blackened last year in a four-acre fire.


    “We think our guests will get an experience that far exceeds any experience they‘ve ever had,” said Larry Kurzweil, president of Universal Studios Hollywood. “This is the beginning of a let-it-roll.”


    Seen in more than 1,000 productions dating to the 1940s, Courthouse Square was among other movie facades on the 400-acre lot demolished in a fast-moving blaze on June 1, 2008.


    It was once known as Mockingbird Square for its appearance in key scenes of To Kill a Mockingbird. It also provided the backdrop for River City, Iowa, the venue for the toe-tapping musical The Music Man and as Sweet Apple, Ohio, in Bye Bye Birdie.


    Surrounding the courthouse are facades for an antique shop, bakery, video and music stores, police and fire stations and a gas pump. A veranda stands nearby on a grassy, shrub-lined park.


    Today, the clock tower that once adorned the courthouse in “Back to the Future” is gone, because the setting is now home to the TV drama Ghost Whisperer. Still, it wouldn‘t be Hollywood without a little nip and tuck done before the high-profile unveiling.


    Universal officials also introduced a new tram system on Thursday, loaded with high-definition TV monitors and surround sound.


    The high-tech system shows movie clips to thrill-seekers as tram riders tour backstage lots. It also offers commentary from legendary moviemakers who filmed at the studio, from Steven Spielberg, who directed Jaws on the lot, to Stephen Sommers, writer of The Mummy.

  • Paramount Pictures to replace Lesher with Goodman

    MUMBAI: Paramount Pictures, which suffered the first big bomb of the summer last weekend with an Eddie Murphy comedy

    , has fired its top production executive after barely 18 months in the job.

    The Viacom Inc-owned studio said on Friday it would replace Paramount Film Group president John Lesher with former DreamWorks production chief Adam Goodman. Also out is production president Brad Weston.


    Paramount, which is struggling to regain its momentum after a lengthy reliance on co-productions led to a major shakeup four years ago, did not cite a reason for the latest personnel shift in its statement.


    The studio has the top film of the year so far in North America with “Star Trek,” but its slate has otherwise been boosted by films from partners such as DreamWorks Animation (Monsters vs. Aliens). The unrelated DreamWorks Pictures has also been a major supplier, but it quit Paramount last year, leaving Goodman behind at Paramount.


    Murphy‘s Imagine That which Paramount said cost $55 million to make, has earned $9.2 million after eight days. Paramount will likely top the worldwide box- office next weekend with Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen although the sequel is a legacy of its DreamWorks partnership.


    Goodman becomes the third executive to oversee all of Paramount‘s film production since studio chairman and CEO Brad Grey arrived at the studio in January 2005 with a mandate to produce more films in-house. Lesher, who had been closely involved with such Oscar-winning arthouse fare as Babel and There Will Be Blood took over as head of the film group in early 2008.

  • Hollywood theaters asks to deposit rent payments with court

    MUMBAI: Saying it is concerned about the financial stability of its landlord, College Station LLC, Hollywood Theaters has asked College Station to deposit disputed rent payments with the Federal Court handling a lawsuit between the two businesses.

    Hollywood sued College Station in May, claiming it is owed $878,471 in reimbursements related to the downtown theater‘s construction and is being overcharged for monthly rent.


    Less than a month later, College Station filed a counterclaim alleging Hollywood failed to abide the terms of its lease, which include providing College Station with quarterly and annual earnings reports that could cause its rent to be higher.


    In a Wednesday filing, Hollywood asked to be allowed to deposit about $4,250 of the disputed rent payment with the court until the matter is resolved, due to Hollywood‘s “concerns over the financial health of Defendant College Station.”


    The purpose of the move “is to safeguard the disputed funds, not to avoid any obligations it may have under the lease,” the filing says.


    College Station attorney Frank Evans was out of his office Friday and the company‘s owner, developer Scott Tillman, did not return a call for comment.


    Other than the movie theater, Tillman has yet to acquire any tenants for the College Station project, which includes about 35,000 square feet of retail space beneath the College Station car park.


    Tillman paid the city $1.25 million for the property, but took out a $3 million city loan



    to build the shell of the adjacent movie theater.



    In lieu of property taxes, he is required to make annual payments to the city to help reimburse the cost of the $10.9 million parking garage.