ITV

Category: Movies

  • Cloudy With A Chance Of Meatballs’ beats ‘Surrogates’ hands down

    MUMBAI: Massive moviegoer turnout helped Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs dominate the box-office for the second weekend in a row with an intake of $24.6 million, a mere $6 million less than what it made on its debut weekend.

    On the other hand Disney‘s science-fiction flick Surrogates starring Bruce Willis earned only $15 million.

    Based on a comic book of the same name, Surrogates was expected by many box-office watchdogs to rule the weekend. Despite a close battle last Friday Meatballs led Surrogates by less than $1 million. But Saturday morning saw a new turn – the weekend matinees roped in the family crowd for the animated picture giving it enough of a boost to lead Surrogates by almost $10 million.

    But Surrogates wasn‘t the only new film to fall victim to the ever-edible Meatballs. In third place, Fame managed only $10 million over the weekend, despite its family appeal.

    Coming in third and fourth place were The Informant! and Tyler Perry‘s I Can Do Bad All by Myself respectively. Both films have been in theaters for two weeks or more and continue to do decent business.

  • Tom Ortenberg puts in his papers at Weinsteins

    MUMBAI: Tom Ortenberg has stepped down as president of theatrical film at The Weinstein Company (TWC) after being in office for eight months.

    Ortenberg, formerly head of theatrical at Lionsgate, joined TWC last January and served a notice period, his final day being 30 September.

    The move follows TWC‘s latest wave of lay-offs last week, when the company confirmed that it was releasing 35 employees to bring the staff level to approximately 90.

    Harvey and Bob Weinstein called Ortenberg‘s arrival “a major coup” in late January. However since then something clearly did not work between the executives, despite a promising time for the slimmed-down company.

  • Big rush for Jackson’s ‘This Is It’

    MUMBAI: Tickets for Michael Jackson’s forthcoming documentary film, This Is It, which went up for sale on 27 September, were snapped up within two hours in the US.

    In California, the demand for the film was tremendous. Fans had queued up three days ahead to make sure that they got one of 3,000 tickets to the Los Angeles shows.


    The film has been collated from more than 100 hours of behind-the-scenes footage, featuring the singer rehearsing a number of his songs for the show. It will open to the public on October 28 and will be in cinemas worldwide for a limited two-week run.








    The film will contain behind the scenes footage of Jackson backstage, on stage and directing his team as he created his 50 shows.

    It will also contain interviews with friends of Jackson and 3-D sequences originally filmed as part of the concert performance. Candid and private scenes involving Jackson and his crew have been confirmed.


    In India too, fans of Michael Jackson thronged theatres to grab tickets before they could be sold out.


    Says SPE Films India director Kercy Daruwala, “ We have seen a major demand of This Is It. In days to come, before the film could release, we have a number of promotional activities lined up.”

  • Taj Enlighten Film Society organises docu film fest

    MUMBAI: The Taj Enlighten Film Society is to present a documentary film festival from 4 to 25 October that would screen Indian documentaries.

    The first film of the festival would be Flow, a researched documentary on the future of fresh water resources on our Planet. The other film is War and Peace which is filmed over three tumultuous years in India, Pakistan, Japan and the USA following nuclear tests in the Indian sub-continent.


    Two other films to be screened at the Festival are Gaurav Jani‘s One Crazy Ride ( about a motorcycle expedition on uncharted roads across the Himalayan state of Arunachal Pradesh) and Rakesh Sharma‘s controversial film, Final Solution. The screenings of these films would be held at Cinemax and Metro Big Cinemas.


    Said Big Cinemas COO Tushar Dhingra, “Global awareness among Indian audiences has made them desirous for distinct international experiences. By screening world cinema and globally renowned documentaries in association with Enlighten Film Society at Metro Big Cinemas we are not just providing an enriching cultural experience to our guests but also giving them a chance to enjoy world class portfolio of unmatched films on the big screen.”

  • Barah Aana selected for Chicago film fest

    MUMBAI: Raja Menon‘s Barah Aana, starring Naseeruddin Shah, Vijay Raaz, and Arjun Mathur, has been selected to feature at the 45th Chicago International Film Festival.

    The critically acclaimed film will find a place in the World Cinema section that has earlier showcased filmmakers as Wong Kar Wai and Majid Majidi.


    The film will also showcase at other festivals in places like New Jersey, Seattle, and New York between October and November. Then it would be showcased in the European festival circuit.


    The Chicago International Film Festival is one of North America‘s most prestigious and oldest film festivals.

  • VIFF gets $ 467,250 for promotion

    MUMBAI: The Vancouver International Film Festival (VIFF), on the eve of its 28th anniversary edition has received good news.
    The federal government‘s Marquee Tourism Events program granted VIFF new funding to the tune of $467,250 to promote the festival across Canada and abroad.

    Canadian Heritage Minister James Moore made the announcement with an impassioned argument for viewing VIFF and other areas of Canada‘s cultural community as key parts of the economy.


    Moore cited statistics that 650,000 Canadians are employed in arts and culture enterprises worth $46 billion to the economy – twice the size of the forest or agricultural industries and three times the size of the insurance industry.
    VIFF director Alan Franey said the funding will allow the festival to grow beyond local borders.


    “Marketing our festival outside our region to the full Pacific Northwest and the West Coast is something we‘ve always hoped to be able to do,” Franey said. “Now, fortunately, it is within our means.”

  • Fame remake rides money-spinning wave

    MUMBAI: A remake of the 1980 film Fame released on Friday is riding a lucrative wave of song-and-dance shows on the big and small screen.

    Aimed squarely at young girls, the 2009 version of New York performing arts high school students hoping to live their dreams is as squeaky-clean as director Alan Parker‘s original was gritty.


    Updated with rap tunes and hip-hop choreography, the new version barely grazes issues of poverty, sexual exploitation and drugs that lay beneath the exuberance of Fame almost 30 years ago.


    The remake seeks to tap into the money-spinning teen market blazed by Disney‘s $1 billion-plus High School Musical franchise, the worldwide Idol TV talent show franchise and the feature adaptation of Mamma Mia! that was the fifth-biggest movie of 2008 with global ticket sales of $609 million.

  • Victoria Espinel is US IP enforcement coordinator

    MUMBAI: President Barack Obama has named Victoria Espinel as the new U.S. intellectual property enforcement coordinator. Espinel, in her position, will target, among other areas, the rampant piracy that has plagued the entertainment industry.

    The position created in 2008 will augment American efforts to prevent the exploitation of pirated or counterfeited movies, music and software, as well as other intellectual properties.


    Espinel is the founder and president of Bridging the Innovation Divide, a not-for-profit focused on the innovation divide. From 2007-09, Espinel was a visiting assistant professor at the George Mason University School of Law, focusing on IP and international trade issues. She has further served as an adviser on IP issues to the staff of the Senate Judiciary Committee, Senate Finance Committee, House Judiciary Committee and House Ways and Means Committee.


    In 2005, Espinel also became the first-ever Assistant United States Trade Representative for Intellectual Property and Innovation at the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative, serving as chief U.S. trade negotiator on those subjects.

  • Thomson introduces image detection watermarking solutions

    MUMBAI: Thomson will now be offering both its digital cinema image detection watermarking solutions available in the market, Cinefence and Nexguard, both offered by Civolution, through its Technicolor Business Group.

    Digital watermarking solutions make video content easily and precisely identifiable by embedding specific data such as the rights holder‘s or recipient‘s ID or user number. The watermark, totally invisible to the naked eye may be embedded at various points in the content preparation and distribution process.


    In addition to digital cinema watermarking, Technicolor also offers forensic image watermarking embedding and detection services for video and film prints, and also as audio watermarking across Dolby SR, SRD and DTS formats.

  • Temasek offloads 13.5% in Fame India


    MUMBAI: Temasek Holdings, an Asia investment company headquartered in Singapore, has sold 13.5 per cent stake in multiplex chain operator Fame India for around Rs 141 million, according to market sources.


    In a block deal, Temasek sold 4.7 million shares of Fame India at Rs 30 per share. According to shareholding data till 30 June, Temasek held 9.05 per cent through subsidiary company Aranda Investments Mauritius Pte. Ltd and 4.45 per cent via Dunearn Investments Mauritius Pte Ltd.


    Temasek had acquired part of the stake at Rs 62.5 per cent.


    Though the market speculated on PVR Ltd being the buyer, company officials denied that. The PVR scrip has been on a bull run for the last couple of days and ended Friday at Rs 152.75, up 2.76 per cent from the previous day‘s close on the BSE.


    Market sources said the buying was not done by strategic but by financial investors. Two name being floated are Shail Investments and Gulshan Investment.


    Shares of Fame India ended Friday at Rs 30.75, up 4.95 per cent from the previous day‘s close.