ITV

Category: Movies

  • Jacques Audiard’s A Prophet to represent France at Oscars

    MUMBAI: Next year‘s Oscar awards will have Jacques Audiard‘s A Prophet representing France as its submission for the foreign language Oscar this year. The film, a product of Why Not Productions won the Grand Prize at Cannes this year.

    Starring newcomer Tahar Rahim, the film follows a young man as he is taken under the wing of the Corsican mafia during a prison stint. As he rises through the ranks, it becomes clear he has designs on creating his own network.

    Cannes‘ festival director Thierry Fremaux along with Florence Malraux, president of the advance on receipts commission of the Centre National du Cinema (CNC), president of the Cesar Academy Alain Terzian; actress Jeanne Moreau, and directors Jean-Jacques Annaud, Costa-Gavras and Regis Wargnier were among members of the selection committee.

    The film was released in France by UGC on 26 August. Celluloid Dreams handled sales while Sony Pictures Classics has the US rights.

  • Sony Pictures in negotiations to acquire Defendor

    MUMBAI: Woody Harrelson‘s Defendor that had its world premiere at the Toronto International Film Festival recently, is being sought by Sony Pictures Worldwide (SPW) Acquisitions Group which is in final negotiations to acquire the film.

    The film stars Harrelson as a man who is under the delusion that he is a superhero and embarks on a series of adventures to protect a crime-beset city. The film also stars Kat Dennings and Sandra Oh.

    The acquisition marks Sony Pictures Worldwide‘s first buy of the festival. SPW is also set to buy all worldwide rights of the film except Canada where the movie is being released by Alliance.

    The deal is the third significant U.S. pickup of the festival after the Weinstein Co.‘s purchase of Tom Ford‘s period drama A Single Man and IFC‘s acquisition of Nicolas Winding Refn‘s action-adventure Valhalla Rising.

  • B4U Network launches Bollywood magazine

    MUMBAI: B4U Network, which operates bollywood channels B4U Music and B4U Movies, has entered the print media industry with its annual magazine, ‘Bollywood Glitz’.


    The magazine will be available in stores worldwide from October this year.



    The network claims that Bollywood Glitz will be “a yearly edition of B4U in print media, which will stick to the B4U ethos of bringing in Bollywood when it comes to music, movies and A-list interviews.”



    Says B4U Television Network head – sales and marketing international Kevin Rego, “In the midst of B4U Television’s 10th year anniversary, we are happy to venture into print media and launch the Bollywood Glitz magazine. The magazine will cater to Bollywood fans worldwide and be the ultimate source for star studded interviews and features.”


    Bollywood Glitz will be distributed in countries including India, USA, UK and UAE. The content will include features based on scandals, industry news and interviews with Bollywood celebrities.



    The magazine will also cover the Asian music scene worldwide including interviews and featured reviews. “Bollywood Glitz will cater to all elements of the Bollywood and Asian entertainment industry lifestyle, creating exciting stories with a twist that differ from the usual content offered by magazines of this kind,” the company said in a release.

  • Tamil, Telugu remake of ‘A Wednesday‘ to release on 18 Sept

    MUMBAI:UTV Motion Pictures and Raajkamal International is set to release the Tamil and Telugu versions of A Wednesday! worldwide on 18 September.

    Christened Unnaipol Oruvam in Tamil and Eenadu in Telugu, both version have been directed by Chakravorthy Toleti.


    Tamil (Unnaipol Oruvam) and Telugu (Eenadu) remake of A Wednesday will have a worldwide release on 18 September.


    Kamal Hasaan has enacted the role of Naseeruddin Shah in both the films while Anupam Kher‘s role is played by Mohan Lal in the Tamil remake and Venkatesh in the Telugu one.


    Said UTV Motion Pictures CEO Siddharth Roy Kapur, “The most original plots traditionally have travelled to Hindi cinema from South Indian cinema. This time however, there is a twist in the tale, with a Hindi movie being re-made in Tamil and Telugu. The South Indian audience is very discerning and we at UTV are confident that the Tamil and Telugu remakes of A Wednesday! will garner as much acclaim as their Hindi counterpart had. We are hopeful that this will start a trend in the reverse migration of original stories from Hindi cinema being remade for South audiences.”


    The plot of the movie is the narrative of a common man who takes it upon himself to purge the society of terrorism. It is the story of certain events that unfolds between 6 am and 6.10 pm on a particular day – events which do not exist in any record but which deeply impact the lives of those involved.

  • DreamWorks to co-produce Real Steel, gets Levy to direct

    MUMBAI: Reliance Big Entertainment and Steven Spielberg‘s DreamWorks Studios has added yet one more cookie to its film production pipeline.

    The company is co-producing the adventure film Real Steel along with Angry Films‘ Don Murphy and Susan Montford and has roped in Shawn Levy to direct the venture.


    Written by John Gatins, Real Steel will have Steven Spielberg as executive producer along with ImageMovers‘ Jack Rapke, Robert Zemeckis and Steve Starkey.


    Real Steel is set in the near-future when human boxing has been outlawed and replaced by a popular, new division, robot boxing. The movie is about a father and his estranged teenage son who reconnect to train an extraordinary fighter.


    Says DreamWorks CEO and co-chair Stacey Snider, “I‘m thrilled to be working with Shawn on this project. He‘s a master of combining heart and human stories with fantastic visuals. I‘m sure that in his capable hands, ‘Real Steel‘ will be a film that touches and excites all audiences.”


    DreamWorks Studios had earlier announced that the first three movies to roll out from the slate would be I Am Number 4, Pirate Latitudes and Harvey. They are a mix of adventure and play adaptations.


    As reported in Indiantelevision.com, DreamWorks and Reliance Big Entertainment have locked their first phase of financing, sealing an amount of $825 million that would allow the joint venture to make six films annually.

  • Santosh Singh Jain re-elected president of CCCA for 40th term

    NEW DELHI: Eminent distributor Santosh Singh Jain has been re-elected President of the distributors body Central Circuit Cine Association for the fortieth consecutive time.

    Jain, who is already in the Limca Book of Records for the feat of holding office for so many terms, is the father of Jitendra Jain, who is currently President of the Film Federation of India which is the apex organization of all film bodies.

    At the 56th Annual General Meeting of CCCA, the Santosh Singh Jain panel won all the 16 seats of the Executive Committee for the year 2009-2011. The elections of Executive Committee was held on 15 September at Santosh Sabhagriha, Film Bhawan, Indore.

    In the first meeting of the Executive Committee of the elected members, the other office bearers elected are Vijay R Rathi as the Vice President, Jitendra Jain as the General Secretary and Sanjay S Surana as the Treasurer.

    The CCCA is the sole representative organisation of the Film Industry comprising Film Distributors and Film Exhibitors of the Central Circuit – Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarh, Rajasthan and Vidarbha and Khandesh Regions of Maharasthra.

    A total of 16 members were elected – four each from Distribution and exhibition segments from C P Berar Region, two each from Distribution and Exhibition segment from C I Region, and two each from Distribution and Exhibition segments from Rajasthan Region – as the Executive Committee of CCCA.

  • Dan Brown novel breaks one-day sales records

    MUMBAI: The author of Da Vinci Code Dan Brown‘ latest novel

    The Lost Symbol has broken one-day sales records.

    Readers snapped up over one million hardcover copies across the US, Canada and the United Kingdom soon after it was released on Tuesday.

    Amazon.com Inc, the world‘s largest online retailer, called the book its bestselling first-day adult fiction title ever.

    Barnes & Noble Inc said The Lost Symbol broke its previous one-day sales record for adult fiction.

    The success of the Dan Brown‘s latest is a boost to publisher Knopf Doubleday and booksellers, that have seen sliding sales amidst recession.

    Booksellers have anxiously awaited a popular title that will resonate with readers and fuel the same sort of frenzy seen earlier this decade with the latest Harry Potter series.

    But the $25 billion domestic book market has wallowed in a slump in recent years.

    The Da Vinci Code” sold 80 million copies worldwide. It was made into a film starring Tom Hanks that grossed more than $758 million.

  • Community labour sentence of Brown for Rihanna assault begins

    MUMBAI: Singer Chris Brown has begun his 1,400-hour community labour sentence for his assault of girlfriend Rihanna last year.

    Pictures on the celebrity website TMZ.com showed Brown in his home state of Virginia wearing a reflective red vest and a red cap stooping to clean up the grounds of a police horse stable.

    The singer‘s other duties during his six months of community labour will include graffiti removal, washing cars and roadside cleanup.

    Brown has also been slapped with a five-year probation period, a year of domestic violence classes and hefty fines.

  • Ray Lewis plans entertainment center

    MUMBAI: After a bone-crushing football career, Baltimore Raven‘s linebacker Ray Lewis has revealed his plans for a sports-themed entertainment center in Hunt Valley that could be the first in a national chain.

    The project, called MVP Entertainment, will be built at Hunt Valley Towne Centre in which Lewis has a majority stake while his business adviser, Marc Rosen and Rosen‘s wife Laura, are minority partners.


    Lewis and the Rosen laid out an ambitious vision for MVP Entertainment, which is to be completed by next year.


    The entertainment center will feature tiered bowling lanes, a 100-foot-wide video wall, a 150-seat restaurant and sushi bar, private event rooms, a quick-service restaurant, golf simulators, an arcade, a radio broadcast center, and a sports memorabilia and bowling pro shop.

  • Linda McMahon resigns to come into politics

    MUMBAI: World Wrestling Entertainment Inc. Chief Executive Linda McMahon has stepped down from her post a day after joining the Republican field wanting to run against Connecticut Sen. Christopher Dodd.

    WWE Chairman Vince McMahon will assume the additional duties of CEO, supported by “the seasoned executive management team already in place,” the wresting entertainment and media company said.

    The announcement came as WWE grapples with the weak economy and competition from sports such as kickboxing. Still, WWE‘s profit nearly tripled in the latest quarter amid cost cuts as revenue rose 7%.

    Ms. McMahon is the fourth Republican to declare her candidacy, following former Rep. Rob Simmons, state Sen. Sam Caligiuri and former U.S. Ambassador to Ireland Tom Foley.