MUMBAI: Percept Picture Company, Bhandarkar Entertainment & Sanjay Ghodawat Group‘s Jail that was to release on 30 October has been postponed to 6 November.
The film stars Neil Nitin Mukesh in the lead along with Mugdha Godse.The film also stars Manoj Bajpai, Arya Babbar and Ashish Sharma in pivotal roles.
Directed by Madhur Bhandarkar, the film has music by Sharib-Toshi and Shamir Tandon.
MUMBAI: Moving forward with its two films of The Hobbit, Warner Bros. has resolved a legal battle with the heirs of J.R.R. Tolkien over a profit issue from the Lord of the Rings films.
Last year, two of Tolkien‘s children, Christopher, 84, and Priscilla, 80, sued New Line, now a unit of Warner Bros., for an estimated $150 million that they claimed had to come from the three Lord of the Rings films that amassed $2.96 billion at the worldwide box-office and around $3 billion from DVD and other ancillary sales, according to the lawsuit.
It has been claimed that the heirs had not received any money under a pre-existing licensing agreement that guaranteed them 7.5 per cent of the films‘ gross receipts
However, just days after the lawsuit was filed in February 2008 in Los Angeles County Superior Court by the Tolkien heirs and co-plaintiff HarperCollins Publishers, New Line became a division of Warner Bros., ceasing to operate as a separate studio under corporate parent Time Warner Inc.
MUMBAI: With 335 films from 64 countries, the Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF) opens today with a star-studded array of guests. Opening the 10-day cinematic event will be Creation that stars Paul Bettany as Charles Darwin and his real-life wife, Jennifer Connelly, as Mrs. Darwin.
The Toronto festival marks the unofficial opening of the festival year and is also seen as an awards-season barometer – the winner of the festival‘s 2008 People‘s Choice award was Slumdog Millionaire that went on to win best picture at the Academy Awards.
TIFF can also serve to strangle films in their cradle: “All the King‘s Men” with Sean Penn was shown in 2006, and essentially left the festival on life support.
Expected celebrities to grace the event are George Clooney, Nicolas Cage, Penelope Cruz, Colin Firth, Colin Farrell, Michael Douglas, Michael Sheen, Michael Cera, Michael Caine, Naomi Watts, Ellen Page, Woody Harrelson, Mariah Carey and Viggo Mortensen.
MUMBAI: Executive director Scott Rosenbaum has been signed by Fox for a Western drama. The untitled project, from Warner Bros. TV and McG‘s studio-based Wonderland Sound and Vision, has landed a script commitment with a significant penalty.
Described as an epic Western with a sci-fi twist, the show will revolve around “a gunslinger caught between worlds” and will feature a nod to Planet of the Apes said Rosenbaum.
Rosenbaum had been seeking to do a Western with sci-fi elements for a long time. He had worked with Reilly and Cherniss at FX, where they were entertainment president and senior vice president respectively.
Wonderland is behind the network‘s new drama Human Target, which joins the company‘s series like Supernatural that makes a return soon.
MUMBAI: Coinstar Inc that provides coin-counting machines and DVD rental kiosks has said that it has sold its entertainment services business to National Entertainment Network Inc for a nominal consideration.
The company is expecting to record a pre-tax loss of between $52 million to $57 million and realize a one-time tax benefit of between $82 million and $87 million from the sale.
Also, Coinstar, which provides DVD rental kiosks through its unit Redbox Automated Retail LLC, said that it is publicly offering $175 million of convertible senior notes due in 2014 and will use the proceeds to repay debt.
The cost of shares of Coinstar was down about 3 per cent at $31.10 and closed at $31.96 on Nasdaq on Wednesday.
MUMBAI: Adlabs Films has restructured its exhibition business, splitting it into two strategic units based on geographical divisions.
Adlabs has roped in Ashish Saxena as chief operating officer for Big Cinemas. He will look after the company‘s operations in West and South India.
Tushar Dhingra, the existing COO, will now specifically focus on the company‘s operations in North, East and Central India.
Saxena has considerable experience in the areas of operations, distribution and programming in the film and cinemas industry. He last served as PVR Pictures CEO. Earlier he was Inox Leisure VP – Programming.
Commenting on the reorganisation, Adlabs Films Ltd CEO Anil Arjun said, “Big Cinemas network is expanding across the country and we are putting in place a core team of leaders to drive the strategy and the execution required to operate this extensive network of cinemas in India and further augment the company‘s ability to serve our customers better.”
Adlabs also has a global footprint with 459 screens present across India, US, Netherlands and Malaysia.
MUMBAI: In keeping with its spirit of innovation, Anupam Kher‘s acting school Actor Prepares will transform itself into a centre of the dramatic arts every weekend by hosting events at its studio in Mumbai.
These shows will not only highlight the acting skills of the students, but will also show that of the performers from across Mumbai who are keen on displaying their talent in the performing arts.
Kicking off the series will be a musical play, Romeo and Jenny, which will be performed by the students of the school on 12 and 13 September at 6 pm and 8.30 pm on the respective days and times.
It is a play which shows how the lives of actors rehearsing Romeo and Juliet are singed with reality when their production is recast. Among the stellar plays scheduled in the coming weeks will be Mr Kher‘s highly acclaimed one-man play Kuchh Bhi Ho Sakta Hai which has been staged internationally and has been in the news for being one of his best works yet.
MUMBAI: Sun Pictures has acquired the distribution rights of Moser Baer and Blue Ocean Entertainment‘s Bharath and Tamannaah starrer Kanden Kadhalai.
Said Moser Baer COO G. Dhananjayan, “After watching the end-result of the film, the Sun Pictures team immensely liked for its “wholesome family entertainment” and showed their desire to acquire the film immediately to market it worldwide under its name.” With this move, Moser Baer and Blue Ocean Entertainment have shifted their focus to their next film Aval Peyar Tamilarasi that is nearing completion.
MUMBAI: Moving Picture Company, in a filing at the BSE, has announced that its documentary The Journalist and a Jihadi- The Murder Of Daniel Pearl has won an award for best investigative film in the National Film Awards that were announced on 8 September.
Highly-educated individuals from privileged backgrounds, Daniel Pearl and Omar Sheikh saw the world very differently.
While Pearl was a humanist who became an accomplished journalist and spent most of his career reporting from the Muslim world as part of a quest to promote cross-cultural understanding, Sheikh was radicalized by events that he regarded as the global persecution of Muslims, thereby becoming an Islamic militant who chose a deeply violent method to achieve what he believed in. After 9/11, their paths crossed in Pakistan, with tragic consequences.
Moving Picture Company‘s new weekly show MTV Stripped, based on the life of TV stars, is on air every Friday on MTV channel at 7 pm.
MUMBAI: The 14th Pusan International Film Festival will open with director Jang Jin‘s new comedy Good Morning President.
The film is about three Korean presidents including the youngest one played by Jang Dong-kun who was earlier seen in The Promise.
The festival which runs from 8 to 16 October brings a record of 355 films from 70 countries, with 98 world premieres and 46 international premieres.
Gala Presentation, featuring screenings of latest works by noted directors, offers seven films from six countries, including Fruit Chan‘s drama Chengdu, I Love You and Symbol by Matsumoto Hitoshi. The festival closes with The Message, a spy thriller directed by Chen Kuo-fu and Gao Qunshu set in 1942 China under Japanese rule.
This year‘s Pusan, arguably Asia‘s largest film fest, brings a balanced mixture of arthouse and genre films.