ITV

Category: Movies

  • UTV‘s Kaminey grosses Rs 630 million

    MUMBAI: After storming the box office in its first weekend, UTV Motion Pictures‘ Kaminey has grossed Rs 630 million within the first 10 days of its release worldwide.

    UTV claims the film grossed Rs 500 million across 1200 screens at the Indian box office. The balance came from the overseas territories, led by US which contributed Rs 52.2 million.

    Despite its two-day late release in Mumbai, Thane and Navi Mumbai as the state government announced closure of theatres due to swine flu scare, the film has had a successful run.

    Says Fun Cinemas CEO Vishal Kapur, “The movie is doing good business and is poised to go into the third week. But Kaminey is not as big a hit as is Love Aaj Kal.”

  • T-Series acquires music rights of Vipul Shah‘s London Dreams

    MUMBAI: T-Series has acquired the music rights of the Vipul Shah directed film London Dreams.

    After Action Replay, this is the second film directed by Shah. The film stars Salman Khan, Ajay Devgan, Asin and Om Puri.

    Says T-Series head honcho Bhushan Kumar, “As a company we want big films, producers and banners to sign on with us. This year, thanks to all the corporate deals, our marketing strategies and relations and also with the digital marketing strength, every producer and banner is looking to have a contract with us.”


    T-Series has lately acquired the music rights of big films like Kites, Action Replay and 3 Idiots.

  • Adam Fierro and Glen Mazzara to pen ‘Hancock‘ sequel

    MUMBAI: Columbia has hired Adam Fierro and Glen Mazzara to pen the sequel to the Will Smith superhero movie Hancock that grossed $624 million worldwide last year.
    Though the plot details have been kept under wraps, the scribes will work with Smith and director Peter Berg to build on the story.


    The original starred Smith as a boozy, irresponsible superhero who undergoes an image makeover by a public relations man. It is later revealed that the hero is part of a line of immortal beings who have been around for more than 3,000 years and begin to lose their powers when in proximity to fellow immortals.


    Hancock, originally titled Tonight He Comes took more than 12 years to make it to the screen. But the sequel will be on a faster track.

  • Mammie Gummer in Carpenter‘s ‘The Ward‘

    MUMBAI: Mamie Gummer is joining Amber Heard and Jared Harris in Echo Lake Entertainment and A Bigger Boat‘s psychological thriller The Ward that has been directed by John Carpenter.Heard plays a young woman who wakes up in a mental institution with no memory of who she is or why she is there, only to find herself terrorised by a ghost. Gummer plays a troubled patient who becomes an ally to Heard‘s character.


    Gummer‘s credits include Evening and the HBO award-winning mini-series John Adams. She appears in Ang Lee‘s Taking Woodstock that was released recently in North America.

    Carpenter has directed films like Halloween, Escape From New York, The Fog, and Christine.



     

  • Beineix to head Pusan jury

    MUMBAI: The Pusan International Film Festival (PIFF) has announced that Jean-Jacques Beineix has been appointed to head its jury for the New Currents competition which involves emerging Asian filmmakers.Jean-Jacques Beineix will be joined on the jury by Turkish director Yesim Ustaoglu, Thai director Pen-ek Ratanaruang, Taiwanese actress Terri Kwan and Korean cinematographer Kim Hyungkoo.

    Te jury for the newly created Flash Forward Award, which focuses on non-Asian directors, includes producer Marianne Slot (Dancer In The Dark); Frederic Boyer, artistic director of Cannes‘ Directors‘ Fortnight and Alissa Simon, programmer of the Palm Springs International Film Festival.

    On the list of jurors for the Sonje Award for short films in the Wide Angle section are Korean actor and director You Jitae, Finnish producer Simojukka Ruippo, and Malaysian director Tan Chui Mui.

    The 14th PIFF will take place from 8 to 16 October while the Asian Film Market runs from 11 to 14 October. The jury will present the two winners of the New Currents award with a cash prize of $30,000.

  • ‘Slice of Pie‘ bags major slice of St. Louis‘ awards

    MUMBAI: Producer Rick Hall‘s Slice of Pie has won several awards at the recent St. Louis Filmmakers Showcase awards. The awards annexed by the film include Best Relationship/Romance short over 10 minutes, best screenplay (Rick Hall), best actor (Rick Hall) and best actress (Kelly McLeod).

    The film also earned an invitation to the St. Louis International Film Festival, that is scheduled to be held from 12 to 22 November.

    “We were in the Feel Good Film Festival last weekend, held at the Egyptian Theater on Hollywood Boulevard,” Hall said.

    “We will be in the Temecula Valley (Calif.) International Film Festival on Aug. 26. We are rolling along. It was quite a treat to be recognized by the showcase in St. Louis,” she added.

  • UTV‘s ‘Phir Kabhi‘ premiered on Digital TV

    MUMBAI: UTV Motion Pictures‘ Phir Kabhi was premiered by Digital TV-the DTH service from Airtel on its direct-to-home (DTH) platform yesterday.

    Besides Digital TV, Phir Kabhi is scheduled to release on all major DTH platforms including Tata Sky, Dish TV and Big TV.


    The release of the film first on the DTH platform ahead of a theatrical release is seen by UTV and DTH operators as an experiment in the right direction for producers of small-budget films and the DTH platform itself.


    Digital TV uses the latest MPEG4 standard with DVB S2 technology, which translates into exceptional picture clarity and consistent high-quality audio for the customer.

  • Anjum Rizvi‘s Fast Forward to release on 25 September

    MUMBAI: Producer Anjum Rizvi‘s Fast Forward will release on 25 September. It will have a simultaneous release with the Harman Baweja-Priyanka Chopra starrer What‘s Your Rashee. Earlier the Anjum Rizvi film was to release on 21 August.

    Sources say that Rizvi had to postpone the release of his film to 25 September because of the prevailing swine flu. Said Rizvi, “We decided to push the film and settled for the date. Since the coming weeks have a lot of releases lined up, we didn‘t want to clutter.”


    Fast Forward directed by Zaigham Ali Sayed and starring Rehaan Khan, Akshay Kapoor, Bhavna Pani, Mahesh Manjrekar and Vinod Khanna is Bollywood‘s first dance-based film which showcases ‘Hip Hop‘ and ‘Street‘ as a dance form.

  • Bahrani film ‘Plastic Bag’ to open Venice shorts section

    MUMBAI: The organisers of the Venice Film festival has announced the line up for the international short film competition in the upcoming 66th edition of the Venice Film Festival.The section will open with Man Push Cart and Goodbye Solo director Ramin Bahrani‘s eco-themed short Plastic Bag. The short traces an epic, existential journey of a plastic bag in a world of globalization concerns. The director, who was last in Venice with Goodbye Solo (2008) is also one among the Lion of the Future (first film) jury this year.

    Plastic Bag is the first of 26 shorts (18 of which are in competition) that were selected out of 1,600 submissions this year.

    The eighteen films competing in this year‘s Corto Cortissimo line up, represent 16 countries and include three Italian films including the debut of actor Adriano Giannini‘s The Game (Il gioco), ample Asian entries such as Kwang bok-Kim‘s Mom‘s Vacation (Umma-e-huga) and Japan‘s Edmund Yao‘s Kingo. Others titles hail from Brazil, such as Bliss (O teu sorriso) from Pedro Freire as well as titles from Eastern Europe, Europe, South Africa and the United States.

    The section closes with the Italian-Swiss co-production The It. Aliens by filmmakers Clemens Klopfenstein and Lucas Tiberio Klopfenstein, out of competition.


  • NBC’s pilot order of ‘Rex Is Not Your Lawyer’ in Universal lap

    MUMBAI: A pilot order of legal comedic drama Rex Is Not Your Lawyer has been handed by NBC to Universal Media Studios.

    Written by Andrew Leeds and David Lampson, the film centers on a lawyer who suffers panic attacks and takes up coaching clients to represent themselves in court.


    Rex was one of the first projects Berman and Lloyd developed after the 2007 launch of their company. They originally sold it to NBC that year under their first-look deal with NBC Universal. It first was sidelined by the writers strike; then NBC brass passed on it.


    But Berman and Braun remained high on the project and, after the recent regime change at the network with Angela Bromstad taking over as entertainment president and Laura Lancaster as head of drama, they took the script to them.


    Leeds and novelist Lampson got their break as TV writers in 2005 when their comedy script Stephen‘s Life.