Category: Movies

MUMBAI: The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences has doubled the number of films vying for the Best Picture category to ten for next year‘s Academy Awards, slated for March 7, 2010 and airing live on ABC.
The Academy‘s president, Sid Ganis, noted, “After more than six decades, the Academy is returning to some of its earlier roots, when a wider field competed for the top award of the year. The final outcome, of course, will be the same-one Best Picture winner-but the race to the finish line will feature ten, not just five, great movies from 2009.”

He continued, “Having ten Best Picture nominees is going allow Academy voters to recognize and include some of the fantastic movies that often show up in the other Oscar categories but have been squeezed out of the race for the top prize. I can‘t wait to see what that list of ten looks like when the nominees are announced in February.”

The nominations for the Oscars will be announced on February 2.

MUMBAI: Despite the global recession, movie theater operators were in festive mood during Cinema Expo, which ended its four-day run at the RAI convention center on Thursday — and why not? As in the U.S., box-office is booming in most international territories.

The credit crunch has stalled many digital screen conversions. But exhibs came away pleased with sneak peeks of films screened throughout the week, and most believe d-cinema and 3-D projection will spread through the marketplace eventually, further bolstering business.

MUMBAI: Breathing life into a quiet spec market, Paramount has picked up Hellified a supernatural action script by Andy Burg, with Dan Bradley attached to direct. Lorenzo di Bonaventura, whose “Transformers” sequel is blowing up the boxoffice, is on board to produce.

Hellified is known to be a supernatural action film involving a journey to hell.

Di Bonaventura Pictures president Mark Vahradian brought the ICM-packaged script to Paramount‘s Geoff Stier and Adam Goodman, who promptly made a pre-emptive purchase. The deal was made before Goodman‘s ascension to film group president.

MUMBAI: Columbia is developing the action-adventure video game for a feature film, setting Kyle Ward to pen the adaptation that would be produced by Avi Arad, Charles Roven, Ari Arad and Alex Gartner.

The story follows a descendent of explorer Sir Francis Drake, a treasure hunter named Nate Drake who believes he has learned the whereabouts of El Dorado, the fabled South American golden city, from a cursed golden statue.

The search becomes competitive when a rival hunter joins the fray, then is racheted up several notches when creatures — actually mutated descendants of Spaniards and Nazis — begin attacking those hoping to learn the treasure‘s true secrets.

The game, from Sony Computer Entertainment, sold 1 million copies in the first 10 weeks of its release at the end of 2007.

MUMBAI: The producer and cinematographer of Monster are taking on another female-themed drama.

Clark Peterson, who produced the Charlize Theron‘s Oscar winner and Steven Bernstein, who served as its DP, will collaborate on Decoding Annie Parker, a story of the discovery of the breast-cancer gene. Peterson will produce and Bernstein will make his directorial debut.

The movie centers on Parker, a real-life breast-cancer patient who believed her illness had a genetic component, and weaves in the story of the researchers whose mission it was to determine the role DNA plays in the deadly disease.

Doctors dismissed Parker‘s beliefs, but she was ahead of her time: The group‘s research eventually led to the discovery of BRCA1, which is associated with breast and ovarian cancer.

Screenwriter Michael Moss, a doctor who knew of Parker‘s story from medical circles, is penning the screenplay. Tom Berry‘s Reel One Entertainment is financing, with Berry exec producing.

Peterson, who made his name with Monster, recently wrapped Dear Mr. Gacy, a story about a real-life college student who became obsessed with notorious serial killer John Wayne Gacy. The film is expected to make the rounds at film festivals in the fall.

Bernstein has served as a director of photography on a wide range of pictures and genres: He was the cinematographer on art house hit Like Water for Chocolate and on mainstream Hollywood comedies Scary Movie 2 and White Chicks.

MUMBAI: Michael Ross has been signed by Irwin Winkler who had earlier produced Home of the Brave to write Disavowed– an action thriller for CBS Films.

Originally written by Philip Shelby, the film is about a group of military prisoners in the U.S. secretly dispatched to the African nation of Eritrea to retrieve a bio-chemical weapon that has gone missing. If the group is successful in keeping it out of the wrong hands, the convicts‘ prison sentences will be commuted.

“It‘s a really exciting and simple premise,” said Ross. “I want to honor that and make a really fun and engaging action movie

. That‘s the goal, is to make it moment-to-moment exciting, take advantage of the location and the simplicity of the plot and the opportunity to work within a really fun genre, which is the man-on-a-mission movie.”

Ross is also is working on the script for the remake of the thriller Jar City for Overture Films.

Ross has also scripts for the political thriller Cartagena in development with 2929 Prods. The film is the remake of Near Dark in development with Rogue Pictures and an untitled Chernobyl action thriller in development at Summit.

MUMBAI: AMC has given the go-ahead to Rubicon, a new 12-episode thriller from Warner Horizon Television starring James Badge Dale, Lili Taylor and Miranda Richardson.

This is AMC‘s third original series order, following the critically acclaimed Mad Men and Breaking Bad. It comes from Jason Horwitch (Pentagon Papers, Medical Investigation) and follows an analyst at a New York City think-tank whose work leads him to uncover a hidden clue that points to an unfolding global conspiracy.