ITV

Category: Movies

  • China box-office returns climbs 44 per cent in 2009

    MUMBAI: In 2009, box-office returns in China climbed 44 per cent compared to that of last year to reach $910 million (RMB6.2bn), the highest growth rate in the last six years. In 2008, the growth rate was 27 per cent.


    It has been observed that since 2003, the country‘s box-office gross has been continuously growing at an average rate of 30 per cent. China Film Group Corporation spokesperson Weng Li announced the figures after receiving the data during a meeting with officials of State Administration Of Radio Film And Television (SARFT).


    Hollywood blockbusters like 2012, Transformers: Revenge Of The Fallen, Harry Potter And The Half-Blood Prince and Ice Age: Dawn Of The Dinosaurs performed strongly.


    2012 and Transformers claimed the top two spot at the box-office and each broke the RMB400m mark with $67.5m (RMB461.02m) and $63m (RMB430.29m), respectively. Chinese film Founding Of A Republic garnered $61.49m (RMB420m).


    Beijing‘s cinema managers attributed box-office growth to the surge in exhibition especially due to multiplexes developed within large shopping malls.


    According to Weng there were 4,700 screens including 750 3D screens and 1,800 digital screens at the end of 2009 that showed a climb of 603 screens from 2008.
     

  • Cameron, Tarantino among DGA feature honourees

    MUMBAI: James Cameron, Lee Daniels, Jason Reitman, Kathryn Bigelow and Quentin Tarantino will vie for top honours of the Directors Guild Of America‘s (DGA).


    The best directorial achievement in feature films of 2009 are films like The Hurt Locker, Avatar, Precious, Up In The Air, and Inglourious Basterds respectively.


    Said DGA president Taylor Hackford, “The DGA Award is especially meaningful to directors because it is decided solely by their peers – the men and women who have been in the same trenches and know exactly what goes into the crafting of a unique motion picture.”


    “The five nominees for this year have each expressed an indelible vision that transported audiences to vivid vistas of cinematic art.”


    The DGA Award is traditionally a highly accurate barometer in terms of predicting who will win the best directing Oscar. Only six times since the DGA Awards began in 1948 has the feature film winner not gone on to win the corresponding Academy Award.


    The last time it was Rob Marshall in 2002 who won the DGA award for Chicago but lost out in the Oscar race to Roman Polanski for The Pianist.


    The winner will be announced on 62nd Annual DGA awards dinner on 30 January in Los Angeles.
     

  • An Education tops BAFTA long list

    MUMBAI: An Education tops the pack of films listed for the British Academy Film Awards (BAFTA) with 17 categories including best film, best director (Lone Scherfig) and best actress for Carey Mulligan.


    Quentin Tarantino‘s Inglourious Basterds has been named in 15 categories, Kathryn Bigalow‘s The Hurt Locker is listed in 12 whilst James Cameron‘s 3D blockbuster Avatar is close behind with 11. All three are shortlisted in the best film and best director categories.


    Other contenders for best film are District 9, Moon, Precious, The Road, A Serious Man, A Single Man, Star Trek, Up and Up In The Air, as well as two Clint Eastwood films Gran Torino and Invictus.


    Eastwood is also shortlisted in the best director category as well as a best actor nod for his performance in Gran Torino.
    Andrea Arnold and first time feature director Duncan Jones are amongst the British contenders to be long listed in the best director category for Fish Tank and Moon.


    The best actor award category includes Aaron Johnson for his portrayal in Sam Taylor Wood‘s Nowhere Boy, Ben Whishaw in Bright Star, Colin Firth in Tom Ford‘s A Single Man, Andy Serkis in Sex&Drugs&Rock&Roll and George Clooney for Up In The Air.


    Joining Mulligan in the list for best actress is Meryl Streep with two citations for It‘s Complicated and Julie & Julia, as well as her co-star Amy Adams. Other contenders include Abbie Cornish (Bright Star), Saoirse Ronan (The Lovely Bones) Gabourey Sidibe (Precious) and newcomer Katie Jarvis for Fish Tank.


    The official nominations will be announced on 21 January when the awards ceremony will take place at the Royal Opera House in London.

  • First movie releases of 2010 fail to crack the box office

    MUMBAI: After a string of big releases like Paa and 3 Idiots in the last month of 2009, the New Year started with three not so big releases like Accident On Hill Road, Bolo Raam and Raat Gayi Baat Gayi.


    Magna Films’ Accident On Hill Road is a total washout. Directed by Mahesh Nair, the remake of English film Stuck has had no impact at all.


    The same could be said about Goldy’s Bolo Raam, directed by Rakesh Chaturvedi. A thrilling murder mystery, where the key witness is himself a suspect, the film doesn’t seem to have what it takes to sail through the grueling box-office route. 


    Raat Gayi Baat Gayi, a PNC film directed by Saurabh Shukla, revolves around a small, uncomplicated plot. But the film doesn’t have the merits required to salvage it at a time when 3 Idiots is ruling the roost.


    Meanwhile, there is no stopping 3 Idiots that is set to make box-office records. Running into its second week, the film has earned Rs.2.4 billion so far and multiplexes are still screening an average of 10 houseful shows a day.


    “The run of 3 Idiots continues to surprise and shock. The film’s last Tuesday figures were in the range of Rs 87.5 million to Rs 90 million which is bigger than the Friday numbers of all biggies that opened this year,” avers trade analyst Taran Adarsh.


    Meanwhile, Fardeen Khan fans are awaiting the release of Viveck Vaswani’s Dulha Mil Gaya that has Shah Rukh Khan in a 50-minute cameo role.

  • NFDC gets into DAVP role, can release govt ads

    MUMBAI: The National Film Development Corporation of India (NFDC) has got additional legs to support it financially. As part of the restructuring, the government has allowed the corporation, which is traditionally into funding meaningful movies, to release advertisements and publicity along the lines of DAVP (Directorate of Advertising and Visual Publicity).


    “We will be doing the social awareness advertisements for television, radio, internet and theatres. We have started the process and already have clients like the Ministry of Health, Income Tax department and Ministry of Agriculture,” NFDC managing director Nina Gupta tells Indiantelevision.com.


    NFDC‘s other catches include Department of Ayush, National Aids Control Organisation and National Disaster Management in India.


    In its additional role, NFDC will be producing social adverts in audio visual formats. “We are already into film making, so it is a logical extension for us,” avers Gupta.



    NFDC has accumulated losses of Rs 276.2 million as on 31 March 2009. The corporation gets an annual grant of Rs 65 million from the government.


    Indiantelevision.com had earlier reported that Information and Broadcasting Minister Ambika Soni had urged all Union Ministries and state governments to give production work of documentaries and video spots of their states to NFDC.


    NFDC has also gone through a rightsizing, offering a Voluntary Retirement Scheme (VRS) to 70 of its employees.

  • Shemaroo releases three Studio Canal films on home video

    MUMBAI: Shemaroo Entertainment has released home videos of three English films from Studio Canal‘s catalogue. They are Left Right Centre, The Changeling and The Fallen Idol.


    Each DVD will cost Rs 199.


    Left Right and Centre, a 95-minute long movie directed by Sidney Gilliat, is the story of TV personality Bob Wilcot for the Conservatives who finds himself up against Billingsgate girl Stella Stoker for the Socialists. 


    The Changeling is a 107-minute film directed by Peter Medak. It is the story of composer John Russell and his family who get caught in a freak automobile accident that claims the lives of his wife and daughter. He rents out part of his big house, little knowing that he also shares it with the spirit of a murdered child who has homed in on John‘s despair and uses him to uncover decades of silence and deceit.


    The Fallen Idol is a 95-minute film, directed by Carol Reed. It is the story of Philippe, a diplomat‘s son who is confused by the complexities and evasions of adult life. He tries to keep secrets from but ends up telling them. He lies to protect his friends, even though he knows he should tell the truth. He resolves not to listen to adults‘ stories any more when his father Baines is suspected of murdering his wife and noone will listen to Philippe‘s vital information.

  • Warner Bros set to remake Sympathy For Mr Vengeance in English

    MUMBAI: Warner Bros has acquired the English language remaking rights of CJ Entertainment‘s South Korean hit Sympathy For Mr Vengeance.


    Brian Tucker will write the screenplay of the story about two men who set out to avenge the deaths of their beloved women, only to discover that each killed the other‘s lover and in the end only one can have his vengeance.


    PThe film is being produced by Bonaventura Pictures‘ Lorenzo Di Bonaventura and Mark Vahradian along with CJ Entertainment‘s Miky Lee and Ted Kim and Steven Schneider.


    Sympathy For Mr Vengeance was the first in Park Chan-wook‘s now legendary Vengeance Trilogy films. CJ Entertainment is also working on Korean Wedding, an original romantic comedy set up at Lionsgate.
     

  • District 9, Avatar, Harry Potter in visual effects shortlist

    MUMBAI: The Academy Of Motion Picture Arts And Sciences‘ has shortlisted seven films for the visual effects Oscar this year.


    The films in alphabetical order are Avatar, District 9, Harry Potter And The Half-Blood Prince, Star Trek, Terminator Salvation, Transformers: Revenge Of The Fallen, and 2012.


    On 21 January all members of the Academy‘s visual effects branch will be invited to view 15-minute excerpts from each of the seven films. Post this exercise, the members will vote to nominate three films for final Oscar consideration.


    The 82nd Academy Awards nominations will be announced on 2 February. The awards ceremony is scheduled on 7 March.

  • Mr Bjarnfredarson dislodges Avatar from top spot

    MUMBAI: Icelandic comedy Mr Bjarnfredarson has elbowed out James Cameron‘s Avatar into second place by topping the box-office in the US.


    The $1.2 million film based on a popular Icelandic TV series is the story about the lives of an overbearing communist and his former co-workers, took $115,000 in its second weekend at the Icelandic box office (January 1-3), compared to Avatar‘s $111,000.


    The film, directed by Ragnar Bragason and produced by local outfit Sagafilm, grossed $104,000 in its opening weekend (26 -28 December) making it the most successful Icelandic film opening to date.


    On the other hand, Avatar took $89,700 over the same weekend but grossed $115,000 over its opening weekend (18 – 20 December).


    Sympathy For Mr Vengeance was the first in Park Chan-wook‘s Vengeance Trilogy films.
     

  • ‘Flying Lessons’ to open Santa Barbara fest

    MUMBAI: Flying Lessons is to be the opening night film at the 25th Santa Barbara International Film Festival (SBIFF) that kicks off on 4 February.


    With this Flying Lessons becomes the first film shot in the Santa Barbara area to open the festival.


    The film is the story of a young woman who abandons her life in Los Angeles, to return to her hometown and estranged mother. The cast also includes Jonathan Tucker, Cary Elwes, Joanna Cassidy and Hal Holbrook. 


    Magyar who has produced the film along with Jenny Hinkey has also directed the same from a screenplay by Thomas J. Kuehl who is the co-producer of the film.


    Said the director, “I am truly honored and humbled to have my directorial debut premiere as the opening night gala for SBIFF. Not only is Flying Lessons a perfect fit for this festival, but the fact that we shot the entire movie in Santa Ynez Valley, makes it feel like we‘ve come full circle.”