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Tag: Steven Spielberg

  • George Lucas is Hollywood’s richest movie mogul

    George Lucas is Hollywood’s richest movie mogul

    MUMBAI: In the run up to the Academy Awards on 22 February, Wealth-X has released a list of the top 10 richest individuals in the American film industry. George Lucas tops the list with $5.4 billion as the wealthiest Hollywood tycoon.

     

    Lucas is the director and producer of the Star Wars blockbuster films. His fortune of $5.4 billion is mostly derived from revenue from the Star Wars franchise and the sale of LucasFilm to Disney for $4 billion in 2012.

     

    Unlike other directors and producers, Lucas, 70, banked on one film idea, directing only six feature films over the course of his career – four of which were Star Wars movies.

     

    In contrast, Steven Spielberg – who ranks third on the Wealth-X list with an estimated fortune of $3.3 billion–has directed more than 30 feature films, including classics such as ET, Jaws and Jurassic Park.

     

    All 10 individuals on the Wealth-X Hollywood Rich List are male film producers and directors. Collectively, they control more than $20 billion of personal wealth.

     

    The complete list of the richest movie moguls in Hollywood is as follows: 

     

    1) George Lucas – $5.4 billion (Star Wars films)

    2) Arnon Milchan – $5.2 billion (Pretty Woman, 12 Years A Slave)

    3) Steven Spielberg – $3.3 billion (ET, Jaws)

    4) Austin Hearst – $1.9 billion (The Vow)

    5) Ryan Kavanaugh – $1 billion (The Social Network, Little Fockers)

    6) Jeffrey Katzenberg – $910 million (The Lion King, Shrek)

    7) Thomas Tull – $870 million (The Hangover, 300)

    8) Jerry Bruckheimer – $850 million (Top Gun, Pirates of The Caribbean)

    9) Steve Tisch – $720 million (Forrest Gump)

    10) James Cameron – $670 million (Avatar, Titanic)

  • Mike Leigh to be honoured with BAFTA Fellowship

    Mike Leigh to be honoured with BAFTA Fellowship

    MUMBAI: On 8 February, the British Academy of Film and Television Arts will present Mike Leigh with the Fellowship at the EE British Academy Film Awards ceremony at the Royal Opera House, London.

     

    Awarded annually, the Fellowship is the highest accolade bestowed by BAFTA upon an individual in recognition of an outstanding and exceptional contribution to film, television or games.

     

    Fellows previously honoured for their work in film include Charlie Chaplin, Alfred Hitchcock, Steven Spielberg, Sean Connery, Elizabeth Taylor, Stanley Kubrick, Anthony Hopkins, Laurence Olivier, Judi Dench, Vanessa Redgrave, Christopher Lee, Martin Scorsese and Alan Parker. Helen Mirren received the Fellowship at last year’s Film Awards.

     

    Leigh said, “What a privilege to be honoured with the BAFTA Fellowship. I’m moved, delighted and surprised.”

     

    BAFTA chief executive officer Amanda Berry OBE added, “Mike Leigh is one of Britain’s finest filmmakers, so I am delighted that we will honour him with the Fellowship, recognising his outstanding and exceptional contribution to film, at this Sunday’s EE British Academy Film Awards. He is a true innovator, an artist and an exceptional filmmaker, which is why last year the Film Committee voted unanimously to award him the Fellowship, the highest honour that BAFTA bestows. We look forward to celebrating his remarkable career.”

     

    A day before the ceremony, Leigh will join a number of close colleagues and friends at a special BAFTA lunch held in his honour at the Awards’ Official Hotel, The Savoy. The lunch will be hosted by Jeremy Hackett of Hackett London, BAFTA’s Official Menswear partner.

     

    Writer-director Leigh trained at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art, at the Camberwell and Central Schools of Art and at the London Film School, of which he is now the chairman.

     

    Leigh’s award-winning career features three BAFTA wins, a BAFTA Special Award for Outstanding British Contribution to Cinema and a John Schlesinger Britannia Award for Excellence from BAFTA Los Angeles last year, as well as a further 11 BAFTA nominations. He has seven Academy Award nominations and has been celebrated in Cannes, winning the prestigious Palme D’Or for Secrets & Lies, and at Venice, where Vera Drake won the Golden Lion.

     

    Leigh’s first feature film was Bleak Moments; this was followed by the full-length television films Hard Labour, Nuts In May, The Kiss of Death, Who’s Who, Grown-Ups, Home Sweet Home, Meantime and Four Days In July, as well as the television studio version of Abigail’s Party.

     

    Leigh’s other feature films are BAFTA-nominated Naked and BAFTA-winning Secrets & Lies (for Outstanding British Film and Original Screenplay), which also received five Academy Award nominations and two Golden Globe nominations, and Career Girls, Topsy-Turvy, All Or Nothing, Vera Drake (for which he won BAFTA for director), Happy-Go-Lucky and Another Year. Most recently he has written and directed Mr. Turner, which received four nominations at this year’s EE British Academy Film Awards and four Academy Award nominations.

     

    Leigh has also written and directed over twenty stage plays, which include Babies Grow Old, Abigail’s Party, Ecstasy, Goose-Pimples, Smelling A Rat, Greek.

  • Richard Attenborough, director of ‘Gandhi,’ dies at 90

    Richard Attenborough, director of ‘Gandhi,’ dies at 90

    MUMBAI: Oscar-winning British filmmaker Richard Attenborough, renowned for his critically-acclaimed biopic on Mahatma Gandhi, died on 24 August 2014 after his long illness. The death of the 90 year old was confirmed by his son, according to BBC.

     

    Paying his tribute, British Prime Minister David Cameron tweeted: “His acting in Brighton Rock was brilliant, his directing of Gandhi was stunning – Richard Attenborough was one of the greats of cinema.”

     

    In London, he was the original detective in Agatha Christie’s play The Mousetrap. On the British screen, he made an early mark as the sociopath Pinkie Brown in an adaptation of Graham Greene’s Brighton Rock (1947). His acting CV consisted movies like The Great Escape (1963), In Which We Serve (1942), Seance on a Wet Afternoon (1964) etc. To a later generation, he was well known as the scientist-entrepreneur who clones dinosaur DNA in Steven Spielberg’s Jurassic Park (1993).

     

    He won back-to-back Golden Globe Awards for best supporting actor, in The Sand Pebbles (1966), also starring McQueen, set during China’s civil war in the 1920s, and Doctor Dolittle (1967), playing Albert Blossom, a circus owner, alongside Rex Harrison as the veterinarian who talks to animals.

     

    But for most of Attenborough’s later career, his acting was sporadic while he devoted much of his time to directing. Gandhi (1982), an epic but intimate biographical film, was his greatest triumph. Gandhi was nominated for 11 Academy Awards and won eight, including best picture, best director, best cinematography, best original screenplay and best actor. The film had 430 speaking parts and used over 300,000 extras for Gandhi’s funeral. No one expected it to recoup its $22 million cost, but it wound up earning 20 times that amount.

     

    Richard Samuel Attenborough was born in Cambridge on 29 August 1923, the eldest son of Frederick Attenborough, an Anglo-Saxon scholar who became the principal of University College, Leicester, and his wife, Mary, a writer who crusaded for women’s rights and took in Basque and German refugees.

     

    Leaving school at 16, he won a scholarship to the Royal Academy of Dramatic Arts and eventually married a fellow student, Sheila Sim, who became a well-known actress herself before abandoning the theater to look after their three children and become a magistrate.

     

    Attenborough leaves behind his wife, son Michael and daughter Charlotte. His eldest daughter Jane was killed alongside her mother-in-law Jane and her daughter Lucy in the 2004 tsunami.

  • Steven Spielberg produced, Om Puri film trailer released

    Steven Spielberg produced, Om Puri film trailer released

    MUMBAI: Yahoo Movies has just released the first trailer of The Hundred Foot Journey, an upcoming motion picture adaptation of Richard C. Morrais’s New York Times bestseller. The film is produced by Academy Award winner Steven Spielberg (Schindler’s List) and Academy Award nominee Oprah Winfrey (The Color Purple).

     

    The film narrates the rise of Hassan Haji, the unlikely gourmand who recounts his life’s journey through the events of the film.

     

    Born above his grandfather’s modest restaurant in Mumbai, Hassan first experienced life through intoxicating whiffs of spicy fish curry, trips to the local markets, and gourmet outings with his mother. But when tragedy pushes the family out of India, they console themselves by eating their way around the world, eventually settling in Lumi?re, a small village in the French Alps.

    The boisterous Haji family takes Lumi?re by storm. They open an inexpensive Indian restaurant opposite an esteemed French relais (that of the famous chef Madame Mallory) and infuse the sleepy town with the spices of India, transforming the lives of its eccentric villagers and infuriating their celebrated neighbour. Only after Madame Mallory wages culinary war with the immigrant family, does she finally agree to mentor young Hassan, leading him to Paris, the launch of his own restaurant, and a slew of new adventures.

     

    The Hundred Foot Journey stars Academy Award winner Helen Mirren (The Queen), Manish Dayal (90210) as Hassal Haji and Filmfare Award winner Om Puri (Aakrosh).

  • Spielberg to bring Dahl’s ‘Big Fat Giant’ on screen

    Spielberg to bring Dahl’s ‘Big Fat Giant’ on screen

    MUMBAI: According to The Hollywood Reporter (THR), Steven Spielberg will helm the live-action film adaptation which will be based on the fantastical tale of a Big Friendly Giant (BGF) who befriends a young orphan girl.

     

    The BFG is no ordinary bone-crunching giant. He is far too nice and jumbly. Had she been carried off in the middle of the night by the Bloodbottler, the Fleshlumpeater, the Bonecruncher, or any of the other giants-rather than the BFG-she would have soon become breakfast. 

    When Sophie hears that they are flush-bunking off in England to swollomp a few nice little chiddlers, she decides she must stop them once and for all. And the BFG is going to help her!

     

    DreamWorks acquired the book in 2011 with Kathleen Kennedy and Frank Marshall to produce. Melissa Mathison, who penned the script for E.T., wrote the screenplay. Marshall will produce with Michael Siegel on board as executive producer along with Madden.

     

    There has been one other adaptation of the popular children’s book: for a 1989 animated made-for-TV television movie in the U.K. Spielberg, has not directed a movie since 2012’s Lincoln, but Spielberg is officially committing himself to BFG and is planning a 2015 start date with a release in 2016.

  • AXN eyeing July premiere for Steven Spielberg’s Extant

    AXN eyeing July premiere for Steven Spielberg’s Extant

    MUMBAI: Launched in 1998 as the first 24×7 cable and satellite television channel in Asia dedicated to action and adventure programming, AXN continues to stand by its promise of delivering intelligent, edgy and high-energy content for an unparalleled entertainment experience

     

    With programming encompassing the latest in action blockbusters, international hit series, reality and lifestyle sports programs and AXN originals, the channel enjoys a high viewership not just in metros but also tier II and tier III cities across the country.

     

    AXN business head Sunil Punjabi spoke to Aashay Dalvi of indiantelevision.com about the channel’s programming line-up this year, its digital strategy and so on. Excerpts…

     

    Q: How has the audience response been ever since the CBS acquisition deal?

     

    At a macro level, the audience response has been very good. Take for instance, the two shows with which we launched the CBS catalogue i.e. Elementary and Beauty & the Beast. We have seen a fairly growing traction for Elementary while Beauty & the Beast has its own loyal audience. The first season of both the shows premiered sometime ago, with Indian audiences being exposed to Elementary for the first time. Initially, there were comparisons between BBC’s Sherlock and Elementary and people were vehemently opposed to having a female Dr Watson; something we expected.

     

    The difference between the two is that Elementary has more investigation while Sherlock has more drama. This has led to a lot of people slowly getting accustomed to Elementary. So after the initial backlash, we have now seen tremendous growth in audiences, which has been very encouraging for us. We have season 2 airing right now and season 3 will air in September, very close to the US telecast.

     

    The other good news is Hawaii Five-O will have a special episode featuring Mallika Sherawat, and you will soon see it in India. Blue Bloods, the fourth series that we’d taken up is also expected to do well since it is a very strong series. In the US, the show has done phenomenally well. We have also acquired Sex & the City, which we plan to air soon at 11pm. We’re giving it some rest now but once it begins, episodes will air back to back.

     

    Q: Currently, you are airing Beauty & the Beast and Elementary five days a week. Will you be moving to airing them weekly to be closer to the US telecast?

     

    We had two options, the first of which was to run the series close to the US telecast, but for viewers who are not familiar with the older season, that tactic wouldn’t have worked. So, we decided to go with option 2 entailing stripping the first two seasons and allowing viewers to binge-watch them one after the other. This would build enough anticipation by September when season three premieres.

     

    Q: There has been no official statement from either CBS or The CW on subsequent seasons of Elementary and Beauty & the Beast. Can your earlier statement regarding the airing of season three of both series be considered official?

     

    As far as we know, both Elementary and Beauty & the Beast have been renewed for sure. However, from the public’s perspective, you will have to wait and hear from CBS and The CW since I cannot speak for them.

     

    Q: Programming-wise, what are your plans for the new fiscal year?

     

    The acquired properties we would like to talk about are some of the big ones like 24: Live Another Day. On Thursday, Variety Magazine reported that the second most expensive ad in the US is benchmarked on 24, with half a million dollars for just a 30-second slot. The entire prospect of 24 has blown out of proportion and this season is set in the UK. Content wise, it is shaping up really well. We believe that it is going to be one very large tent-pole property for us.

     

    After 24, the second large tent-pole property for us is Top Gear, with the new season returning in the month of July, which is where we have seen some tremendous amount of traction. We just had season 21 premiere in January and presently, only the core Top Gear audience is watching it though we want to get a much larger audience. Anybody who currently owns a car should be watching Top Gear, which is a fairly large population of the country by itself.

     

    Also in July, we are trying to get another big property, Extant, produced by Steven Spielberg, which marks the TV debut of Halle Berry. We have the second season of The Hero and we plan to air all episodes of 24: Live Another Day at a stretch. While getting so much new content, the old content tends to get lost. So, while I want new content, the problem lies in scheduling and timing.

     

    Q: AXN programming was earlier known for its male skew but over the past few years, it has been increasingly targeting the female audience. Was that deliberate?

     

    There are two main changes that we’ve seen; one, there has been a systematic change in female consumption, and two, the female audience too wants the thrill factor while watching TV. Shows like Orphan Black, with a female protagonist, have helped us get more female viewership.

     

    But whether we have become a female-skewed channel, we will never be that; we will remain a predominantly male-skewed channel. But, we have seen a lot women come and consume our content. The male vs. female audience ratio earlier was 70:30, but is now 60:40.

     

    Q: Which programmes get more advertisers? Are there any emerging large spenders?

     

    Fast moving consumer goods (FMCG) and telecom services form a significant share of the advertising spends. One very large advertiser that we’ve constantly been adding is automobiles, having already increased its share because of Top Gear. We believe it will be much bigger, going forward and it won’t be just auto but also auto accessories.

     

    Q: What’s in it for these advertisers?

     

    As an advertiser, the two main things you look for are a premium audience and a large brand fix, and we offer both.

     

    Q: How do you plan to engage digital media to increase viewership of your channel?

     

    We’ve now reached a stable point in the digital media initiative that we started a year and a half back. We had a couple of things to consider; the first being a consumer survey of social media and the second, connect, which has almost become equivalent to word-of-mouth. There is pre-launch and post-launch chatter that takes place. That is where we have been pushing ourselves on the digital front; what are people saying before the show is launched, and what are they saying after seeing the show. Engagement at the pre- and post- level helps us get loyalty for the channel.

     

    Q: Which platforms is AXN making its presence felt in terms of social media? Do you plan to add more social platforms?

     

    Facebook and Twitter have been our primary digital platforms. We have received more traction on Twitter than on Facebook. We have got a good response to a lot of good shows on Twitter in the last four to five months. We have trended many a times on Twitter; not just on the days of our premieres but even regular days.

     

    As for the second part of your question, we don’t want to be jumping too many trains. We started with Facebook and Twitter a year and a half ago and we want that to mature before getting onto a new train. The amount of people engaging with us on these platforms is growing almost daily. We want to grow our hold on Facebook and Twitter for the next six to eight months, and we hope other things will follow.

     

    Q: Do you have specific digital marketing strategies to bring out that extra special something?

     

    We have MSE, which handles social media for us. Gone are the days where you used to pay for posts. Now, people are getting more agnostic towards such posts. So, last year, we had a Supernatural Thrillathon and a six city on-ground activation along with it. We did that again at the time of Sherlock to know what people thought of the content. We have seen the community of Supernatural grow nearly 50 per cent in the last year. We are not driving it; we have been only the facilitator in the process. So, the viewers are driving it themselves…

  • Fox rechristens its music building in honour of composer Lionel Newman

    Fox rechristens its music building in honour of composer Lionel Newman

    MUMBAI: Steven Spielberg, John Williams and Jim Gianopulos were among the big names attending the dedication of the Lionel Newman Music Building. The building on the Fox lot in Century City has been renamed in honour of the late composer, conductor, pianist and longtime head of Fox’s music department, whose tenure with the studio spanned nearly half a century and more than 200 films, including his Oscar-winning score for 1969’s Hello Dolly!

     

    He also earned 10 other Oscar nominations for such films as Doctor Doolittle and There’s No Business Like Show Business. He also worked on numerous TV series including Batman and M*A*S*H.

     

    Spielberg talked about meeting Newman during the scoring of Jaws, and five-time Oscar winner Williams spun tales of Newman’s colorful career at the studio.

  • Woody Allen is 2014 recipient of Cecile B DeMille award

    Woody Allen is 2014 recipient of Cecile B DeMille award

    MUMBAI: A formal announcement from the president of the Hollywood Foreign Press Association (HFPA) Theo Kingma that the 2014 Cecile B DeMille award will be presented to Woody Allen for his immense contribution to filmmaking.

    Each year this award is given to a talented person whose contribution to the world of entertainment has had a great impact. Previously this award has been given to Jodie Foster (2013), Morgan Freeman (2012), Robert De Niro (2011), Martin Scorsese (2010), Steven Spielberg (2009).

    Woody Allen is known for movies such as Annie Hall, Manhattan, Vicky Christina Barcelona and Midnight in Paris. Currently his movie Blue Jasmine is running in theaters currently.
    The Golden Globes are given to both motion picture and television achievements.

  • Universal sets ‘Jurassic World’ release for 12 June 2015

    Universal sets ‘Jurassic World’ release for 12 June 2015

    MUMBAI: Universal Pictures will release Jurassic World in 3D on 12 June, 2015. Steven Spielberg is producing the big-budget dino-sequel, formerly known as Jurassic Park 4. Colin Trevorrow directs from a draft of the screenplay he wrote with Derek Connolly. Frank Marshall and Pat Crowley are producing.

     

    Its worth mentioning that the first dino-epic The Jurassic Park was recently re-released world over in 3D to generate a buzz around the next installment in the franchise. The collections were really encouraging worldwide and surely proved that this classic still connects well with audiences even today.

  • 3-D re-release of Jurassic Park gets huge opening in China

    3-D re-release of Jurassic Park gets huge opening in China

    NEW DELHI: Steven Spielberg’s 1993 dinosaur spectacular Jurassic Park had a huge opening when it was released in its first 3-D version in China this week.

     

    The film made $6.64 million on its first day in cinemas.

     

    Though the film has been broadcast on television and is widely available on home video formats, this is the first time Jurassic Park has been given a wide theatrical release in China.

     

    The opening is significantly stronger than that of doomsday thriller 2012 (2009) which made $14.7 million in its first six days. The 3-D re-release of Titanic (1997) broke opening records in April 2012, grossing $76.3 million in its first six days.

     

    With 12 per cent of screening slots, Pacific Rim dropped 35 per cent early this week, taking $1.08 million. With 18 per cent of screenings, Dante Lam’s Unbeatable grossed $1.14 million for a total of $11.9 million after five days.