Monday April 14, 2008

BOX OFFICE

FILM……………………………… GROSS

1 Prom Night…………………… $22,700,000
2 Street Kings………………….. $12,000,000
3 21………………………………… $11,000,000
4 Nim’s Island………………….. $9,000,000
5 Leatherheads…………………. $6,207,040
6 Horton Hears A Who……… $6,000,000
7 Smart People…………………. $4,200,000
8 Ruins, The…………………….. $3,250,000
9 Superhero Movie …………… $3,114,000
10 Drillbit Taylor………………. $2,070,000

PROJECTS ANNOUNCED

• Zack Snyder is set to direct “Guardians of Ga’Hoole,” an animated feature film based on the series of children’s books by Kathryn Lasky. Village Roadshow is making the film and Warner Bros. will distribute. Pic is set in the Forest of Tyto, where Barn Owls live in peace until their kingdom is threatened by an evil that could destroy their home. Script was written by John Orloff (”A Mighty Heart”) and John Collee (”Master and Commander”). The pic will be produced by Zareh Nalbandian, with Donald DeLine, Deborah Snyder and Lionel Wigram exec producing. The intention is to execute in Sydney, Australia, through Animal Logic, which worked with Village Roadshow and WB on “Happy Feet.” The film is on a fast track and is likely to be ready by 2009 or 2010.

• Fox Animation has optioned the mummy-themed young-adult book “The Anubis Tapestry: Between Twilights” by Bruce Zick. Fox plans a loose adaptation of the novel, which kicks off when a mummy’s curse condemns Dr. George Henry’s spirit to the Egyptian Underworld. While trying to free him, Henry’s son Chance plumbs the depths of the Underworld and encounters a variety of monsters. The tome, which creates a detailed mythology, was published in 2006.

• Kopelson Entertainment made a preemptive acquisition of “Parents Weekend,” a spec by Barry Schwartz. Deal was mid-six figures. Script is a youth-targeted comedy about a college freshman, secretly attending art school, who must convince his parents he’s still enrolled in the college of their dreams. Arnold and Anne Kopelson will produce, and bought the script right after reading it, using Kopelson Entertainment’s development fund with Equus Media.

PROJECT UPDATES

• Shia LaBeouf has signed on to star in Universal’s techno thriller “Dark Fields.” Neil Burger (“The Illusionist”) will direct the pic, which is based on Alan Glynn’s 2002 novel “The Dark Fields.” Story centers on a young man who comes into possession of the ultimate smart pill, and the events that ensue. Leslie Dixon (“Hairspray”) adapted the screenplay and will produce. Dixon acquired the material and wrote the script for less than her usual quote in exchange for having more control over the project.

• Albert Brooks has signed on to appear in at least four episodes of Showtime’s “Weeds.” He’ll play the father-in-law of Mary-Louise Parker’s character. Thesp’s recent credits include “Looking for Comedy in the Muslim World” and voice work on “The Simpsons Movie.”

• Barra Grant’s romantic comedy “HangingOutHookingUpFallingInLove” has signed an ensemble cast of Richard E. Grant, Carrie-Anne Moss, Janeane Garofalo, Jenna Elfman, Rita Rudner, Camryn Manheim, Caroline Aaron and Johnny Pacar. Grant is directing from her own script. Story centers on a newly separated father having to learn how to date again with help from his teenage son who himself dreams of conquering one girl’s heart. Brian Reilly is producing the indie project and Laura Hopper is exec producing. Shooting begins this week in Los Angeles.

• DreamWorks has tapped David DiGilio to adapt the Oni Press graphic novel “The Damned,” by Cullen Bunn and Brian Hurtt. Walter Parkes and Laurie MacDonald are producing via their DreamWorks-based shingle. Described as horror-noir, “Damned” follows a Los Angeles detective who discovers that a new gang with ties to the supernatural has infiltrated the city. Eric Gitter is also producing via his Closed on Mondays Entertainment, the film production arm of Oni Press Mark. Peter Schwerin will exec produce.

• Sam Raimi and Rob Tapert have tapped “The X-Files” vet John Shiban to exec produce their upcoming syndie skein “Wizard’s First Rule.” Shiban, who is with the CW’s “Supernatural,” will help translate Terry Goodkind’s series of books into a weekly TV series. Project is set in a fantasy world of magic and wizards and focuses on the Seeker, a man who is destined to save the world, but not before battling a whole bunch of bad guys. Scribe said he plans “to take a cue from ‘The X-Files’” in setting up the skein’s structure.

ACQUISITIONS/ FESTIVAL NEWS

• “The Warlords,” a Hong Kong-financed pic that scored well at the mainland Chinese box office, dominated the Hong Kong Film Awards Sunday night. Pic won eight prizes, including best film, director for Peter Chan and actor for Jet Li. Ang Lee’s “Lust, Caution,” which also scored highly with the Chinese public but has since been condemned by mainland authorities, was named best Asian Film. Other prizes went to Siqin Gaowa for actress in “The Postmodern Life of My Aunt,” Andy Lau for supporting actor in “Protege,” and Johnnie To for the “Mad Detective” screenplay. The To-produced “Eye in the Sky” won the new director prize for Yau Nai-hoi and best newcomer for actress Kate Tsui

BUSINESS NEWS

• NATO prexy John Fithian warned Sunday that the cinema industry is headed for “a potential train wreck” over 3-D if studios and theater owners do not settle their dispute over digital cinema fees in short order. And he noted that while heavyweights such as Jeffrey Katzenberg and James Cameron were early and ardent supporters of digital, key helmers like Steven Spielberg remain on the fence. Fithian, in his keynote address to the Digital Cinema Summit at NAB in Las Vegas, noted that there are 10 major studio 3-D releases skedded for 2009, including DreamWorks Animation’s “Monsters vs. Aliens” and Fox’s Cameron opus “Avatar,” but “we don’t have the screens for them. We have less than 1,000 3-D screens in the U.S. and fewer than that in the rest of the world.” Yet negotiations between the studios and theater owners are at something of an impasse, said Fithian, as studios try to reduce the Virtual Print Fee that helps defray exhibitors’ costs to install digital cinema systems.

• Randall Emmett and George Furla’s Emmett/Furla Films have set up an equity fund worth more than $100 million with Japanese-based Imec Corp. and Korona Corp. The deal marks Emmett/Furla’s first foray into international co-production, with plans to fund three pictures per year over five years. Pics will be produced by Emmett, Furla and Imec’s Fuminori Hayashida. Sadamitsu Otsuka and M. Dal Walton will exec produce, and Tommy Lee Thomas will co-exec produce. “Having produced almost 60 films, we felt it was time to expand our business model and present an opportunity for other filmmakers to realize their projects,” Emmett said. Emmett/Furla will continue its production-financing arrangement with NuImage/Millennium Films. That combo co-produced “88 Minutes,” an Al Pacino starrer directed by Jon Avnet that opens Friday; and “Righteous Kill,” starring Pacino and Robert DeNiro, which opens in September through Summit.

• Japan’s Cine Qua Non has closed its multiplex in South Korean capital Seoul. Cine Qua Non had operated a subsidiary, Cine Qua Non Korea, since 2005, having acquired a lease for a 5-screen multiplex in Myung-dong, a popular entertainment area in the heart of Seoul and one especially famous for Japanese tourists. Opened in January 2006, the theater has attracted art house movie fans in Korea and specialized as a theater for Japanese movies. Although Cine Qua Non took a long term view of its operations, the complex struggled to make money and matters were recently made worse by issues over the ownership of the building. It is not clear yet whether the company will try to find another location for the cinema or abandon the Korean exhibition business.

• Korea’s Showbox has announced that it will close its production shingle Motion101. The shingle was established in August 2006 by Mediaplex, at the time Korea’s largest movie conglom, in a move to boost in-house production capacity. Mediaplex owned distribution company Showbox and Korea’s largest multiplex chain Megabox, though last year sold the Megabox theaters to Australian financial consortium Macquarrie. Mediaplex provided 80% of the initial $2.6 million capital for Motion 101 through its subsid Showbox and teamed up with stock market-listed IT company Innet, which put the rest of the start up coin. Since then Motion101 has been developing helmer Park Kwang-hyun (”Welcome To Dongmakgol”)’s new project “Fist”, a $ 15 million budget sci-fi action drama. But there have been internal disagreements with in Mediaplex concerning support for the title. The sudden closure decision has shocked the Korean industry. Only last month Motion101 announced that it was developing a dance movie with JYP, a renowned music producer and composer who made and promoted the Korean Wave superstar Rain.

• CBS chief Les Moonves is one of the top-paid execs in media, according to an SEC proxy filing that revealed a total pay package of $36.8 million in 2007. That was up 29% from the prior year and nearly quadruple the take of CBS chairman Sumner Redstone, who received $9.7 million. Moonves’ tally included a salary of $5.3 million, a bonus of $18.5 million and the rest in stock options accumulated over several years. The topper signed a new contract that took effect last October. It will pay him a lower salary and tie his compensation more directly to the perfromance of CBS shares. The company’s stock has been sagging of late. It declined 21% from its high in July 2007 to the end of 2007, and has dropped 21% more since January.

• NBCU posted a 3% year-over-year gain in operating profit and revenue in the first quarter, but the rosy numbers came against the gloomy backdrop of parent GE’s results. GE reported its worst quarter in years, sending the stock market into a tailspin. Earnings of $4.3 billion fell short of estimates — a rarity for the button-down conglom — and stunned Wall Street just one month after chief exec Jeffrey Immelt had issued an upbeat forecast. GE, of which NBCU comprises only 10% in terms of revenues, saw its stock plummet 13% to $32.05, the biggest single-day dip in more than 20 years. The Dow Jones, of which GE is a component, fell 2% amid worries that the company’s state symbolized the worsening U.S. economy. NBCU was one of just two of GE’s six units (along with infrastructure) to report gains in the quarter, and its 3% upswing in operating profit to $714 million also fell a bit short of projections and repped a slowdown from 5% growth in the previous quarter. The entertainment division’s results were driven primarily by cable, homevid and the NBC network. In a memo to staffers, NBCU topper Jeff Zucker noted the bleak economic climate, but emphasized the pluses. Parks and resorts, he said, doubled its operating profit. Hulu, a video streaming site in which NBCU and News Corp. are major stakeholders, launched in the quarter and Zucker said its ad inventory had sold out. Among cable nets, USA finished No. 1 in every category for the seventh consecutive quarter, Zucker said, while Bravo and Oxygen had their best first quarters ever in terms of ratings and financial results.

STRIKE NEWS/ LABOR ISSUES

• In a move that muddies the outlook for looming actor negotiations, leaders of the Screen Actors Guild have offered AFTRA the opportunity to rejoin SAG at the bargaining table. SAG’s offer, made in a Sunday evening announcement, said AFTRA would have until Wednesday to respond. An AFTRA spokeswoman said the union would have no response until Monday at the earliest. The move, which had not been expected, comes two weeks after AFTRA angrily split off from SAG over SAG’s alleged attempt to “raid” the soap “The Bold and the Beautiful” — an allegation SAG has denied, insisting its leaders had merely responded to a castmember’s concerns about the AFTRA contract. The March 29 breakup of the 27-year joint bargaining relationship culminated years of hostility between the unions over jurisdictional issues. SAG’s brief announcement on Sunday said only that 81% of its national board had OK’d the offer, which was approved at the tail end of a daylong meeting at the Sheraton Hotel in downtown Los Angeles. In recent months, the AFL-CIO has been attempting — with little success so far — to smooth out the extensive disputes between the thesp unions. SAG’s talks with the Alliance of Motion Picture & Television Producers on a new feature-primetime deal are set to begin Tuesday, while AFTRA’s talks on its primetime contract are set to start April 28. A spokesman for the AMPTP said the group would have no comment. Should AFTRA spurn SAG’s offer, the guild will be under pressure to reach an agreement with the AMPTP by April 28 or face the prospect of ongoing jurisdictional warfare with AFTRA. Should SAG fail to reach an agreement by then, AFTRA’s expected to make a deal quickly — since its leaders tend to be far more moderate than SAG’s and its deal covers just three shows — and then go after new shows in areas of shared jurisdiction. SAG’s heading into the negotiations with a fractured front. Over the weekend, SAG leaders split over a divisive proposal that would have limited member voting on the contract to thesps who work at least one day a year. In its meeting Saturday in downtown Los Angeles, about 60% of SAG’s national board sent the proposal to its guild governance review committee for study — effectively keeping it from having an impact on contract negotiations. The bargaining is likely to be contentious, given that recent informal talks with Disney CEO Robert Iger and News Corp. president Peter Chernin went nowhere. And SAG president Alan Rosenberg raised a red flag over the weekend in a letter to members by reiterating that SAG must achieve an increase in DVD residuals — a position that’s a nonstarter for the congloms. The “qualified voting” proposal, by limiting voting to SAG members who work regularly, probably would have resulted in less support for a possible strike when the contract expires June 30. But opponents have asserted that the idea is elitist and goes against the democratic principles of SAG.

INDUSTRY MOVES

• William Morris has signed Dylan Sprouse and Cole Sprouse in all areas, including film, TV, endorsements and interactive games. The 15-year-old twins star on Disney Channel’s “The Suite Life of Zack and Cody” and have a licensing agreement with Dualstar Entertainment. The twins will appear on the bigscreen in “The Kings of Appletown,” and are about to begin work on “The Suite Life on Deck,” a spinoff of their Disney Channel skein.

TECHNOLOGY/ MULTI-PLATFORM CONTENT NEWS

• Japanese auds will be the first in the world to see regularly skedded TV shows in 3-D. Korean company Hyundai It Japan’s E465 3-D TV, which requires special glasses to see the effect, went on sale for $4,980 in Tokyo on Saturday. This will allow auds to watch the 3-D content that Nippon BS Broadcasting (BS 11), a digital satcaster subsid of the NTV net, has been airing since December. The station airs an hour of 3-D programming daily, including sports events, travel shows and animal docus. It plans to air live 3-D sports in summer or fall. Hyundai It Japan will launch a 32-inch 3-D model in August for $2,000. Also in the works are 50-inch and larger models that will not require glasses to see the 3-D images. 3-D capable TVs from Samsung are on display at NAB in Las Vegas this week, but Samsung is not yet marketing the feature because there is no content available Stateside.

WEBSITES TO WATCH

http://www.charlierose.com/home

PBS’ Charlie Rose show is preparing to launch a vastly expanded online archive this summer, whittling 4,000 hours of interviews down to offer some 800 clips for embedding and syndication, reports Beet TV.

http://www.ustream.tv/

Online broadcasting platform UStream raised $11.1 million in Series A funding for new product development from DCM and existing investors Labrador Ventures and The Band of Angels. UStream now counts over 260,000 registered users who generate 350,000+ hours of live streamed content per month.

http://revision3.com/

Revision3 is trying out a new clickable web video interface powered by VideoClix, allowing users to click on objects with the video for additional info including product information or background info about the host.

http://video.titantv.com/

TitanTV debuts two new shows today starring VH1 comedian and Glamour columnist Michael Somerville. “Lunch Break with Somerville” offers a rundown on pop culture and current events. “Love, Somerville” is an advice magazine for the lovelorn, co-starring TitanTV personalities Grace Randolph and Liza de Guia.

SOURCES:

www.variety.com
www.cynopsis.com