Wednesday April 30, 2008

PROJECTS ANNOUNCED

• United Artists and Lakeshore Entertainment have set “24″ co-creator-exec producer Joel Surnow to develop a contemporary spy thriller that will be directed by “Casino Royale” helmer Martin Campbell. Surnow will write the film with Michael Loceff, a “24″ co-exec producer. Lakeshore’s Gary Lucchesi and Tom Rosenberg will produce.

• Paramount Pictures and Plan B have acquired pic rights to the David Sheff memoir “Beautiful Boy: A Father’s Journey Through His Son’s Addiction” and the Nic Sheff memoir “Tweak: Growing Up on Methamphetamines.” Studio and producer will use the recently published books to frame a movie about drug addiction from the perspective of a young meth addict and the father who finds himself helpless to stop his son’s downward spiral.  Both Sheff books were published in February and became bestsellers. Houghton Mifflin’s “Beautiful Boy” is being sold in Starbucks locations around the country as part of the Starbucks Select book series. The movie will be produced in association with Starbucks.

• Killer Films has struck a three-pic development deal with Arcady Bay Entertainment, the writing and producing trio behind Disney’s “Bridge to Terabithia.” First-look deal jumpstarts with an adaptation of “The Great Gilly Hopkins,” based on another award-winning young adult novel from “Terabithia” author Katherine Paterson. Story revolves around Gilly, an unruly 11-year-old girl bounced between foster families until she lands with the kooky Trotters, an experience that eventually allows Gilly to make peace with her past. The live-actioner was adapted by Paterson’s son, screenwriter David Paterson. Producers are in talks for funding, with shooting anticipated to begin in the fall. Budget expected to fall in the $8 million-$10 million range.  Joining Killer will be exec producer John Wells. Founded this year, Arcady Bay Entertainment focuses on entertainment content for children and families and is headed by Katherine and David Paterson.

• Lionsgate is launching development of crime thriller “Pencilneck,” setting up the indie comicbook miniseries with Chris Bender and JC Spink at their Benderspink shingle. “Pencilneck” centers on a mild-mannered banker who, in order to save his criminal brother, is forced by the mob to help them rob his employer. When the heist goes awry and the banker is taken hostage, he snaps and goes on a rampage. Benderspink recently acquired the rights to “Pencilneck,” created by Victor Carungi and published by his own Paper Street Comics. The shingle’s developing several comics-based projects, including “Y: The Last Man” at New Line. It most recently set up sci-fi thriller “Arena” at Summit.

PROJECT UPDATES

• Demian Lichtenstein is set to direct 3-D action feature “Relentless” for Baldwin Entertainment, with London-based Velvet Octopus handling international sales. The $25 million movie will star Kiwi actor Karl Urban. It will shoot this September in Puerto Rico, produced by Eric Mitchell. It’s the story of four extreme sports professionals who survive a plane crash in the Amazon jungle, and must use all their survival instincts as they are hunted by a group of homicidal natives. Lichtenstein, best known for directing “3000 Miles to Graceland,” has been shadowing James Cameron on “Avatar,” and has been trained in 3-D techniques by James Mainard and Phil McNally of DreamWorks.

ACQUISITIONS/ FESTIVAL NEWS

• IFC has picked up all North American rights to “La habitacion de Fermat” (Fermat’s Room) after its screening this week in the Tribeca Festival Discovery Section. The directorial debut from Spain’s Luis Piedrahita and Rodrigo Sopena is a shrinking-room thriller that has four mathematicians forced to solve number-crunching problems to save their lives. Pic’s cast includes Argentina’s Federico Luppi. The Spanish-language pic will be released this summer on IFC’s Festival Direct VOD platform, which cherry-picks fest titles. Preeming at last October’s Sitges Festival, “Room” took the Melies d’Argent at Portugal’s Fantasporto this year. Produced by Notro Films, part of Spain’s Vertice Group, it has now been sold to more than 20 territories.

BUSINESS NEWS

• After a year of wooing the industry and the press with positive words and big predictions, Jeffrey Katzenberg let out his frustration with the slow pace of the digital cinema rollout for the first time during DreamWorks Animation’s earnings call Tuesday. Tensions are simmering on both sides of the issue, as the major studios and the top three circuits try to hammer out the size of the “virtual print fee” that studios will pay to distribute their pics digitally, which would be used to defray the costs of digital projector installations.

• A consortium formed by Regal, Cinemark and AMC to help with the digital transition is in the midst of trying to secure a $1.1 billion line of credit that theater owners can use to convert screens to digital. The virtual print fee agreement needs to be in place before the financing can be secured. Another round of talks is expected in the next two weeks. The DreamWorks Animation CEO said his goal has always been to have 5,000 screens deployed by March, so that his studio’s “Monsters vs. Aliens” can be released nationwide in digital 3-D, but that the chances of that happening are dimming.  Several big films are counting on a broad digital 3-D rollout next year, including “Monsters,” James Cameron’s “Avatar” and toon “Ice Age: Dawn of the Dinosaurs” from Fox; Disney/Pixar’s “Up”; and the Mouse House’s “A Christmas Carol.” Currently, there are fewer than 1,000 digital screens in the U.S.

STRIKE NEWS/ LABOR ISSUES

• In a development that will amp up strike fears, hopes for a SAG deal with the majors this week have nearly vanished. With a dozen days of negotiations in the book, progress remains negligible, although both sides have adhered to an unofficial news blackout with no public disclosure on the substance of talks on SAG’s feature-primetime deal. But privately, the congloms have been feeling increasingly frustrated over SAG’s refusal to budge significantly from its initial proposals — particularly after the companies asked for an extra week to close the “significant gaps” in positions before turning to AFTRA’s primetime deal on Monday for the next two weeks. SAG and the Alliance of Motion Picture & Television Producers will resume talks at 10 a.m. today at the AMPTP’s headquarters in Encino. The current round of negotiations is set to conclude Friday. SAG’s contract expires June 30. It hasn’t yet asked its 120,000 members for a strike authorization.

INDUSTRY MOVES

• Paramount has upped its top promo-partner wrangler, LeeAnne Stables, to exec VP of worldwide marketing partnerships. Stables will continue to oversee global marketing alliances for studio films released through Paramount, DreamWorks and the MTV Films and Nickelodeon Movies banners. Stables was most recently senior VP, worldwide marketing partnerships, since 2005.

TECHNOLOGY/ MULT-PLATFORM CONTENT

• Shochiku will bow Shochiku Online, a streaming service for its pics, on May 21. Users will be able to view one pic for seven days for ¥367 ($3.54) or take out a monthly subscription for $10.14. The site will be operated by Shochiku subsid Eisei Gekijo (Satellite Theater), with an initial target of 100,000 subscribers.  Shochiku will launch the service with 100 pics, including classics from auteurs Yasujiro Ozu and Keisuke Kinoshita and its 48-episode “Tora-san” series, about a wandering peddler who is forever falling in love. It will add 10-20 titles monthly and will be streaming 200 titles by the end of its first year.   Shochiku has been webcasting its contents on its Cinelier site in cooperation with Showtime and other partners since 2006.

• PR Firm Edelman unveiled the Edelman Studios at the Tribeca Film Festival yesterday, a virtual talent agency/studio designed to develop TV shows, shorts, web series and feature films. Edelman clients Burger King, Butterball, Expedia and Kraft’s Philadelphia Cream Cheese have signed on to sponsor an initial wave of “studio assignments” that may turn into multiplatform projects. 
   
• Voom HD Networks struck a deal with Amazon.com to begin offering home video titles of its original series and programs on the site beginning this summer. Nearly 50 titles from Voom’s Rush HD, Treasure HD, Gallery HD, Ultra HD, WorldSport HD, Gameplay HD and Equator HD channels will be available.

WEBSITES TO WATCH

 

www.meevee.com

 

TV discovery site MeeVee is one of the most beautifully designed entertainment listings interfaces we’ve found, making it simple to search for, track and manage TV content on multiple platforms. It will reach a milestone of 2 million unique users this month (according to ComScore data). The Burlingame, CA start-up is getting traction with UGC, community features and “interest channels” around specific shows, as fans of a show tell others about the site, and so on and so on. MeeVee, rumored to be in acquisition talks with several suitors, has done a great job of adding these social networking features without overshadowing its core competency.

 

SOURCES:

 

www.variety.com

www.cynopsis.com