Friday May 16, 2008

PROJECTS ANNOUNCED

• MGM has acquired rights to the Jason Carter Eaton children’s book “The Facttracker” and will turn it into a live-action feature to be directed by David Silverman. Silverman helmed the animated hits “The Simpsons Movie” and “Monsters, Inc.” The author and his writing partner, Ian Lendler, will pen the script. Shawn Levy will produce with Marc Platt in a co-production between their 21 Laps and Marc Platt Prods. banners. Tom McNulty and Adam Siegel also will produce. Book is a fable about Traakerfaxx, a town that produces all the facts in the world. The arrival of a salesman who peddles lies throws the town into chaos, and a young orphan and the reclusive Facttracker team up to save the town from becoming a haven for fibs. Endeavor repped Silverman and Levy, and Mary Evans Inc. brokered the book deal.

• George Clooney will topline, and his Smoke House partner Grant Heslov will helm, “Men Who Stare at Goats.” Pic is an adaptation of British journalist Jon Ronson’s book about the U.S. Army’s First Earth Battalion, a unit that was to use paranormal powers. Title refers to the notion that one can kill a goat by staring at it. Script was penned by Brit Peter Straughan (”How to Lose Friends and Alienate People”). The project has been around for some time, but international buyers only just received the script this week as the Cannes fest and market got started. Script topped the 2007 Brit List of best unproduced screenplays. Financing and producing mix, which is still in flux, is expected to include Winchester, BBC Films and Mandate Pictures.

PROJECT UPDATES

• Production of “Nailed,” starring Jessica Biel and Jake Gyllenhaal, has been shut down for a second time due to financial problems as below-the-line crews refused to work Thursday. Members of the Intl. Alliance of Theatrical & Stage Employees were ordered by IATSE leaders not to show up at the South Carolina set after not being paid. Capitol Films, which is financing the political comedy, was not immediately available for comment. IATSE also would not comment but a source familiar with the situation said production’s expected to resume today. “Nailed” is produced by Douglas Wick and Lucy Fisher through their Red Wagon banner and by Persistent Entertainment.

ACQUISITIONS/ FESTIVAL NEWS

• Lionsgate Films has scored worldwide rights excluding Mexico to “The Perfect Game.” Pic is based on the true story of a ragtag team of tykes from Mexico that was the first non-American team to win the Little League World Series in 1957. The team stunned ballpark fans when they won 13 straight games, the last a perfect game. Originally called “The Third Miracle,” pic stars Clifton Collins Jr., Cheech Marin and Louis Gossett Jr. A nationwide release is set for Aug. 8. William Dear helmed from W. William Winokur’s script. Producers include Winokur, David Salzberg, Christian Tureaud, Mark Koch, Daniel de Liege and Michael Gallant. Movie went into production under a partnership between Mandalay Integrated Media Entertainment and Prelude Pictures.

STRIKE/ LABOR NEWS

• With the resumption of SAG negotiations looming, the American Federation of Television & Radio Arists and the majors have continued to move forward toward a primetime deal. “We’re making progress — and the negotiating committee will be providing you with an update very soon,” AFTRA president Roberta Reardon said in a message sent Thursday to the union’s members. Reardon, citing the news blackout, gave no other details, but negotiators may work through the weekend. AFTRA and the congloms will hold their eighth day of talks today at the headquarters of the Alliance of Motion Picture & Television Producers in Encino. AFTRA covers shows including “Curb Your Enthusiasm,” “Reaper,” “Cashmere Mafia” and ” ‘Til Death.” Both the SAG and AFTRA contracts expire June 30, but AFTRA is viewed as much more likely to make a deal given its leaders’ emphasis on pragmatism. By contrast, SAG’s strong support for the WGA strike and the more assertive stance of its leaders has left Hollywood in the throes of uncertainty over a possible second strike — leading to studios refusing to greenlight features until a new SAG deal’s in hand.

INDUSTRY MOVES

• Warner Bros. is retaining Camela Galano as president of New Line Intl. Releasing, a slot she’s held for the past seven years. In an announcement Thursday, Warner said Galano will continue to oversee the release of New Line films in over 120 international territories. The studio noted that New Line — scaled down from 600 to about 50 employees — previously sold off international rights to its films in many overseas territories to finance its pics. Galano will also oversee film, homevid and TV distribution for New Line’s slate outside North America. Other New Line international releasing execs who are staying include senior VPs Elena Cahalan and Rob Remley along with VP Tracy McCrory. Galano will report directly to Warner Bros. exec VP Richard Fox.

• Warner Home Video has promoted a trio of execs who are gaining oversight of New Line product as part of the company’s integration into the larger studio. All three have been elevated to exec VP and general manager of their respective North America units and report to Mark Horak, prexy of Warner Home Video for the region. Mike Saksa will now oversee all the studio’s new release titles, including New Line titles and direct-to-disc product from its Warner Premiere division. Prior to heading the new release unit, he was VP of U.S. marketing; he joined the studio’s homevid division in 1995. Jeff Baker, head of theatrical catalog, will add oversight of New Line’s library to his duties. He has headed the theatrical catalog unit since 2005 and previously was senior VP of U.S. marketing for the division. Jeff Brown will oversee expanded nontheatrical franchise product under his promotion. He has headed that unit, which includes TV product from various Warner-affiliated units and outside properties from the BBC and National Geographic, since 2005. He has held a number of posts in the division since 1996; he relocated to the U.S. in 2004 to serve as senior VP of worldwide marketing.

TECHNOLOGY/ MULT-PLATFORM CONTENT

• Eros Intl., the biggest distributor of Indian movies, has inked a major deal with online platform Jaman. Deal is a three-year agreement covering 100 films from classics including “Sholay” through “Devdas,” which preemed at Cannes, to recent hits “Cheeni kum” and “Heyy Babyy.” Jaman, which has thousands of independent movies in its library, is available in 200 territories on to personal computers and TV viewers through set-top boxes. Sophisticated deal gives Jaman combination of global and localized rights. Where cable or local web rights have previously been sold, titles are geo-blocked or time delimited. Others are licensed in all territories. Jaman deal further expands Eros’ aggressive online strategy. An investor in the B on Demand network, company has a tech sharing deal with Intel and operates two paid-for online platforms of its own (one for downloading and one for streaming) and an ad-supported streaming platform.

• Animoto, makers of the web application that uses proprietary video orchestration technology to automatically generate videos around music, received an undisclosed amount of funding from Amazon. Animoto’s video generating Facebook app released in March has over 750,000 users.

• Google Sites achieved the number one spot in ComScore’s Top 50 U.S. Properties ranking for the first time with a total audience of more than 141 million visitors. Yahoo! Sites ranked second with 140.6 million visitors, followed by Microsoft Sites with 121.2 million visitors. The net’s total audience increased slightly with music community site Playlist.com posting the biggest monthly gain. Returning new episodes helped the TV category to increase 4% to 93.2 million visitors. Yahoo! TV led the category with 15.6 million visitors – a 38% bump from the previous month – followed by AOL Television with 12.5 million visitors and MySpace TV with 12 million visitors. Significant gains were also achieved by MSN TV (up 21% to 11.7 million visitors) and ABC.com (up 18% to 9 million visitors).

WEBSITES TO WATCH

http://www.blogmaverick.com/

Mark Cuban’s personal blog, aptly named blog maverick, is always a good read for those interested in the future of where media may be headed. True to his nature, the billionaire entertainment mogul pulls no punches and is never afraid to go out on a limb to provoke a thought or prove a point. Check out “Beating Google?,” posted the day before he was named among the Yahoo invaders. He wonders aloud what it would cost to pay the internet’s top publishers to remove themselves from the Google Index and thus render Google’s powerful search engine, well, useless. Mark figures it might cost a Microsoft, Yahoo or Microhoo about $1 billion. It’s a quixotic idea, no doubt. But the community at large has to do something to slow down the Google juggernaut, he figures, and combining resources may be the only way the two portals can hope to accomplish such a feat.

SOURCES:

www.variety.com
www.cynopsis.com