After shutting down U.S. operations for a week due to a gap in financing, Imagi Ent.'s animated adaptation of ASTRO BOY is back on track, per VARIETY.
Erin Corbett, Imagi's U.S. president, said Tuesday that the company had to shut down for a week because bridge financing had not come through in time. Money is now in place and will hold over the company until more funding from several private equity companies arrives next Tuesday.
KUNG FU PANDA co-director John Stevenson told AWN that he intends to follow-up his Oscar-nominated animated feature with a live-action version of MASTERS OF THE UNIVERSE. Meanwhile, VARIETY reported that Warner Bros. has made the deal to cinematically reboot the popular Mattel toy line, with Joel Silver producing and Mattel's Barry Waldo serving as exec producer.
Twentieth Century Fox has picked up THE CHRONICLES OF NARNIA: VOYAGE OF THE DAWN TREADER after Disney decided a month ago to pass on the franchise, according to VARIETY.
Fox had first dibs on the project as it has a shared Fox Walden marketing and distribution label with Narnia's owner, Walden Media. Budget and script details are being worked out, but Fox is currently developing the film and is hoping to start shooting at the end of summer. A holiday 2010 release is being eyed through the Fox Walden label. Director will be Michael Apted.
Author Neil Gaiman announced on THE TODAY SHOW on NBC on Wednesday that INTERVIEW WITH THE VAMPIRE director Neil Jordan will write and direct the adaptation of his THE GRAVEYARD BOOK (via GeeksOfDoom.com).
Gaiman will produce the live-action film and U.K. VFX and animation studio Framestore handling vfx. THE GRAVEYARD BOOK was awarded the 2009 Newbery Medal award on Wednesday.
Twentieth Century Fox has hired Joe Carnahan to direct THE A-TEAM, based on the 1980s TV series, with Ridley Scott to produce and Tony Scott to exec produce via their Scott Free banner, per VARIETY.
Set for release next summer, producers also include Jules Daly and Stephen J. Cannell, the latter of whom created the original series that debuted in 1983 and ran for five seasons.
Skip Woods' script will get a polish from Carnahan and Brian Bloom. Production is scheduled to start by June in order to make the June 11, 2010 release date.
Warner Bros. and producer Dan Lin are in the early stages of developing a new TOMB RAIDER film, according to THE HOLLYWOOD REPORTER.
The first two films, starring Angelina Jolie, made $275 million worldwide for LARA CROFT: TOMB RAIDER in 2001 and a more-modest $157 million in 2003 for LARA CROFT TOMB RAIDER: THE CRADLE OF LIFE.
The property started life as a Eidos videogame in 1996 that chronicled the global adventures of daredevil archaeologist Lara Croft. Spinoffs included a10th-anniversary edition in 2006.
Actors Michael Fassbender (INGLOURIOUS BASTERDS), Dominic West (300) and actress Olga Kurylenko (QUANTUM OF SOLACE) will star in Neil Marshall's U.K.-set sword and sandals thriller CENTURION, per THE HOLLYWOOD REPORTER.
SLUMDOG MILLIONAIRE producer Christian Colson of Celador Films is producing for Pathe Distribution, the French-owned U.K.-based company.
Isla Fisher is now set to play the female voice lead in Paramount's animated RANGO, per VARIETY. Johnny Depp, Abigail Breslin, Alfred Molina, Ray Winstone, Harry Dean Stanton and Ned Beatty are also voicing characters.
The story follows a household pet (Depp) who goes on an adventure to discover himself.
Lionsgate and Roadside Attractions have acquired all U.S. rights to Snoot Ent.'s BATTLE FOR TERRA, a 3-D animated adventure feature film with the vocal talents of Evan Rachel Wood, Luke Wilson, Justin Long, Amanda Peet, Chris Evans and Dennis Quaid. The feature directorial debut of acclaimed short filmmaker Aristomenis Tsirbas (THE FREAK), BATTLE FOR TERRA is the first in a series of animated features produced by Snoot.
The Ink and Paint Club held its premiere luncheon with Walt Disney Animation Studio’s Emily Hoppe on hand as the guest of honor. Hoppe, the studio’s senior manager of creative marketing outlined the role Disney and The Princess and the Frog, the studio’s first 2D animated film in five years, will play at Red Stick’s April festival.
Death Ray Films and Maya Ent. will team up to bring the acclaimed Dark Horse comic book EL ZOMBO FANTASMA to the big screen.
EL ZOMBO FANTASMA, published by Dark Horse Comics in 2005, created by David Wilkins and Kevin Munroe, will be produced under the Death Ray Films banner recently formed by Chris Patton, Kevin Munroe and Robert Sanchez, who are currently in production on WAR MONKEYS.
Shorts International will bring the Oscar-nominated short films in the live-action and animated categories to U.S. theatres on February 6 2009, giving audiences around the country an opportunity to see the nominated films prior to the 81st Academy Awards ceremony on February 22.
This year's nominees, LAVATORY LOVESTORY, LA MAISON EN PETITS CUBES, OKTAPODI, PRESTO and THIS WAY UP, can be previewed at AWN's Oscar Showcase.
As the festival is winding down my wife and I are on a mission to pack in as much as we can. I have a short film in the festival this year and feel like we need to give it our all (can always sleep when we get home). It's time to take off the gloves switch off the phones and hit the streets!
Winning the weekend box office for the second week running, PAUL BLART: MALL COP earned $21.6M for Sony with a total cume of $64.9M.
Opener UNDERWORLD: RISE OF THE LYCANS (ScreenGems, vfx by Duran-Duboi, Luma Pictures, Intelligent Creaturs, Celluloid, Furious FX, Element, Foret Blue, Ntropic, Proof and Sub/Par) did $20.8M for second place.
Third went to Clint Eastwood's durable GRAN TORINO (vfx by Pacific Title and Art Studio, which made $16.2M for Warner Bros. in its seventh week out, for a total gross of $97.8M.
Per VARIETY, filming will begin in April in Hong Kong on what the producer calls the world's first erotic movie to be made in stereoscopic 3-D. The film, called 3D SEX AND ZEN is produced by Stephen Shiu, Jr. chairman of One Dollar Production, is a sequel to 1991's SEX AND ZEN from Shiu's father, Stephen Siu Yeuk-yen.
U.K. theater chain Cineworld has closed a deal with NEC to add 74 digital projectors and the most 3-D screens in the country, according to VARIETY.
The cost of the upgrade will be $5.57 million (GBP 4 million) but will ready the U.K. for the expected 13 releases in 3-D coming in 2009, including Disney's BOLT, DreamWorks Animation's MONSTERS VS. ALIENS, Fox's ICE AGE 3: DAWN OF THE DINOSAURS and James Cameron's AVATAR.
Paramount Pictures and Sony Pictures Ent. have announced the start of principal production in Los Angeles on the 3D motion-capture film THE ADVENTURES OF TINTIN: SECRET OF THE UNICORN, directed by Steven Spielberg and starring Jamie Bell (BILLY ELLIOT, DEFIANCE) as Tintin, the intrepid young reporter whose relentless pursuit of a good story thrusts him into a world of high adventure, and Daniel Craig (QUANTUM OF SOLACE, DEFIANCE) as the nefarious Red Rackham.
Academy Award-winning documentary filmmaker Jessica Yu, who has been nominated for the Sundance Film Festival's prestigious Grand Jury Prize three times (for her feature documentaries PROTAGONIST, IN THE REALMS OF THE UNREAL and LIVING MUSEUM) returned to Park City for the 2009 Sundance Film Festival with a humorous documentary short entitled THE KINDA SUTRA.
Paramount Pictures has become the first studio to offer digital cinema support directly to exhibitors across the United States and Canada. The move is expected to accelerate the roll-out of digital and 3-D projection systems in theatres.
Lowry Digital collaborated with award-winning director David Fincher on Paramount Pictures' epic feature film THE CURIOUS CASE OF BENJAMIN BUTTON. Lowry's proprietary image processing techniques were utilized to fine tune the movie's images; balance the look of film, digital capture and visual effects work; reduce noise; and bring out subtle details in the visuals.
While it's unlikely to let it go entirely, Paramount Pictures has let the rights option to graphic novel TORSO lapse, per THE HOLLYWOOD REPORTER. Director David Fincher, after securing 13 Oscar nominations for THE CURIOUS CASE OF BENJAMIN BUTTON, is still attached to the project.
Written by Brian Michael Bendis and Mark Andreyko, TORSO is a crime thriller that follows the true-life adventures of Treasury Department agent Eliot Ness after he helped lock up gangster Al Capone, including the pursuit of the Cleveland Torso Murderer from 1935 to 1938.
Online protests hoping to protest the casting of M. Night Shyamalan's live-action take on AVATAR: THE LAST AIRBENDER are continuing.
ENTERTAINMENT WEEKLY reported in December that Shyamalan offered the roles of Aang to karate-trained Texan Noah Ringer; Sokka to Jackson Rathbone (TWILIGHT); Katara to Nicola Peltz (DECK THE HALLS); and Zuko to Jesse McCartney, all Caucasian actors to portray Asian characters.
Warner Bros., hoping to create an ALVIN AND THE CHIPMUNKS-esque family franchise, will turn cat and mouse duo Tom and Jerry into CG characters that live in the real world, per VARIETY.
Dan Lin will adapt the Hanna-Barbera property as an origin story how the characters met and form their rivalry before getting lost in Chicago and reluctantly working together to get home. Lin, with WB, is producing SHERLOCK HOLMES and is exec producing TERMINATOR SALVATION.
Trades are reporting that frequent Tim Burton collaborator John August is set to write FRANKENWEENIE for Disney after penning graphic novel adaptation PREACHER for director Sam Mendes at Columbia.
French animated preschool series OZIE BOO! LEARN TO LIVE TOGETHER is being adapted into a feature film, according to VARIETY. Produced by series creators Cyber Group Animation, the film will focus on the educational adventures of five baby penguins as their ice flow splits in half, then meet a mammoth, awakened by global warming.
