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SUPERMAN RETURNS took off with a solid $21M for Warner Bros. on Wednesday, which includes Tuesday night preview showings. For opening days, it ranks 29th on the all-time list, surpassing BATMAN BEGINS ($15.1M, a Warner Bros. benchmark) and eighth for Wednesday openers.

Of that $21M total, SUPERMAN RETURNS collected about $1.2M from 76 IMAX theaters. On Friday, the movie bumps up from 3,915 theaters to 4,065, making it the fourth largest all-time release. Box office information obtained from boxofficemojo.com.

Frantic Films delivered 140 vfx shots for Warner Bros. SUPERMAN RETURNS, its largest project to date. Having previously worked with director Bryan Singer on X2: X-MEN UNITED, Frantic was again enlisted for six major sequences. In the process, the company used its current proprietary software and created new technology.

New Line Cinema has officially greenlit production on THE GOLDEN COMPASS, the highly anticipated adaptation of the first of author Philip Pullman's bestselling HIS DARK MATERIALS trilogy. Production on the $150 million film is scheduled to begin Sept. 4, 2006, in the U.K., with Oscar-nominated writer/director Chris Weitz (ABOUT A BOY, ANTZ) at the helm. Digital Domain reportedly will handle vfx with Oscar nominee Mike Fink (CONSTANTINE, X-MEN, X-2) serving as visual effects supervisor.

The 2006 Festival of Visual Effects will feature a lineup of revolving showcases highlighting the creativity of digital visual effects artists from the earliest pioneers to the latest innovators. These four different programs will complement the previously announced schedule of panels and presentations being held at this year's Festival, July 6-8, at the famed Egyptian Theatre in Hollywood, California. Each program will be scheduled at least once per day and will be shown at the Steven Spielberg Theatre at the Egyptian Theatre complex.

eyeon Software gears up for the fall trade show season with the pre-announcement of its SIGGRAPH 2006 release of Fusion 5.1.

eyeon will soon unveil Fusion version 5.1, introducing more than 25 new technologies to their industry-leading compositing application. eyeon spent more than two years redeveloping the core architecture of Fusion 5. The 5.1 release will add a host of new features and functionality to this highly-adaptable visual effects system.