Tagged With: Studios

The 1973 Best Picture Oscar statuette for THE STING arrived via armored truck with police motorcycle escorts as Universal Studios Hollywood inaugurated its new movie memorabilia attraction, THE UNIVERSAL EXPERIENCE: BEHIND THE SCENES OF UNIVERSAL PICTURES, celebrating the Studios' historic movie heritage and the first-ever public Oscar display at The Entertainment Capital of L.A.

Design studios like bpg and Cuppa Coffee Studios were multiple award winners at this weekend's Broadcast Design Association/Promax Awards in New York.

The BDA Awards are regarded as the highest accolade for creative professionals in the broadcast design industry.

Cuppa Coffee has won more than 50 times over the past 10 years, including two Golds this year for Art Direction & Design: Topical Campaign for the Spike Scream Awards and the Art Direction & Design: Special Events Promo for the ESPN ESPY Awards.

Escape Studios will host a two-day animation workshop presented by Andrew Gordon, who is Supervising Animator on Pixar's new short film PRESTO at Pixar Animation Studios.

During the two days Gordon will cover all aspects of character animation craft in extraordinary detail. He'll review the basic principles, staging and pose design as well as advanced techniques for gestures, face and hand animation. He'll also be demonstrating the high-level polishing techniques used to lift a shot from being good, to being great.

Universal's THE INCREDIBLE HULK won the box office (ending June 15) with a $54.414 million (actuals) opening weekend. The Edward Norton-led film's vfx were by Gentle Giant Studios, Giant Studios, Hydraulx, Image Engine Design, Lidar Services, Lola Visual Effects, Rhythm and Hues and Soho VFX.

KUNG FU PANDA (DreamWorks, vfx by PDI DreamWorks) earned $34.612M in its second weekend for second place. The animated comedy's cume is $117.290M.

Fox's THE HAPPENING (vfx by CafeFX, ILM, Quantum Creation FX and The Third Floor), opened in third place with $30.517M.

DreamWorks' animated KUNG FU PANDA hauled in $60.24 million (actuals) at the weekend box office ending June 8, winning its opening weekend. Special effects on the Jack Black-led comedy were by PDI DreamWorks.

Adam Sandler's YOU DON'T MESS WITH THE ZOHAN (Sony, vfx by The Orphanage, Gentle Giant Studios, Lola Visual Effects and Stan Winston Studio) laughed its way to an expected No. 2 with $38.53M in its opening weekend.

Despite some mixed reviews, hoards of SEX AND THE CITY (New Line, vfx by Big Film Design) lovers turned out to see what happened next for Carrie Bradshaw and the girls, earning $56.85 million (actuals) in the opening weekend, ending June 1. It's the best-ever opening weekend for an R-rated comedy.

Paramount's INDIANA JONES AND THE KINGDOM OF THE CRYSTAL SKULL, last week's huge winner, placed a respectable second with $44.75M, easily pushing the two-week gross to $215.64M. The fourth Indy film's vfx were by ILM, Gentle Giant Studios and Stan Winston Studio.

Paramount's INDIANA JONES AND THE KINGDOM OF THE CRYSTAL SKULL was far and away the box office winner over Memorial Day Weekend, earning $126 million (estimated) over four days. The vfx for the fourth installment in the Indy franchise were done by ILM, Gentle Giant Studios and Stan Winston Studio.

INDY 4 is now second-best in Memorial Day openings; last year's PIRATES OF THE CARIBBEAN: AT WORLD'S END is number one with $139.8M. According to VARIETY, INDY 4's worldwide box office stands at $311.1 million.

Three longtime video game industry veterans have started TimeFly Studios, an independent video game development company.

Brad Ruminer, Dennis Booth, and Glenn O'Bannon, former employees of Rainbow Studios, will be developing games based on licensed property as well as original game concepts from action/adventure to rhythm games to puzzle games.