Category: Films

So far the Miramax gamble of splitting up Quentin Tarantinos KILL BILL into two parts has paid off at the box office, as the bloody movie pastiche debuted with an impressive $22M gross to lead the pack for the weekend ended Oct. 12, 2003. With vfx by Centro Digital Pictures Ltd. and K.N.B. EFX Group Inc., KILL BILL VOLUME 1 knocked off Paramounts THE SCHOOL OF ROCK, which came in second at $15.4M and has collected $39.6M in second week.

At a time when 2D feature animation is currently under assault in the U.S., Montreal-based H2V Entertainment has proudly announced that its initial slate of three films are all in 2D and will be ready for distribution in April 2004. Not only that but MANGA LATINA: KILLER ON THE LOOSE, MONICA MADE IN AMERICA and PIÑATAS are all contemporary, Latino-flavored stories aimed at teens and adults.

DreamWorks confirmed that SHARKSLAYER would now be called SHARK TALE. A less violent title, which was desired, but this computer-animated tale by any other name is still about gangster sharks, opening Oct. 1, 2004. The comedic riff on THE SOPRANOS, THE GODFATHER and CAR WASH, the first computer-animated feature produced at the Glendale, California-based campus, rendered in mental ray, boasts an all-star cast of voices, including Will Smith, Robert DeNiro, Renee Zellweger, Angelina Jolie, Jack Black, Martin Scorsese and James Gandolfini.

Gabor Csupo of the Klasky Csupo animation studio (RUGRATS and WILD THORNBERRYS) will make his feature directorial debut with GREEN MONKEYS, a live-action/computer-animated version of the comic strip about monkeys that act human, a spokesperson confirmed. GREEN MONKEYS is published by Dan's Papers and written by Betty and Michael Paraskevas. The project seems a perfect match for Klasky Csupo, since the strip resembles THORNBERRYS in its graphic style despite the proposed CGI makeover.

Chalk up another horror dominance of the box office chart. UNDERWORLD, the vampire/werewolf flick from Screen Gems (with vfx from FrameStore CFC and Luma Pictures), debuted in the top spot for the weekend ended Sept.21, 2003 with $21.7M.

Luma Pictures helped to conjure up a dark and formidable world of werewolves and vampires in providing visual effects services for Lakeshore Entertainment's new horror thriller UNDERWORLD (opening Sept. 19, 2003). A team of some 20 artists from the studio took part in the project, crafting visuals ranging from 3D matte paintings of central Budapest, to the partial transformation of a man into a werewolf, to the creation of microorganisms representing creature transformations on a cellular level.