Category: Visual Effects

The 58th Cannes Film Festival will honor George Lucas for his film career with the celebrated "Trophy of the Festival" onboard Cunard Line's Queen Mary 2, on May 15, 2005, to an audience of hundreds of Cannes attendees.

On that same day in Cannes, Lucas will debut the long-anticipated, worldwide preview of STAR WARS: EPISODE III: REVENGE OF THE SITH. The film opens in theaters worldwide on May 19.

ABC and exec producer Robert Halmi Sr. have announced the international cast for its miniseries THE TEN COMMANDMENTS, reports the trades. Dougray Scott, Omar Sharif, Naveen Andrews, Mia Maestro and Linus Roache will headline the big-budget, four-hour telling of classic biblical tale of Moses. Ron Hutchinson (THE JOSEPHINE BAKER STORY) wrote the screenplay and Robert Dornhelm (TVs SPARTACUS) is directing.

Universal has secured the film rights to the young adult fantasy novel series OUTCAST, reports VARIETY. Charlie Mitchell (forthcoming THE CHILDREN OF THE DUST BOWL) has been hired to adapt the screenplay. Additionally, Mitchell will produce along with Donaldson/Sanders' Peter Donaldson and Circle of Confusion's Jason Lust.

fmx/05, the 10th International Conference On Animation, Effects, Realtime and Content, saw a record breaking attendance of 3,500 people as it handed its top award to Blur Studios Oscar nominated short film GOPHER BROKE. Compared to 2004, this makes for a plus of about 50% or 1,200 visitors an increase that is mainly due to the excellent response of the industry. The event ran from April 27 to April 30 in Stuttgart, Germany.

With Bill Desowitz away covering Disneylands 50th festivities, Ill be recapping the past week on VFXWORLD and give you a hint of what is to come. The summer film season has official kicked off and Mary Ann Skweres covers last weeks box office champ THE HITCHHIKERS GUIDE TO THE GALAXY. Alain Bielik gets extreme with his coverage of XXX: STATE OF THE UNION.

Autodesk has begun deploying Autodesk 3ds Max 7.5 software to its base of subscription customers. Significant enhancements range from a robust integrated hair and fur system and the most current version of mental ray 3.4 together with eight satellite render node licenses to a new design toolset that combines the feature sets of 3ds Max and Autodesk VIZ software. 3ds Max 7.5 files are completely cross compatible with the current 3ds Max version 7 software.

IMAX Corp. and Warner Bros. Pictures announced that HARRY POTTER AND THE GOBLET OF FIRE will be simultaneously released to both IMAX and conventional theatres on November 18, 2005. The film is based on the best-selling J.K. Rowling book and is the fourth installment of the tremendously successful HARRY POTTER film series, which has grossed a total of more than $2.6 billion around the world. HARRY POTTER AND THE GOBLET OF FIRE will be digitally re-mastered into IMAX's format through the company's IMAX DMR (Digital Re-mastering) technology and released to the worldwide IMAX theatre network.