- Dwight Caines, new President of Worldwide Digital Marketing at Sony Pictures Entertainment; promoted from EVP, Digital Marketing Strategy (a department which he created in Feb 2000). Will continue to oversee all theatrical digital campaigns for the global marketplace, utilizing the Internet, portable and mobile devices, gaming platforms, social media and other emerging technologies.
[via Variety]
- Sony Pictures has signed on as the first studio advertiser to promote its pics on MySpace Music. As part of its promotion to push its music-themed comedy “Nick & Norah’s Infinite Playlist,” which stars Michael Cera, the studio will skin the playlists on profiles that appear on MySpace Music for a week with branding from the film. Ads for the pic will also appear throughout MySpace Music.
[via Variety]
- Let’s live in a digital free world. Sony, NBC U, Fox, Paramount and Warner, and tech heavyweights such as Microsoft, HP, Intel, Philips, Toshiba and Cisco have all joined together to form the Digital Entertainment Content Ecosystem (DECE), whose purpose is to create an open environment for digital media. Notably not included are Disney and Apple. Apple relies upon a more closed environment for iTunes and iPod devices. iTunes purchases cannot be readily transferred to non-Apple devices, and DECE wants to ensure consumers can “buy once, play anywhere.” DECE prexy Mitch Singer, Sony’s chief technology officer, argues that the digital marketplace will become too fragmented without standardization — and that will impede its success. “If it’s not standardized, you are really telling consumers to make a tech decision before they buy content,” he said. “The reason digital distribution is so small is because user experience is not what it could be.”DECE plans to design a logo and name that will be displayed on all devices. It will unveil both at CES in January.
[via Variety]
- Jessica Alba as a second grade math teacher? Doubtful. The film is entitled “An Invisible Sign of My Own” and Endeavor’s indie film unit, led by Graham Taylor, will handle domestic rights to the pic.
[via Variety]
- The Filipino family story hits the fests. “Serbis” chronicles the story of a struggling Filipino family who operate and live in a pornographic movie theatre (classy). The new film was directed by Filipino filmmaker Brilante Mendoza, produced by Ferdinand Lapuz and written by Armando Lao. Independent U.S. film distributor Regent Releasing has acquired North American distribution rights, and will distribute the film in select cities this winter. The pic has already hit Cannes, and will next showcase at the Tornoto and New York film fests.
[via Variety]
- This is like when Kristen Davis did that “Shaggy” movie with Tim Allen. It sucks when actresses I like do these dumb films. But I guess everyone’s gotta make a buck, huh? But seriously, when will “The Rock” stop playing sports-related roles (football coach, football player, hockey player)? Ashley Judd plays his girlfriend, a single mother of two kids, in 20th Century Fox’s “Tooth Fairy“
[via Variety]
- More book adaptions coming your way:
- “Nim’s Island” producer Paula Mazur and independent bookseller Mitchell Kaplan are teaming to bring the novel, written by Mary Ann Shaffer and Annie Barrows and just published by Dial Press, to the bigscreen. “The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society,” was one of the most talked-about books this summer. Mazur and Kaplan, who will together produce “Guernsey,” formed the Mazur/Kaplan Co., a partnership they had been discussing for years. They raised private financing for the deal, which was brokered by Amy Schiffman of Intellectual Property Group, with Shelley Surpin representing the producers. “Guernsey” marks the first project for Mazur and Kaplan’s venture. The pair said they are in the hunt to option two additional books. [via Variety]
- Disney and Jerry Bruckheimer have acquired screen rights to “Killing Rommel,” a novel by Steven Pressfield. The book is about a British battalion’s attempt to thwart German Fiel Marshal Erwin Rommel’s desert campaign, was published in the spring by Doubleday. Randall Wallace will write the script with Pressfield. Bruckheimer will produce. Universal is developing “Gates of Fire” with a David Self script about the Spartan stand against the Persians at Thermopylae. Blah blah blah. Will there never come a day when the studios quit churning out war/violence pics? [via Variety]
- New Regency chairmen Robert Harper and Hutch Parker have established a New York office and hired Michelle Kroes to mine the literary community for movie projects. At the same time, New Regency has hired former Paramount Vantage executive Amy Israel as EVP of production. The goal is to elevate the quality level of material and filmmakers, aspirations that hark back to a Regency heyday when it made “L.A. Confidential” and “JFK,” along with John Grisham adaptations “The Client” and “A Time to Kill.” The chairmen said they’re under no budget restrictions and hope for an annual output of six to eight films, which will be handled theatrically by Fox. Some will be developed by Regency, which will either fully finance or co-finance with Fox. The rest will be Fox-developed fare co-financed by Regency. New Regency next releases the David Frankel-directed “Marley & Me,” starring Owen Wilson and Jennifer Aniston, the Kate Hudson-Anne Hathaway comedy “Bride Wars” and “They Came From Upstairs.” [via Variety]
- “Ploning,” a debut feature helmed by Dante Nico Garcia, has been selected as The Philippines candidate for the foreign-language Oscar it was announced Tuesday. Film is the idyllic 1982-set story of island life and the secret love of a beautiful woman and a fisherman from her past. Starring Judy “Juday” Ann Santos, it was produced by new shingle Panoramanila.
[via Variety]
- Bet he’ll still look hot. My fave “O.C.” guy Ben McKenzie (when did he drop the ‘jamin from Benjamin? Cool guy, eh? Hot.) will play a quadruple amputee without the use of his eyes, ears, nose and mouth in a new film adaptation of the novel, “Johnny Got His Gun”. Greenwood Hill Prods. has signed with Todd Wagner and Mark Cuban’s Truly Indie self-distribution company to release its first feature film, “Dalton Trumbo’s Johnny Got His Gun.”
[via Variety]
- Previously repped by CAA, and agent-less for the past few months, Gwyneth Paltrow has signed with UTA, coming off the summer hit “Iron Man” and signed on to film the sequel, teaming back up with director Jon Favreau, Robert Downey Jr. and Terrence Howard.
[via Variety]
- New Penelope Cruz movie. Sony Pictures Classics has taken North American rights to “Broken Embraces,” Pedro Almodovar’s latest collaboration with Penelope Cruz. The pic is being shot in the style of 1950s American film noir. Almodovar wrote the script and is lensing on location in Madrid and the Canary Islands. The plot involves a four-person love story and “touches on many genres,” including thriller. Almodovar has called the movie “the most novel-like story I have written to date” and says its shadowy look was partly inspired by a series of migraines that rendered him ultra-sensitive to bright lights. Universal Pictures is a financial partner on the film.
[via Variety]
- Squeezed by rising costs and leveling revenues, Universal Pictures declines to finance ‘Tintin.’ And “Tintin” is arguably a very risky project. It is based on the 1929-to-1976 book series written by the late Georges Remi, under the pen name Herge, about the global adventures of a young reporter and his dog, Snowy. The comics have a loyal following in Europe but are mostly obscure to U.S. audiences. Paramount, which owns DreamWorks, where Spielberg has been developing “Tintin” for many years, had agreed to finance half the film but was hoping to have a financial partner in Universal. Paramount, a Viacom Inc. unit, has shouldered the vast majority of the more than $30 million spent on scripts, character design and initial animation and 3-D tests — the total budget is $130 million. Spielberg has wanted to make “Tintin” since 1983, when he optioned the movie rights at his Universal-based production company, Amblin Entertainment. He has conceived the project as a trilogy, with the first film to be directed by him, the second by Jackson and no plans yet for the third. According to several people close to the project, “Tintin” would have to rake in $425 million worldwide in ticket sales before the studios could break even. The reason: Spielberg and Jackson, who would also produce both movies, would together grab about 30% of the studio’s total gross revenue from box-office, DVD, television and other sales. Under that scenario, the pair would walk away with more than $100 million before Universal and DreamWorks could make a profit.
[via LATimes]
- Seriously?! The lives of talented fashion designers lies partially in your hands, Lohan?? I would be pissst.
[via TVGuide]
