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Archive for January 23rd, 2009

Friday, January 23rd, 2009

FRIDAY JANUARY 23, 2009

OSCAR NOMINATIONS

While too numerous to list here, we will mention the five Best Picture nominees, with the film’s total number of nominations in parentheses after it: The Curious Case of Benjamin Button (13), Slumdog Millionaire (10), Milk (8), Frost/Nixon (5), and The Reader (5). Notably absent? The Dark Knight, and Christopher Nolan didn’t get nominated in the Best Director category, either. All that said, we’re not going to get too far into dissecting all the nominees (though we were especially happy to see Richard Jenkins, Melissa Leo and Robert Downey, Jr. get recognition for their exceptional work, and especially saddened that Clint Eastwood and Sally Hawkins did not), since there will be plenty of time for that later. (Yes, we fully intend to have a Film News Briefs editorial or two between now and the ceremony next month and break this son of a gun down like a fraction.) For now, we’ll just direct you to the link below, which will give you the entire list of nominees, and promise that there will be more Oscar coverage and analysis in the coming days and weeks.

PROJECTS ANNOUNCED

Keira Knightley and Colin Farrell are set to star in “London Boulevard,” a crime drama that marks the directing debut of “The Departed” scribe William Monahan. Monahan adapted the Ken Bruen novel. Graham King is producing under his GK Films banner with Monahan and Quentin Curtis. The film will shoot this summer in and around London. Farrell will play a South London criminal who, after release from prison, tries to give up the gangster life by becoming a handyman for a reclusive young actress.

NBC has greenlit a pilot for a dramedy revolving around nurses, while ABC has conjured a pilot order for Warner Bros. TV’s small screen adaptation of “The Witches of Eastwick.” Peacock’s “Mercy” comes from Universal Media Studios and scribe Liz Heldens, who penned the pilot and will serve as exec producer. Project is described as a look at the highs and lows of the lives of three nurses who are good friends. Maggie Friedman is the writer and exec producer of Warner Bros. TV’s latest take on “Eastwick.” Project, based on the on the John Updike novel and the hit 1987 pic, is a light fantasy centering on three women who discover they have supernatural powers after a mysterious man comes to their small town.

Thom Mount’s Reliant Pictures has ponied up $300,000 for Todd Berger’s script “Isaac Gray, W.D.,” an adventure comedy about a witch doctor who uses his power to free patients from evil curses. Reliant expects to begin shooting the project late this year.

PROJECT UPDATES

Mark Ruffalo’s “Sympathy for Delicious” is coming back together. The indie feature, which is serving as Ruffalo’s directorial debut and was to have had James Franco in the cast, fell into limbo after the December death of Ruffalo’s brother, Scott. The project is now back on track, with Orlando Bloom and Laura Linney among the leads. Production begins next week in Los Angeles. The story, written by Christopher Thornton, follows a paralyzed DJ, struggling to survive on the streets of L.A., who turns to faith healing and mysteriously develops the ability to cure the sick — although not himself. The DJ then decides to cash in on his gift in exchange for his rock ‘n’ roll dreams. Bloom, taking over for Franco, will play the frontman of a tough-as-nails rock band. Linney plays as the band’s manager working hard to stay relevant in a 21st century musical world. Thornton, a theater actor who is paralyzed from the waist down, is playing the DJ, and Ruffalo plays a priest.

Word has began circulating widely this week that George Clooney and Julianna Margulies have agreed to cameo appearances on “ER,” reprising their once regular roles on NBC’s long-running hospital drama as it approaches its final episode this spring. Reps for both thesps, as well as NBC and producer Warner Bros., wouldn’t confirm that any shooting dates have been set. But People magazine, quoting sources close to the 15-year-old medical drama, reported that series co-creator John Wells recently ordered a closed set for a Clooney appearance.

Twentieth Century Fox will rely on Shawn Levy to figure out “How to Talk to Girls.” Last month the studio bought rights to the advice guide written by 9-year-old Alec Greven, and Levy will develop the project as a potential directing vehicle. He will produce it under his 21 Laps banner, with 21 Laps president Tom McNulty also to be involved in a producing capacity. Greven began writing the book as an advice guide to help third-grade classmates vexed by the opposite sex. What began as a pamphlet that sold for $3 has grown into a four-book series to be published by HarperCollins, which unveiled the first book in November.

ACQUISITIONS/FESTIVAL NEWS

IFC Films has bought U.S. rights to Armando Iannucci’s comedy “In the Loop” hours before its preem at the Sundance Film Festival. Produced by Kevin Loader and Adam Tandy, “In the Loop” follows a British government minister who inadvertently supports a war on prime-time television. Pic stars Tom Hollander, Peter Capaldi, James Gandolfini, and Steve Coogan.

BUSINESS NEWS

Citing what he termed “the worst crisis in my lifetime,” Sony CEO Howard Stringer on Thursday forecast a net loss of 150 billion yen ($1.7 billion) and announced further restructuring of the company’s ailing businesses at a hastily arranged Tokyo news conference. As recently as Oct. 23, Sony had predicted net profits of the same magnitude, but the company has been battered by the global slowdown, while a strong yen — it hit a 13-year high against the dollar Wednesday — has only exacerbated matters. Last month, Sony said it would cut 16,000 jobs, curb investment and pull out of some businesses to slash $1.1 billion in annual costs. On Thursday, the company confirmed that it plans to close one of its two domestic LCD TV factories, cut an additional 2,000 jobs and call for voluntary redundancies in its Japanese work force, moves aimed at saving 250 billion yen ($2.8 billion) annually. Stringer also announced an across-the-board slashing of management bonuses and reductions in basic salaries. One Sony source in the U.S. said that the cost-reduction measures are being reviewed and implemented in the businesses beyond the electronics unit, but it wasn’t immediately clear if and when the company would disclose them.

In the latest sign of the deepening downturn, Microsoft on Thursday reported weaker-than-expected quarterly earnings, abandoned its previous guidance and announced its first sweeping layoffs. Shares of the software giant and maker of the Xbox 360 video game console were in freefall for the day, closing down 11.6% at $17.14, a 52-week low. The company moved its earnings report from the afternoon to the morning, saying it will cut up to 5,000 positions across its operations out of a work force of about 94,000 during the next 18 months.

INDUSTRY MOVES

Stephen McPherson has expanded his domain at Disney. ABC’s programming chief has taken on oversight of the ABC Studios production wing in the long-awaited restructuring of Disney-ABC TV Group, announced Thursday. Former ABC Studios prexy Mark Pedowitz has segued to a newly created role as senior adviser to Anne Sweeney, co-chair of Disney’s Media Networks division. Sweeney said Pedowitz would work closely with her on big-picture business issues, labor relations and new-media matters.

STRIKE NEWS/LABOR ISSUES

The Screen Actors Guild’s brutal internal battle over beleaguered national exec director Doug Allen shows no signs of abating. Members of SAG’s Hollywood board issued a strong endorsement of Allen on Thursday, a week after engineering a 30-hour stall to prevent the national board from firing him. The statement was signed by 34 of the 71 members of the national board, including president Alan Rosenberg. The moderate wing of SAG’s national board has pledged it will fire Allen on grounds that he’s bungled SAG’s negotiations, defied the will of the board and left members without a new feature-primetime contract for nearly eight months. Despite having the votes to toss Allen out, the moderate wing was blocked by Rosenberg and his allies at the marathon Jan. 12-13 board meeting.

TECHNOLOGY/MULTI-PLATFORM CONTENT

SnagFilms, the ad-supported website for docu streaming and sharing launched in July by ex-AOL exec Ted Leonsis, has pacted with Cinetic to offer more than 100 docs from the sales company’s vault. The list, which includes “Hoop Dreams,” “The Life and Times of Allen Ginsberg” and “Jazz on a Summer Day,” will significantly bolster the site’s current menu of 550 pics. SnagFilms offers them for free, with commercials at various intervals, and uses widget technology to allow users to share the films on Facebook pages, blogs and other sites.

Anxious to see more theaters converted to digital 3-D screens before DreamWorks Animation’s “Monsters vs. Aliens” opens in March, Paramount is offering to pay print fees directly to exhibitors who have the means to finance the conversion. The digital cinema transition has been hit hard by the economic collapse and the freezing of the credit markets, which happened just as the consortium repping the country’s three largest circuits – AMC, Cinemark and Regal – was trying to secure a multimillion-dollar line of credit.

WEBSITE TO WATCH

http://www.pixsycorp.com/

Video is widely recognized as the most compelling and engaging form of content on the web but producing it in any quantity is still expensive for all but deep-pocketed publishers. This video search engine is rolling out a new service called “Premium Feed” which aggregates licensed videos from more than 3,000 providers – many with pre-sold pre roll or overlay ads already embedded. Publishers such as Coorliis and Ego TV, the first two companies to sign up for the service, will be able to choose from millions of syndicated clips to feature on their sites and enjoy in a share of the resulting ad revenue, tied to the views they generate. The video search field remains fiercely competitive so it makes sense for Pixsy to branch out into syndication. Success for the content creators, of course, will come down to their own advertising campaign efforts and the effectiveness of their metadata tags – the tagged words which search tools like Pixsy pull from.