MONDAY MARCH 16, 2009 « Film News Briefs

March 16, 2009

MONDAY MARCH 16, 2009

BOX OFFICE

Weekend Estimate

March 13-15, 2009 (*millions)

FILM GROSS

1 Race to Witch Mountain (2009) $25M

2 Watchmen (2009) $18.1M

3 The Last House on the Left (2009) $14.7M
4 Taken (2008/I) $6.65M

5 Madea Goes to Jail (2009) $5.13M

6 Slumdog Millionaire (2008) $5.03M

7 Paul Blart: Mall Cop (2009) $3.1M

8 He’s Just Not That Into You (2009) $2.9M

9 Coraline (2009) $2.65M

10 Miss March (2009) $2.35M

PROJECTS ANNOUNCED

Looking to match its “Race to Witch Mountain” director Andy Fickman with another family adventure film, Walt Disney Studios has attached him to helm “Monster Attack Network.” Scott Elder and Josh Harmon have been hired to adapt the AIT/Planet Lar graphic novel, which the studio bought last summer. The 2007 graphic novel focuses on a team of first-responders who guard the citizens of Lapuatu, a Pacific island that would be a paradise except for frequent attacks by giant monsters that rise from the sea. Marc Bernardin and Adam Freeman wrote the graphic novel, illustrated by Nima Sorat.

RKO’s Roseblood Movie Co. and Twisted Pictures have set Adam Marcus to direct “I Walked With a Zombie,” the remake of the Val Lewton RKO 1943 classic. Marcus, who directed “Jason Goes to Hell: The Final Friday,” has written the script with Debra Sullivan, his writing partner on the Val Kilmer starrer “Conspiracy.” The film focuses on a private tutor who discovers a terrifying family secret while working at the ancient estate of a New Orleans businessman. The original was a forerunner of the corps of walking corpse films that followed. Hartley called the film one of the most valuable in the RKO library.

Former pro football player Michael Strahan, who now serves as a football analyst for “Fox NFL Sunday,” is trying out his sitcom chops. Strahan is set to star in the laffer pilot “Brothers” (working title), which Fox greenlit on Friday. Sony Pictures TV and the prolific Tantamount label — which already has six other pilots in the works this season — are behind the project, which comes from scribe Don Reo. Also set to star: Daryl “Chill” Mitchell (“Ed”). Ted Wass is attached to direct. “Brothers” will star Strahan as a retired NFL player who returns to his hometown and starts working to reconnect with his family — especially his brother (Mitchell), who is confined to a wheelchair following a car accident.

Turner Classic Movies is diving deep into Hollywood’s past in ordering a 10-hour docu series on the history of Hollywood moguls from Bill Haber’s Ostar Prods. “Moguls and Movie Stars: A History of Hollywood,” skedded to bow next year, will primarily focus on the lives and legacies of filmdom’s founders, including such enigmatic figures as Carl Laemmle, Louis B. Mayer, Darryl Zanuck, William Fox, the Warner brothers, Samuel Goldwyn and Adolph Zukor. It will also examine the pre-Hollywood era and the work of such film pioneers as Thomas Edison and the Lumiere brothers.

New Line is using twine, bubble gum and a pencil to throw “MacGyver” into development as a feature film. “MacGyver” was a science-oriented adventure series that ran from 1985-92 on ABC. Richard Dean Anderson, later of “Stargate: Atlantis” and “SG-1″ fame, starred as an incredibly resourceful secret agent for the Phoenix Foundation who frequently would escape from dangerous situations with ingenious and lightning-quick engineering trickery. No writer is attached, but the studio hopes to find a script that can acknowledge how the concept has staked a place into pop culture yet still makes for a serious and fun adventure movie.

Disney has picked up “Wouldn’t It Be Nice,” a family comedy pitch from writing-directing team Barry Blaustein and Jason Hefter. Andrew Gunn is producing via his studio-based Gunn Films. The story follows a teenage couple who, just before they plan to run away together and pursue their dreams, are magically zapped 20 years into the future only to discover that their lives didn’t necessarily turn out as expected. In their mid-30s but with teenage minds — and dealing with three kids and everyday worries — they learn that maybe they weren’t as grown up as they once thought.

Spike TV has picked up football-themed comedy pilot “Blue Mountain State” to series. The 12-episode order for the project, from producer Brian Robbins, is the second new comedy series pickup recently for Spike, which also greenlighted the Matt Walsh starrer “Players.” Produced by Lionsgate TV and Robbins’ Varsity Pictures, “Mountain” is in the vein of “Animal House.” The series follows three incoming freshmen (Darin Brooks, Chris Romano, Sam Jones III) who attend Midwestern football powerhouse Blue Mountain State and quickly must adapt to college life while juggling football, women, classes and nonstop hazing.

PROJECT UPDATES

Aasif Mandvi, Shaun Toub, Cliff Curtis and Keong Sim have joined the cast of M. Night Shyamalan’s “The Last Airbender” for Paramount Pictures and Nickelodeon Movies. They join Noah Ringer — who plays the title role — Nicola Peltz, Jackson Rathbone and “Slumdog Millionaire’s” Dev Patel in the movie based on the popular anime-inspired Nickelodeon TV series. The live-action feature is being produced by Shyamalan, Sam Mercer and Frank Marshall. The shoot is scheduled to begin in this month for a release on July 2, 2010. In the film, the four nations — Air, Water, Earth and Fire — are in turmoil as the Fire Nation wages war on the others. Aang (Ringer) is the lone Avatar who can manipulate all four elements and possibly restore peace to their world.

And you thought silent films were dead. Billionaire and first-time director Dan Pritzker has completed shooting a pair of films, including one that’s a silent, complete with the dialogue title cards that were commonplace before those films became obsolete nearly 80 years ago. Son of the late Hyatt Hotels chain magnate Jay Pritzker, Dan Pritzker is listed 246th on the 2008 Forbes list of “400 Richest Americans,” with a reported net worth of $1.9 billion. He fully financed both films and spared no expense, according to production sources who watched the shooting in North Carolina, where Pritzker spent the better part of a year lensing. The 68-minute silent film “Louis” covers the childhood of Louis Armstrong, who learned to play the horn from the back of a horse-drawn truck that sold coal and firewood in New Orleans. Pritzker is also in post-production on “Bolden,” a traditional talkie biopic of horn player Buddy Bolden, who may have invented jazz but went insane before he recorded a note of music. “Bolden,” which stars Anthony Mackie and Jackie Earle Haley, will be completed by late summer. Pritzker put 15 years of planning and a lot of money into the dual film project. There were rumors that the shoot sometimes became as improvisational as its jazz music subject matter. In 2007 Pritzker told the New York Times that he hoped to shoot the films for around $10 million; he’s now gone past $25 million.

Steve Rash has signed on to direct “Crooked Arrows,” an underdog sports comedy set in the world of lacrosse. Mitchell Peck and Adam Leff, who co-wrote and exec produced “Bio-Dome,” are producing with J. Todd Harris (“Bottle Shock”). The film centers on a 30-year-old of mixed blood who must postpone his casino-building dreams to coach the inept local Native American high school lacrosse squad against the prep school league in which he used to star. Todd Baird wrote the script.

Chevy Chase has been tapped to co-star on the NBC comedy pilot “Community,” marking his first potential full-time primetime series gig. The Sony-produced “Community,” which is being directed by Anthony and Joe Russo, is described as “Stripes” at a community college. It centers on Jeff (Joel McHale), a lawyer who is back in school after his college degree is deemed invalid. Chase will play another student at the community college who has been married five times.

Oscar winner Richard Dreyfuss has been tapped to star opposite Jason Biggs in “Happiness Isn’t Everything,” Mitch Hurwitz’s comedy pilot for CBS. “Happiness,” from Sony TV and CBS Paramount, revolves around adult siblings and their parents who are overinvolved in each other’s lives. Dreyfuss will play the pushy, loving and funny patriarch of the family, with Biggs playing his son.

And, of course, since it’s still March and almost spring time, it’s still Pilot Season, which means more casting news, which you can find down below by clicking the last link in the Project Updates section of links south of here. Click it (go ahead, we dare you), and get the full skinny.

ACQUISITIONS/FESTIVAL NEWS

Oscilloscope Laboratories has acquired the domestic distribution rights to Samsara Films’ “Unmistaken Child.” The pic, which preemed last fall at the Toronto Film Festival, was helmed by Nati Baratz and follows a shy, devoted disciple, Tenzin Zopa, as he searches for the reincarnation of his teacher and world renowned master, Lama Konchog. The pic will bow in theaters on June 3 at the Film Form with a DVD release shortly after in the fall with Oscilloscope donating 20% of the profits from the film to Tibetan Buddhist orgs.

BUSINESS NEWS

Harlan Ellison has sued CBS Paramount over its alleged failure to pay him for the merchandising, publishing and other exploitations of “City on the Edge of Forever,” an early “Star Trek” episode that he wrote. Ellison, in an action filed Friday in federal court in Los Angeles, also sued the Writers Guild of America for its alleged failure to act on his behalf but is seeking only $1 in damages plus attorneys fees and court costs from the guild. The suit accuses CBS Paramount and WGA of breaching the collective bargaining agreement and also accuses the guild of breaching its duty of fair representation.

“Watchmen” co-writer David Hayter has teamed with producer Benedict Carver to form Dark Hero Studios, a company that will generate film, TV, Internet and vidgame projects in the action, sci-fi and horror genres. Formation of the company comes as Hayter prepares to make his directorial debut on his werewolf thriller script “Slaughter’s Road,” with Carver producing along with Steven Paul through Crystal Sky Prods. Production begins in the summer.

STRIKE NEWS/LABOR ISSUES

Despite recent nudges by Tom Hanks and other high-profile thesps, SAG and the congloms have stayed silent about their long-stalled film-TV negotiations. The Screen Actors Guild has yet to officially acknowledge informal moves by Hanks, George Clooney and other stars to persuade the congloms to find a compromise on the issue of when the SAG’s master feature-primetime contract would expire. The Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers has also not commented on the moves by the stars, but people close to the situation have indicated that the stars’ foray is being taken seriously. Hanks and Clooney backed the moderate coalition that’s in control of SAG’s national board on key occasions — by urging SAG a year ago to start talks early and by coming out against a strike authorization in December.

WEBSITE TO WATCH

http://d23.disney.go.com/index.html?cmp=d23_OFC_D23_vanity_23_Extl

Disney hopes to capitalize on the digital media boom with this new site that offers content and collectibles for all ages. Positioned as a kind of online fan club, it will offer a full range of entertainment content to deliver on the “ultimate Disney Fan Experience,” including news, interviews with creators and theme park executives, interactive exhibitions, celebrity appearances and advance screenings of Disney films. Much of the exclusive content, such as access to the Walt Disney Archives or the online merchandise outlet Boutique 23, is available only to D23 members who pay an annual $75 subscription fee. To promote D23 (named after 1923, the year Walt Disney founded the company,) Disney will host a D23 Expo September 10-13 at the Anaheim Convention Center. D23 is also the name of new quarterly glossy publication chock full of articles and interviews about the Disney empire. The site is beautifully designed and die hard fans of the “Mouse House” won’t hesitate to fork over $75 for a deeper connection to the cult that Walt built. But most online consumers – accustomed to finding online content for free – may hesitate to fork over a hefty fee for what is ostensibly a marketing vehicle. (This includes parents who already pay $58/year for each of their kids to access Club Penguin.)

OBITUARY

We don’t do this very often, but we have to mention the passing of an esteemed member of the community. Ron Silver died yesterday morning at the age of 62, a victim of esophageal cancer, which he’d been fighting for two years. He died in his sleep, surrounded by his family, and we mourn his passing. Ron has always been a favorite of ours, from his Tony Award-winning performance in David Mamet’s “Speed-the-Plow,” to his amazing turns in “Reversal of Fortune,” “The West Wing” and “Enemies: A Love Story,” amongst many, many others. He leaves behind an ex-wife, a son, a daughter, and a legion of fans who loved his work. He will be missed.