MONDAY JUNE 29, 2009 « Film News Briefs

June 29, 2009

MONDAY JUNE 29, 2009

BOX OFFICE

Weekend Estimate

June 26-28, 2009 (*millions)

FILM GROSS

1 Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen (2009) $112M

2 The Proposal (2009) $18.5M

3 The Hangover (2009) $17.2M

4 Up (2009) $13M

5 My Sister’s Keeper (2009) $12M

6 Year One (2009) $5.8M

7 The Taking of Pelham 1 2 3 (2009) $5.4M

8 Star Trek (2009) $3.61M

9 Night at the Museum: Battle of the Smithsonian (2009) $3.5M

10 Away We Go (2009) $1.68M

PROJECTS ANNOUNCED

Marking the first major acquisition for newly appointed Paramount Film Group prexy Adam Goodman, the studio has paid seven figures upfront for action-comedy pitch “License to Steal.” Shane Salerno will pen the script. Project is loosely based on Marc Weingarten’s Salon.com article about the high-end repo business, in which agents travel all the world to reclaim play toys including private jets and speedboats. Par teamed on the purchase with Skydance Prods., David Ellison’s production and financing company. Skydance is in discussions to possibly co-finance the picture.

“Hustle and Flow” helmer Craig Brewer has signed on to direct the FX pilot “Terriers.” Half-hour comedy, from Shawn Ryan and Ted Griffin, revolves around an ex-cop-turned-private eye. Fox 21 is behind the project, along with Ryan’s Midd Kid Prods. shingle.

A trio of prominent producers are teaming up for “Havana Nocturne,” a story of gangsters in 1950’s Cuba based on T.J. English’s New York Times bestseller. Eric Eisner (”Hamlet 2″), Gil Adler (”Superman Returns”), and Shane McCarthy (untitled Robert Cooley mob drama at Paramount) are attached as producers on the project. Eisner’s L+E banner will produce and finance development, while Adler will produce via his Gilbert Adler Prods. “Nocturne” centers on a group of mainly American gangsters in Batista’s Cuba, particularly Meyer Lansky, who run the freewheeling country’s casinos, nightclubs and other debaucherous businesses, and the rivalries that emerge as they lead the high life. But the good times of their so-called “mobsters paradise” threaten to end when Castro’s rebels and the Cuban Revolution begin to gather steam. William Morrow published English’s book last year. Matt Cirulnick has signed on to pen the script.

Aline Brosh McKenna has been stocking up on the Purell. The “27 Dresses” screenwriter is penning “We Bought a Zoo” for Fox. The studio picked up the rights to Benjamin Mee’s memoir in February for former Firm exec Julie Yorn to produce. Mee’s book, published in September by Weinstein Books, tells of how he, his cancer-stricken wife and their kids purchased a rundown zoo in the English countryside along with its 200 exotic animals and rehabilitated them.

“Caroline in the City” star Lea Thompson and “The Whole Ten Yards” director Howard Deutch have teamed for “A Town Called Malice,” a dramedy in development at production/management company Elevate Entertainment. Thompson is attached to star and Deutch to direct the project, written by Erin Maher and Kaye Reindl (”Moonlight”). It centers on a former rock ‘n roll star (Thompson) who returns to her hometown with her estranged teenage daughter after her husband self-destructs during a comeback concert. Faced with the loss of the family fortune, the two must rebuild their lives as well as their relationship in the small town Mom ran away from when she was 16.

PROJECT UPDATES

Brandon Camp has come onboard to direct the family comedy “Relativity” for Walden Media with Brad Epstein (”Dan in Real Life”) producing. Story centers on a close-knit family that comes together for the parents’ 30th wedding anniversary only to have their adult children stumble upon the family secret — that they’re all adopted. Peter A. Craig wrote the original script, and Daniel Cohn and Jeremy Miller penned the most recent draft.

ACQUISITIONS/FESTIVAL NEWS

The Los Angeles Film Festival kicked some serious butt this past weekend, recognizing Sam Fleischner and Ben Chace for “Wah Do Dem (What They Do)” for Best Narrative Feature and Juan Carlos Rulfo and Carlos Hagerman for “Those Who Remain (Los Que se Quedan).”

BUSINESS NEWS

Gil Cates Jr. and Caitlin Murney have teamed to form Ten/Four Pictures, aimed at development, co-production and financing of features in the $8 million-$15 million range. The shingle, located at Smashbox Studios in West Hollywood, plans to deliver four features over the next three years in the wake of overall retrenchment by the majors from moderately priced projects.

“Reaper” co-star Missy Peregrym has been tapped as the lead of Canadian cop drama “Copper,” which will air on ABC. Billed as “Grey’s Anatomy” set in the world of rookie cops, “Copper” centers on Andy McNally (Peregrym), a newly minted cop fresh from the academy and the daughter of a homicide detective. She is anxious about her first day on the job, which doesn’t go as well as she had wished.

Producer Charlie Siskel has landed two high-profile cable comedy-series gigs. He has been tapped as executive producer/showrunner on Comedy Central’s breakout hit “Important Things With Demetri Martin” and has signed as an executive producer on Showtime’s upcoming series starring British comedian Marc Wootton. On “Important Things,” which mixes stand-up comedy, sketches, animation and studio bits, Siskel will executive produce alongside Demetri Martin and Jon Stewart. At Showtime, Siskel will executive produce alongside Wootton on the comedian’s untitled series. The half-hour project, which has a six-episode order, will feature Wootton’s character-driven sketches that have made him famous in the U.K. and have drawn comparisons to fellow Brit Sacha Baron Cohen.

STRIKE NEWS/LABOR ISSUES

While yesterday’s annual SAG membership meeting of the Hollywood division at the Marriott Downtown marked the start of the campaign for many candidates for the board, there weren’t many members willing to officially declare for the hot-potato office of guild president. The meeting, open only to SAG members, included updates from first VP Anne-Marie Johnson, national interim exec director David White and Hollywood exec director Ilyanne Kichaven. Aside from Alan Rosenberg saying conditionally three weeks ago that he’d seek a third two-year term, no one else has stepped forward. A variety of names have been rumored, including national board member Adam Arkin, Jason Alexander and former secretary-treasurer James Cromwell for the self-styled moderates of Unite for Strength; and Johnson, secretary-treasurer Connie Stevens and Martin Sheen for the self-styled progressives of Membership First.

TECHNOLOGY/MULTI-PLATFORM CONTENT

YooStar, a startup company that debuted in January, is getting ready to launch a system that lets fans insert themselves into classic movie scenes and act “alongside” the movie stars for $170. In a nutshell, YooStar wants to be “Guitar Hero” for movies. The YooStar retail package, which hits stores in mid-August, includes a greenscreen, a high-resolution webcam (which includes dual microphones and remote control), stand and software. Once fans have inserted themselves into a scene, they can share the clip on their own computer or upload free to a YouTube-like site hosted by YooStar, where anyone can view it. Five studios — Paramount, Universal, MGM, Warner Bros. and Lionsgate — have partnered with the company, as have the National Basketball Assn. and Sesame Workshop’s “Sesame Street” franchise. The package will ship with 14 clips (11 from films, one from “Sesame Street” and two “moving backgrounds,” which allow users to improvise a scene).

WEBSITE TO WATCH

http://www.history.com/expedition/episode-1/

Cable networks, the side of the TV business that Jeff Zucker says delivers 60% of the profit for NBCU, no longer just see themselves as television programmers. A new show is now the center piece of a full slate of accompanying digital products that have lives, audiences and sponsors of their own. For instance, History has created a comprehensive array of content around this new 8-episode Mark Burnett-produced miniseries that sets out to recreate journalist Henry Morton Stanley’s 1871 search for missing explorer Dr. David Livingstone. A cool exploration tool iPhone app developed by Moderati calculates the distance between a user and an object using GPS coordinates. A trio of beautifully designed interactive games powered by Pod Digital Design for History.com, Facebook and the iPhone, puts a lot of historical meat on the bones of a series that has been broadened out to appeal to a wider audience. An iPhone app or a casual game can cost a lot to develop – History SVP of Marketing Chris Moseley says the network devoted 25% more than usual to its digital efforts around Expedition. But now the network has something to show for its efforts that will have a much longer life span than a traditional marketing campaign. It’s hard to precisely calculate what kind of effect a successful app (the Expedition: The Game app is currently ranked #32 on the free app list) has on ratings but it’s pretty hard to top the kind of engagement these applications facilitate.