Online film investment site Slated is touting its entrée into the cyber-marketplace with its first two projects since its formal launch at the 2012 Sundance Film Festival: The Seagull and a follow up to award-winning doc Roman Polanski: Wanted And Desired both raised "significant portions" of their production resources through Slated and headed into production.
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The U.S. military has a history of joining forces with Hollywood. Michael Bay's Transformers franchise and Peter Berg's Battleship have cozied up to the military to take advantage of defense material, while the Pentagon gets to market itself to moviegoers. (To say nothing of the recent Navy SEAL showcase Act of Valor.) So how did The Avengers not make the cut?
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In this morning's Biz Break: Indian ire rises over The Avengers, a Chinese company eyes AMC theaters, vet actors join the musical comedy How Sweet It Is, the Chinese blockbuster Flying Swords of Dragon Gate is headed to IMAX, and more.
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Remember The Artist, that silent, black-and-white homage to classic Hollywood and awards-season juggernaut that you thought you might have heard the last of after Uggie (and his book deal) went hamming it up down the red carpet at the White House Correspondents' Dinner, or after summer movie season commenced in record-breaking fashion? Ha. Guess what's getting a re-release in theaters — just in time for Mother's Day?
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Because losing one indelible artist last Friday apparently wasn't enough, the cosmos has now claimed illustrator and author Maurice Sendak. The creator of Where the Wild Things Are reportedly suffered a stroke last Friday and died early today at a hospital in Danbury, Conn. He was 83.
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The Avengers had an even better weekend than initially thought. The Academy sets up a new outdoor screening venue and it looks like Kick-Ass is getting a sequel. Those are among the spotlights in Monday afternoon's Biz Break round up. Also in the mix, Arnold Schwarzenegger picks up a gig and actor Mark Ruffalo's Twitter account gets hacked.
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The Academy of Motion Pictures Arts and Sciences is expanding its efforts to safeguard film history: As part of its $2 million "Film-to-Film" initiative, prints of titles such as 42nd Street (1933), The Asphalt Jungle (1950), Barry Lyndon (1975), Grease (1978), The Princess Bride (1987) and others have been acquired by the organization that runs the annual Oscars ceremony for preservation.
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The extended Q&A transcript from James Cameron's China-focused chat with the New York Times and The Economist reveals the extent of Cameron's Avatar-tunnel vision. "I’ve divided my time over the last 16 years over deep ocean exploration and filmmaking. I’ve made two movies in 16 years, and I’ve done eight expeditions. Last year I basically completely disbanded my production company’s development arm. So I’m not interested in developing anything. I’m in the Avatar business. Period. That’s it. I’m making Avatar 2, Avatar 3, maybe Avatar 4, and I’m not going to produce other people’s movies for them." Looks like it'll be all Avatar, all the time from here on out, which is... good news? [NYT]
Editor's note: The following piece, originally published by the author at Movie City News, was written after the New York premiere of the Beastie Boys' concert film Awesome; I Fuckin' Shot That! in 2006. The project was one of many films and videos made by the Beasties' late Adam Yauch under his directorial nom de plume Nathanial Hörnblowér; Movieline today republishes the piece in remembrance. — STV
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Up in Canada, documentary festival Hot Docs gave out its prizes over the weekend, while Stateside, the Tribeca Film Festival unveiled plans for a new event in Italy. Madonna remembers Beasties' Adam Yauch and Morgan Spurlock launches a new production company. Check out more in Monday's Biz Break.
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Speculation has swirled for a while now about whether or not Fox and Ridley Scott would pursue a PG-13 rating for its blockbuster hopeful Prometheus, which, if previews and disgusting animated GIFs are any indication, has plenty of raw sci-fi terrors to back up an R. But one fan who locked up an advance ticket to the film might have unintentionally solved the ratings puzzle.
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Congratulations Marvel’s The Avengers, you win. But some people did break away from the mobs to see something different. The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel did a fine job launching in 27 theaters, grossing $750,000 for a $27,789 average. Pretty good, all things considered, and only a tad shy of last weekend’s $30,000 per-theater average for Richard Linklater's Bernie. Meanwhile, the people behind the latter film weren’t shy singing its praises. “Bernie is a potential crossover hit best reviews of [Jack] Black’s career. His audience could show up big,” Cinetic’s John Sloss told us. His company sold the film to Millennium back in July and he’s still looking out for it on a sunny Sunday... Read more at Deadline.
Sorry to follow up news of The Avengers' record-breaking box office with just another ho-hum bit of Marvel Studios supremacy, but leave it to Edgar Wright to commit a little thunder thievery with his tweet reminding us not to forget about his long, long gestating Marvel adaptation Ant-Man.
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Movieline joins music and film fans in mourning the death of Adam Yauch - a.k.a. MCA, one-third of rap legends the Beastie Boys, influential filmmaker and music-video director, and founder of independent-film distributor Oscilloscope Laboratories. In other film news, Friday afternoon's Biz Break includes rundowns on Jonah Hill's collaboration with Martin Scorsese, Cannes' new addition to its official selection, Dustin Hoffman's directorial debut, and UTA's failed bid for a Beverly Hills street name.
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Cinco de Mayo weekend will surely belong to Marvel's The Avengers, which has already racked up $18.7 million in U.S. grosses courtesy of last night's midnight screenings. The superhero filled adventure has been pegged as possibly this year's biggest box office draw — time will tell. But for those who want to check out something else besides superheroes (or want to resuscitate from its aftermath) there are plenty of specialty releases opening this weekend including Fox Searchlight's India-set The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel, Sundance Selects' dance doc First Position, ATO's water doc Last Call at the Oasis, Kathleen Turner starrer The Perfect Family. And, if you need a little more Samuel L. Jackson in your life post-Avengers, check out his other opener Meeting Evil.
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