After first being announced at CineEurope in Amsterdam last June, more details are emerging about the Direct From Broadway, an alternative content series aiming to bring musicals from The Great White Way to movie theaters around the world.
New York based Broadway Worldwide, whose production of the Broadway musical “Memphis” found success when it screened in U.S. and Canadian cinemas this past spring, is teaming up with Supervision Media out of the United Kingdom to bring at least four hit musicals to theaters. Along with “Memphis”, the series will feature “Jekyll& Hyde: The Musical” starring David Hasselhoff, “Putting It Together” with Carol Burnett performing Stephen Sondheim tunes and “Smokey Joe’s Cafe: The Songs of Leiber and Stoller”.
From what I can tell from the press release, Broadway Worldwide is the production company behind each of the HD titles and SuperVision Media will be acting as the distributor. SuperVision Media is no stranger to theatrical alternative content. They recently screened Wimbledon in 3D and is in the process of rolling out Michael Flatley’s “Lord of the Dance 3D”.
NCM Fathom distributed “Memphis” in North America back in April and now SuperVision Media will bring the musical to cinemas throughout the rest of the world, starting with the U.K. and Ireland on November 24th. The title will move on to South Africa, Hong Kong and other European countries before the year is out, and then travel to Latin America, Australia and New Zealand in March of 2012.
Read More »
Popularity: 1% [?]
Anyone who has attended an industry trade show this year or has taken even a cursory look at international box office grosses has undoubtedly noticed the increase in revenue being generated in two countries; China and Russia. It’s no secret that the cinema market in both of these territories is on the rise as each goes through their own multiplex boom. While researching a piece on international box office for the July issue of Boxoffice Magazine I was told by Veronika Kwan-Rubinek, President of International Distribution for Warner Bros., “Russia has been the single biggest growth story in the last decade, and China will be the biggest growth market looking ahead.”
I wouldn’t be surprised if Russia continued to be a growth story for some time to come. That’s precisely the subject of a recent IHS Screen Digest report authored by David Hancock. Some of the highlights from the report include:
- Record box office in Russia surpassing the USD $1 billion in 2010
- The market has 2,430 screens of which 297 were added in 2010 – the strongest growth in the last five years
- Over 30% of all the screens in Russia are in Moscow and St. Petersburg
- Of the 941 digital screens in Russia, 95% are capable of showing 3D
Of course, the IHS Screen Digest report contains enough facts and figures to prove the point ten times over, certainly more than can be recounted here. Suffice to say, Russia is now a market that is so important that Paramount held the world premiere of “Transformers 3: Dark of the Moon” in Moscow on June 23rd.
Read More »
Popularity: 1% [?]
The Alamo Drafthouse has gained quite a reputation over the past couple of years as one of the countries best movie theaters. Entertainment Weekly hailed it as the best movie theatre in America and Wired.com went a step further by calling it the “Coolest Movie Theater in the World”. Besides being known for an eclectic mix of programming which is served up alongside beer and barbecue, founder Tim League has also built the Alamo Drafthouse’s reputation through Fantastic Fest, an annual film festival specializing in horror, action, fantasy and science fiction titles.
But if you ever get a chance to visit the Alamo Drafthouse, you may not want to reach for your mobile phone whether it’s to make a phone call or text a friend.
Earlier this week the Alamo Drafthouse gained even more notoriety after a creative anti-texting public service announcement turned into a YouTube viral video. According to a post on the theatre’s website, a patron had to be expelled from the Drafthouse recently after she wouldn’t stop texting in the middle of a movie. Even though the Alamo Drafthouse has a strict zero tolerance policy when it comes to talking or cell phone use during movies, the moviegoer continued to text after being given two warnings to give her thumbs a break. So, Drafthouse employees tossed her to the curb without a refund.
Apparently, the audience member was none too pleased at this turn of events and called the Drafthouse to leave a profanity laden voicemail. The audio from the voicemail turned out to be the perfect soundtrack for League’s PSA, which can be viewed above or on YouTube. (Warning: The patron’s choice of language makes this video a textbook definition of NSFW – Not Safe For Work).
Read More »
Popularity: 1% [?]
Jeffrey Katzenberg
There has been no greater champion of 3D than Dreamworks Animation head Jeffrey Katzenberg. Except maybe filmmaker James Cameron, there have been few, if any, industry cheerleaders as vocal about 3D than Katzenberg. As far back as 2007, Katzenberg could be heard at trade shows and in the press hailing digital 3D as “the single most revolutionary change since color pictures”.
To paraphrase an old cliché, Katzenberg should be careful what he wishes for, he just might get it. Four years after he began touting the new motion picture format digital 3D films have flooded the market in search of incremental box office from ticket surcharges. Though as a string of movies featuring poor 3D conversions hit theaters during a global economic downturn, a majority of moviegoers are choosing the 2D version of recent releases such as Dreamworks’ “Kung Fu Panda 2″.
Now Katzenberg is lamenting the “decline of 3D”, calling it “heartbreaking” in an interview published earlier today by The Hollywood Reporter. Katzenberg stated:
“I think 3D is right smack in the middle of its terrible twos. We have disappointed our audience multiple times now, and because of that I think there is genuine distrust — whereas a year and a half ago, there was genuine excitement, enthusiasm and reward for the first group of 3D films that actually delivered a quality experience. Now that’s been seriously undermined. It’s not in any fashion, shape or form the demise of 3D, but until there are 3D experiences that exceed people’s expectations, it’s going to stay challenged. It’s really heartbreaking to see what has been the single greatest opportunity that has happened to the film business in over a decade being harmed. The audience has spoken, and they have spoken really loudly.”
Read More »
Popularity: 1% [?]
Just this past weekend I was shocked when my daughters, six and four-year-olds, asked who Bugs Bunny was. I’m not sure why I was so surprised, since they watch very little television and most of the movies they’ve seen feature characters from Disney, Pixar and Dreamworks Animation titles. This is probably why my attempt to trigger their memory with a “What’s up Doc?!” in my best Mel Blanc voice was such a failure.
Thanks to YouTube it only took a few minutes to introduce my daughters to not only Bugs Bunny, but Daffy Duck, Elmer Fudd, Wile E. Coyote, Tweety Bird and all the major Looney Tunes characters I remember so fondly from my own youth. Yet, as if responding to my personal predicament, Warner Bros. themselves will be lending me a hand in my daughters animation education.
Earlier today, the studio announced that three new animated Looney Tunes shorts will be shown in theaters in front of Warner Bros. releases. Not only will these new shorts be shown in 3D, but they will feature the voice of Mel Blanc based on recordings he made in the 1950s.
Per the press release, the shorts hitting theaters are as follows:
- “Daffy’s Rhapsody”: In the first of the new shorts, a persistent Elmer Fudd chases Daffy Duck (Blanc) on stage during a musical performance. The short features Blanc performing the song “Daffy Duck’s Rhapsody.” “Daffy’s Rhapsody” is scheduled to debut in theaters on November 18, 2011, in conjunction with Warner Bros. Pictures’ release of “Happy Feet 2.”
- “I Tawt I Taw a Puddy Tat”: A classic game of cat and bird transpires in Granny’s apartment as Tweety Bird goes to great lengths to avoid the clutches of his arch-nemesis Sylvester the Cat. The short also features the hit song of the same name, which was performed by Blanc, and sold over three million copies worldwide.
- Untitled Coyote & Road Runner: Wile E. Coyote’s epic quest to capture the Road Runner continues in this all-new short. Will the Coyote finally get his paws on his elusive prize?>
Read More »
Popularity: 1% [?]
Did anyone hear that loud “whooshing” sound this past weekend? If so, don’t be alarmed. It was just the collective sigh of relief coming from dozens of studio executives upon seeing the weekend’s enormous box office receipts.
The summer movie season started off with a bang here in the United States thanks to the highest grossing Memorial Day weekend of all time. More than USD $277 million was earned by the top 50 motion pictures playing around the country. Sequels led the day with “The Hangover Part II” pocketing USD $85 million, “Kung Fu Panda 2″ chopping away an additional USD $47.6 million and “Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides” walking off with an additional USD $39.8 million.
While I was glad to see the industry rebound from receipts and attendance that were down upwards of 17% and 18% respectively over 2010 figures, I couldn’t help but feel a little skeptical upon seeing the news. Maybe I’ve just grown ambivalent to reading about bar setting box office results that are filled with qualifiers. For instance, the following sentence is from a Box Office Mojo story from this past weekend:
Playing on approximately 6,700 screens at 3,615 locations,”The Hangover Part II” delivered the top-grossing weekend ever ($85.9 million Friday-to-Sunday) for a live-action comedy, and it ranked second to “The Matrix Reloaded” among R-rated movies.
I’m not sure when the industry became so jaded that a praiseworthy USD $85.9 million dollar opening weekend needed to be puffed up further with adjectives like “top-grossing”. Especially when such adjectives have to be qualified with yet another hyphenated descriptor, “live-action comedy”.
Read More »
Popularity: 1% [?]
Over the weekend the Internet lit up with news about a pirated version of the red-band trailer for the English language remake of “The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo”. It wasn’t long before speculation arose that Sony Pictures, the distributor releasing the film, had actually planted the trailer on YouTube as part of a viral marketing campaign.
Adapted from the first novel in Steig Larsson’s best selling trilogy, “The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo” is being directed by David Fincher and is due to hit theatres worldwide before the end of the year. A Swedish adaptation of the novel was a worldwide hit when it was released in 2009.
The online appearance of the red-band trailer had movie bloggers frothing at the mouth for a number of reasons, including the popularity of the source material and Fincher’s stature as a modern day American auteur. But what really got their juices flowing was a growing conspiracy theory that Sony had purposefully leaked a trailer.
The Hollywood Reporter and Mashable were some of the many media outlets to point out a few inconsistencies:
- While the trailer starts out looking as if it was captured secretly with a camcorder inside a dark movie theatre, after the first few seconds the off-center, shaky image becomes more steady and clear.
- The quality of the audio is much better than traditional camcorder versions of pirated movies and the video can be viewed in HD.
- The red-band trailer for “Dragon Tattoo” was only released in theatres internationally, however the online footage begins with the MPAA’s red-band advisory notice. This poses the question as to why international markets would show a an advisory from a U.S. ratings board.
Read More »
Popularity: 1% [?]
Shortly after the 8.9-magnitude earthquake occurred off the coast of Japan on March 11th numerous rumors and speculation have swirled around the exhibition industry over its impact on the availability of digital cinema equipment. In part, this was spurred on by Texas Instruments reporting that their manufacturing plant in Miho, Japan, about 40 miles northeast of Tokyo, “suffered substantial damage” during the quake.
Because third of the output at TI’s Miho plant is dedicated to DLP production. The DLP chip is one of the most important parts in digital cinema projectors manufactured by Barco, Christie and NEC, so it was initially thought that the industry would once again face a shortage of equipment. However, since then both Barco and Christie have publicly said they have enough inventory on hand to meet demand for months, if not a year, into the future.
As the number of emails coming in to Celluloid Junkie with questions about the issue increased to more than two dozen, I felt it appropriate to give TI a call for an update. What I learned was that, most importantly, all of TI’s personnel are safe and unharmed. The company’s fabs in both Miho and Aizu-Wakamtsu (about 150 miles north of Tokyo) were damaged in the earthquake. At Miho, the building withstood the earthquake, though the manufacturing equipment inside was damaged as it got tossed around with all of the shaking.
By the end of March repairs at Miho were finished on the facility’s infrastructure systems that deliver water, gases, chemicals and air. Most significantly, the fabs cleanroom was recertified. At the time, 90 percent of the plant’s equipment had passed electrical tests.
Read More »
Popularity: 1% [?]
After first being announced at CineEurope in Amsterdam last June, more details are emerging about the Direct From Broadway, an alternative content series aiming to bring musicals from The Great White Way to movie theaters around the world.
Entries RSS
