“In 2008, when Pinewood first opened, production in the city descended to an ominous low of $499 million. Contrast that to 2016 when film and television production soared to a remarkable $2.01 billion. It is the third record-setting year in a row, up from $1.5 billion in 2015. And this year, based on interviews with … Continue reading “How Toronto Quickly Built A $2 Billion Movie Industry”
“Along with fellow streaming service Netflix, Amazon represents a serious threat to the bedrock institutions that traffic in prestige film – the art-house heavyweights (Fox Searchlight, Weinstein, Focus, Lionsgate, Sony Pictures Classics) that thrive under the shadow of the Big Six (Paramount, Sony, Fox, Disney, Warner Bros. and Universal) largely thanks to the Oscar contenders … Continue reading “With A New Oscar-Contending Movie, Amazon Is Disrupting The Movie Industry”
“Your expectations are disrupted. And I believe that’s what I’m here for. I hold that flag.”
Sixty-one years after the night 14-year-old Emmett Till was lynched, “the rise of the Black Lives Matter movement and the string of controversial killings of black men by the police have given new impetus to efforts to film the story of Till, with at least three screen adaptations in the works.”
“Decades from now, maybe it’ll be easier to discuss the Oscars without breaking everything down by ethnicity and gender. We’ll only need to change the entire makeup of the academy membership, not to mention the power structure of the film industry, for that to happen.”
“Director Spike Lee and the actress Jada Pinkett Smith announced they would not be attending the ceremony on Feb. 28.”
Tshering Wangyel wrote, directed and shot at least two films a year – and for years carried a portable screen, projector and generator himself to villages throughout the Himalayan kingdom. His Bollywood-meets-Buddhism style ultimately became more popular with Bhutanese audiences than the Indian movies that had dominated the market.
“The California Institute of the Arts (CalArts) has published an interactive graphic demonstrating that since 1985, graduates of the school’s programs in character and experimental animation have brought Hollywood $30.6 billion in worldwide box office revenue as directors of feature films.”
“In a next wave, China’s emerging film companies are proposing to reverse the equation, by finding Chinese stories with global appeal and just enough American content or backing to attract viewers who have grown comfortable with Hollywood-style movies.”
Metegol was made in Buenos Aires for $22 million, a fortune there but a pittance in Hollywood. Yet “the quality of the animation is indistinguishable, to the average movie-goer, from major U.S. studio films.” And the movie is poised to become a breakout hit.
