Playtone has secured the film rights for Jeanne DuPrau's young adult bestseller, THE CITY OF EMBER, reports VARIETY. Partners Tom Hanks and Gary Goetzman are negotiating with Caroline Thompson (EDWARD SCISSORHANDS) to write the screenplay and Gil Kenan to make his directorial debut. Walden Media is in talks to co-produce and co-finance the picture.
Post Logic Studios will relocate its visual effects boutique creocollective from Santa Monica to the Hollywood facility, which was recently renovated with a digital intermediate theater.
With this move, creocollective feature film and commercial clients will be able to take advantage of on-site DI, restoration, audio post-production and HD mastering services to complement creocollectives slate of high-end visual effects, 3D and compositing capabilities.
As anticipated Guillermo del Toros recently released directors cut of HELLBOY on DVD (Columbia TriStar Home Ent. $34.95) offers minor improvements in characterization to make this a worthwhile purchase, along with several additional bonus features on this three-disc set. The new footage sheds light on Rasputin and Ilsa as well as greater interplay between Myers and Liz Sherman. New footage is seamlessly integrated into the feature with no loss in quality.
New bonus features include:
Phillip Miller has been appointed evp of business development of mental images U.S. subsidiary, mental images Inc. Miller joins mental images with a noteworthy career of defining and promoting leading software solutions at Autodesk, Discreet, and Instant Effects in addition to architectural design.
As expected, Sony Pictures Imageworks got the SUPERMAN RETURNS gig after Warner Bros. took it away from ESC Ent., forcing it to close shop and go on hiatus, reports HOLLYWOOD REPORTER.
Former Imageworks staffer Mark Stetson, who is supervising vfx for Warner Bros., was instrumental in helping Sony beat out ILM in the bidding.
Luxology Llc. announced its Japanese distribution partnership with Mars Inc. Headquartered in Fukuoka, Japan, Mars will be the primary Japanese distributor for the Luxology product line starting with the highly anticipated modo, the powerful new subdivision surface and polygonal modeling platform. Mars will also handle localization, support, marketing and sales for Luxology products throughout the region. The English-language version of modo is available now through Mars, and the Japanese-language version will be available in January 2005.
Walt Disney Pictures has hired Pulitzer Prize-winning author Michael Chabon to pen SNOW AND THE SEVEN, a martial arts take on SNOW WHITE AND THE SEVEN DWARFS, reports HOLLYWOOD REPORTER. Hong Kong director Yuen Wo Ping will make his English-language directorial debut on the film. Andrew Gunn is producing with Gunnfilm's Ann Marie Sanderlin serving as exec producer. Brigham Taylor is overseeing the film for the studio. Set in 1880s British colonial China, the fantasy and martial arts film will follow the Grimm Brothers fairy tale with seven Shaolin monks aiding the heroine.
Production maquettes from Pendragon Pictures' new movie version of H.G. Wells' THE WAR OF THE WORLDS will be featured in the new WAR OF THE WORLDS exhibit opening at Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen's Science Fiction Museum and Hall of Fame beginning Oct. 30, 2004. The exhibit, which will run for one year, also features dozens of book editions, radio, film and stage adaptations. An array of artists' interpretations of the Martian invasion, including a collection of original illustrations for the 1906 le Vandamme edition of the novel by Brazilian artist Alvim Correa will be on display.
Paramount Pictures and producer Scott Rudin have teamed to remake THE BLOB, reports VARIETY. The original films producer Jack Harris worked out a deal with Warner Bros., producers of the 1958 Steve McQueen version, to bring the remake rights to Paramount where he has production deal. Studio evp Brian Witten and creative exec Ed Goemans will oversee the pic. No writer or director has been signed.
Revolution Studios is set to remake John Carpenters 1980 horror flick, THE FOG, reports VARIETY. THE CORE scribe Cooper Layne has been hired to pen the screenplay. Debra Hill and Carpenter, who wrote the original, will produce along with David Foster. Production is scheduled to begin in February. The original film was set in a Northern California coastal town where a thick fog descends and brings back the drowned seaman who died in a shipwreck 100 years prior.
NewTek Inc. announced the port of its Emmy Award-winning LightWave 3D to the Intel EM64T and AMD64 platforms. NewTek touts LightWave 3D as the first professional 3D graphics application to publicly reveal plans for a 64-bit port.
Touting feature-film quality computer animation, Blur Studio has produced a CG cinematic for one of this years most anticipated games, THQs WARHAMMER 40,000: DAWN OF WAR. The thrilling, two-minute film, included with the game CD, introduces players to WARHAMMERS dark, futuristic fantasy universe through an intense, tactical battle between legions of alien warriors.
Sci Fi Channel has given the thumbs up on a two-hour pilot, PAINKILLER JANE, based on Joe Quesada and Jim Palmiotti's Event Comic series. NBC Universal TV Studios is set to produce in association with MGM TV. John Harrison (FRANK HERBERT'S DUNE), Don Opper and Greg Gold will write and exec produce the show. Production is set to start by the end of the year. The story follows Jane, a young Marine who after being exposed to a biochemical weapon gains self-healing powers, which she uses to fight crime and dodge the military.
NVIDIA reported that the rapid adoption of its leading family of 3D graphics processing units (GPUs) has moved it into the number one spot in the Microsoft DirectX 9.0, or high-end performance segment of the market, rising from 26% share in the second quarter of 2004 to 64% share in the third quarter of 2004, according to market analyst firm Mercury Research.
Warner Bros. Interactive Ent., DC Comics and Electronic Arts will join forces to bring BATMAN BEGINS to multiple videogame platforms in 2005. In this exclusive co-publishing agreement, a game based on the upcoming film will be released day and date with the film on the PlayStation 2, the PSP (PlayStation Portable), Xbox, Nintendo GameCube and Game Boy Advance.
With George Lucas rejecting the last script from Frank Darabont, Lucas and director Steven Spielberg have hired CATCH ME IF YOU CAN/THE TERMINAL scribe Jeff Nathanson to take a crack at penning the fourth installment of INDIANA JONES, reports VARIETY.
When word leaked to us that the shuttered Walt Disney Animation (Japan) studio was reopening with most of the former Disney animators and staff as The Answer Studio, VFXWORLD immediately tried to secure an interview with president Motoyoshi Tokunaga. The former vp/gm of the Disney studio in Tokyo politely asked us to be patient.
Universal Studios Home Ent. announced that VAN HELSING scared up sales of more than four million combined DVD and VHS units in the first six days of release for a total consumer spree of $65 million.
USHE is poised for a record-breaking fourth quarter with a release schedule representing 36% of the domestic box office of all feature titles being released during that period.
Picture Mill introduces the unexpected world of Japanese horror with a sequence steeped in blood and fear for director Takashi Shimizus American debut, THE GRUDGE, the unexpected horror hit from Columbia Pictures and Sam Raimis Ghost House.
The Visual Effects Society (VES) is the recipient of a $46,000 donation from founder Tom Atkins family to honor pioneers in the field of visual effects. Five funds will be established to finance awards and scholarships and be known as the:
* Peter Ellenshaw Fund, in the amount of $10,000* Albert Whitlock Fund, in the amount of $10,000* Linwood Dunn Fund, in the amount of $10,000* Douglas Trumbull Fund, in the amount of $10,000* Tom Atkin Founders Award Fund, in the amount of $6,000
PROMAX&BDA has announced the 2004 PROMAX&BDA Home Entertainment Award winners, honoring the best work and creative skills of marketing professionals in the home entertainment sector.
"PROMAX&BDA is pleased to honor these executives for their stellar efforts and creative vision in marketing Home Entertainment, one of the largest segments in the entertainment industry," said Jim Chabin, ceo of PROMAX&BDA. "Each year, we take great pride in recognizing the best marketing, promotion and creative experts that continue to steer Home Entertainment to new heights."
Director Uwe Boll and producer Shawn Williamson have hired screenwriters David Schneider and Drew Daywalt (STARK RAVING MAD) to write a feature adaptation of Vivendi Universals videogame, HUNTER: THE RECKONING, reports VARIETY. The story follows a group of men and women who are given supernatural to combat monsters. Pre-production is scheduled to start in February in British Columbia. Boll is not new to bringing videogames to the screen with adaptations of HOUSE OF THE DEAD, ALONE IN THE DARK and BLOODRAYNE, which just finished production.
India's two commercially operated IMAX theaters reported the highest grossing screens in the country for SPIDER-MAN 2. The film was converted using IMAX DMR (Digital Re- Mastering) technology and released in India at the same time as the conventional 35mm version. In the 10 weeks since its release, nearly 130,000 people have visited the PRASADS IMAX Theatre in Hyderabad and the Adlabs IMAX Theatre in Mumbai to experience SPIDER-MAN 2 in IMAX's format.
PULP FICTION scribe Roger Avary is writing a bigscreen adaptation of the Konami videogame franchise SILENT HILL, reports VARIETY. Samuel Hadida (RESIDENT EVIL) is producing and financing the film through his Davis Film Prods. BROTHERHOOD OF THE WOLF helmer Christophe Gans will direct the film. Focus Features will handle sales oversees with Hadida's Metropolitan Film handling the French rights. North American rights are still available. The game follows the story of a mother and daughter who seek to discover the secrets of a seemingly abandoned town. A March production start is planned.
Tiger Aspects documentary for the Discovery Channel, VIRTUAL HISTORY: THE SECRET PLOT TO KILL HITLER, airing Oct. 24 at 8:00 pm throughout Europe, the Middle East and Africa, adopted cutting edge CGI from The Moving Picture Co. (MPC) to transform the faces of actors into exact replicas of Adolf Hitler, Winston Churchill, Franklin D. Roosevelt and Josef Stalin. The program unfolds on the momentous day of July 20, 1944.
