Archive for February 18th, 2008

Plans for a Spanish film and TV mega studio, La Ciudad del Audiovisual, are taking shape in Madrid.Local film and TV production companies are teaming with real estate company Gestesa to build the complex on 49.4 acres of Gestesa’s propertyat Loeches, a small town 15 minutes northeast of Madrid.

La Ciudad will have production facilities, offices, soundstages and a film school. It is scheduled to be partially open by 2011.

Madrid hosts 65%-70% of Spain’s film and TV production, according to the Madrid Film Commission. But La Ciudad also aims to attract international productions.

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BEVERLY HILLS, California (AP) — The end of the Hollywood writers strike means the Oscar show will be the usual star-studded, fashion-filled extravaganza, organizers promised. “The strike, the bad news, is past us,” Sid Ganis, president of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, said Thursday.

The 80th annual awards show will be held February 24 at the Kodak Theatre and will feature a host of A-list stars. Forest Whitaker, Helen Mirren, Jennifer Hudson, Miley Cyrus, George Clooney and Nicole Kidman will be among the presenters. Others include Denzel Washington, Martin Scorsese, Cate Blanchett, Cameron Diaz, Harrison Ford and Tom Hanks.

Had the three-month writers strike not ended Tuesday, the Academy still would have put on a “B” show — one without the glitter of the nominated actors, virtually all of whom said they would not cross a picket line.

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BAGHDAD — Arab countries have adopted a satellite broadcasting charter that entrenches state control over broadcasts and bars content likely to “offend.”The document adopted in Cairo Feb. 12 authorizes signatory countries to “withdraw, freeze or not renew the work permits of media that break the regulations.”

With opposition only from Qatar, which hosts Al-Jazeera, information ministers of the 22-member Arab League overwhelmingly voted in favor of the document.

Critics claim the charter will curtail political expression and is a response to the freedoms governments say Arab satellite broadcasters, especially those financed privately, are exploiting to encourage debate on sensitive political issues and giving a voice to opposition movements such as the Muslim Brotherhood.

The past decade has seen a boom in free-to-air Arab satellite TV, with more than 250 million satcasters in operation.

The charter calls on stations “not to offend the leaders or national and religious symbols” of Arab countries.

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Henry Ford said “If I’d asked my customers what they wanted, they’d have said a faster horse.” In this new world of Web-based applications, advertisers and application developers alike are mistakenly searching for a faster horse.

I stumbled onto the advertising world by accident. I am a software guy, and have been building Web-based applications since the mid ‘90s. In 2006, I began studying how Web-based applications were being monetized. Our customers, large ISPs and Web publishers, were asking us to build advertising support into our Web-based email and calendaring application to help them turn email into a profit center.

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HOLLYWOOD - Johnny Depp, Jude Law and Colin Farrell have signed up to save the film their late friend Heath Ledger was making before he died.

Ledger was shooting The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus in London just days before he was found dead in his New York apartment last month.

Director Terry Gilliam was determined to salvage the unfinished movie–and has asked Depp, Law and Farrell to pay tribute to Ledger by taking turns to play his character in the scenes the Australian never got to shoot, reports AintItCoolNews.com.

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Okay, so we lied — it’s just one photo. But it’s the first photo of Dennis Quaid as General Hawk in the live-action version of G.I. Joe, due out in theaters next summer (2009). IESB snagged the first look, and it’s not a terribly exciting one. Quaid pretty much looks like he usually does, except his hair is pushed down a bit and he’s wearing the outfit of a general. I imagine when this photo was taken, he was on break and chatting up his wife on the cell phone (checking up on his new twins, perhaps?). Starring Quaid, Sienna Miller, Channing Tatum, Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Marlan Wayans, Rachel Nichols, Ray Park … and more — G.I. Joe will be directed by Stephen Sommers, and will arrive in theaters on August 7, 2009. Filming began this week, so expect a lot more photos to show up in the coming days.

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So now that the writer’s strike is over and done with, what’s going to happen to that planned-but-postponed Justice League flick? Well, it seems Warner Bros. kinda sorta listened to the fans on this one, and Blockbuster (of all people) reports that they’ve seen the updated synopsis for the film and — guess what — Superman and Batman are nowhere to be found. Why is that? Well, one is dead and the other has been given the boot. Here’s the somewhat spoiler-filled synopsis Blockbuster claims to have received: “Feb 28, Sydney, Australia: The film is about Green Lantern, Green Arrow and others of the Justice League of America, an organization made up of the world’s greatest superheroes. They must deal with the expulsion of Batman and the death of Superman at the hands of the monstrous Doomsday.”

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(BILLBOARD) — Aerosmith will be the focus of a new version of Guitar Hero, the popular videogame from Activision. The new game, expected in stores this summer, will feature 30 songs from the band spanning its career, as well as digital versions of Steven Tyler and Joe Perry. Since 2005, Guitar Hero games have rung up about $1 billion in sales.

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We’re most of the way through the double-holiday weekend and Jumper has, er, jumped out to a commanding box office lead over a slew of strong contenders.

According to early estimates, the Hayden Christensen sci-fi action thriller took in $27.2 million from Friday to Sunday. Add in its Valentine’s Day gross of $6.6 mil on Thursday, and the Doug Liman-directed film has already banked $33.9 mil heading into Monday’s Presidents Day holiday. All of which is in line with expectations and good news for Jumper: Although its numbers aren’t as big as for that other recent boy-baiting blockbuster, Cloverfield (which enjoyed a three-day opening of $40.1 mil), they do land Jumper in the middle of the ranks of the all-time best Presidents Day weekend premieres (last year’s Ghost Rider is still tops on that chart, with $45.4 mil over three days and $52 mil over five). While its middling CinemaScore grade of B indicates mere lukewarm enthusiasm from moviegoers, the film can still expect a hefty haul at the box office on Monday.

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VIDEO-SHARING SITE REVVER WAS ACQUIRED by Web entertainment network LiveUniverse on Friday.

The move, first reported by industry blog NewTeeVee, comes after a month of rumors and speculation over Revver’s tenuous future. The faltering Revver had reportedly been seeking some $500,000, along with the assumption of $1 million in debt.

Just last year, Revver was making headlines as the first video-sharing site to split revenue with video creators, some of whom were extremely popular Web personalities, including Ze Frank, Ask a Ninja, and Lonelygirl15.

Its hot name resulted in deals with Hollywood talent agency CAA and with U.K. TV channel Fame TV, along with over $12 million in investment from top investors, including Comcast, Turner, Draper Fisher Jurvetson, Bessemer Venture Partners, Draper Richards and William Randolph Hearst III.

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