Monday, June 2, 2014

Tidbits/20 Films from HitFix/SPC vs. TWC/Poland on Leviathan

Good Monday in June everyone...

TIDBITS



Over the weekend I finished a screenwriting project that I had been working on for two years.  It felt good. The project has been a collaboration with rock guitarist Mark Austin King of Hinder.  Got it WGA registered.  Entered it a couple of places including "friend of MTFB's" Screencraft.org (shout out to John Rhodes).  It's titled "The Remains" and tells the story of a rock band 's rise and fall.  It's mostly a comedy...with a little drama.

Also, tidbit #2...I can't talk about...yet.  Suffice it to say that I should have an interesting post in a day or so.

20 FILMS FROM HITFIX


Michael Fassbender as "MacBeth"


Last week, the staff at HitFix posted a story entitled : "20 Movies Coming Out in 2014 That Aren't on Your Radar Yet".  Maybe they're not on everyone's radar, but most of them have been on the MTFB radar and some of them for quite awhile.  Of the 20 films that HitFix include are a good half dozen that have real Telluride potential:

"Birdman" from Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu.  Inarritu and distrib Fox Searchlight make this one to watch for TFF #41.

"MacBeth" from Justin Kurzel.  Distrib is The Weinstein Company.

"The Imitation Game" from Morten Tyldem...also distributed by TWC.

"Men, Women and Children" from T-ride fave Jason Reitman.  Paramount is distributing and had both Reitman's "Up in the Air" and "Labor Day" at Telluride.

"A Most Violent Year" from J.C. Chandor.  A24 is the distributor (which had "Enemy" and "Under the Skin" at T-ride last year)

"Suite Francaise" from Saul Dibb.  Another TWC film.

From this list of six films I feel the most strongly about "Birdman".  I actually think "A Most Violent Year" is the next most likely TFF #41 selection from this particular list.  I'm personally pretty hot to catch "MacBeth" and "The Imitation Game" but one of the big mysteries for puzzling out Telluride titles this year is trying to figure out how Harvey Weinstein is going to play with the pieces he has.  Last year TWC had "Tracks", "The Unknown Known" and "Salinger" which was  a last minute replacement for "Philomena".  The year before, they were repped at Telluride only by "The Sapphires".  But Harvey has also had great success in past years with both "The King's Speech" and "The Artist" running through Telluride before going n to win the Best Picture Oscar.

Three other films that are on the HitFix list that have what I would term a "theoretical" chance to play T-ride are Tim Burton's "Big Eyes" (another TWC film), James Marsh's "Theory of Everything" (Focus Features) and Jon Stewart's "Rosewater" (Open Road Films).

All of this comes with the same caveat that I have already been repeating fairly ceaselessly which is: Toronto's demands to chose them or Telluride for prime screening  times is a joker in the deck that adds an incredible level of uncertainty into the mix.

Here's the link to the HitFix post:

http://www.hitfix.com/in-contention/20-movies-coming-out-this-year-that-arent-on-your-radar-yet#oErfmwXyRE1WK7bP.99

SPC VS. TWC



I have often wondered about the dynamic that exists between these two powerhouse independent distributors and now we have a really good article that addresses that very situation.  Steven Zeitchik in the Los Angeles Times wrote this analysis about the battle for Indie supremacy between the two:

http://www.latimes.com/entertainment/movies/la-et-mn-sony-weinstein-20140529-story.html#page=1


POLAND ON LEVIATHAN



David Poland from The Movie City News put up his latest DP/30 focusing on Cannes hit (and screenplay winner) "Leviathan" from director and co-writer Andrey Zvyagintsev.  SPC has the U.S. distribution.  That combined with the high profile success at Cannes makes it a very real Telluride #41 lineup possibility.  Here's the link:

http://www.latimes.com/entertainment/movies/la-et-mn-sony-weinstein-20140529-story.html#page=1


More tomorrow...

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