Category Archives: Film industry

Hayao Miyazaki’s ‘final’ film The Boy and the Heron hits No 1 at North American box office

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The Japanese director’s animation beats The Hunger Games prequel and Godzilla Minus One on its opening weekend in the US and Canada

The Boy and the Heron, reportedly the final film from Japanese master animator Hayao Miyazaki, has taken the number one spot at the box office on its North American release, as well as achieving record figures for the director.

Preliminary box office returns report that The Boy and the Heron took $12.8m in the US and Canada on its opening weekend, putting it a significant distance ahead of The Hunger Games: The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes, which managed $9.4m. In third place was another Japanese film, the monster movie Godzilla Minus One, on $8.3m.

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New Karate Kid movie with Ralph Macchio and Jackie Chan in the works

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A global casting call from the two actors – looking for a new teenage star – suggests the separate strands of the series will be brought together

Following the success of the TV series Cobra Kai, a new Karate Kid movie featuring Ralph Macchio and Jackie Chan has been announced, along with a global casting call to find a teenage star for the film.

Macchio, who starred in the first three Karate Kid movies between 1984 and 1989 before returning to anchor Cobra Kai which first aired in 2018, and Chan, who appeared in the 2010 reboot starring Jaden Smith, appeared together in a short video to make the announcement. The casting notice suggested the film will also feature a new character called Li Fong, who is “Chinese or mixed-race Chinese [aged] between 15-17 years old [and] speaks fluent English”. The website added: “Conversational Mandarin is a strong plus. He’s smart, scrappy and a skilled martial artist.”

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Contract for Hollywood actors includes $40m yearly in streaming bonuses

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Union leaders on Friday shared details of three-year contract, on AI, wage increases and end to racist hair and makeup practices

Streaming services like Netflix will pay actors bonuses amounting to roughly $40m per year as part of the tentative labor agreement reached between the SAG-AFTRA actors union and major Hollywood studios, union leaders said on Friday after their board backed the deal.

The proposed three-year contract, which the union said was valued at more than $1bn over three years, was endorsed by 86% of SAG-AFTRA’s national board.

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Hollywood actors’ union reaches tentative deal with studios to end strike

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Sag-Aftra union hails agreement of ‘extraordinary scope’ with Hollywood producers, bringing to a close historic work stoppage

Hollywood actors are set to end their nearly four-month strike, the Sag-Aftra union announced on Wednesday, bringing to a close a historic work stoppage that had brought the film and television industry to a standstill for months.

Sag-Aftra and the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers (AMPTP) reached a tentative agreement on Wednesday, ending film and television actors’ longest strike roughly a month after writers signed their new contract. The deal came after parties had resumed talks last week following stalled negotiations in early October.

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Paddington in Peru films in Colombia – sparking row over legislation in Peru

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Peruvian film-makers outraged over legislation to revitalise industry after film chooses Colombia as shooting location

New legislation to revitalise Peru’s film industry has been proposed after the makers of the British comedy Paddington in Peru chose Colombia as the filming location for the section of the movie in which the bear finally returns to his home country.

The initiative, put forward by rightwing lawmaker Adriana Tudela, cited the “lack of incentives and the high number of national and local bureaucratic barriers to filming in Peru” as the principal obstacle to the mislocation of the third Paddington movie due out in 2024.

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How Hollywood writers triumphed over AI – and why it matters

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Observers hail a ‘smart’ deal that allows for artificial intelligence as a tool, not a replacement – and could be a model for other industries

Hollywood writers scored a major victory this week in the battle over artificial intelligence with a new contract featuring strong guardrails in how the technology can be used in film and television projects.

One of the longest labor strikes in Hollywood history came to an end on Tuesday after the Writers Guild of America (WGA) approved an agreement made with the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers. Writers and actors had been picketing for months as part of a historic “double strike” that brought the industry to a standstill.

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Hollywood writers agree to end five-month strike after new studio deal

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Writers Guild of America said its members could return to work while a ratification vote takes place for fresh three-year contract

Hollywood writers will officially end their five-month strike on Wednesday, as union leaders approved an agreement made with the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers, and sent the full details of the new contract to union members for ratification.

The Writers Guild of America (WGA) said in a statement on Tuesday evening that its members could return to work at midnight tonight, while a ratification vote takes place on a new three-year contract with Hollywood studios.

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‘Exceptional’: Hollywood writers hail tentative deal to end strike

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Writers Guild of America says agreement on pay and conditions ‘due to the willingness of this membership to exercise its power’

The tentative deal reached between Hollywood and studio executives has been received well by those on strike and others within the industry.

Members from the Writers Guild of America (WGA), who took on the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers (AMPTP) with demands that included better pay and residuals, and safeguards on the use of artificial intelligence, shared their collective relief.

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Warner Bros studios in Leavesden to expand, creating 4,000 UK jobs

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Studios behind Harry Potter films to undergo 400,000 sq ft expansion by 2027, in boost to struggling industry

The Warner Bros studios behind the Harry Potter film series are to undergo a major expansion, creating 4,000 jobs and providing a boost to Britain’s beleaguered film and TV production industry.

The development in Hertfordshire, expected to be complete in 2027, will add 400,000 sq ft (37,000 sq metres) to Warner Bros Studios Leavesden (WBSL).

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Woody Allen in Venice: #MeToo has been good for women, but cancel culture can be ‘silly’

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Director attacks ‘extremes’ of movement while promoting Coup de Chance, his 50th film, at Venice film festival, as well as addressing persistent interest in historic allegations against him

Woody Allen has voiced his support for the #MeToo movement while promoting his new film, adding that he sometimes finds cancel culture “silly”.

The director’s career has lately been mired by a recent refocusing in social media on an allegation made against him in 1993, when his adopted daughter, Dylan Farrow, said he had sexually assaulted her in an attic at the time of the custody battle between Allen and Dylan’s adoptive mother, Mia Farrow.

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Hollywood writers union mulls proposal from studios that would end strike

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Negotiating committee of Writers Guild of America says it is evaluating offer in substantial step forward

Hollywood TV and film writers represented by the Writers Guild of America are evaluating a counterproposal from studios that would end their ongoing strike of more than 100 days, marking a substantial step forward in negotiations.

“Your Negotiating Committee received a counterproposal from the AMPTP today,” the guild’s negotiating committee said in a statement referring to the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers. “We will evaluate their offer and, after deliberation, go back to them with the WGA’s response next week.

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Netflix lists AI job worth $900,000 amid twin Hollywood strikes

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Company lists highly paid machine-learning project manager role while actors and executives at odds over future of AI in Hollywood

As actors and writers strike over fair compensation and protections from the encroachment of artificial intelligence, Netflix has listed a position for a machine learning product manager that will compensate somewhere between $300,000 and $900,000 a year. According to the Screen Actors Guild (Sag-Aftra), 87% of the guild’s actors make less than $26,000 per year.

The use of AI in the production of film and television – either to write scripts, generate actors’ likenesses, or cut corners in paying creative work, has been a major point of contention in negotiations between the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers (AMPTP) and Sag and the Writers Guild of America (WGA). Writers have been striking since May; the actors joined earlier this month. The first joint strike since 1960 threatens to bring Hollywood to a complete standstill.

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Hollywood on the Tiber: stars return to Rome studios once home to Heston and Fellini

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Sprawling Cinecittà complex is in demand again thanks to tax breaks and boom in film and TV production

Walk through the 1930s-built, dusty pink gates of Cinecittà, the legendary film studios in Rome, and the magic of its golden era is immediately palpable. This is where Charlton Heston rode to victory in his chariot race in Ben Hur, which went on to win 11 Oscars. It is where the real-life love affair between Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton played out on the set of Cleopatra, and where Federico Fellini produced classics including La Dolce Vita and Amarcord.

The sprawling Cinecittà was opened with great pomp by Benito Mussolini in 1937, in part to make films promoting the dictator’s fascist propaganda. During the second world war it was first occupied by the Nazis and later became a refuge to the thousands made homeless by the allied bombing of the Italian capital.

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Fran Drescher’s fiery speech against Hollywood studios goes viral as actors strike

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The Nanny star turned Sag-Aftra union president wins praise for her passion as performers join writers in action expected to halt majority of US film and TV production

Fran Drescher has blasted Hollywood studios in a fiery speech after talks between the actors’ union and studios failed to avert a strike, calling them “disgusting” for claiming “they’re losing money left and right when giving hundreds of millions of dollars to their CEOs”.

In a speech that was widely circulated on Thursday – particularly among many who did not know The Nanny star was heading up Sag-Aftra, Hollywood’s biggest union – Drescher said actors were being “marginalised, disrespected and dishonoured” by a business model that has been drastically changed by streaming and artificial intelligence.

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Hollywood actors announce strike in first joint action with writers in over 60 years

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Simultaneous strikes by WGA and Sag-Aftra are expected to halt the majority of Hollywood’s film and TV production

The union representing Hollywood actors formally announced a strike on Thursday, expanding the standoff between Hollywood workers and studio executives over wages, AI technology and how to divide the profits of the new digital streaming era.

The strike by the Screen Actors Guild-American Federation of Television and Radio Artists (Sag-Aftra) marks the first time in 63 years Hollywood writers and actors are striking simultaneously.

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Hollywood actors are going on strike. Here’s what that means

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Shooting for House of the Dragon, Andor and Gladiator 2 will be delayed and many award shows and premieres will be postponed

After negotiations between studio representatives the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers (AMPTP) and the US actors’ union Sag-Aftra (Screen Actors Guild–American Federation of Television and Radio Artists) failed to make a breakthrough, Hollywood actors are going on strike.

The decision means that actors will be joining writers on the picket lines, marking the first time in over six decades that both unions have taken simultaneous strike action.

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Daniel Kaluuya’s Barney the Dinosaur film to be ‘adult’ and ‘lean into millennial angst’

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Mattel says the Barney movie will be inspired by Charlie Kaufman, while Barbie director Greta Gerwig is planning two Narnia movies for Netflix

The Daniel Kaluuya-produced movie featuring Barney the Dinosaur will be an “adult”, “surrealistic” and “A24-type” film inspired by Charlie Kaufman and Spike Jonze, it has been revealed.

In a wide-ranging report on the film-making plans of toymaker Mattel in the New Yorker, Mattel Films executive Kevin McKeon said of the project: “We’re leaning into the millennial angst of the property rather than fine-tuning this for kids. It’s really a play for adults. Not that it’s R-rated, but it’ll focus on some of the trials and tribulations of being thirtysomething, growing up with Barney – just the level of disenchantment within the generation.”

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Flamin’ not? Critics say popular snack founding myth is a hoax

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White House denies cover-up, but critics say Eva Longoria-helmed Cheetos docu-drama distorts the true story of the spicy snack

When Joe Biden welcomed actor-director Eva Longoria to the White House for a screening of her Flamin’ Hot drama-documentary last week, the president hailed the story of the Mexican-American one-time janitor Richard Montañez as a tale of “courage”.

“When I think about tonight’s movie, I think about courage. So many of you, your ancestors left behind all that they knew to start a new life in the United States,” Biden told the crowd, before the president gave the Desperate Housewives star a hug and made an incomprehensible joke about when she was 17 and he was 40.

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UK government to invest in film and TV AI special-effects research

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Almost £150m to be spent on research labs to help future-proof industry and lift creative economy

Ministers are seeking to future-proof the UK’s multibillion-pound film and TV production industry by investing almost £150m in a network of research labs across the country tasked with developing the next generation of special effects using tech such as artificial intelligence.

The scheme aims to build on Britain’s reputation for producing hi-tech hits from Star Wars to Harry Potter, and is part of wide-ranging plans to drive the UK creative economy. The government has earmarked millions to support grassroots music venues hammered by the Covid pandemic, and is tripling a fund designed to find and support the next generation of homegrown superstars like Adele and Ed Sheeran.

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Directors union reaches tentative deal with Hollywood studios as writers strike

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Agreement comes as writers remain on strike and actors are currently holding a strike authorization vote

The Directors Guild of America (DGA) which represents film and television directors announced late on Saturday that it had reached a tentative agreement with Hollywood’s major studios, averting a possible work stoppage.

The development comes as Hollywood writers are currently on strike and actors represented by the Sag-Aftra union are currently holding a strike authorization vote.

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