Author: SD

Newen Connect has boarded Pascal Elbé’s Lucky Star, one of four new comedies the company will launch at Unifrance’s Rendez-Vous in Paris later this month. Actor/filmmaker Elbé’s fourth feature as a director is set in 1940 France and stars Benoit Poelvoorde as an army deserter who hatches a plan to escape Nazi punishment and protect his wife and son by pretending his family is Jewish, but ends up being swept into the Resistance. Elbé also stars in the film with Audrey Lamy, Zabou Breitman and Hugo Becker. It is produced by Yze’s Yann Zanou and ADNP/QUAD’s Nicolas Adassovsky. Now in post-production, UGC…

New features from Tatiana Huezo, Kirsten Tan and Stephan Komandarev are among the 35 projects selected for the 2025  Berlinale Co-Production Market. The 35 projects hail from 27 countries, and will participate in the market to find financing and production partners. The Berlinale has also programmed its Forum Special and Forum Expanded strands. Scroll down for the full list of titles Salvadoran-Mexican filmmaker Huezo will participate with her new project Galerna, produced by Mexico’s Pimienta Films. Huezo’s first fiction feature Prayers For The Stolen won a special mention in Un Certain Regard at Cannes 2021, and was Mexico’s entry for the international…

The European Film Awards has selected Athens as the host city for its 2027 ceremony. Athens will mark the first time the event has been held in Southeastern Europe. The 39th European Film Awards 2027 will take place in the city’s Stavros Niarchos Foundation Cultural Center. The European Film Awards are held every second year in Berlin and travel throughout Europe in the other years. Last year it was held in Lucerne, Switzerland. The next European Film Awards is due to take place in Berlin in January 2026, moving forward from its traditional December slot. Media partner ERT, the Hellenic…

Bafta has announced the five actors nominated for the 2025 EE Rising Star award. They are: Marisa Abela, Jharrel Jerome, David Jonsson, Mikey Madison and Nabhaan Rizwan. The nominees were announced by actor and previous Rising Star winner Jack O’Connell at an event at London’s Savoy Hotel. Abela, Jonsson and Rizwan were in attendance, with Jerome and Madison sending video messages from the US. Nominees are not directly selected for a single performance, although they have typically received acclaim in the past year for one particular role. For Abela it is Back To Black; for Jerome it is Unstoppable; for…

Worldwide box office January 3-5 Rank Film (distributor) 3-day (world) Cume (world) 3-day (int’l) Cume (int’l) Territories 1.  Mufasa: The Lion King (Disney)  $77.3m  $476.4m  $53.5m  $307.8m   53 2.   Sonic The Hedgehog 3 (Paramount)  $72.4m  $336.3m  $51.2m  $148.8m  62 3.   Nosferatu (Universal)  $40m  $100.4m  $26.8m  $31m  62 4.   Moana 2 (Disney)  $38.4m  $960.5m  $26m  $535.3m  53 5.   Wicked (Universal)  $21m  $681.3m  $10.8m  $230.5m  82 6.   Octopus With Broken Arms (various)  $15.7m  $74.2m  $15.7m  $74.2m  3 7.   Big World (various)  $11.1m  $77.4m  $11.1m  $77.4m  1 8.   Finist, The…

France was one of the few markets to see admissions increase year-on-year in 2024, driven by a powerhouse top 10, three of which were local blockbusters.  Admissions reached 181.3 million admissions, up a slight 0.5% on 2023, according to figures from Comscore and the CNC. Total box office for the year was an estimated €1.3 billion ($1.35bn) based on an average ticket price of €7.20, driven largely by French films that took a 44.4% market share, the highest since 2008. However this was still 12.8% down from the pre-pandemic yearly average of the 2017-2019 period. Scroll down for full top…

Premiere Entertainment Group’s body swap comedy The Ballad Of Hortensia has become the most successful local film ever released in El Salvador after its opening weekend. The film, produced and sold by Premiere, drew an audience of more than 25,000 admissions over its first four days, according to Premiere and local distributor Balun Films. Directed by Arturo Menendez and starring noted Salvadoran comedian Julio Yúdice, Francisco Gattorno, and Helena Haro, The Ballad Of Hortensia overtook the previous record-holder La Rebusqueda, the 2014 release that garnered 22,300 admissions over three months. The Ballad Of Hortensia opened in eight theatres on December 12…

Worldwide box office December 13-15 RankFilm (distributor)3-day (world)Cume (world)3-day (int’l) Cume (int’l)Territories  1. Moana 2 (Disney) $83.8m  $717m $57.2m $379.5m  53  2. Wicked (Universal) $44m  $525m $21.5m $165.9m  82  3.  Pushpa: The Rule – Part 2 (various) $29.2m  $166.8m $27.6m $154m  37  4.  Kraven The Hunter (Sony) $26m  $26m $15m $15m  61  5.  Gladiator II (Paramount) $17.5m  $398.5m $9.7m $252.6m  66  6.  The Lord Of The Rings: The War Of The Rohirrim (Warner Bros) $8.6m  $10.3m $4m $5.7m  73  7.  Her Story (various) $7.1m  $88.1m $7.1m $87.7m  8 …

‘Venom: The Last Dance’ and ’Back To Black’ were the top performing films will a solo female director credit at the UK-Ireland box office in 2024, both taking over £12m. Kelly Marcel’s third instalment of the superhero film franchise starring Tom Hardy brought in £12.4m for Sony, while Sam Taylor-Johnson’s Amy Winehouse biopic currently stands at £12.3m for Studiocanal. A total of 13 films were directed by women, with a further three co-director credits, according to Box Office Mojo’s list of the top 100 best performing films of 2024 (excluding re-releases or holdovers from 2023) in the territory. In 2023, 13 were directed…

Universal Pictures has changed the title of its sequel to current musical hit Wicked from Wicked Part Two to Wicked: For Good. The sequel’s wide release date stays at November 21, 2025.  The new title refers to a song duet that stars Cynthia Erivo and Ariana Grande will sing in the sequel, based, like the first film, on the Wicked stage musical. Original director Jon M Chu returns for the sequel, along with Erivo and Grande and other cast members Jeff Goldblum and Michelle Yeoh.  Released on November 22, the original film this weekend reached $525.3m at the global box…