Category Archives: Latest News

Oz pubcaster ABC wants more broad-appeal Australian drama that can connect internationally.

Latest News, Screenwriting, Television

ABC TV head of fiction Carole Sklan is keen for more drama that appeals to under-50s. The Australian pubcaster’s flagship channel has a persistently older-skewing audience profile, and Sklan says the challenge is “about how to appeal to a broader audience without alienating a huge, significant older audience who are devoted to the ABC.”

Sklan’s fiction remit covers a varied slate of both drama and scripted comedy, including international coproductions. “We support a diverse range of shows, always with external production companies – there’s no in-house production at the ABC,” she says.

The exec adds that a key focus is “to tell Australian stories for Australian audiences that hopefully make a connection internationally and sell throughout the world.”

She adds: “We look for a very diverse slate, a mix of returning series and original series… So we’re looking to do a mix, showcasing extraordinary local talent.”

Past successes include literary adaptations and factual drama, which can be stories about remarkable Australians, Sklan says – citing miniseries such as Paper Giants, about the rise of Kerry Packer and Rupert Murdoch’s media empires in Australia, and Carlotta, which profiled Australia’s first transgender person, a high-profile cabaret artist in the 1970s.

One hit for ABC in 2015 was The Secret River, a two-part adaptation of Kate Grenville’s award-winning bestselling novel. The show was developed by producers Stephen Luby and Mark Ruse of Ruby Entertainment, along with director Fred Schepisi, and adapted by screenwriters Jan Sardi and Mac Gudegon. Airing in a Sunday night 20.30 slot last June, the drama was one of ABC’s top 10 local productions of 2015, attracting 1.2 million viewers in linear transmission and an average 90,000 plays on ABC’s online platform iview per episode.

The Beautiful Lie was another success for the channel. The six-part contemporary drama adaptation was made by Endemol Australia Production in association with ABC TV, Film Victoria and Screen Australia.

“What I thought was incredibly bold and imaginative was that it was inspired by Tolstoy’s Anna Karenina but set in contemporary middle-class Australia,” explains Sklan. “And it was absolutely fascinating the way the psychological insights and social observations of the 19th century Russian aristocracy also seemed to translate extremely well to contemporary life. So those universal themes of love, infidelity, relationships and survival are explored in a contemporary context.”

The pubcaster also aired six-part paranormal drama Glitch, from Matchbox Pictures, releasing the series on iview first to allow viewers to binge-watch ahead of its linear release. The show generated 1.2 million iview plays across its run, and although linear ratings were not as strong, a second season has now been commissioned.

ABC’s 2016 slate includes the return of Jack Irish in February, this time as a six-part series, which will kick off its season of Thursday-night homemade drama at 20.30.

Other returning series include Janet King, The Doctor Blake Mysteries and Rake.

Also upcoming is a second season of thriller The Code, which first premiered on ABC in September 2014. “It’s very exciting – big ideas, action, serialised storytelling across the six hours – but essentially it’s grounded in a relationship between two brothers,” says Sklan. One of the brothers is a hacker with Asperger syndrome who comes across a range of conspiracies; the other is an investigative journalist.

“Though we’re dealing with big stories and ideas, and quite a dark world with the possibility of nuclear technology getting into the hands of terrorists, it’s driven by these very emotional and personal relationships of the two brothers, navigating their way in the world,” Sklan adds of the show.

Made by Playmaker Media, The Code was developed under Australia’s Scribe Initiative, with production funding assistance from Screen Australia, Screen NSW, Screen Queensland, the ACT Government and Screen ACT. One of the ABC’s goals is to engage and nurture great creative teams – including producers, directors and writers – but Sklan has concerns over retaining the country’s writers. “Our writers are all being snaffled up by the US and the UK,” she says.

Sklan and ABC’s big swing in 2016 is upcoming miniseries Barracuda (4×60’) from Matchbox Pictures. Adapted from Christos Tsiolkas’s follow-up to his book The Slap, it counts the author as an associate producer alongside producers Tony Ayres and Amanda Higgs. Elias Anton and Ben Kindon star.

The drama, timed to coincide with the lead-up to this year’s Olympics, is “essentially a very different sports story… about the pressures on young elite athletes and the nature of success and identity,” says Sklan. Barracuda follows a working-class boy who wins a swimming scholarship for an elite private boys’ school, but finds he has to navigate a world of very wealthy, privileged young men.

Also coming to the channel is futurist drama Cleverman. The six-parter from Goalpost Pictures Australia and New Zealand’s Pukeko Pictures is coproduced with Red Arrow International and SundanceTV.

“It’s about really vivid characters and fascinating, addictive relationships that you want to revisit every week,” says Sklan, summarising ABC’s drama output. “Also, as the public broadcaster, our stories need to reflect something about our worlds and our lives. But I do think characters and relationships are the key.

“With returning series, we’re probably looking at genre because of the dramatic stakes and stories they give you. We’re not at all interested in generic procedural shows – we want fresh and entertaining takes on medical, legal, crime series and so on.”

Gün Akyuz reports – C21 Media – 20 January 2016

ABC TV appoints new Head of Arts

Documentary, Latest News, Television

ABC Director of Television Richard Finlayson has announced the appointment of Mandy Chang to the role of Head of Arts, ABC TV.

Chang joined the ABC in 2013 after a stint producing and directing documentaries for major UK broadcasters including the BBC, Channel 4, ITV, PBS and Sky Atlantic.

Her feature-length documentary The Mona Lisa Curse for Channel 4 won the Rose d’Or, Banff World Media Festival Grand Jury Prize, Grierson and Emmy Awards.

In her three years at ABC TV, she has overseen the creation of Autopsy on a Dream – the Story of the Sydney Opera House, Hannah Gadsby’s Oz, The Art of Australia, Art and Soul II, Getting Frank Gehry, Comic Book Heroes, The Cambodian Space Project, Cast from the Storm, The Divorce and Matilda and Me.

Recently Chang worked on the creation of the ABC iview Arts channel and the development of David Stratton’s Story of Australian Cinema, due to premiere this year.

“The ABC has a steadfast ambition to become the home of Arts in Australia”, Finlayson said. “Mandy’s appointment to this role is a clear signal that we intend to commission and produce world-class content across all our platforms and bring the best of the arts to a wide Australian audience.

“Our Arts team has produced some of ABC TV’s best work over the past few years and we are fortunate to have great depth throughout the group. I’d particularly like to thank Kath Earle for her outstanding leadership during the past year, particularly her work bringing our innovative iview Arts channel to life.”

Mandy Chang said: “Having done what I feel is a rigorous three-year apprenticeship, I’m both excited and honoured to be taking on the Head of Arts role.

“We have accomplished much within ABC Arts over the past few years, delivering innovative, high-quality Arts content for audiences, across all of our platforms. I look forward to leading the Arts team as we continue to find ambitious and exciting ways to celebrate and share the artistic achievements and dynamic cultural life of this country.”

Chang commences in her new role this week.

Media Release Monday 18 January 2015

Film: Sorkin, Schumer, Sorrentino show why screenwriters matter

Film, Latest News, Screenwriting

Screenwriters have been habitually overlooked by critics and a movie going public that hallows directors and A-list actors. But the glory of great films is, in no small part, great writing.

Six who are leaving their mark on the big screen:

AARON SORKIN Steve Jobs

Few screenwriters achieve even modest fame; fewer still become household names.

Aaron Sorkin is an even more unusual case: a screenwriter whose renown and influence have altered language itself, giving birth to an adjective (‘‘Sorkinesque’’) and a verb (‘‘Sorkinise’’). And, of course, there is Sorkin the genre. Everyone in Hollywood knows what an ‘‘Aaron Sorkin project’’ denotes: a TV show or film that combines old-fashioned craftsmanship and up-to-date settings, along with fusillades of feisty dialogue delivered by quintessential contemporary types — newsmen, politicians, techies.

From The West Wing to Moneyball to The Social Network, Sorkin specialises in heroic, weird savants and in stories that find gripping drama in characters most comfortable staring at a laptop.

This year he brings Steve Jobs, a deliciously Sorkinised take on the ultimate geek demigod, based on the biography by Walter Isaacson and directed by Danny Boyle.

‘‘Certain types of genius can be hard to dramatise,’’ Sorkin concedes. ‘‘Coding, much to my disappointment, doesn’t really look like anything on screen. It just looks like people typing.’’ The key, he says, is ‘‘to make wonky scenes look and feel and sound like bank robberies and prison breaks’’.

He gives credit for that feat to his colleagues: ‘‘I love what happens when you write something that draws on the combined talents of a great director, great actors, great designers, great technicians. I like team sports better than individual sports; I like bands better than solo acts. This is why I write screenplays, not novellas.’’

AMY SCHUMER Trainwreck

Amy Schumer isn’t really a writer. That’s what she says, at least. ‘‘I haven’t been writing that long at all. I had to get [screenwriting software] Final Draft when my TV show got picked up. It’s all pretty new to me. I mean, I will get better.’’ But for a novice, she’s doing pretty well. Inside Amy Schumer is TV’s most subversive, hilarious and, yes, well-written show; its short, sharp comedy sketches wield satire like a shiv, slicing through contemporary politics and pop culture.

And of course there’s Trainwreck, Schumer’s debut feature-length star vehicle, penned by the woman herself. As pure comedy, Trainwreck kills, delivering a nonstop string of gags, with uproarious performances from the leads (Schumer and Bill Hader), and a supporting cast of stalwarts like Colin Quinn and upstarts like LeBron James. The revelation is how well the movie works as straight romantic comedy, centred on the charming, shaggy love story between Schumer’s dissolute party girl and Hader’s nice-guy doctor. But Trainwreck has it both ways, hitting all the meet-cute/break-up/make-up beats while sending up the genre, and giving a mischievously feminist spin to all the dusty old rom-com tics and tropes. Credit of course, to the writer: Many of the film’s best moments were in the novice screenwriter’s first draft.

PAOLO SORRENTINO Youth

‘‘When I start to write a movie, my first priority is that I want it to be funny,’’ says the director and screenwriter Paolo Sorrentino. ‘‘I want to make people laugh. On my way to doing that, I often wind up creating something that is also sad.’’ That deft, slightly surreal blend of tongue-in-cheek and heart-on-sleeve is present in all of Sorrentino’s work, from the mafia thriller The Consequences of Love (2004) to The Great Beauty, his celebrated 2013 valentine to the gorgeous and maddening Eternal City, Rome. The Neapolitan writer-director’s latest, Youth, is perhaps his sharpest and most endearing film to date. It’s the story of two ageing friends, Michael Caine’s composer-conductor and Harvey Keitel’s film director, on a retreat in a Swiss spa.

Many films have explored this crepuscular territory, but Sorrentino steers clear of lions-in-winter cliches while delivering an affecting and — yes — funny-sad rumination on late life and, well, youth. ‘‘I was interested in exploring how older people feel about the future, instead of the past,’’ he says.

ALEJANDRO GONZALEZ INARRITU The Revenant

‘‘Right now, I am in the fourth or fifth circle of hell,’’ says Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu. He’s joking — sort of. It’s early in the morning in mid-October, and the Oscar-winning Mexican writer-director is already at work, labouring on a tight deadline to put post-production touches on The Revenant, his feverishly awaited revenge thriller based on the novel by Michael Punke. Set in the wilds of the 1820s Dakota frontier, the film, which co-stars Leonardo DiCaprio and Tom Hardy (and was co-written by Mark L. Smith), tells the story of Hugh Glass, a legendary fur trapper who, in 1823, was mauled by a bear and left for dead by his expedition party.

Glass survived the attack, dressed his own wounds and completed an epic six-week, 320km crawl to the safe haven of Fort Kiowa, a fur-trading outpost on the banks of the Missouri River.

‘‘Nobody knows much about Hugh Glass beyond the basic outline: he was attacked by a bear and he was abandoned,’’ Inarritu says. ‘‘The only thing that survives of him is a tiny little note that he wrote to the parents of a trapper that died in battle. There is lots of room for imagining and elaborating.’’

Inarritu has been one of cinema’s most thrilling imaginers and elaborators for the past 15 years. From his torrid feature debut, Amores Perros (2000), to the best picture Academy Award winner Birdman, he has pursued an aesthetic that might be boiled down to a single word — more — stuffing his movies to bursting point with love, sex, politics, violence, all chronicled with extravagantly swooping cameras.

Ultimately, he says, his goal is to enchant an audience into suspending disbelief: ‘‘The duty of art is to make probable the improbable.’’

CARY FUKUNAGA Beasts of No Nation

Cary Fukunaga was fresh out of film school when he wrote the screenplay for Beasts of No Nation, the grim, hallucinatory war film which debuted simultaneously in theatres and on Netflix in October. Beasts was one of the first scripts Fukunaga had written, but the hallmarks of the sensibility and style that would make the 38-year-old Bay Area native one of this decade’s most acclaimed American filmmakers were already in place. The story, adapted from Uzodinma Iweala’s novel about a child soldier in an unnamed West African nation, spoke to Fukunaga’s cosmopolitanism, his heady and wide¬ranging interest in the fractious politics of the globalised 21st century. Fukunaga’s screenplay revealed a natural storyteller and a technician — a filmmaker with shrewd instincts about how to bring narratives to vibrant life.

The result is one of the most powerful war movies in recent memory, a brutal but ultimately humanist film powered by Fukunaga’s hurtling camera work and fine performances by Idris Elba and the teenage Ghanaian actor Abraham Attah. It’s the latest entry in a film¬ography of impressive range, from the Mexican migrant thriller Sin Nombre (2009) to his stately adaptation of Jane Eyre (2011) to his ballyhooed stint as director of the first season of True Detective (2014). In all of his work, Fukunaga combines a cineaste’s command of classic structure with an iconoclast’s compulsion to bend the rules. ‘‘I always like screenplays that subvert the three-act structure,’’ Fukunaga says. ‘‘You can sometimes lose audiences when you do that, but I appreciate new forms of entering the structure. In my experience, it’s usually worth the risk.’’

PHYLLIS NAGY Carol

Phyllis Nagy, the acclaimed playwright and screenwriter, maintains a bright line between her stage and film endeavours. But her screenplay for Carol, the adaptation of Patricia Highsmith’s groundbreaking lesbian romance novel The Price of Salt (1952), is self-evidently the work of a theatrical pro. Directed by Todd Haynes and co-starring Cate Blanchett and Rooney Mara, the taut, suspenseful Carol combines the best elements of chamber piece and sumptuous period melodrama.

As for the movie’s vaguely sinister undercurrent: That’s pure Highsmith. Nagy relished the challenge of capturing the distinctly creepy and suspenseful atmosphere that hovers like fog over the writer’s novels. She accomplished it, she says, by writing less. ‘‘I tried to maintain that Highsmithian obsessional quality by texturing scenes so that the director and actors are free to work without words. The lack of dialogue, the lack of speechifying — that’s actually how this story gets told.’’

Jody Rosen – New York Times – January 16, 2016

Box Office: 5 Lessons for 2016 From Hollywood’s Record Highs and Lows

Film, Latest News

Sure, revenue hit $11 billion in the U.S. and set a global mark, but after ‘Jurassic World’ and ‘Star Wars’ are signs of trouble (and China questions). Says one studio chief, “It’s a binary world.”

Box-office revenue may have hit an all-time high in 2015, but that doesn’t mean The Force was with everyone. Disney — home of Star Wars: The Force Awakens — and Universal, with an unprecedented three billion-dollar-grossers in Jurassic World, Furious 7 and Minions, pulled away from the competition while other studios grappled with historic lows.

So while 2015 is “a big shot in the arm of the industry overall,” says MKM analyst Eric Handler, key lessons linger:

1. Plant tentpoles carefully

Combined, Universal and Disney controlled more than 41 percent of U.S. market share and more than a third of global grosses (Universal amassed a $6.8 billion worldwide total, shattering Fox’s $5.5 billion record, while Disney nearly cleared $6 billion). Disney Studios chairman Alan Horn, who ushered in the era of the Hollywood tentpole when running Warner Bros., now all but forgoes smaller films.

Paramount has come under scrutiny for releasing fewer movies than its competitors, but Disney actually put out the same number as Paramount in 2015 (11). The difference? “Our titles this year were part of the moviegoing culture before they even came out,” says Disney worldwide distribution chief Dave Hollis.

Warners, often the industry leader, was without a superhero or other prebranded tentpole. Studio chief Kevin Tsujihara instead attempted to create new franchises (Pan, The Man From U.N.C.L.E.) and flooded the market with 26 releases, most from financial partners. But it didn’t work, with many bombs, and only San Andreas, from New Line, hitting big.

2. Beware the new lows

“It’s a binary world,” laments Sony Pictures chairman Tom Rothman. Even as movies hit new highs, gone are the days when an eight-figure opening weekend could be guaranteed by a certain star and a robust marketing spend. Now, openings in the $3 million to $5 million range are normal. Robert Zemeckis (The Walk), Sandra Bullock (Our Brand Is Crisis) and Daniel Radcliffe (Victor Frankenstein) all opened movies to historic lows. Adds Fox distribution chief Chris Aronson: “The takeaway is that we have a record year, but it was concentrated among fewer films. The top 10 films in 2014 represented 24 percent of the pie. The top 10 films this year represent 34 percent.”

3. Don’t fight social media

Again and again, prerelease tracking was wrong. “Going to the movies has become all about the social media conversation,” says Imax Entertainment CEO Greg Foster, noting that studios now advertise Rotten Tomatoes scores on Facebook and Twitter.

“Creative remains key, but it’s less about television commercials and more about shaping the social conversation.” Consider Fox’s Fantastic Four: It was tracking fine until director Josh Trank, stung by bad reviews, tweeted on the eve of the release that his version was “better.” The movie quickly died.

4. Year-round scheduling pays off

While Universal’s Jurassic World was an all-audience tentpole, studio chair Donna Langley crafted a diverse slate of 21 films that clicked with different demos at all times of the year, beginning with Fifty Shades of Grey (females) over Valentine’s Day weekend, Furious 7 (men) in late spring, Minions (families) and Trainwreck (couples) in summer and Straight Outta Compton(urban) in August. “Fifty Shades was based on a huge book, but no one was sure if the audience base would be sufficiently motivated,” says Universal distribution chief Nick Carpou.

“Turning it into a Valentine’s Day date-night movie was a masterful stroke on the part of our marketing department.” Similarly, Universal rolled the dice opening Pitch Perfect 2 opposite Mad Max: Fury Road. Prerelease surveys showed both films bowing at $40 million; Pitch Perfect 2lured its female audience and took in $69.2 million, besting Mad Max’s $45.4 million.

5. Learn to love (and hate) China

As China becomes the world’s largest movie market, many assume Hollywood studios will benefit. But 2015 showed it’s tougher than ever for outsiders to secure prime release dates and keep films on screens. Even as China revenue jumped a staggering 49 percent to $6.77 billion, U.S. market share fell from 45.5 percent in 2014 to 38.4 percent. State regulators are more intent than ever to promote local fare, imposing blackout periods and maintaining a quota system. For instance, Minions and Pixels opened within two days of each other and only one week after Mission: Impossible — Rogue Nation. And in December, The Martian lost screens more quickly than expected, topping out at $94 million. Only three U.S. films landed on China’s top 10 chart — Furious 7 (No. 2, $372.6 million), Avengers: Age of Ultron (No. 4, $224.9 million) and Jurassic World (No. 6, $216.2 million). Like everything about the 2015 box office, it was feast or famine.

Records Broken (Bad and Good)

Highs and lows rewrote the rules for what’s possible at the multiplex.

Blackhat (Universal)

Chris Hemsworth’s thriller had the lowest domestic gross for a film that cost more than $70 million and opened in 2,000-plus theaters: $8 million

October Blood Bath

Domestic box-office revenue for Halloween weekend came in at $74 million, the year’s worst showing and the lowest grossing Halloween since 1999. The ghoulish holiday capped a dismal month littered with several bombs (including Our Brand Is Crisis, The Walk and Burnt).

Star Wars: The Force Awakens (Disney)

– Top domestic opening weekend of all time: $248 million (bests Jurassic World’s $208.8 million)

– Top worldwide opening of all time: $529 million (bests Jurassic World’s $524.9 million)

– Fastest film to $700 million domestically: 16 days (bests Avatar’s 72 days)

Universal

– Biggest year domestically: $2.4 billion

– Biggest year internationally: $4.4 billion

– First studio to see three films cross $1 billion globally during the same year

Victor Frankenstein (Fox)

– Worst opening for a major-studio release in 2,500-plus theaters: $2.5 million

We Are Your Friends (Warner Bros.)

– Worst opening for a Warners film in 2,000-plus theaters: $1.8 million

Detailed infomatics here:

www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/box-office-5-lessons-2016-852391

by Pamela McClintock – THR – 6/1/2016

BBC commissions Kris Mrksa’s Requiem for late 2016

Latest News, Screenwriting, Television

Australian screenwriter Kris Mrksa (Glitch, Janet King, The Slap, Underbelly, The Secret Life of Us) will write a six-part series for BBC Drama.

Requiem will be made by New Pictures (coming off the back of a great success with The Missing, starring Australia’s Frances O’Connor) and will consist of six one-hour episodes. The show will be executive produced by Willow Grylls, Elaine Pyke and Charlie Pattinson for New Pictures and Polly Hill for BBC One.

A thriller which flirts with the supernatural, Requiem is the story of a young woman who discovers, in the wake of her mother’s death, that everything she thought she knew about herself was a lie.

Mrksa is in esteemed company. Controller of BBC Drama commissioning, Polly Hill, said “I want the BBC to be the best creative home for writers and it’s exciting to bring audiences new shows from Mike Bartlett, Jimmy McGovern (Cracker), Jo Ahearne and Hugo Blick (The Honourable Woman); plus have Kenneth Lonnergan (You Can Count on Me), Connor McPherson and Kris Mrksa all writing their first dramas for us”.

By Harry Windsor INSIDEFILM [Wed 06/01/2016)]

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Screen Australia’s Documentary Producer Program Supports 11 Diverse Projects

Documentary, Latest News, Television

Media Release – Tuesday 22 December 2015

A diverse array of 11 documentaries tackling everything from the challenges of Year 12, to the murder case of child beauty queen JonBenet Ramsay are set to receive funding as part of Screen Australia’s Documentary Producer Program.

This round includes six feature film documentaries, two iview premieres, and three television docos, proving the innovative and wide array of ways Australian producers are connecting these unique stories to audiences.

“Not only are we supporting a record number of documentaries for the Producer Program with this round, but we are hitting every platform, from online to television to features,” Screen Australia Chief Operating Officer Fiona Cameron says.

“These documentaries present a fascinating array of stories, told from established as well as emerging filmmakers.”

Casting JonBenet, about the unsolved death of the six-year-old beauty queen, is the second feature film from emerging director Kitty Green. Green’s first feature premiered at Venice Film Festival and her most recent work won Best Documentary Short at Sundance Film Festival. Green is producing, along with Scott Macaulay.

Another true-crime flavoured doc is the feature length Ghosthunter. From first-time director Ben Lawrence, producer Rebecca Bennett and executive producer Margie Bryant, it follows the story of a man whose life-long search for an absent father leads to an horrific revelation.

Equally terrifying, but in an entirely different way, is what the final year of high-school presents for young Australians. Produced by Karla Burt and executive produced by Laura Waters, Year 12 Diaries tells the true story of that intense journey, through the kids living it.

Meanwhile Spookers isn’t as scary as it sounds. Australian production company Madman (That Sugar Film) have teamed up with New Zealand filmmaker Florian Habicht for this tale about a close-knit farming family who open the most successful scare park in the Southern Hemisphere.

Making its premiere online is 10-part documentary web series No Strings Attached, where producers Lisa Kovacevic and Emma Watts tackle the topic of trying to connect in the 21 st century through a cast of puppets, who re-enact stories of dating app users.

Moving from social phenomena to social impact, Blue tells the story of our changing oceans and the crisis looming beneath the waves from director Karina Holden and producer Electra Manikakis of Northern Pictures.

The arts also feature heavily, from Ella’s Journey, which follows Ella Havelka, the first Indigenous dancer accepted into the Australia ballet, to multiplatform project Slam TV – a series about slam poetry, which is set to premiere on iview.

Meanwhile An Australian Nightmare presents a kind of Shakespearean film-within-a-film as producer/writer/director Gary Doust follows the journey of actor/filmmaker Craig Anderson making his first really low budget horror film with his own life savings.

And arts-inspired docos with a biographical edge include Gurrumul- Elcho Dreaming,  about the celebrated Indigenous musician, and a television documentary about visionary architect Harry Seidler titledSeidler – Brutal or Beautiful.

“This round of documentaries delivers a bit of everything, from chilling true crime, to spooky fun, to important issues impacting Australians now and in the future,” Ms Cameron said.

Continue reading Screen Australia’s Documentary Producer Program Supports 11 Diverse Projects →

Quentin Tarantino and Samuel L. Jackson are happy to be in each other’s company again in controversial and timely Western ‘The Hateful Eight’

Film, Latest News

When a furious Quentin Tarantino scrapped plans to make “The Hateful Eight” after his original script leaked, the director sent the screenplay to one of his trusted longtime collaborators for a friendly look. After reading it, Samuel L. Jackson was not about to let the filmmaker ditch the project. “I called him and said, ‘Dude, how are you not going to make this movie?’” Jackson recalls.

That kind of cajoling, along with a chorus of disappointment among Tarantino’s fanbase, helped bring the director back to the drawing board. He decided to work through the material at a Los Angeles live reading of the script in April of last year, then announced he would proceed with plans to make the post-Civil War Western.

“The Hateful Eight” — which debuts in limited release on Christmas Day and goes wide on Jan. 8 — marks the sixth collaboration between Jackson and Tarantino, but this is the first time the veteran actor could be considered the lead of one of his films.

Theirs has become a storied collaboration, not unlike famed film tandems such as Martin Scorsese and Robert De Niro, or John Ford and John Wayne.

It makes sense that Tarantino would cultivate such a relationship, as some of his favorite directors pulled from stock companies of actors. “That always seemed like the way to go,” Tarantino says. “With me, though, there’s a bit more of a practicality to it: Not every actor can do my dialogue. It’s very specific, and you have to be able to capture the rhythm.”

Many of the duo’s collaborators often cite comparisons with recording artists. “If Quentin is like a musician, no one has ever recorded his music in the way that Sam can,” says “Hateful Eight” producer Stacey Sher.

Harvey Weinstein, who has backed all of the features Tarantino has directed over the past 23 years, adds: “Sam is the world champion pianist who interprets and plays Quentin’s music like nobody else. It’s a language unto itself.”

Two decades and counting, it’s a relationship largely based on trust and respect.

“There are some people who, when they call you, you don’t care what they’re doing — you just drop your s— and do it,” Jackson says. “There’s no better place in the world to be than on a Quentin Tarantino set. He knows what he wants to do. He knows how he wants to do it. But in the framework of that, it’s like, ‘Show me what you want to do.’ It’s freeing. I’m just proud of the fact that he trusts me with his stuff.”

Continue reading Quentin Tarantino and Samuel L. Jackson are happy to be in each other’s company again in controversial and timely Western ‘The Hateful Eight’ →

5 Trends Making the Movie Business Lose Sleep

Film, Latest News

Blockbusters like “Jurassic World” and “Furious 7” powered the movie business to record numbers in 2015. But not everything Hollywood touched turned to gold.

There were plenty of “Pans” and “Victor Frankensteins” to splatter red ink around.

Here are five things that should keep the studios and filmmakers up at night.

Arthouse cinemas are beginning to feel like ghost towns.

Sundance favorites like “Dope” and “Me and Earl and the Dying Girl” scored big deals, only to die at the box office. In response, distributors kept their checkbooks closed at the Toronto Film Festival. Plus, there are fewer buyers after Relativity Media went belly up and the Weinstein Co. cut the number of movies it will release in half.

Incredible Shrinking Stars

Norma Desmond was wrong. It’s not the pictures that got smaller, it’s the stars. Bignames like George Clooney, Channing Tatum and Adam Sandler couldn’t save “Tomorrowland,” “Jupiter Ascending” and “Pixels.” Diminishing drawing power threatens that most cherished of Hollywood institutions — the passion project.

Hoping to nurture relationships with the likes of Sandra Bullock and Angelina Jolie, studios greenlit such risky projects as “Our Brand Is Crisis” and “By the Sea,” losing millions of dollars in the process.

Netflix and Amazon Fail to Make a Stir

Streaming services can write big checks and field buzzy TV shows like “House of Cards” and “Transparent,” but they haven’t had a breakout movie. Netflix says “Beasts of No Nation,” a brutal drama about child soldiers, was widely viewed online, but it was barely seen in theaters. The company’s deal with Sandler also raised eyebrows after “Pixels” flopped. Amazon has been more tentative, launching its first theatrical release with Spike Lee’s “Chi-Raq.” Though the services have revolutionized the way content is watched at home, they haven’t made many revolutionary movies — yet.

R-rated Comedies Are Running Out of Laughs

Amy Schumer emerged as a bona fide star with “Trainwreck,” but most films hoping to ride raunch to box office gold derailed. “Vacation,” “Ted 2” and “The Night Before” left audiences cold, and even well-reviewed “Spy” fell short of previous Melissa McCarthy efforts such as “The Heat” and “Identity Thief.” Nothing matched the success of 2014 smashes like “22 Jump Street” and “Neighbors,” and some studio executives fret that gross-out gags aren’t delivering belly laughs.

Feast or Famine

The hits were big, but so were the flops. For the first time, at least five films this year will top $1 billion globally. But even as movies like “Jurassic World” mint money, misses like “Pan” are leading to nine-figure writedowns. Fall was weighed down by adult dramas that cannibalized one another, leaving the likes of “The Walk” and “Steve Jobs” to wither. The year had two of the 10 best openings in history with “Jurassic World” and “Avengers: Age of Ultron,” but also suffered four of the worst wide-release debuts ever with “Burnt,” “Victor Frankenstein,” “Jem and the Holograms” and “Rock the Kasbah.” Not every record is worth breaking.

Brent Lang – Variety – December 10, 2015

Australian film has had its biggest year at the box office ever. Why?

Film, Latest News

Last year we didn’t want to know about Australian movies. This year, they set a new box office record. What’s behind the massive turnaround?

Which Australian movies did you see at the cinema in 2014? If you’re like most Australians, the answer is probably none. But this year, there’s a good chance you saw at least one.

Maybe it was Mad Max: Fury Road. Or Last Cab to Darwin or The Dressmaker or Russell Crowe’s wartime romp The Water Diviner. Or maybe it was one of the surprise family movie hits, Paper Planes or Oddball, to which you might have taken your kids or grandkids during the school holidays. Each of them has taken more (in some cases much more) than $7 million from seemingly satisfied Australian punters.

This has been a record year for Australian movies, which have collectively taken $84 million at the local box office, or 7.7 per cent of the total. That’s the biggest result ever in raw dollar terms, and the best share since 2001. What makes it truly remarkable is that just a year ago the local industry looked to be in terminal decline.

In 2014, Australian movies accounted for just 2.4 per cent of the total Australian box office. Only once since 1977, which is as far back as the Screen Australia database goes, has it been lower; the 1.3 per cent share in 2004 makes that Australian cinema’s annus horribilis. What’s more, last year’s result ($26.2 million) came on the back of a poor 2013 as well ($38.5 million, 3.5 per cent share). Had it not been for The Great Gatsby ($27.4 million), 2013 would have been a complete disaster.

So what has happened? Why has Australian cinema bounced back, and is this recovery sustainable?

A little over a year ago, I ran through the possible reasons you couldn’t pay Australians to watch Australian movies at the cinema. All of them were mined from the comments posted on our websites every time we ran a story about Australian movies. Those comments tended to have the following views:

Australian films are dark and depressing

Australian films are full of outmoded ocker stereotypes

Critics are too soft on Australian films

Australian films come and go without us even knowing they’ve arrived

Australian films should be cheaper to watch than Hollywood films because they

aren’t as spectacular

Australian films are rubbish

Ouch. So what has changed? Is it possible that the Australian movies of 2015 are fundamentally different? To answer, let’s start at the bottom, simply because it’s the most obvious explanation.

Are this year’s movies just better?

Some people would answer with a resounding “yes”, but let’s just remember that for every person who thinks film A is a work of genius, there’s usually another (or another 10) who think it’s not.

Reviews for Russell Crowe’s The Water Diviner (released on Boxing Day 2014) were mixed, both in Australia and abroad, but it did terrific business here and in Turkey (though it tanked in the US). On imdb, it gets a rating of 7.1 from the averaged votes of more than 45,000 people. On metacritic.com. it scores just 50/100 from professional critics. So, is it a good film or not? It’s largely down to personal taste.

At the other end of the scale, one of the most lauded Australian films of 2014, The Babadook, barely registered at the Australian box office (though its distributor claimed to be happy with its haul of $268,044 from 13 screens). But it did solid business overseas, catapulted writer-director Jennifer Kent into the Hollywood hot zone, and got stellar reviews (both at home and abroad). Was it a success? Yes and no. Was it a good film, as good at least as those that have done so much more business this year? Absolutely.

What is different, says Village Cinemas general manager Gino Munari, is that this year’s crop appears to have been made with a clear intention to engage audiences rather than simply satisfy the creative urges of the filmmakers. “I think there’s a commercial sensibility that’s crept into the psyche of the Australian filmmaking community,” he says. “The magic is in telling stories that people want to hear, stories where they can engage with the characters.”

Are we beginning to see the light?

The idea that we only make dour, introspective dramas about inner-city junkies is as reductive (and wrong) as it is popular, but looking at this year’s hits a couple of things stand out: they mix comedy and drama, they aren’t afraid of a bit of sentimentality, and family is at the heart of many of them.

Is there darkness? Well, yes. Last Cab to Darwin is about a man with stomach cancer who drives 3000 kilometres to meet a doctor he hopes will kill him. But there are laughs along the way, a bit of romance, an interesting take on black-white relations.

Light and shade, in other words. Death casts a shadow in Paper Planes, Oddball and The Dressmaker too. And it’s at the very heart of Holding the Man.

Perhaps the reason these movies have resonated is precisely because they don’t shy away from the dark stuff – but nor do they become trapped by it. Australians are resilient, resourceful people, able to rise above the challenges they face (or so we like to tell ourselves). It makes sense that we want to see those traits reflected back to us on screen, and are ready to embrace the films that do just that.

Goodbye, Sir Les and your ilk?

Have we really consigned the Ocker stereotype to the garbage bin of history? Hell no. Have you seen The Dressmaker? Last Cab? Oddball? These movies all dabble in caricature (though the denizens of Jocelyn Moorhouse’s country town ion The Dressmaker could have come straight from the pages of an Australian commedia dell’arte). What makes them work is a lightness of touch, a willingness to draw on the stereotype while seeking to flesh it out – to make the familiar just a little surprising.

Michael Caton’s cabbie is instantly recognisable as a type – but the relationship with his indigenous neighbour Polly (Ningali Lawford) adds shades and detail that we at first don’t expect.

At any rate, the success of these three movies in particular – and to some extent also The Water Diviner – suggest there’s still as much appetite for characters from “the land” now as there was in the era of Dad and Dave. We just want them to be a little less like cartoons these days.

You must have known it was on?

One of the reasons some of last year’s Australian movies failed at the cinema was that people were given scant opportunity to see them. A week or two on a dozen or so screens with scant marketing barely counts as a release strategy when you’re up against Hollywood movies on 500 screens with saturation advertising. But that’s the fate of many an Australian movie.

Those that cut through this year, though, tended to benefit from a wide release and hefty promotional spend. The Water Diviner went out on 299 screens, Oddball 289, The Dressmaker 384 and Mad Max: Fury Road a Hollywood-sized 542 screens.

A wide release means a distributor can target their campaign around a narrow window of time, maximising bang for buck. Shane Jacobson did such a sterling job talking up Oddball it’s doubtful anyone in Australia didn’t know at least a little about the film by the time it hit cinemas.

But it takes a certain kind of product for distributors to have the confidence to go wide: an appealing story, star talent, good production values. This year’s batch ticked those boxes, “but you can’t reverse engineer it”, says Screen Australia chief Graeme Mason. “If the distributors are spending millions of dollars – literally – putting it out there, they’re not going to do that unless they see something commercially appealing in it.”

Not every film that hit its mark this year went wide, though; Holding the Man opened on 31 screens, fairly typical for an Australian drama of the sort you might find in an arthouse cinema rather than a multiplex. That Sugar Film opened on just three, but rapidly expanded to more than 10 times that number on its way to becoming the highest-grossing non-IMAX Australian documentary in history. It is still possible to do it the old way, but it takes a hell of a lot of work.

How many stars did you give it?

Fairfax’s reviewers weren’t especially kind to Oddball – both Jake Wilson and Sandra Hall gave it two-and-a-half stars out of five – and News Ltd’s Leigh Paatsch gave it three. But if the critics were lukewarm, audiences were anything but. Our guys liked Mad Max: Fury Road a lot more – Wilson gave it three-and-a-half, saying it was “finally, a sequel that doesn’t disappoint”, while Craig Mathieson gave it four and a half, calling it “gloriously twisted”. They were perfectly in sync with the greater Australian public, which propelled the film to almost $22 million locally.

On the other hand, Partisan got just two stars from Paul Byrnes; at the box office, Ariel Kleiman’s debut feature made $115,439. Personally, I thought it had plenty to admire, but it’s hard to argue there was a huge disconnect between critical and audience response.

It’s hardly Hollywood, is it?

Few Australian movies can compete with Hollywood in the visual stakes, but Mad Max: Fury Road is an exception. In fact, you can bet plenty of people in Hollywood will cite its influence on their work in years to come.

Generally, though, we work cheaper and make more modest films (though our budgets are considerably higher than those in America’s indie sector, whose films are our direct competition for arthouse screens).

Is that a turn-off? Not at all, says Village’s Gino Munari. “We don’t need to spend tens of millions on films, we just need to tell stories that connect,” he says. “We’ve got a unique lovable culture that we should celebrate. We’ve got great talent, when the writers, directors actors all come together – when all the molecules coalesce – that’s when the magic happens.”

So, is everything OK now?

The trouble with setting a new high is that there’s a great chance it will be followed by something lower, and that creates the impression of relative failure. The truth is, the movie business is cyclical. This has been a big year for cinema generally – and Star Wars will likely push it to a new record – but the fundamental challenges for Australian cinema remain.

The reality is that most Australian films are not made for the multiplex. That’s about budget, it’s about availability of star talent, it’s about our desire to tell stories that are uniquely Australian.

Multiplex staples such as horror, thrillers and sci-fi might work internationally but, says Mason, “genre does not work theatrically in this country; it never has”. Even the best of them are destined to play only on the ever-diminishing arthouse circuit.

Screen Australia chief Graeme Mason is bullish about what lies ahead – he has high hopes for Simon Stone’s The Daughter, an adaptation of Henrik Ibsen’s The Wild Duck; Lion, based on Saroo Brierley’s memoir about searching for his birth parents in India; and Sherpa, a documentary about a brawl between climbers and their guides on the slopes of Mt Everest. But nothing is certain.

What matters for Mason is that our filmmakers think first and foremost about making movies with an audience in mind. “We have to aim to make stories that connect with people,” he says. “I don’t mean everything has to be at the multiplex, but there’s got to be a story that could – if the stars align – really resonate and connect with an audience.

“You can’t make stuff for what an audience SHOULD want. You have to think, ‘Would I go see it, where would I go see it, and would my friends go and see it?’ “That,” he adds, “is the reason for the success of this year’s crop”.

More than a mil: The Australian movies that passed the million-dollar mark in 2015

Mad Max: Fury Road ($21.67 million) – action blockbuster

The Dressmaker ($15.23 million) – rural period comedy drama

Oddball ($10.8 million) – family film with animal

The Water Diviner ($10.18 million) – rural period war saga

Paper Planes ($9.65 million) – family film

Last Cab to Darwin ($7.32 million) – dying with dignity drama

Blinky Bill the Movie ($2.89 million) – kids animation

That Sugar Film ($1.71 million) – documentary

Holding the Man ($1.24 million) – gay drama

Karl Quinn – SMH – December 6, 2015

Hou Hsiao-Hsien’s ‘The Assassin’ Tops Sight & Sound Critics Poll

Film, Latest News

LONDON — Hou Hsiao-Hsien’s “The Assassin” has topped a poll published by Sight
& Soundmagazine in which 168 U.K. and international film critics nominated their top five films of the year. Todd Haynes’ “Carol” came second and George Miller’s “Mad Max Fury Road” was third.

The results mark 2015 as a year of strong female characters and stories, with seven of the poll’s top 10 films having striking female leads. It was also a good year for documentary features, with Asif Kapadia’s “Amy” and Chantal Akerman’s “No Home Movie” both in the top 10.

Other U.S. movies in the top 20 included Paul Thomas Anderson’s “Inherent Vice” in joint ninth position, Charlie Kaufman and Duke Johnson’s “Anomalisa” and David Robert Mitchell’s “It Follows” in joint 11th place, and Pete Docter’s “Inside Out” and Sean Baker’s “Tangerine” sharing 14th place.

Top 20 Films Of 2015

1. The Assassin, Hou Hsiao-Hsien, France/Hong Kong/Taiwan

2. Carol, Todd Haynes, U.K./U.S.

3. Mad Max Fury Road, George Miller, Australia/U.S.

4. Arabian Nights, Miguel Gomes, Switzerland/France/Germany/Portugal

5. Cemetery of Splendor, Apichatpong Weerasethakul,

France/U.K./Germany/Malaysia/Thailand

6. No Home Movie, Chantal Akerman, Belgium/France

7. 45 Years, Andrew Haigh, U.K.

8. Son of Saul, Laszlo Nemes, Hungary

=9. Amy, Asif Kapadia, U.K.

=9. Inherent Vice, Paul Thomas Anderson, U.S.

=11. Anomalisa, Charlie Kaufman & Duke Johnson, U.S.

=11. It Follows, David Robert Mitchell, U.S.

13. Phoenix, Christian Petzold, Germany/Poland

=14. Girlhood, Céline Sciamma, France

=14. Hard to Be a God, Aleksei German, Russia

=14. Inside Out, Pete Docter, U.S.

=14. Tangerine, Sean Baker, U.S.

=14. Taxi Tehran, Jafar Panahi, Iran

=19. Horse Money, Pedro Costa, Portugal

=19. The Look of Silence, Joshua Oppenheimer,

Denmark/Finland/U.K./Indonesia/Norway

Leo Barraclough – Variety – November 27, 2015