LAIKA, which put its last four animated films through Focus — Kubo and the Two Strings, The Boxtrolls, ParaNorman, and Coraline — has moved its latest with Annapurna Pictures for U.S. release.
Called Film Five, the pic features the voices of Hugh Jackman, Zoe Saldana and Zach Galifianakis. Pic’s in production with ParaNorman helmer Chris Butler. LAIKA President & CEO Travis Knight and Megan Ellison, Founder and CEO of Annapurna Pictures, made the…
LAIKA Sets Next Animated Pic ‘Film Five’ For Annapurna Release
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Annapurna, Plan B Plot ‘Spotlight’-Like Movie On How NY Times Reporters Broke Harvey Weinstein Sex Scandal Story
EXCLUSIVE: Annapurna and Plan B have partnered to acquire the rights to give Spotlight-like treatment to the story of how New York Times reporters Jodi Kantor and Megan Twohey worked with editor Rebecca Corbett to break the biggest scandal story Hollywood has seen in decades, the one that took down Harvey Weinstein. The stories landed the reporters a Pulitzer earlier this month.
The bombshell first story ran last October 5, when Kantor and Twohey revealed an array of…
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Emerging Indie Studio TV Executives On Challenges Of Competing With The Majors & Battling For Top Talent – ATX
During an Emerging Studios panel at the ATX Television Fest, TV executives from several smaller independent studios — Entertainment One, Blumhouse, Annapurna and Miramax — discussed competing with major independent studios like Sony TV and Warner Bros TV as well as with vertically integrated studios like 20th TV, Universal TV, CBS TV Studios and ABC Studios.
One of the big takeaways was that the material is key to combating the obstacles faced by smaller companies.
“The…
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Sundance Vanguard Recipient Boots Riley Talks Social Timeliness Of ‘Sorry To Bother You’
Musician-turned-filmmaker Boots Riley was presented with the Sundance Institute’s Vanguard Award Thursday night in front of a sold-out house at the Theatre at the Ace Hotel in Los Angeles for his debut feature Sorry to Bother You. Before the preview screening of surrealistic socially conscious Sundance Festival fave, Rosario Dawson, who appears in the film in voice form, presented him with the award.
“You are walking poetry,” said Dawson. “You are a remarkable human…
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Marc Weinstock To Leave Annapurna After Two Years As President
EXCLUSIVE: Marc Weinstock, who joined Annapurna two years ago as its president, is leaving the company to pursue another opportunity. He will not be replaced; rather, the company is reorganizing and will phase out the position and re-delegate duties to the senior leadership team.
The exit is said to be amicable. While at Sony, Weinstock had worked with Annapurna on films American Hustle and Zero Dark Thirty, so there was a working relationship that already had been…
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‘Missing Link’: Laika’s Zach Galifianakis-Hugh Jackman-Zoe Saldana Toon Gets Release Date From Annapurna
Missing Link has found its release date. Annapurna said today that the Laika toon starring Zach Galifianakis, Hugh Jackman, and Zoe Saldana will hit theaters on April 19.
Written and directed by Chris Butler, the plot follows Mr. Link (Galifianakis), the slightly silly, surprisingly smart and soulful beast who is the last living remnant of Man’s primitive ancestry, the Missing Link. As species go, he couldn’t be more endangered; he’s the last of his kind and he’s lonely…
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Margot Robbie In Talks For Annapurna’s Fox News Movie; Nicole Kidman Playing Gretchen Carlson
UPDATE: Deadline has confirmed that Margot Robbie is in talks to join Annapurna’s Fair and Balanced as a fictional Fox News associate producer named Kayla Pospisil. Robbie was nominated for a best actress Oscar last year for I, Tonya and will be next seen in Focus Features’ Dec. 7 release Mary Queen of Scots. Fair and Balanced is the working title, and it’s being billed as a feature that’s about the women of Fox News, not a Roger Ailes biopic per se. Logline: “The film…
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‘If Beale Street Could Talk’ Teaser: Annapurna Unveils First Look At Barry Jenkins’ Next Film
Annapurna has dropped an emotional teaser to Oscar winner Barry Jenkins’ If Beale Street Could Talk, the film based on the novel by James Baldwin in celebration of what would have been the 94th birthday of the revered author.
In the video, a voiceover of Baldwin is heard saying, “there are days when you wonder what your role is in this country. And what your future is in it. This is one of them,” and “the things that tormented me the most were the very things that…
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Jennifer Lopez To Star In ‘Hustlers’ From Director Lorene Scafaria & Annapurna
Jennifer Lopez has signed on to star in Hustlers, a film adaptation based on a New York Magazine article by Jessica Pressler titled The Hustlers at Scores. Lorene Scafaria is directing the film from a screenplay she adapted. The article was about a group of former strip club employees who band together to turn the tables on their Wall Street clients.
Set in New York City in the wake of the financial crisis, the pic explores the toll it took on the livelihood of the…
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John Lithgow Set As Roger Ailes In Charles Randolph Film At Annapurna
John Lithgow (The Crown) has been tapped to portray Roger Ailes, the late Fox News brass, in Annapurna's Untitled Charles Randolph Project, which will focus on the point of view of the women who took on the toxic male culture of Fox News and helped depose its chief architect. Charlize Theron is attached to star as Megyn Kelly. Jay Roach is directing the pic from a script by Randolph, an Oscar winner for adapting The Big Short. Annapurna is producing the film along with…
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Allison Janney To Play Attorney Susan Estrich In Annapurna’s Movie About The Roger Ailes Fox News Harassment Scandal
EXCLUSIVE: Oscar-winner Allison Janney will play trailblazing feminist lawyer Susan Estrich in Annapurna’s untitled Charles Randolph project about the women who took on Fox News kingpin Roger Ailes and the toxic male culture at the network.
Author and liberal commentator Estrich, who was the first female President of the Harvard Law Review and the first woman to manage a presidential campaign, surprised many by representing Ailes even after a slew of sexual harassment…
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Adam McKay’s Dick Cheney Project Gets A Title & Holiday Release Date
Annapurna’s Adam McKay-directed Dick Cheney movie has been officially titled Vice, and the pic now will go wide on Christmas Day instead of an original platform release that was to begin on December 14.
There have been heavy whispers of this title on the web; IMDb has had the title listed as such for weeks, but the studio made it official today.
Christian Bale gained weight to play the role of former Vice President Dick Cheney. Here is the pic’s logline: “Epic story about…
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The Reasons Behind Annapurna’s Tumultuous Week
Tuesday’s news about Annapurna shockingly pulling out of two projects –Jay Roach’s untitled Roger Ailes movie and the Jennifer Lopez feature Hustlers — in addition to its head of production Chelsea Barnard exiting, has raised serious questions in Hollywood about the independent studio’s financial livelihood moving forward. Barnard’s departure comes roughly four months after the Megan Ellison-run company lost its CFO Josh Small and President Marc Weinstock at the same…
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Nicole Kidman On Sparking To The Female Noir Center Of ‘Destroyer’– The Contenders London Video
Karyn Kusama’s Destroyer places Nicole Kidman into the grisly underbelly of Los Angeles, playing an undercover detective struggling to come to grips with an assignment that went sour some 20 years previous. Evoking a modern-day film noir, Kusama’s film is an intense ride, with a gift of a part for Kidman, who leaped at the chance to add a post-feminist twist to a storied genre.
“This sort of film [is] usually centered around a man,” Kidman said at Deadline’s The…
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Nicole Kidman Transformed For Deep-Cover Duty In Annapurna’s ‘Destroyer’– The Contenders LA
Any fan of Nicole Kidman would have recognized the willowy, red-headed Australian actress as soon as she appeared on stage this weekend for the Annapurna presentation at Deadline’s The Contenders award-season event in Los Angeles. That wasn’t the case a few minutes later, however, when the DGA Theater’s screen showed scenes from Destroyer with a visage of Kidman that was startlingly unfamiliar.
In Destroyer Kidman portrays Erin Bell, who as a young police officer…
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Lionsgate Handling Sales On Jay Roach’s Starry Roger Ailes Harassment Movie – AFM
EXCLUSIVE: I understand Lionsgate is selling Jay Roach’s Roger Ailes-Fox News harassment movie here at the AFM.
As we’ve reported in recent weeks, Lionsgate has been moving towards a deal for the movie, which was previously set up with Annapurna. The expectation is that Lionsgate will take worldwide rights and handle U.S. and UK itself, and Latin America via its JV IDC. A number of international markets are seemingly up for grabs.
BRON Studios is producing and financing…
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Nicole Kidman LAPD Thriller ‘Destroyer’ Cancels Tonight’s AFI Fest Red Carpet Due To SoCal Fires
With the Woolsey Fire still burning after a recent flare-up this morning and evacuations reissued in the Lake Sherwood and Hidden Valley areas, Hollywood continues to turn down the volume on its celebration factor out of respect for the victims, those who’ve lost their homes and the first responders who continue to battle the fire which has burned close to 100,000 acres. As such, Annapurna’s AFI Fest premiere for the Nicole Kidman LAPD noir Destroyer won’t be holding a…
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MGM Believes ‘Creed II’s Knockout Opening Weekend Sets Up Studio For Film-Slate Growth
EXCLUSIVE: The knockout $55 million Thanksgiving holiday weekend opening of the Michael B. Jordan-Sylvester Stallone starrer Creed II has MGM feeling validated about its decision last summer to not put a “for sale” sign on the lawn and instead double down on a future as a theatrical release company that demonstrated the benefit of better control of its marketing and distribution because of its joint venture with Annapurna. To mix sports metaphors, the fight film was the…
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‘If Beale Street Could Talk’ Cast And Crew On Finding The “Interior Life” Of James Baldwin’s Novel – The Contenders NY
For writer-director Barry Jenkins, the story of If Beale Street Could Talk isn’t entirely found in its plot, but rather in its impressionistic, sometimes dialogue-free scenes that unfold for minutes at a time.
“I think they advance the emotion in a very concrete way,” he said at Deadline’s Contenders New York event. “When you read a novel, you read the dialogue between characters but then the author will go on this riff. That’s the interior life of these characters…
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Amy Adams Hits Golden Globes Hat Trick: 3 Noms Between ‘Vice’&‘Sharp Objects’
Amy Adams had a good morning with the Golden Globes nominations, one of only two people this year nominated three times. The other is Alfonso Cuarón, nominated in Best Foreign Film and in the writing and directing categories for Roma.
Adams is nominated in the Best Supporting Actress for her portrayal of Lynne Cheney in the Adam McKay-directed Annapurna drama Vice. She’s also nominated for Best Actress in a Limited Series for her lead role in Sharp Objects. She’s also a…
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