based The Image Bank (TIB) has named Gilles Devicq to the post of regional director, The Image Bank/Europe. Devicq has been running TIB’s French operation since ’91….Energy Film Library (EFL), Studio City, Calif., licensed images to MTV for a profile of the late Notorious B.I.G. and its BIOrhythm series. The footage included a cobra, an atom bomb, an aerial view of a Brooklyn street, and a woman in a bikini blowing a kiss. The company also provided NBC’s new Website snap.com with images of the Eiffel Tower, Taj Mahal, a punk rocker, a bullet train, and an egg dropping into a frying pan for promos, and images of a college campus to Columbia TriStar’s Dawson’s Creek. The New York office of EFL licensed an image of a Little Leaguer hitting a baseball and running toward first base to Ammirati Puris Lintas, New York, and Amtrak, and EFL Toronto provided vacation images to the Atlantic Lottery Corporation….New York-based Action Sports Adventure became the worldwide stock footage licensing representative of ESPN. ESPN’s collection features NASCAR racing, ESPN’s annual Summer and Winter X Games, NCAA games, professional sports including boxing, tennis, and soccer, yachting, and beach sports. Additionally, ESPN has begun shooting HDTV footage that will be accessible through Action Sports….
“Smile 2” Tops Weekend Box Office; “Anora” Glitters In Limited Release
Horror movies topped the domestic box office charts and an Oscar contender got off to a sparkling start this weekend. "Smile 2," in its first weekend, and "Terrifier 3" in its second proved to be the big draws for general movie audiences in North America, while the Palme d'Or winner"Anora" got the best per-theater average in over a year.
"Smile 2" was the big newcomer, taking first place with a better than expected $23 million, according to studio estimates Sunday. Parker Finn returned to write and direct the sequel to the supernatural horror "Smile," his debut. Originally intended for streaming, Paramount pivoted and sent the movie to theaters in the fall of 2022. "Smile" became a sleeper hit at the box office, earning some $217 million against a $17 million budget.
The sequel, starring Naomi Scott as a pop star, was rewarded with a bit of a bigger budget, and a theatrical commitment from the start. Playing on 3,619 screens, it opened slightly higher than the first's $22 million.
Second place went to Universal and DreamWorks Animation's "The Wild Robot" in its fourth weekend with $10.1 million, bumping it past $100 million in North America. Family films often have long lives in theaters, particularly ones as well reviewed as "The Wild Robot," and some have speculated that it got a bump this weekend from teenagers buying tickets for the PG-rated family film and then sneaking into "Terrifier 3," which is not rated, instead. Either way, Damien Leone's demon clown movie, which cost only $2 million to produce, is doing more than fine with legitimate ticket buyers. It added an estimated $9.3 million, bringing its total to $36.2 million.
"Rumors like that are PR gold," said Paul Dergarabedian, the senior media analyst for Comscore. "There's... Read More