Register

    Amazon Sets Goal Of Producing 12 Movies A Year

    By SHOOTUpdated:No Comments1760 Views
    In this image released by Amazon Digital, Amy Landecker, left, and Jeffrey Tambor appear in a scene from "Transparent," a new series on Amazon Digital. Amazon.com’s Prime Instant Video made history this week when its show “Transparent” won a Golden Globe for best TV series, a first for a web-only production. (AP Photo/Amazon Digital, Beth Dubber, File)

    By Jake Coyle, Film Writer

    NEW YORK (AP) --

    Amazon is getting into the movie business.

    Amazon Studios announced Monday that it will significantly expand into movie production by acquiring films for theatrical release and early-window streaming through its subscription service, Amazon Prime Instant Video. A key part of the new venture is to shrink what's historically been a three-month window reserved for theaters, instead getting movies to its website four to eight weeks after theatrical release.

    Roy Price, vice president of Amazon Studios, said the company's goal is to produce 12 movies a year, with production beginning later this year.

    "Not only will we bring Prime Instant Video customers exciting, unique and exclusive films soon after a movie's theatrical run, but we hope this program will also benefit filmmakers, who too often struggle to mount fresh and daring stories that deserve an audience," said Price.

    The announcement marks a new foray into the movie business for the online retail giant, which has in recent years developed a slate of TV series since Amazon Studios launched in 2010. Most recently, its acclaimed "Transparent" won two Golden Globe awards, including best comedy or musical series.

    Independent film producer Ted Hope, who co-founded the production company Good Machine, will oversee creative development for the new unit, Amazon Original Movies.

    The move marks the latest major digital player pushing into Hollywood's movie business. Netflix last year inked deals with Adam Sandler and the Weinstein Co.

    Amazon's entry into movies also comes on the heels of Sony Pictures' unprecedented digital distribution of the Seth Rogen comedy "The Interview," the first major studio film to be released simultaneously in theaters, online and on video-on-demand platforms.

    Top North American theater chains have vigorously protested such moves. On Friday, Patrick Corcoran, vice president of the National Association of Theater Owners, fired back at those who saw Sony Pictures' digital release of "The Interview" as a sign of things to come. Corcoran said the movie's release "doesn't change anything," and noted that its two-week $31.5 million digital gross was far less the film would have made at multiplexes.

    But new entrants such as Amazon and Netflix don't have to worry about theater chains the way Hollywood studios do. Any Amazon Studios movie release will likely only play in independent theaters.

    Category:News
    Tags:Amazon



    Linda Lavin, Tony-Winning Actor Who Starred In The Sitcom “Alice,” Dies At 87

    Monday, December 30, 2024

    Linda Lavin, a Tony Award-winning stage actor who became a working class icon as a paper-hat wearing waitress on the TV sitcom "Alice," has died. She was 87.

    Lavin died in Los Angeles on Sunday of complications from recently discovered lung cancer, her representative, Bill Veloric, told The Associated Press in an email.

    A success on Broadway, Lavin tried her luck in Hollywood in the mid-1970s. She was chosen to star in a new CBS sitcom based on "Alice Doesn't Live Here Anymore," the Martin Scorsese-directed film that won Ellen Burstyn an Oscar for playing the title waitress.

    The title was shortened to "Alice" and Lavin become a role model for working moms as Alice Hyatt, a widowed mother with a 12-year-old son working in a roadside diner outside Phoenix. The show, with Lavin singing the theme song "There's a New Girl in Town," ran from 1976 to 1985.

    The show turned "Kiss my grits" into a catchphrase and co-starred Polly Holliday as waitress Flo and Vic Tayback as the gruff owner and head chef of Mel's Diner.

    The series bounced around the CBS schedule during its first two seasons but became a hit leading into "All in the Family" on Sunday nights in October 1977. It was among primetime's top 10 series in four of the next five seasons. Variety magazine listed it among the all-time best workplace comedies.

    Lavin soon went on to win a Tony for best actress in a play for Neil Simon's "Broadway Bound" in 1987.

    She was working as recently as this month promoting a new Netflix series in which she appears, "No Good Deed," and filming a forthcoming Hulu series, "Mid-Century Modern," according to Deadline, which first reported her death.

    Lavin grew up in Portland, Maine, and moved to New York City after graduating from... Read More

    MySHOOT Profiles


    Add A Comment