based American Pictures has signed Doug Wedeck and Heidi Gottlieb of Single Bid, New York, for East Coast representation, and Chicago-based Lauren McNamara to cover the Midwest….Vamp Films, Los Angeles, has secured The Connor Group, Chicago, for Midwest representation….DP Peter James has joined The Skouras Agency, Santa Monica, for exclusive representation….Agent Jeannine Angelique has exited Pacific Palisades, Calif.-based Smith.Gosnell.Nicholson & Associates to join the commercial and music video division of The Lyons/Sheldon Agency, Los Angeles….Roger Darnell, formerly marketing and public relations exec. for Hollywood film lab and DVD manufacturer Crest National, has been named director of marketing for Santa Monica-based The Spark Factory, a production house that is opening a commercial division….
Critics lambasted it and audiences didn't grade it much better. But despite the turbulence, Mel Gibson's "Flight Risk" managed to open No. 1 at the box office with a modest $12 million, according to studio estimates Sunday.
On a quiet weekend, even for the typically frigid movie-going month of January, the top spot went to the Lionsgate thriller starring Mark Wahlberg as a pilot flying an Air Marshal (Michelle Dockery) and fugitive (Topher Grace) across Alaska. But it wasn't a particularly triumphant result for Gibson's directorial follow-up to 2016's "Hacksaw Ridge." Reviews (21% fresh on Rotten Tomatoes) and audience scores (a "C" CinemaScore) were terrible.
President Donald Trump recently named Gibson a "special ambassador" to Hollywood, along with Jon Voight and Sylvester Stallone.
Going into the weekend, Hollywood's attention was more focused on the Sundance Film Festival and on Thursday's Oscar nominations, which were twice postponed by the wildfires in the Los Angeles region.
The weekend was also a small test as to whether the once more common Oscar "bump" that can sometimes follow nominations still exists. Most contenders have by now completed the bulk of their theatrical runs and are more likely to see an uptick on VOD or streaming.
But the weekend's most daring gambit was A24 pushing Brady Corbet's "The Brutalist" a three–and-a-half-hour epic nominated for 10 Academy Awards, into wide release. Though some executives initially greeted "The Brutalist," which is running with an intermission, as "un-distributable," Corbet has said, A24 acquired the film out of the Venice Film Festival and it's managed solid business, collecting $6 million in limited release.
In wide release, it earned $2.9 million — a far from... Read More
