By compiled by Catherine Lowe
Energy Film Library (EFL), Los Angeles, has hired Randy Hogan as its new VP of information technology. He comes to the company from Burbank, Calif.-based Winston Tire Company, where he was VP of information systems. Additionally, EFL now has tornado footage available for licensing. Shot in Oklahoma by storm-chasing photojournalist/cinematographer Warren Faidley, the footage captures tornadoes moving up to 70 miles per hour. Several of Faidley’s shots of storm clouds and lightning were used in the trailer for Twister….Footage.net, headquartered in Hanover, N.H., has added 450,000 hours of New York-based NBC News Archives’ content to its Web site’s footage library. The archives contain current and historical events in science, business, sports, the arts and the environment, and span over 70 years….Dallas-based The Image Bank (TIB) now offers an Internet clipboard service. Reference images in the company’s master files can be accessed either as stills or as QuickTime movies….Hot Shots Cool Cuts (HSCC), New York, acquired a collection of documentary filmmaker Henry Strauss’ travel, industrial and lifestyle film footage. Strauss, who pioneered the use of film for management development, motivation and communications, produced corporate films for IBM, Pan Am, General Electric, Gulf Oil and Johnson & Johnson, among others. His travel footage spans four decades and more than 60 countries, including New Zealand, India, Portugal, Italy, Mexico, Antigua, Hong Kong and the South Pacific islands. Also, HSCC has released its Moving Century Collection, a 41-tape library containing over 70 hours of footage spanning the entire past century. The collection is divided into such themes as aviation, civil rights, WWII, radio and TV, space exploration, dancing, contests, kisses, science fiction and slapstick….Dynamic Graphics, Las Vegas, Nev., has released broadcast-quality, royalty-free, digital stock footage in a collection called The Professional Series. Save for a few shots, the 32-title series footage has not previously been released, and can be viewed on a browser CD called "Video Voyager." Each title contains 20 clips that range from 13 to 30 seconds each….Mercedes-Benz licensed clips from New York-based Second Line Search for its latest campaign, including footage of Babe Ruth, beauty shots of Alaska and images of the ENIAC Computer at the Pentagon from the ’50s. Second Line was also the footage source for Mercedes-Benz’s previous "Not Just A Car" campaign, which included clips of Jackie Robinson, Ernest Hemingway and Laurence Olivier….
“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