London-headquartered The Mill has exited the feature film arena, and has refocused the technology and resources of Mill Film on commercials….Tony Robins, part of the team that launched visual effects facility Spontaneous Combustion, New York, has left his creative director post to pursue feature film directing and screenwriting. A search is currently underway to secure his replacement….Julie Shevach has exited her post as head of production for visual effects shop Black Logic, New York. No successor has been named.… Dark Light Pictures, Hollywood, has signed director Penelope Spheeris for spot representation. Spheeris’ credits include the features Suburbia, Wayne’s World and The Beverly Hillbillies….Director Jon Kane has returned to the spotworld via cYclops, New York, after working as the film editor and visual designer on the recently released feature Naqoyaqatsi, directed by Godfrey Reggio…. Comedy director Wez Werrin, an Australian who recently relocated to London, has signed with Santa Monica-based Area 51 Films for exclusive representation in the U.S…Director Daniel Kaufman, who was honored in the AICP Show spec spot category this year for Post Cereal’s "Cats in the Cradle," has joined Public Domain, the New York-headquartered shop headed by executive producer Steve Shore.…Director Kevin Bourland and bicoastal Treat have parted ways….Partners Don Faller, Nate Crooker and Brian Jackson have launched double wide media, a spot production shop in New York. The company launches with a roster consisting of director/DP Ed Lachman, the directorial team the GoodGuys (Crooker and Jackson), animator/director Mac Premo, and still photographer/documentarian Josh Rothstein….Upon wrapping principal photography on his feature Torque, director Joseph Kahn has jumped back into commercials and music videos via SuperMega, a Los Angeles-based shop which is a joint venture between the helmer and Palomar Pictures….
“Mickey 17” Tops Weekend Box Office, But Profitability Is A Long Way Off
"Parasite" filmmaker Bong Joon Ho's original science fiction film "Mickey 17" opened in first place on the North American box office charts. According to studio estimates Sunday, the Robert Pattinson-led film earned $19.1 million in its first weekend in theaters, which was enough to dethrone "Captain America: Brave New World" after a three-week reign.
Overseas, "Mickey 17" has already made $34.2 million, bringing its worldwide total to $53.3 million. But profitability for the film is a long way off: It cost a reported $118 million to produce, which does not account for millions spent on marketing and promotion.
A week following the Oscars, where "Anora" filmmaker Sean Baker made an impassioned speech about the importance of the theatrical experience – for filmmakers to keep making movies for the big screens, for distributors to focus on theatrical releases and for audiences to keep going – "Mickey 17" is perhaps the perfect representation of this moment in the business, or at least an interesting case study. It's an original film from an Oscar-winning director led by a big star that was afforded a blockbuster budget and given a robust theatrical release by Warner Bros., one of the few major studios remaining. But despite all of that, and reviews that were mostly positive (79% on RottenTomatoes), audiences did not treat it as an event movie, and it may ultimately struggle to break even.
Originally set for release in March 2024, Bong Joon Ho's follow-up to the Oscar-winning "Parasite" faced several delays, which he has attributed to extenuating circumstances around the Hollywood strikes. Based on the novel "Mickey7" by Edward Ashton, Pattinson plays an expendable employee who dies on missions and is re-printed time and time again. Steven... Read More