Directors Billy Kent and Diamantino Ferreira have signed with bicoastal Treat for spotwork….Director Bob Grigg has joined Sherman Oaks, Calif.-based Strom Magallon for exclusive spot representation. Grigg’s last formal company affiliation was Industrial Light+Magic Commercial Productions, which closed earlier this year…..Director Alex Winter and Alex Halpern, president/editor of Post Factory, New York, have launched Hyena Films, New York. While a separate entity from Post Factory, clients working with Hyena will have the option of utilizing the editing company’s facilities….Director Marcus Stokes—who moved up the ranks from technical animator to technical director to lead technical special effects director at Industrial Light+Magic, San Rafael, Calif.—has come aboard Big Trout Pictures, San Francisco, for exclusive representation as a spot director….London-based production company Mustard has signed director Thed Lenssen for U.K. representation….Creative Bubble, New York, is opening an audio post/sound design operation under the moniker Burst @ Creative Bubble. A controlling interest in Burst will be maintained by Creative Bubble. Marcelo Gandola, who has been brought aboard to serve as senior audio engineer, will also receive an equity interest in the shop. The new facility is set to open its doors on Sept. 30….Editor Steve Schreiber has joined Steel Rose Editorial, New York, a company that was co-founded by his son, editor Mitch Schreiber. Steve Schreiber had been freelancing for the past two years at Rhinoceros Editorial, New York….New York-headquartered audio post shop Sound Lounge has added mixers Glen Landrum and Keith Reynaud. The signings come as a component of Sound Lounge’s recently completed expansion—which includes a near doubling of the company’s facility space and the launch of a new radio production division headed by Sound Lounge principal Marshall Grupp, who will also continue as head of Marshall Grupp Sound Design, New York…. Music/sound design company Tonefarmer, New York, has named Tiffany Warin as its president/executive producer….CG supervisor Aladino V. Debert, senior computer artist Mary Beth Haggerty, Inferno artist Scott Rader and CG artist Erik Shepherd have joined digital studio Radium. Haggerty and Shepherd will work out of Radium’s San Francisco Studio, while Debert and Rader will be based at the shop’s Santa Monica quarters…..Director Kim Dempster of Greenwich Pictures, New York, has completed principal photography for her first feature, tentatively titled Marmalade, and is now available for commercials….
“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