Word is that BMW’s "The Hire" will return this fall with three new shorts, out of Fallon Minneapolis and produced by bicoastal Anonymous Content. The Web-based shorts have scored impressively on the awards circuit this spring, gaining recognition at the AICP Show, the Clio Awards, the One Show and One Show Interactive….Bob Kerstetter, co-founder/creative director at Black Rocket Euro RSCG, San Francisco, has decided to leave the shop he opened in 1996 to pursue directing and screenwriting opportunities. Kerstetter won the Directors Guild of America (DGA) Award for best commercial director of 2001 on the strength of three spots he helmed for Black Rocket client Musco Olives. The campaign was produced through bicoastal Tool of North America….Creative director Alex Lasarenko has exited the New York office of bicoastal Elias Arts. The music/sound design shop has promoted Fritz Doddy to succeed him….Director Rebecca Blake is headed for bicoastal Piper Productions….Director Mark Baldo has signed with bicoastal Hornet for spot representation. Baldo was most recently with Blue Sky Studios, White Plains, N.Y., working as sequence director on the feature film Ice Age….Production/post facility National Video Center, New York, is closing its doors. As of press time no one at the company was available for comment. It was unclear whether any of its 12 divisions would be continuing their individual operations….Zilpha Yost has been promoted to president of Portland, Ore.-headquartered Vinton Studios’ advertising division….Fluid, New York, has named managing director Marc Schwartz a partner at the music, sound design, editorial and visual effects studio….Colorist Demetri Kitsopoulos has joined Crash & Sue’s, Minneapolis….Composer Tommy Coster, Jr., has signed with AudiO2, Southfield, Mich., and its affiliate Brad Music, for exclusive representation….Tricia Halloran has been appointed creative director of SubZero, the Santa Monica shop specializing in getting emerging music artists and established stars to create original music for commercials….Visual effects/animation/motion graphics design studio Realm Productions has been launched in Santa Monica by visual effects supervisors Rony Soussan and Brian Fisher….Editor Sam Selis has joined the Austin, Texas, office of charlieuniformtango, Dallas. He had been with Joint Editorial, Portland, Ore., for the past four years….A couple of awards addenda to our coverage of the AICP Show and the Clio Awards: In the former, Los Angeles-based Dattner & Associates had one of its DPs honored in the Cinematography category for the seventh time in 11 years—this year’s recipient being Claudio Miranda for his work on Pocari’s "Tennis" spot. As for Clio, that awards competition named Santa Monica-based Harvest as Production Company of the Year. Harvest was launched a year ago by director Baker Smith and executive producer Bonnie Goldfarb….
“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