Mark Sitley has joined Euro RSCG MVBMS, New York, as executive creative director of production. He was formerly director of production, North America, for Fallon, Minneapolis and New York….Director Johan Kramer has signed with bicoastal/international Chelsea Pictures for U.S. representation. Kramer, a founding partner of agency KesselsKramer, Amsterdam, will remain involved in the ad shop….Director Stuart Macleod has signed with Cine/DRSA International, New York, for spotwork…. Josianne Cote has been promoted to executive producer at Rex Edit, the Venice, Calif.-based house owned by cutter Bill Marmor. Cote, who had been a producer at Rex for the past two years, succeeds Allison Nunn, who sold her interest in the shop and is pursuing other business interests, according to Marmor. Additionally, Benjamin Foushee has been upped to assistant editor….Visual effects designer Julie Watkins has returned to R!OT Manhattan. Watkins, who was most recently with Spontaneous Combustion, New York, had previously been with R!OT Manhattan from 1999-’01….Michael Apted, a feature filmmaker (Coal Miner’s Daughter, Gorillas in the Mist) and documentarian (Incident at Oglala) who directs commercials via bicoastal GARTNER, has been elected president of the Directors Guild of America (DGA). He succeeds Martha Coolidge, who did not seek re-election. Coolidge was, however, named first VP of the guild….
“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