Last Night … At HKM—which was formed when bicoastal HKM Productions absorbed the roster of now defunct Ritts/ Hayden (SHOOT, 1/10, p. 1)—parted ways with HKM last month. Sonia Taylor, former head of production at Ritts/Hayden and a junior executive producer at Last Night, said that future plans would be announced shortly. Meanwhile, word at press time was that director Enda McCallion, formerly of Ritts/Hayden and Last Night, was coming aboard Los Angeles-headquartered Form. Other directors who had been under the Last Night banner included Iain MacKenzie, Simon West, Chris Nelson, feature helmer Mike Figgis and music video director Pierluca De Carlo….Director David Dobkin has joined bicoastal Go Film and at press time had embarked on his first project there: an ESPN X Games campaign for Ground Zero, Marina del Rey, Calif. The job marks his return to commercialmaking after spending the past year and a half on the feature Shanghai Knights….Director Richard Kizu-Blair, formerly of Pandemonium, San Francisco, has joined Venice, Calif.-headquartered Cucoloris Films….In association with executive producer Mark Humphrey’s Los Angeles-based BandAD, bicoastal/international Believe Media has signed the directing team of Max and Dania (a.k.a. MAD) for exclusive U.S. representation….Barney Miller and Andrew Hollander have opened Company X, an editorial/ music facility in New York. Joining Miller, who is editor/composer, and composer/arranger Hollander at the new shop are engineer/sound designer Robert L. Smith, and executive producer Samantha Tuttlebee….What’s next for Richard Cormier? SHOOT hears that industry vet Cormier (founder of Montreal-based Buzz Image Group and Jazz Media Network) has resigned as managing director of Santa Monica-based R!OT, where he oversaw the merger of R!OT, POP, 525, Hollywood Digital West and Digital Magic into R!OT, a unit of Ascent Media. His future plans had not been disclosed at press time….Director/animator Darren Walsh has joined Passion Pictures, London, for commercial and longform work. Walsh had been with Aardman Animations, Bristol, U.K…. Editor Steve Gandolfi of Cut & Run, London, is now available via Crew Cuts/West, Santa Monica, for U.S.-based projects….Elias Arts, bicoastal, has hired Scott Cymbala as general manager for its Los Angeles office. He formerly served as GM of the Southern California operation for bicoastal tomandandy….Noted film scorer John Frizzell has come aboard To The Beat Productions, New York, for commercials. His credits include Alien Resurrection, Beavis and Butt-head Do America, Gods and Generals, and I Know What You Did Last Summer. Additionally, To The Beat has hired Steve Love to oversee its West Coast operation from a new Los Angeles office. Love will serve as executive producer/composer for To The Beat Productions West….
“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