Los Angeles’ business tax reform package, which includes an initiative that would provide potential relief to many small and medium-sized production houses that lens in L.A. (SHOOT, 10/29, p. 1), cleared a major hurdle last week when it unanimously passed the city’s Ad Hoc Committee on Business Tax Reform. The measure must next gain the approval of the Budget and Finance Committee, and then the full Los Angeles City Council in order to take effect on July 1, 2005. The business tax reform has received the endorsement of Mayor James K. Hahn (D-Los Angeles) and the Association of Independent Commercial Producers….Director Phil Joanou has joined bicoastal/international Morton Jankel Zander. He had previously been with bicoastal Villains….Director Thomas Kloss, formerly of Chased by Cowboys, Venice, Calif., has come aboard Santa Monica-headquartered Reactor Films…. Director Leslie Libman has joined Los Angeles-headquartered Form for commercials….Director Tom Schiller has signed with bicoastal Go Film. He had previously been with now defunct Coppos Films….Editorial house Cut + Run, which has shops in London and Los Angeles, is set to open an office in New York under the aegis of partner/editor Chuck Willis….Directors Per Dreyer and Brendan Donovan have joined A Band Apart, Los Angeles…. The directing team of Matt Donaldson and Matt Leal has come aboard Redtree Productions, Boston and New York. The helming duo has already wrapped its first job at the company, a four-spot package for the United Way of Massachusetts Bay….Director Peter Siaggas, who was formerly with Pogo Pictures, Atlanta, has launched Spots Films, Atlanta….Ty Montague has left Wieden+ Kennedy, New York, where he was co-creative director, to take a top creative position at J. Walter Thompson. Kevin Proudfoot has been promoted to co-creative director at Wieden+Kennedy, joining co-creative director Todd Waterbury….John Hunt, the New York-based worldwide creative director of TBWA, has been named president of the film, press and outdoor juries for the 2005 Cannes Lions International Advertising Festival….Colorist Laura Jans-Fazio, formerly of Company 3, Santa Monica, has joined Encore, Hollywood….
“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