Director Ringan Ledwidge of Small Family Business (SFB), London, will be represented in the U.S. via Park Pictures, New York. Additionally, SFB will represent the Park Pictures roster—director/DP Lance Acord, and directors Neil Abramson, Alison MacLean, Ramaa Mosley, and Carter Smith—in the U.K. market….Milan, Italy-based tabletop director/cameraman Vittorio Sacco has joined Plum Productions, Santa Monica, for stateside representation. He has already wrapped his first job under the Plum banner, a Sony spot for Young & Rubicam, Irvine, Calif….Director Lisbon Okafor has come aboard bicoastal commercial production house Coppos….Director Brian Aldrich has signed with bicoastal/international Believe Media….Director David Gordon Green has signed with bicoastal/international Chelsea Pictures for spot representation in the U.S. Green, who directed George Washington, All the Real Girls and the soon-to-be-released Undertow, recently made his commercial helming debut with a truth campaign for the American Legacy Foundation via Crispin Porter+ Bogusky, Miami, and Arnold Worldwide, Boston….Director Joel Peissig has signed with bicoastal Notorious Pictures for commercials and music videos….Executive producer Noelle Whitfield, a former Midwest rep at Get Reehl, Chicago, has partnered with director Marcos Zavitsanos to form Boutique Films, Hollywood….Director Jeremy Warshaw has come aboard Highway 61, New York….Lankford Films, New York and Houston, has signed director Ed Bianchi for spot representation….Agency BaylessCronin, Atlanta, is set to close on Jan. 30….Hollywood-headquartered Crest National is expected to complete the purchase of all assets of Concord Disc Manufacturing, Anaheim, Calif. Crest National currently operates five facilities in Hollywood that encompass a motion picture film lab, a digital video post house, a DVD/CD/SACD manufacturing facility, and two DVD design, authoring and encoding studios….
“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