Technicolor has reached an agreement to acquire Mr. X, a North America-based (Toronto and NY) provider of visual effects to TV and international film clients. Financial terms of the deal were not disclosed. The acquisition remains subject to approval by the Government of Canada’s Department of Canadian Heritage.
Mr. X would join Technicolor’s Production Services division, which includes Oscar-winning MPC (The Moving Picture Company). MPC will continue to address leading projects for both its studio and advertising clients, while Mr. X will focus on high-concept TV production, genre features and international film co-productions. Mr. X and its clients will also be able to access Technicolor’s postproduction portfolio, proven operational excellence and leading technology solutions.
Mr. X will operate as Technicolor’s VFX brand for television and become a wholly owned subsidiary of Technicolor. Mr. X’s co-founder and president, Dennis Berardi, will become global managing director of Mr. X reporting to Tim Sarnoff, president of Production Services for Technicolor. Mr. X currently employs over 200 professionals in Toronto and New York.
“By joining forces with Technicolor’s Production Services, division,” said Berardi, “we will have greater scale, resources and access to cutting edge technology and R&D to serve our clients and to continue to grow the business.”
Mr. X services include design and pre-visualization, 3D animation, CGI effects, compositing, VFX supervision and production management. Mr. X has worked or is currently working on major television series such as “Vikings” for the History Channel, “Penny Dreadful” for Showtime and Guillermo del Toro’s upcoming “The Strain” for FX; as well as feature films including “RoboCop,” “Anchorman: The Legend Continues” and the "Resident Evil” franchise for Constantin Film.
Review: Writer-Director Coralie Fargeat’s “The Substance”
In its first two hours, "The Substance" is a well-made, entertaining movie. Writer-director Coralie Fargeat treats audiences to a heavy dose of biting social commentary on ageism and sexism in Hollywood, with a spoonful of sugar- and sparkle-doused body horror.
But the film's deliciously unhinged, blood-soaked and inevitably polarizing third act is what makes it unforgettable.
What begins as a dread-inducing but still relatively palatable sci-fi flick spirals deeper into absurdism and violence, eventually erupting — quite literally — into a full-blown monster movie. Let the viewer decide who the monster is.
Fargeat — who won best screenplay at this year's Cannes Film Festival — has been vocal about her reverence for "The Fly" director David Cronenberg, and fans of the godfather of body horror will see his unmistakable influence. But "The Substance" is also wholly unique and benefits from Fargeat's perspective, which, according to the French filmmaker, has involved extensive grappling with her own relationship to her body and society's scrutiny.
"The Substance" tells the story of Elisabeth Sparkle, a famed aerobics instructor with a televised show, played by a powerfully vulnerable Demi Moore. Sparkle is fired on her 50th birthday by a ruthless executive — a perfectly cast Dennis Quaid, who nails sleazy and gross.
Feeling rejected by a town that once loved her and despairing over her bygone star power, Sparkle learns from a handsome young nurse about a black-market drug that promises to create a "younger, more beautiful, more perfect" version of its user. Though she initially tosses the phone number in the trash, she soon fishes it out in a desperate panic and places an order.
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