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Jim Carrey is reuniting with his “Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind” director Michel Gondry to star in a new half-hour comedy for Showtime. “Kidding,” which has been given a 10-episode order, will represent Carrey’s first series regular role in more than two decades.

“Kidding” stars Carrey as Jeff, also known as beloved children’s TV personality Mr. Pickles. Here’s the logline: “A beacon of kindness and wisdom to America’s impressionable young minds and the parents who grew up with him – [Jeff] also anchors a multimillion dollar branding empire. But when this beloved personality’s family – wife, two sons, sister and father – begins to implode, Jeff finds no fairy tale or fable or puppet will guide him through this crisis, which advances faster than his means to cope. The result: a kind man in a cruel world faces a slow leak of sanity as hilarious as it is heartbreaking.

The idea of a “fall TV season” feels particularly antiquated in 2017, as two of the year’s buzziest series (“Game of Thrones” and “Twin Peaks”) have already wrapped for the year. Fall may even be a bit of an afterthought now compared to spring, as networks aim to catch Emmy voters with prestige TV premieres when campaign season gets underway.

And yet, there’s nearly 70 years of tradition with the fall TV season. It’s when Nielsen still resets the calendar for the new TV year; when blue chip advertisers like the automotive sector roll out their own new wares; football season returns (don’t discount that huge impact on TV schedules); and the weather gets chilly, which conceivably means more viewers watching TV indoors.

This year, they’ll find a lot of familiar titles on broadcast TV, including the return of NBC’s “Will & Grace”; a prequel to “The Big Bang Theory,...

Albert Einstein: physicist, Nobel laureate, romantic and … owl? Trying to get a handle on the complex person whose name is literally synonymous with genius was the biggest challenge for Nat Geo Channel’s first scripted anthology series, which even has the title “Genius.”

Einstein was best associated with his theory of relativity, which is one of the two pillars of modern physics, and his mass-energy equivalence formula, E=mc². Beyond the science and iconic shock of grey hair, though, was a man who started out very differently from how we now perceive him.

Read More: Ron Howard Avoided Directing TV Until ‘Genius,’ and He Has a Reason for That — IndieWire’s Turn It On Podcast

“The goal of the show is to really humanize, get under the skin of Albert Einstein,” showrunner Ken Biller said. “We discovered that he lived this big, bold, brash, complicated, messy life.”

Einstein as a...

Richard Dreyfuss would like you to know that Fox’s upcoming event series, “Shots Fired,” is “probably the most current show you’ll ever see.” According to the “Jaws” star, “When we were shooting it was happening and when we left it happened there… it’s exactly current with the world.”

And that’s by design. At the TCA Winter Press Tour, the producers and stars of Fox’s 10-episode drama explained that the show came about right after the chaos that rocked Ferguson, Missouri in the summer of 2014.

Read More: Dustin Lance Black Wants to Unite the Nation, Even Trump, With Gay Rights Miniseries ‘When We Rise’

According to co-creator Gina Prince-Bythewood, after the events following the death of Michael Brown, Fox CEO Dana Walden went to producer Brian Grazer regarding a project that would take on the issues Ferguson brought up. Grazer then enlisted Prince-Bythewood and Reggie Bythewood...

Showtime is bracing for the “Twin Peaks” effect.

Network president/CEO David Nevins expects to see a tremendous surge in sign-ups for Showtime’s streaming service come May 21, when “Twin Peaks” premieres, and hopes to capitalize on that interest.

Showtime is expected to see its over-the-top service explode that day, given that episodes 3 and 4 will be available on the service the same day as the show’s two-hour linear premiere. Beyond that, the show will roll out in a traditional weekly fashion.

Read More: ‘Twin Peaks’ Revival: Release Date Announced For David Lynch’s Iconic Series

“More or less it will be once a week,” he said. “We’re not breaking it into two seasons. David really believes in the drip of weekly television.”

He also believes in keeping the show hush-hush ­­ – so much that a proper “Twin Peaks” trailer probably won’t be released before premiere. “You’ll see film pieces come out,...

Blue Crush has its fans. A lot of them, I’d wager. The film performed well enough when it was released in 2002, but it became more popular when it hit home video. Around five years ago a direct-to-video sequel was made by Universal. Beyond the title and surfing, though, Blue Crush 2 has little to do with John Stockwell‘s […]

The post ‘Blue Crush’ TV Show in the Works From NBC and Producer Brian Grazer appeared first on /Film.

Not for the first time, Paramount has announced plans to shuffle its slate of upcoming horror films, bumping long-in-development sequel Rings for the third and surely final time. It’ll now open on February 3, 2017 instead of October, which is the fourth release date reserved for F. Javier Gutiérrez nerve-shredding pic, though it wasn’t the only movie to receive a new due date today.

That’s because Paramount’s long-gestating Friday the 13th reboot, one that has seemingly been through the wringer since emerging three years back, has been hit with a nine-month delay, meaning that the franchise revival will now shuffle onto the silver screen on October 13, 2017. First reported by Variety, no formal reason was disclosed at the time of going to press, but we’ll update this post if and when the studio breaks its silence.

As mentioned before, this is by no means the first time that...

“Queen Sugar”

September 6, 2016 on Own

What Is It? Ava DuVernay has teamed with Oprah for this series about a family reunited by tragedy in Louisiana, and she’s brought with her an entirely female director roster (a first).

I’ll Like It If I Like… Stories set in the South, stories that feature strong female characters and stories that aren’t afraid of taking on big issues head-on.

Why Should I Care? “Queen Sugar” has its flaws, but there’s some rich filmmaking on display and there’s potential for growth with these characters.

Read More: ‘Queen Sugar’ Review: Ava DuVernay’s Own Series is Frustratingly Familiar

“Quarry”

September 9, 2016 on Cinemax

What Is It? Based on the novels by Max Allan Collins, “Quarry” tells the story of Mac Conway (Logan Marshall-Green), a Marine who returns home to Memphis after serving in Vietnam. Conway finds that his war has yet to end,...

“Launch Control this is Houston. We are Go for launch.”

A harrowing moment in human history became an exhilarating cinematic event two decades ago when acclaimed director Ron Howard chronicled Nasa’s tense 1970 lunar mission crisis in the Oscar-nominated film Apollo 13.

To Nasa enthusiasts and Saturn V rocket experts, the launch sequence, along with James Horner’s emotional score, is the greatest in movie history.

Universal Pictures Home Entertainment celebrates the unforgettable tale of courage and conviction with Apollo 13: 20th Anniversary Edition, coming to Blu-ray and Digital HD on June 2, 2015.

Newly restored and remastered using the original high-resolution 35mm film elements, the commemorative edition comes with an array of bonus features including “Apollo 13: Twenty Years Later,” an all-new retrospective featuring exclusive interviews with director Ron Howard and producer Brian Grazer.

The restored version of Apollo 13 premieres on March 27 at the TCM Classic Film Festival in Hollywood.

Robert Simonds’ nascent studio has closed an exclusive, four-year premium television deal with Showtime starting this year as it moves ahead with its first four features.

Gary Ross will direct Matthew McConaughey (pictured) in Civil War drama The Free State Of Jones, which Route One / Union Investment Partners and Vendian Entertainment are co-financing and Im Global sells internationally.

Billy Ray will commence production this month on The Secret In Their Eyes based on his adapted screenplay from the Argentinian Oscar-winning thriller. Chiwetel Ejiofor, Nicole Kidman and Julia Roberts star and Mark Johnson produces.

Stx is producing in association with Im Global, while co-financiers are Route One / Union Investment Partners.

Shooting is also scheduled to begin this month on Joel Edgerton’s untitled feature directorial and writing debut. The thriller from producers Rebecca Yeldham and Jason Blum’s Blumhouse explores whether bygones can ever truly be bygones.

Jason Bateman, Rebecca Hall and Edgerton star. Blumhouse International, which...

The premium TV window film pact also includes film starring Nicole Kidman, Chiwetel Ejiofor, Will Ferrell

Showtime Networks and the newly launched Stx Entertainment have closed a multiyear deal to bring movies distributed theatrically by the latter to the former’s pay-tv channels during the so-called premium television window.

The agreement begins this year and covers releases through 2019.

Also Read: 19 Exclusive Portraits From TheWrap’s Awards Contender Series (Photos)

Also as part of the joint announcement, Stx revealed that it has begun production on its initial slate of films, including “The Free State of Jones,” which is based on the...

It's official: Kyle MacLachlan is set to return to Twin Peaks to reprise his role as the ever-curious Special Agent Dale Cooper when the show returns as a limited-run Showtime series next year. The actor announced the news during the channel's Television Critics Association presentation and one of the series' creators, David Lynch, quickly shared the news online with a tweet.

"I'm very excited to return to the strange and wonderful world of Twin Peaks," MacLachlan said at the event, according to Deadline. And, in a way mysterious enough for the show,...

Day 3 of Sdcc '14 marks the end of an era with "True Blood's" last panel. It's joined by fellow fangers "The Vampire Diaries," the witches of "Salem" and "Ahs: Coven," "Grimm," Sin City, "Constantine," Troma, and lots more.

Per usual, we have the horror highlights along with info on a few other panels that should be of general interest (plus a couple of things for the kids). Be sure to visit the official 2014 San Diego Comic-Con website for the full lineup.

Day 3: Saturday, July 26, 2014

10 Am - The Simpsons

Celebrate the 25th anniversary of The Simpsons-no gifts please-with creator Matt Groening, executive producer Al Jean, supervising director Mike Anderson, and director for life David Silverman. Topics include the new Treehouse of Horror, Simpsorama, a visit from Homer Simpson and much, much more.

Saturday July 26, 2014 10:00am - 10:45am - Ballroom 20

10 Am - Idw: Summer Blockbusters!

Idw...

The series finale of Showtime’s serial killer drama Dexter was one of the worst endings to a show I’ve ever seen. Surely, it was hurt by coming just one week after the absolutely stellar conclusion to Breaking Bad, but the real culprit was a total cop-out of an ending that erased any goodwill longtime fans may have possessed toward Dexter.

Individuals close to the show have defended the ending, but the real reasons for why they chose to send Deb to a watery grave and Dex to a remote woodland cabin were soon revealed. Apparently, Showtime wouldn’t sign off on letting Dexter die in the finale.

For a show about the life of a serial killer, that must have been a crippling blow for the writers. Showtime’s motivations were clear; though Dexter was ending, the program had been a huge cash cow for the premium cable...

“I just know there’s something dark in me and I hide it. I certainly don’t talk about it, but it’s there always, this…dark passenger. And when he’s driving, I feel alive, half sick with the thrill of complete wrongness.

I don’t fight him, I don’t want to. He’s all I’ve got. Nothing else could love me, not even… especially not me.

Or is that just a lie the Dark Passenger tells me? Because lately there are these moments when I feel connected to something else… someone. It’s like the mask is slipping and things… people… who never mattered before are suddenly starting to matter. It scares the hell out of me”

Dexter Morgan

The dichotomy – raging battle ongoing – that engulfs the core of the protagonist summarized in one shatteringly honest, beautifully troubled confession…to an AA meeting, where he is...

by Seth Metoyer, MoreHorror.com

MoreHorror currently had the chance to shoot off a few questions to some of the heavy hitters from the upcoming horror short Heir.

The film is written and directed by Richard Powell, produced by Zach Green, Marc Roussel, Ron Basch and Richard Powell -- and stars Bill Oberst Jr. and Robert Nolan. Check out the Q&A below.

Q&A with Richard Powell

MoreHorror.com: What can you tell us about Fatal Pictures next, and last short film Heir ?

Richard Powell: Heir is going to be a special project for a few key reasons. First, as you mentioned, it will be Fatal Pictures last short film before we attempt to get our feature film debut made. Second, this will be our first attempt at raising funds through a crowd funding platform like Kickstarter. Finally, we are expanding our creative horizons with several new collaborators...

The title of this panel was Financing and Packaging: From Indie to Studio, but in fact, the most studio-like film, Rush , by the major director, Ron Howard, and produced by Brit indie production company Revolution (Andrew Eaton) and Hollywood-based Cross Creek (Brian Oliver), is actually quite independent.

Rush (U.S. Universal, International Sales by Exclusive)

Ron Howard and his producing partner Brian Grazer whose imagine Entertainment have had an overall deal at Universal for 27 years, however, this mid-budget range film of some $50,000,000 was considered not "big enough" for the majors.

To read more about this complex and fascinating film and its international film business background, read the following articles which are quoted throughout this article with thanks and acknowledgement to:

· Variety September 13, 2013 (reprinted at the end of this blog) · Wall Street Journal, September 5, 2013 · The Hollywood Reporter September 28, 2011

Aside from major director Ron Howard himself, the second “major” element of the film is that Universal is the North American distributor of the film. This happens through the three year minimum-6-picture distribution deal Brian Oliver’s Cross Creek has with Universal in which Cross Creek produces and finances either its own films or films chosen from Universal’s development slate. Cross Creek is set up to generate up to four films per year, with Universal to distribute at least two of them with a wide-release commitment.

Isa (International Sales Agent) Exclusive Media is also an independent. This too is the result of Oliver’s deal with Exclusive to jointly finance two projects per year.

Cross Creek, putting its own cash into the project, split the cost of the picture with Exclusive who financed it through a bank loan made against pre-sales generated in 2011 at the Afm. With Howard there to promote the project to buyers, Exclusive secured around $33 million in foreign pre-sales. See Cinando’s list of distributors .

Additionally, Oliver and Eaton structured the project as a U.K.- German co-production, enabling them to secure about $12 million in soft money from Germany (Egoli Tossell) in accordance with U.K.’s co-production treaty. As a result, U.K. rights ended up with Studiocanal.

Brian Oliver is a “one of Hollywood’s biggest and more unusual financiers of risky films, with coin coming mostly from oil and real estate investments in Texas”. This major Hollywood financier/ producer takes chances which prove his astute, if askew, view of what makes a “Hollywood” picture an indie at the same time, as shown by his credits, The Ides of March and Black Swan.

Andrew Eaton is a British producer with deep Hollywood connections through the British community here, e.g., Eric Fellner of Working Title, the British production company currently owned by Universal. (Parenthetically, I bought U.S. rights to Working Title’s first film, My Beautiful Laundrette for Lorimar along with Orion Classics and so I was quite thrilled to have a chance to be in touch with the talented Brits once again).

Working Title had worked with Andrew Easton on Frost/Nixon. Eric Fellner loved the script and offered it to Universal for funding. However, as said, Universal passed on it because it was too small.

“It is going to be easy for people to think this is a Hollywood movie, and it just is not,” quotes Variety from the film’s British screenwriter, Peter Morgan, who penned Frost/Nixon which was also directed by Howard. “It is a British independent film directed by a Hollywood director.”

Eaton and Oliver spoke of how they put this film together.

“We must champion the fact that this is basically 80% a British film in terms of the people who worked on it, the way it was structured and the way we ran it,” says Eaton, who was behind such indie films as 24 Hour Party People and the Red Riding TV series.

Can a Song Save Your Life? (U.S. UTA, Isa: Exclusive)

Exclusive has another film here, Can a Song Save Your Life? which is also repped by Rena Ronson, Co-Head of the Independent Film Group of UTA. Directed by John Carney who came to the public’s attention with his micro-budgeted Once which plays on stage here in Toronto at the moment, in New York and elsewhere regularly. The Weinstein Company picked it up in Toronto, reportedly paying around a $7 million minimum guarantee for U.S. rights with a P&A commitment of at least $20 million.

UTA as an agency also packages both large (studio) and smaller indie films. Rena Ronson, the co-head of UTA Indie explained how her own indie roots -- first at indie distributor Fox-Lorber and continuing into international sales before becoming the “indie agent” at Wma, succeeding the “indie” founder, Bobbi Thompson, have taught her to speak the language of the international as well as the independent film business. She knows the major modes of operating as well as she knows the independent style of business. She further explained that the successes of the larger films permit the “smaller”, i.e., “indie” films to be made.

UTA repped films in Toronto are listed below. For a full report of rights sold, before, during and after Toronto, watch SydneysBuzz.com for the Fall 2013 Rights Roundup.

Can A Song Save Your Life?

Writer/Director: John Carney Starring: Mark Ruffalo, Keira Knightley, Hailee Steinfeld, Adam Levine, Catherine Keener, Mos Def, Cee-Lo Green Publicity: Falco / Shannon Treusch, Monica Delameter U.S. Producer Rep: UTA / CAA . Isa: Exclusive Media Group

U.S. rights were acquired at Tiff 13 by TWC for a record breaking $7 million.

Since first announcing it in Cannes 2012, Exclusive has made other deals as well for Bangladesh, Bhutan, India, Nepal, Pakistan (Tanweer), Germany (Studiocanal), Japan (Pony Canyon Inc), Philippines (Solar Entertainment), Russia (A Company), So. Korea ( Pancinema), Switzerland ( Ascot Elite Entertainment Group ), Taiwan ( Serenity Entertainment International ), Turkey (D Productions), the Middle East ( Front Row Filmed Entertainment).

Tiff Special Presentations:

Hateship, Loveship

Director: Liza Johnson Writer: Mark Poirier Writer (Novel): Alice Munro Starring: Kristen Wiig, Guy Pearce, Hailee Steinfeld, Jennifer Jason Leigh, Nick Nolte Publicity: Prodigy PR, Erik Bright

North American Sale: UTA / Cassian Elwes. Isa: The Weinstein Co. Sena has rights for Iceland.

The F Word

Director: Michael Dowse Writer: Elan Mastai Writers (Play): Michael Rinaldi & T.J. Dawe Starring: Daniel Radcliffe, Zoe Kazan, Rafe Spall, Adam Driver, Mackenzie Davis, Amanda Crew Publicity: Strategy PR / Cynthia Schwartz, Michael Kupferberg Us Sale: UTA / Lichter, Grossman, Nichols, Adler & Feldman. Isa: eOne

After UTA sold the The F Word to CBS Films for the U.S. for around $3 million in Toronto, Entertainment One Films International completed other international sales. Besides Canada and the U.K., eOne itself will release the film in Australia/New Zealand, Benelux and Spain feeding its own international distribution pipeline. Other sales include Germany to Senator Entertainment, Middle East to Front Row Entertainment, Nigeria toRed Mist, Russia to Carmen Film Group, Turkey to Mars Entertainment Group

Night Moves

Writer/Director: Kelly Reichart Writer: Jonathan Raymond Starring: Dakota Fanning, Jesse Eisenberg, Peter Sarsgaard, Alia Shawkat Publicity: Ginsberg/Libby, Chris Libby North American Sale: UTA Isa: The Match Factory

Tiff Vanguard

The Sacrament

Writer/Director: Ti West Starring: Joe Swanberg, Aj Bowen, Amy Seimetz, Kate Lyn Sheil, Gene Jones Publicity: Dda, Dana Archer, Alice Zhou North American Sale: UTA / CAA Isa: Im Global sold to Pegasus Motion Pictures Distribution Ltd . For China

As of this writing, rather 1 hour ago, Magnolia Pictures, which lost on an earlier bidding war here for Joe, is finalizing a deal for the picture reportedly for seven figures.

Coincidentallywith the beginning of the Toronto Film Festival, the front page of L.A. Times quoted Rena Ronson in an article called "Making history as cameras roll" (print edition) or "Wadjda' director makes her mark in Saudi cinema" (online edition) about Wadjda , (Isa: The Match Factory) last year’s Venice and Telluride film which Rena had spotted at the Abu Dhabi Film Festival, where it won a script award. It was written and directed by a woman which is notable in such a male-dominated part of the world. She met the writer-director, Haifaa Mansour, and that led to working with her for the next two years to finance the film. Its $2.5m budget was backed in part by the Rotana Group, the largest media company in the Middle East, owned primarily by Saudi Prince Alwaleed bin Talal. The German production company Razor Film owned and operated by Gerhard Meixner and Roman Paul whose first coproduction in 2005, Paradise Now brought them into international prominence and who also picked up last year’s Tiff groundbreaking film from Afghanistan,The Patience Stone, and previously coproduced Waltz With Bashir, came on board and brought German broadcast deals and German film funds as well.

Doha and Film Financing

The fourth panelist was Paul Miller, Head of Film Financing, from the Doha Film Institute , Qatar's first international organization dedicated to film financing, production, education and two film festivals. Doha encourages submission for financing film financing opportunities from anywhere in the world. The Dfi Grants program supports first- and second-time filmmakers in producing and developing their own stories. There are two funding rounds per year. Applications are considered from three regions (basically divided into the Middle East, developing nations and the rest of the world – with some exceptions -- each with different eligibility criteria.

Consideration for funding is open to feature-length films in development, production and post-production, as well as short films in production and post-production. Since 2010, Dfi has provided funding to more than 138 filmmakers.

Beyond the regional grants program, Dfi also invests in a diverse slate of international productions to encourage greater collaboration, mentorship and co‑production opportunities between Gulf countries and the rest of the world. Co-financing applications apply to both Middle Eastern and international feature films, television and web series. Submissions are accepted on a rolling basis throughout the year.

Four films at Tiff that Doha has helped finance:

Mohammed Malas’s Ladder to Damacus, screening in Tiff’s Contemporary World Cinema section; Jasmila Žbanic’s For Those Who Can Tell No Tales in the Special Presentation section. Both films were co-financed by Dfi. Dfi grant recipients Néjib Belkadhi’s Bastardo and Mais Darwazah’s My Love Awaits Me by the Sea screening in the Contemporary World Cinema and Discovery sections, respectively.

The fifth panelist, Ted Hope, Director of the San Francisco Film Society, a non-profit training, festival, and funding operation is known to everyone from his history with Good Machine (which was acquired by Universal and renamed Focus Features), and from his blog Hope for Film/ Truly Free Film . In his always-inimitable fashion, Ted proposed a new sort of financing, called "staged financing", based on a progressive meeting of certain criterion from development through distribution. This way of financing is similar to the venture capital models of financing. His broad ideas on what has to change with the industry's funding and packaging methods brought the panelists and the audience to heel at attention. I reprint his blog after this because this idea goes against the current grain of financing an entire film which may or may not prove to be the final box office bingo winner it always purports to be when securing full financing.

The Sffs provided some funding to Thomas Oliver's 1982 which is in Tiff this year. Aside from winning Us in Progress’ $60,000 in post-production services at this year’s Champs Elysees Film Festival, 1982 also received Sffs’s $85,000 post production grant and participated in the Sffs’s A2E labs. The film is being represented by Kevin Iwashina’s Preferred Content.

The panel became very animated as Ted Hope and Rena Ronson faced off about whether a film is made for a broad audience or whether, if targeted correctly, it could actually make money with niche audiences. As always, the two of them, both equally astute, brought much to bear on both sides of the argument. And, I, as the panel’s moderator, hereby declare, They are both right.

The broader the audience the more potential for making money.

However, as Ted points out, with crowd sourcing, crowd funding and crowd theatrical exhibition, there are many other ways beyond ticket purchases that filmmakers can offer in order to make money with their targeted audience.

This, as well as the great contributions made by Doha’s Paul Miller and Revolution’s Andrew Eaton could have extended the panel into a full day. Paul Oliver of Cross Creek was the quietest, perhaps most reticent, of the speakers, but he amply demonstrated that he is one who puts his money where his mouth is. His acumen and taste make us all grateful for his existence as he is a pivotal point person in creating works of art that create substantial revenues for a sustainable art house film business.

The audience as well was most enthusiastic with their questions and post panel discussions with panelists who stayed to talk.

Articles Reprinted Here:

Truly Free Film

Staged Financing Must Become Film Biz’s Immediate Goal

Posted: 06 Sep 2013 05:15 Am Pdt

Each day I become more and more convinced that staged financing could be a cure to much of the Film Biz’s ills. Staged financing? What? Is the phrase not exactly center of your conversations right now? Why not?!! Whatsamattawidyou? Don’t you know a good solution when you see one?

Although it already exists in many fields, and even in a few small patches of our own yard, I recognize that a staged financing strategy is not yet the force behind Indieland’s own gardening. I am however growing convinced it could yield a far more fruitful harvest than our current methods. A staged-financing ecosystem can’t be built in a one-off manner though. Although it also does not need to the rule of the realm, it needs a permanent eco-system to support it.

Staged financing is part of a much bigger solution that we urgently need to bring to our industry: a sustainable investor class . We need smart money and need to stop seeking, encouraging, and propagating dumb money. Most film investors get out, win or lose, by their third film (I have been told this and don’t have the stats to back it up now, but if you do, please share — otherwise just trust that is what my experience has shown). The value of most independent money in the film biz is the money itself, and that is not good for anyone.

Staged financing is exactly what it says to be. I know in this world such literalness is a strange thing, but there is it. Staged financing is a funding process that is there for each distinct stage. In comparison, it is the opposite of up-front financing — the type that monopolizes the narrative feature world. I am proposing that we institutionalize the staged-financing process and make it easier to finance your film in drips and drabs. Why am I so bullish on what probably sounds like hell to many? Why do I think it will save indie film? Let’s count the ways.

Staged financing increases the predictability of success. Investors can base their continued commitment on a proof of prinicipal instead of just a pitch. The longer one waits the more they know — of course the longer one waits the lower the chance for their to be the opportunity for investment, so there. The more investors can project or even predict their success, the longer they will stay in the game, and the more that will gather to pay — i.e. more capital at play! Staged financing allows filmmakers and their supporters to pivot based on real world data. The old way had very little it could do when new information hit. Your film (and investment) could be rendered obsolete over night. But that does not have to be a done deal is this new world. This is just one of the many reasons for #1 above of course. Staged financing diversifies the creative class. Wouldn’t it be great if the film biz was actually a meritocracy? Well, if people had to make good movies to complete their financing, wouldn’t that be a bit closer to the case? Staged financing gives all people the opportunity to prove they have a good idea, whether that idea is completed or not. It is not about who you know, but about what you’ve done and can do. Documentary film — compared to the narrative world — already has a great deal of staged financing institutionalized — and benefits from gender proportional representation among directors. Need I say more?Staged financing allows ambitious artistic work to flourish. Instead of just having “commercial elements”, unique and inspiring work can be recognized for the potential it truly has. Instead of being rewarded for being able to earn trust or arrogantly claim to know what one is doing, staged financing allows good work to be rewarded for being good work. Currently, we mistake confidence for capability and those that boast to be able to predict what the end product will be (where there is no way that they will actually know what the 100+ decisions each day will yield), get to play — not the work that delivers something new and wonderful. Staged financing rewards quality over risk mitigation. Staged financing is actually a better form of risk mitigation than the present form that is only based on regurgitating what has already proven successful. When we limit risk by mimicking what has worked in the past, all we are doing is guessing and covering our ass — and this leads to a film culture of movie titles overrun with numerals. We live in an era of abundance, and as comforting as the familiar may be, we have more access to it than ever before. We rarely need the new version of it. We will however need truly original work more and more as time goes on as we will drowning in the repetitive. How will we prove what works? Staged financing, my friend, staged financing. Staged financing creates a better project as it incentivizes the creators every step of the way. Not that you truly need to incentivize those that are in the passion industries for the right reason, but it never hurts to weed out those that are in it for the wrong reason. When your financing is based on your work and not your connections or investors’ fears, you will do all you can to make each stage of financing shine, justify itself, and be truly competitive. Staged financing requires you to walk a series of steps, proving you have earned the right with every advance — and you better do your homework if you don’t want to get left behind. Staged financing requires you choose your initial partners wisely. It’s not just about the terms of the deal that should determine whom your investors are — but that is how we generally act nowadays. Everyone should instead seek value-add investors. You should get more than just money from your investors. You should benefit from their expertise. Filmmakers, agents, lawyers, and managers, often are willing to leap into bed with anyone who offers the most cash — there’s a name for that practice and it should not be film investment. Staged financing means the creators will have “skin in the game”. When it is an up-front finance model, the creators are not working for a payout in success but working just for the upfornt fees (or some semblance thereof); they may have “profit participation” but basically the only anticipated earnings are what is in the budget. It becomes increasingly difficult to motivate the creative team to be engaged in the needed work after the film premieres. Investors have long recognized that this is not the most beneficial arrangement, yet what can they do? The answer my friend, is… yup, you know the song I am singing: everyone loves that staged financing! Staged financing is a time-tested process that has already been adopted by many industries . Staged financing is the modus operandi of Silicon Valley and all the Vc firms. Other industries, from mining onwards, have seen real benefits from the process. Why do we limit our success and not apply proven models to our field? Could it be that somewhere someone is desperately clutching on to what ever paltry power they perceive themselves to possess? Hmmm… If they don’t offer the model you want at the store, build a new model — or maybe even a chain of stores. Staged financing gives producers of quality work more power. The main objection to staged financing is that it gives financiers more power. That is only true if you are making crap. Or mediocre work. If you are making something wonderfully astounding you will never struggle to progress to the next round — and in fact you will be able to improve your terms. And investors won’t complain either, because they now can have to know a good thing when they see one.

So if Staged Financing is this marvelous thing, why have our leaders not yet delivered it to you? Well, they don’t care about you; didn’t you know that?

And if Staged Financing could really save Indie Film, why has the community not constructed this marvelous ecosystem yet? Well, we’ve all been too busy chasing shiny objects and marveling at the reflections fed back of us.

But change is here. We have hope. We can build it better together. And I have already started. The San Francisco Film Society is committed to it. We have others who want to be part of. We are have spots for more to join in. And we are going to help a few select projects really rock this world.

Watch this space. Let’s do it together and truly astonish the world with your awe inspiring work. Just don’t be slack, okay?

Variety, August 21, 2013:

“Rush,” the high-octane car racing film about the public rivalry between legendary Formula One drivers Niki Lauda and James Hunt during the 1970s, has all the markings of tinseltown’s latest flashy biopic, withRon Howard at the wheel, Chris Hemsworth as its star, and Universal Pictures releasing the film Sept. 27. But that assumption couldn’t be further from the truth.

“It is going to be easy for people to think this is a Hollywood movie, and it just is not,” says the upcoming film’s British screenwriter, Peter Morgan, who penned “Frost/Nixon,” also directed by Howard. “It is a British independent film directed by a Hollywood director.” Get Weekly Online News and alerts free to your inbox

As the majors focus more on putting their money behind mega-budgeted projects with built-in brand awareness — sequels, reboots, films based on toys, videogames and comicbooks — filmmakers are finding Hollywood’s studio system rapidly shifting under their feet.

“Because studios are less interested in the midbudget area, there is a massive opportunity for independents to step into that (area) at the moment,” says “Rush” producer Andrew Eaton of London-based Revolution Films.

Indeed, it’s getting harder to set up a midbudget range original project at a studio, even for veteran filmmakers like Howard and his producing partner Brian Grazer, whose Imagine Entertainment has had an overall deal at Universal for 27 years (the longest standing deal U has had in its 100-year history with a production company). That’s forced directors to look elsewhere to tackle the kinds of films now considered too risky to make or the ones that won’t fill retail shelves with merchandise.

Another Hollywood vet, producer Marc Platt, who’s had a production deal at Universal since 1998 after stepping down as its production head, similarly had to find indie financing for his film “2 Guns” after Universal said it would not bankroll the picture but simply distribute it.

With “Rush,” Howard found himself in an entirely new role as the director of a $50 million film that was his first to be independently financed — through a series of bonds, contingencies and pre-sales. He also was a director for hire, replacing Paul Greengrass, who was originally set to bring the showy personalities of Hunt (Hemsworth), a British playboy; and the more serious Austrian champion Lauda (Daniel Bruhl) to the big screen.

“We must champion the fact that this is basically 80% a British film in terms of the people who worked on it, the way it was structured and the way we ran it,” says Eaton. The exec, who was behind such indie films as “24 Hour Party People” and the “Red Riding” series, is modest, and like most Brits politely shies away from the spotlight, tending not to grab credit even when its due.

But he believes “Rush” shows off Blighty’s mettle.

“These are the kinds of films we should be making in the U.K. because we can do it, and we can do it for better value of money,” he says.

Morgan began writing the story of Lauda, a friend of his wife’s, on spec some years ago, intrigued by the driver’s courageous comeback just 40 days after a devastating crash at the 1976 German Grand Prix that severely burned his face and saw him lapse into a coma, and how that might play against Hunt’s notorious womanizing and party lifestyle that gained him rock-star status.

Eager to work with Eaton again after Fernando Meirelles’ “360,” Morgan showed the producer the first draft of “Rush,” and Eaton was hooked.

“Andrew was always going to be a great fit for this project,” Morgan says. “If (the) responsibility was to make this at a price, Andrew could do this. He could make a $50 million film feel like a $150 million film.”

With Greengrass, another Brit, attached to direct, Morgan showed the script to close friend Eric Fellner at his Universal-owned British production outfit Working Title. Fellner, who had worked with him on “Frost/Nixon,” loved the new script and offered it to Universal for funding.

But the studio passed, considering it risky subject matter, given the biopic elements and low profile of F1 racing in the U.S. Universal also didn’t believe the film could be made for the right price. Still Fellner stayed onboard, and his contacts in the F1 arena proved invaluable. His relationships with Ferrari and McLaren thanks to his work on documentary “Senna” enabled “Rush” to enlist the brands in the pic without losing editorial control.

“Ron (Howard) jokes that my major contribution was engine noise,” Fellner says. “Maybe I can take credit for a bit of that.”

Soon after Universal passed, Cross Creek Pictures topper Brian Oliver reached out to Eaton to finance the project — so eager that he offered to put up $2 million before he even signed the deal so that Eaton could order replicas of the 1970s cars to be ready in time for the shoot. He also was instrumental in steering Hemsworth toward the project.

“Typically we don’t spend that kind of money without knowing the movie is going and the budget is done,” Oliver says. “But I was passionate about the script, and I really thought it was a film with a lot of heart, not just a race car movie.”

Cross Creek, also behind “The Ides of March” and “Black Swan,” has quickly become one of Hollywood’s biggest and more unusual financiers of risky films, with coin coming mostly from oil and real estate investments in Texas.

“He’s an unusual maverick in Hollywood because he really fought to get the budget to the highest level he could,” says Eaton of Oliver. “There’s no bullshit with him — he gets stuff done.” Adds Fellner: “Without Brian, the film wouldn’t have gotten off of the ground. He put his money where his mouth is.”

Shortly after funding started coming together, Greengrass dropped off the project due, ironically, to his issues with the budget. Within 24 hours, Morgan and Fellner enticed Howard to come onboard. The financing arrangement intrigued him, but what really attracted Howard was the ability to re-create the world of Formula One in the 1970s “when sex was safe and driving was dangerous,” as he has said in past interviews.

“Ron was incredibly gracious in trusting us to deliver,” Eaton says. “He was very smart about knowing we needed to make this film in a different way. He’d never made a film with a bond before, and never made a film with a contingency before, but he rolled up his sleeves and was ready to learn.” Some of that indie spirit has already rubbed off on Howard, who is now sticking with a mostly British crew on his next project, “In the Heart of the Sea,” including “Rush” cinematographer Anthony Dod Mantle and costume designer Julian Day. “Heart” lenses in London.

Exclusive Media came in as the final partner on “Rush,” brought in by Oliver under his deal with Exclusive to jointly finance two projects per year.

Cross Creek split the cost of the pic with Exclusive, with the former putting its own cash in to the pic and the latter financing through a bank loan made against pre-sales generated in 2011 at the Afm, where Howard helped shop the project to buyers. The move proved a success, as Exclusive secured $33 million in foreign pre-sales.

Additionally, Oliver and Eaton structured the project as a U.K.-German co-production, enabling them to secure about $12 million in soft money.

As a result, U.K. rights ended up going to Studiocanal. Universal agreed to distribute “Rush” in the U.S. through its output deal with Cross Creek.

Eaton pressed to put all of the money raised on the screen. “Rush” became the highest-budget film he had ever worked with after 2000’s “The Claim,” which cost $18 million to produce.

“(‘Rush’) was financed in exactly the same way we finance every independent film, and we approached shooting in the same way as we do everything — you try to put as much money as you can onscreen,” Eaton says. “It’s about not wasting money on things you don’t need, like private jets and extravagances.”

Hollywood has tried to bring to life the world of Formula One before.

Sylvester Stallone directed “Driven,” which originally was set in the world of F1, before he changed course and based it on rival Cart racing, instead.

The reason? To gain access to F1, filmmakers must first get the greenlight from the often polarizing Bernie Ecclestone, the 82-year-old billionaire who holds a tight grip on the racing league that has long counted the elite as fans, including Carlos Slim, the world’s richest man, and celebs including Michael Fassbender, Patrick Dempsey, Gordon Ramsey, George Lucas, and Cirque de Soleil founder Guy Laliberte.

Although Stallone tried to gain Ecclestone’s approval, “I apologize to fans of Formula 1, but there is a certain individual there who runs the sport that has his own agenda,” Stallone said in 2000. “F1 is very formal, and it’s very hard to get to know people.”

David Cronenberg also planned to direct a tentpole around F1 for Paramount, in 1986, with the director scouting the project by attending Grand Prix races in Australia and Mexico. The film, “Red Cars,” would have revolved around American driver Phil Hill winning the world championship for Ferrari in 1961. Plans were shelved when Ecclestone decided not to support the project. Instead, Cronenberg published a limited edition art book based on the screenplay in 2005.

One of the few cinematic standouts so far is Asif Kapadia’s documentary “Senna,” about the charismatic Brazilian driver Ayrton Senna, killed in a race in 1994 that’s show in the docu. “Senna” went on to earn $8.2 million, and helped educate viewers of the sport by focusing not on the races but Senna’s iconic presence and his impact on pop culture.

“Rush” is looking to put a spotlight on the personalities behind the wheel and the often riveting rivalries between drivers — what many consider the real draw to the sport. Bruhl has compared them to “modern knights constantly facing death.”

As the film races toward its September release — it will be shown at the Toronto Film Festival out of competition — Howard has screened it for not only racing fans but Formula One, itself.

He recently showed the film to a group of F1 drivers (including Lauda, Lewis Hamilton, Nico Rosberg and Felipe Massa) at Germany’s Grand Prix, calling that audience the toughest test so far, and comparing the experience to screening “Apollo 13” to Nasa’s astronauts and mission controllers in 1995.

In his efforts to promote the film, Howard has called the Hunt-Lauda rivalry one of the greatest in all of sports. “Their story is so remarkable, you (could) only do it if it was true, because people wouldn’t quite believe it. They were willing to risk their lives to attain this elite status. They paid a price for it, but they defined themselves.”

Morgan also has been doing his part to reassure F1 fans that the film is authentic, stressing that it’s about the people in the cars, and not the sport itself.

Any way the wheel’s spun, it’s clear the film’s overall success will largely be driven by how it plays overseas. “Rush” will need to appeal to an international audience that’s more familiar with F1 — a sport second in popularity only to soccer — than to those in the U.S.

But Howard needs to hook moviegoers closer to home — making the American director’s job a much tougher sell.

It’s not really that surprising that there’s nothing all that American about “Rush.”

Formula One is still struggling to find an audience in the U.S. It’s looking to change that through a new $3 million broadcasting deal with NBC Sports that airs 13 races on the cable channel, two on CNBC, and four on NBC. The Monaco Grand Prix was the first of four F1 races to air live on NBC this year, with the final race taking place Nov. 24 from Brazil.

Ratings have averaged a 0.3 rating, although the Monaco race was watched by 1.5 million viewers, making it the most-watched Formula One race on U.S. television in six years, and up 40% over last year’s race when it aired on Speed TV, Nielsen said.

Promos have emphasized the speed of F1’s jetfighter cars, its international appeal and Olympics-like profiles of the drivers.

Formula One also is looking to rev up new fans in the U.S. through the opening of its first permanent track in Austin, Texas, last year, known as the Circuit of the Americas. Howard attended its first race, where Lauda also roamed the track’s garages.

What’s ironic is that Howard isn’t a very good driver. He proved that recently racing around the track of BBC’s hit show “Top Gear” to promote “Rush,” ending up in second to last place on the series’ celebrity leader board — behind Genesis’ Mike Rutherford.

Host Jeremy Clarkson was quick to mock him, saying “We finally found something you can’t do. Good at directing, brilliant in ‘Happy Days,’ a charming human being — but utterly crap at driving.”

Ron Howard's Risky Formula One Movie, 'Rush'

Can this Euro-centric car racing film play in the U.S.?

By Rachel Dodes Conn

Ron Howard's films, like "Apollo 13" and "Frost/Nixon," typically deal with issues very familiar to American audiences. His latest project, Mr. Howard's first independently financed film, is a bit of a departure: "Rush" chronicles the rivalry between Austrian Formula One racer Niki Lauda and his nemesis, the British driver James Hunt, over the course of the historic 1976 season. While competing in Nürburg, Germany during treacherous weather conditions, Mr. Lauda (Daniel Brühl, right) crashed his Ferrari and sustained severe burns to his face and lungs. Yet, fueled by a desire to beat Mr. Hunt (Chris Hemsworth, above), a playboy type whose wife (Olivia Wilde) ran off with Richard Burton, Mr. Lauda was back in his car just six weeks later—still wearing his bandages—to race against him in the Italian Grand Prix.

When Mr. Howard received the script on spec from screenwriter Peter Morgan ("Frost/Nixon," "The Last King of Scotland"), he wasn't a Formula One fan and didn't know who Messrs. Hunt and Lauda were. "I looked them up on Wikipedia," he admits. But as he read about the racers' personalities, he started to see broader themes that would appeal to U.S. moviegoers. "Maybe this is the American in me identifying this," he says, "but both these guys are utterly and entirely individuals—there was no Yoda telling them to seek their higher self."

For Mr. Howard, the process of researching "Rush" was surprisingly similar to learning about space travel for his "Apollo 13," because he found himself having to make arcane automotive engineering terms accessible to viewers. "It was really fun to understand a sport that combines cutting-edge technology with very dangerous competition," he says. "The visceral, cool and sexy element offered a kind of cinematic experience that nowadays exists only with sci-fi."

Formula One isn't nearly as popular in the U.S. as Nascar, and the subject matter is likelier to play well overseas, where the film's financing came from. It premiered Monday, in London, a few weeks before its U.S. opening. The filmmakers say it's more than just a sports picture, and they expect it to appeal to women as well as men.

Saudi Female Filmmaker Succeeds In Making A Movie About A Girl Who Wants A Bicycle

Los Angeles Times

By Rebecca Keegan

Sept. 6, 2013

In a country where women can't freely move around, Haifaa Mansour covertly films the story of a girl's quest for a bicycle.

The production lost two days to sandstorms. The crew faced a last-minute scramble when the nervous owner of a mall changed his mind about allowing filming there. Some days locals chased the cameras away; other days they brought platters of lamb and rice to the set, and asked to be extras.

Meanwhile, the director hid in a van, speaking to her cast via walkie-talkie. In Saudi Arabia, where driving a car is a subversive act for a woman, a 39-year-old mother of two has done something remarkable: written and directed what her distributor believes is the first feature film shot entirely in the ultraconservative kingdom.

Haifaa Mansour is the director of "Wadjda," a drama about a plucky 10-year-old girl who enrolls in a Koran recitation competition in order to win money for a bicycle she's forbidden by law to ride.

Like her young protagonist, Mansour's own story is one of feminine moxie.

In a sly protest of the country's ban on women behind the wheel, she drove herself to her wedding in a golf cart. Because women in Saudi Arabia can't mingle publicly with men outside their families, she shot her movie covertly on the streets of the capital, Riyadh. With movie theaters banned, she screened "Wadjda" in two foreign embassies and a cultural center.

Petite, self-assured, wearing white high-tops and blue nail polish, Mansour is modern in both her fashion and bearing. She speaks English quickly and colloquially, dropping frequent "you knows" into conversation. And she isn't afraid to counter misperceptions about her homeland, as when she gently corrected Bill Maher for calling Mecca the Saudi capital during a recent appearance on his HBO show.

Laced with empathy and humor, "Wadjda" is a quietly provocative portrait of a culture that straddles the centuries, where men wear the ancient white thobe but carry the latest iPads and women hold important jobs as doctors and news anchors but have yet to vote in an election.

"I didn't want to make a movie about women being raped or stoned," Mansour said in an interview in Beverly Hills in June. "For me it is the everyday life, how it's hard. For me, it was hard sometimes to go to work because I cannot find transportation. Things like that build up and break a woman."

The eighth of 12 children of a poet, Mansour grew up in a small town in a home that she describes as nurturing for a little girl.

"My family is very traditional, but my parents are very supportive, very kind," she said. "I never felt I can't do things because I'm a woman."

When Mansour was a teen, her mother removed the light veil she wore while picking her daughter up from school, a gesture that mortified the young woman at the time, but empowers her when she reflects on it now.

Though movie theaters have been shuttered in Saudi Arabia for decades for religious reasons, Mansour said her father, like others, often rented VHS tapes at Blockbuster for the family to watch -- she grew up on Jackie Chan movies, Bollywood productions, Egyptian cinema and Disney animated films. "Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs" was a particular favorite.

"In small-town Saudi, there is nothing to do. You don't get to exercise your emotions because nothing much is happening, you know?" she said. "So to see people falling in love and fighting, it's so powerful, you see beyond your small town."

After earning her bachelor's degree in comparative literature at the American University in Cairo, she returned to Saudi Arabia but quickly felt stymied.

"Going back to Saudi as a young woman, trying to assert yourself in the workplace, you have all those ideas … and all of a sudden you realize because you are a woman you are not heard," she said. "It was such a frustrating moment in my life. It was as if you are screaming in a vacuum."

The idea of women holding jobs still unnerves some Saudi men -- writer Abdullah Mohammed Daoud recently encouraged his more than 97,000 Twitter followers to sexually harass female grocery store clerks to intimidate women from working.

Recalling the freedom she found in movies, Mansour decided to make a short film with her siblings serving as cast and crew, a thriller about a male serial killer who hides under the black abaya worn by Muslim women. Her work -- two more shorts, a documentary and a stint hosting a talk show for a Lebanese network -- focused largely on the untold stories of Saudi women.

In 2005, at a U.S. embassy screening of her documentary, "Women Without Shadows," Mansour met her future husband, American diplomat Bradley Neimann. They now have two children, 2 and 5, and live in Bahrain, where Neimann works for the State Department.

When her husband was posted in Australia, Mansour pursued a master's in film studies at the University of Sydney, and wrote the script that became "Wadjda."

The story was inspired by her now teenage niece, who has tamped down her rambunctious personality to fit into Saudi norms.

"I thought, 'Wow, a woman writer from Saudi Arabia won?'" Rena Ronson said. "I had to meet her. She was so open and tenacious and smart."When Mansour's script for "Wadjda" won an award at the Abu Dhabi Film Festival, it caught the eye of the co-head of the independent film group at United Talent Agency.

Over the next two years Ronson helped Mansour secure financing for her film, which cost a little less than $2.5 million. The primary obstacle, as far as many potential Middle Eastern producers were concerned, was Mansour's desire to shoot in Saudi Arabia, which she felt lent her story authenticity.

The production finally won the tacit approval of the Saudi government -- one of its backers is Rotana Group, an entertainment company primarily owned by Saudi Prince Alwaleed bin Talal. Another major financier is the German company Razor Film.

Finding actors was another hurdle. Mansour and her producers recruited child performers through small companies that hire folkloric dancers for the Eid holidays. Many of their parents were uncomfortable with a movie about empowering women.

A week before she was scheduled to start shooting, Mansour still hadn't cast her title character when 12-year-old Waad Mohammed entered the room in blue jeans, with headphones clapped over her ears. Singing along to Justin Bieber, she won over Mansour with her sweet singing voice and tomboyish style.

The movie's half-German, half-Saudi crew worked around the rhythms of Saudi life, using cellphone apps that alerted them of the five daily prayer calls. The Germans carried notebooks; the Saudis relied on oral planning.

On the first day of shooting, a start time of 7:20 a.m. came and went. "I don't know what we were thinking," said German producer Roman Paul. "I don't think 7:20 exists in Saudi time. We Germans learned to relax, and the Saudis learned that there is a benefit to doing things at a certain time."

Despite tension on the set -- both from disapproving observers and from the German and Saudi crews learning to work together -- Mansour was buoyant, Paul said.

"She's very fast in overcoming new difficulties, and in an upbeat spirit," Paul said.

Last summer "Wadjda" premiered at the Venice and Telluride film festivals, earning praise for Mansour's subtle direction and a U.S. release from Sony Pictures Classics, which handled the Oscar-winning 2011 Iranian drama "A Separation," about the dissolution of a marriage.

"'A Separation' was such an eye-opener to me in the sense that there were people questioning whether the film went too specific into the Iranian culture," said Michael Barker, co-president and co-founder of the Sony unit. "But if the overall story has a universal appeal, in 'Wadjda' it's about parents and kids and restrictions and freedom, that's something we can all relate to."

Sony Classics has been showing the film to noted feminists -- Gloria Steinem and Queen Noor of Jordan both attended screenings -- and will release it in the U.S. slowly over the fall, starting Sept. 13. (The movie premiered in multiple European countries this summer.)

Mansour said she plans to work in Saudi Arabia again. For her, screening her movie in the kingdom was a high.

"Film is about uplifting, embracing the love of life, it's about moving ahead, it's about victory," she said. "It's not about defeat."

One victory has already been won. This spring, a new law went into effect: With some restrictions, Saudi women are now allowed to ride bicycles.

News Louisa Mellor 28 Mar 2013 - 11:03

Steven Moffat has been chatting about the forthcoming episodes of Doctor Who, Diana Rigg, classic monsters, new companion Clara & more...

Yes, yes, we know what you're going to say: the Doctor lies, Steven Moffat lies, and there isn't a Father Christmas. Putting that to one side though, Moffat has promised that the mystery of "impossible" companion Clara will be uncovered over the next eight episodes of Doctor Who. He said it in public, in print, and on the world wide web, a place where no untruths or exaggerations exist. Ahem.

Moffat also said a number of other things in the course of a long-read interview with Collider. We've cherry-picked a few answers from the man himself, as the world gears up for the return of Doctor Who this Saturday.

On what Jenna-Louise Coleman brings to the series as Clara

What Jenna, in particular, brings...

Image via: ACGArt

A few of us here from GeekTyrant will be hitting up WonderCon 2013, which takes place from Friday, March 29th to Sunday, March 31th at the Anaheim Convention Center in Anaheim, California. We went for the first time last year, and we had a great time, so we're all excited to be going back for more geek goodness!

WonderCon has released the full three-day schedule! There's a ton of great stuff to check out this year! Enough cool stuff to keep you more than busy! Check out the schedule and start planning out your trip! If you're going and you see us around make sure to say hi! We can talk about geek stuff! See ya there!

March 29 • Friday

12:30Pm – 1:30Pm

1

35th Anniversary: BattlestarRoom 300De

Host Richard Hatch (Capt. Apollo, Tom Zarek), Kevin Grazier (science advisor, Battlestar, Caprica, Defiance),Michael Taylor (writer/producer, Battlestar, Defiance, Caprica...

It never fails.

Whenever Dirty Jobs goes off the air for a few months, people start to wonder if the show has been canceled. Rumors begin to swirl, and questions about the show's future fill my inbox. Over the years it's been my pleasure to assure anxious fans that Dirty Jobs is coming back for another season. And indeed, we always have. Alas, this year, I'm afraid I cannot dispel the rumors. A few weeks ago, I was officially informed that Dirty Jobs had entered into a new phase. One I like to call, "permanent hiatus." Or in the more popular industry vernacular, canceled.

My first instinct was to immediately pass the news on to you, but frankly, it's taken me a few weeks to digest. Dirty Jobs is a very personal show, and it's difficult for me to imagine a future that does not involve exploding toilets, venomous snakes,...

According to Deadline Hollywood, Tate Taylor (The Help) is in talks to take on the James Brown biopic that Brian Grazer has long wanted to make. If he signs on the dotted line, he’ll be joining an interesting production partner: Mick Jagger. The Hardest Working Man will be celebrated from his early beginnings in abject poverty to his rise on the global scene as a musical icon with a script comes from Jez and John-Henry Butterworth (Fair Game) who are no strangers to telling real-world stories. Hundreds of Brown’s songs have appeared in movies – making his impact cross media – and he also acted, most notably in The Blues Brothers and (as himself) in Rocky IV. Beyond that, his legacy is unarguably titanic, a performer who spanned decades and audiences while making a heavy impact on popular culture. His story is one worth telling, so hopefully this group does it true justice. And...

Word has it that "Luther" villain Ruth Wilson is up for the role of Carol Danvers — aka Ms. Marvel — in Joss Whedon's "Avengers" sequel. While the possibility remains firmly in the rumor category, we couldn't stop our minds from running wild with the idea of secret serial killer Alice Morgan carrying the banner as one of the greatest heroes the Marvel Universe has to offer. But what about the rest of the "Luther" cast? Who would they play in Wilson's "Ms. Marvel" movie? Here's what we came up with.

Warning: "Luther" spoilers ahead!

Ruth Wilson as Ms. Marvel

Although I'd always be worried that she'd be this close to seeking out Asgard and going completely psycho-postal on Heimdall, I see why Wilson's name is being connected to Carol Danvers. Physically, Wilson is a perfect fit for one of Marvel's finest heroes, capable of overpowering any villain with little more than a look.

Forgotten Classics is a recurring feature, a look back and reflection on great motion pictures that often slip under the radar and become under-appreciated, ignored relics of a previous era or simply damned by lack of face time in the spotlight.

-

Road to Perdition

Directed by Sam Mendes

Screenplay by David Self

Us, 2002

Anyone who still retains core doubts over Sam Mendes taking a shot at the Bond franchise should feel reassured by the fact that, despite having an undoubted reputation for art-house design and social drama, he’s a director not afraid to mix things up. Beyond 2005’s Jarhead, a war film with no war, is the more significant Road to Perdition, his follow up to the mega-hit American Beauty, and a tour de force in both enthralling action and arresting style.

Everything about Road seems to stand up and defy convention. After all, this is a gangster...

A few sites are reporting that the 2014 release for a film currently listed as Untitled Marvel Movie has been pushed from May 16 to August 1. Many have speculated that the film is Guardians of the Galaxy, but neither the secretive duo of Marvel or Disney would confirm that was indeed what they’re planning to make. This could mean that the studios plan is to have the Guardians fight Thanos, the grinning evil purple character seen after the end credits in The Avengers, which then, theoretically could lead into that movies sequel in 2015. So the current Marvel/Disney timeline is this: Iron Man 3 for May 2013; Thor 2 for November 2013, Captain America 2 in April 2014 and now (presumably) the Guardians of the Galaxy. Logically then, The Avengers 2 would be next.

Depending on your point of view with 3D, you’ll be either happy or disappointed. Director George Miller has opted out of...

This year, Showtime’s ground-breaking TV series Weeds will come to a close.

The premium network will conclude series creator Jenji Kohan’s acclaimed pot comedy after eight seasons. Weeds helped pave the way for other daring cable shows and made Showtime a competitive force in the original series game.

“There were two shows, Weeds and Dexter, that really got Showtime taken seriously for cutting-edge original programming,” says Showtime entertainment president David Nevins. “How they get brought home is really important. In this case, both for the sake of the two women behind the show and an audience that’s really invested in the show.

Terry O'Quinn as Gavin Doran in "666 Park Avenue" (ABC/Andrew Eccles)

ABC‘s slate of new shows for fall has a strange flavor to it, and it’s going to be a bumpy ride. The network has about as many new shows as returning ones (if you count all the midseasons), and a good percentage of the returning offerings are a year old or less, making this look a bit like a rebuilding year.

Not only is it a rebuilding year, but it’s the year of bringing back every actor and actress who ever had a decent run on a show before. I don’t think I’ve ever seen a network’s new season slate that was so crammed with people returning from something else. If you can’t make it good, I suppose, make sure viewers recognize the faces.

It’s tricky to get a solid feel...

(Spoiler warning: Don't read this if you haven't seen the first season of "Homeland" and still plan to -- or if you don't want to know anything about Season 2.) The twisted relationship between the lead characters on "Homeland" is going to get twistier, Showtime entertainment president David Nevins said Thursday. Also read: 'Dexter' Could Go Beyond 2 More Seasons "Brody and Carrie have only just begun, and there's an enormous amount unresolved, and I know one way or another that will be a central issue in Season 2," he said. The show's first...

Helen Mirren has always been a trailblazer in the world of showbusiness. Now, she wants to blaze a trail through the galaxy itself.

The Oscar-winning actress and British treasure recently, who has played Cleopatra and both Queen Elizabeths, told the Daily Star that she has another iconic role in her sites: Doctor Who. The British sci-fi series, which has run since the 60s (with a break during the 90s), has always featured a man in the role of the planet-hopping, Tardis riding Doctor.

"I would like to play the new female Doctor Who. I don't want to just be his sidekick," she said. Currently, Matt Smith plays the role, but as was hinted in the episode "The Doctor's Wife," it is possible for a regeneration of the Time Lord to come back as a woman.

Mirren certainly has the chops. Beyond the obvious theatrical accomplishments, she's done plenty of action.

Helen Mirren has always been a trailblazer in the world of showbusiness. Now, she wants to blaze a trail through the galaxy itself.

The Oscar-winning actress and British treasure recently, who has played Cleopatra and both Queen Elizabeths, told the Daily Star that she has another iconic role in her sites: Doctor Who. The British sci-fi series, which has run since the 60s (with a break during the 90s), has always featured a man in the role of the planet-hopping, Tardis riding Doctor.

"I would like to play the new female Doctor Who. I don't want to just be his sidekick," she said. Currently, Matt Smith plays the role, but as was hinted in the episode "The Doctor's Wife," it is possible for a regeneration of the Time Lord to come back as a woman.

Mirren certainly has the chops. Beyond the obvious theatrical accomplishments, she's done plenty of action.

In what may be my new favorite thing, Venture Brothers has released their annual Christmas carol, which you can listen/download here. The song of the year is "Baby It's Cold Outside" as sung by the Monarch and Dr. Girlfriend, and it's just as twisted and Nsfw as you would imagine.

In Michigan, Republican Gov. Rick Snyder signed HB4770, which prohibits public employers from providing partner benefits to unmarried partners, effectively excluding gay partners from health care. Happy Holidays!

Betty White is set to host Monday Night Football for the Christmas edition this week. It seems only fair since a couple of years ago being tackled in a Snickers commercial took her career from steady to red hot.

Steve Jobs will be awarded a posthumous Grammy for "significant contributions to music." This amuses me since just a few years ago the industry was screaming that he was destroying the entire music industry.

Welcome back to our weekly look at the new podcasts available at our “partners in podcast crime” the GeekCast Radio Network. As usual here’s our weekly look at the podcasts from Gcrn, This Week in Geek and the latest toy review videos from Baltmatrix, with descriptions and links to each and every podcast. But first a word from Gcrn’s TFG1 Mike:

TFG1Mike checking in with the B3K Readers…….. just wanted to let you all in on something truly awesome. The Co-Creator Of The GeekCast Radio Network Steve/Megatron Phillips is now selling his voice services. Steve can do some pretty awesome voices, so check out Gcrn Voice and see if there’s something you’d want him to do for you.

Powers Of Grayskull Series – Episode 00 – Introduction

By the Power of your Gray Skull! TFG1Mike and OptimusSolo dive into the world Of Masters Of The Universe...

Pitching itself as “the UKʼs first festival of music for visuals” the Vision Sound Music Festival will be taking over the South Bank in London this weekend (the 2nd to the 4th of September) for a series of events that focus on the relationship between audio and visuals.

Highlights of the programme include the London Philharmonic Orchestra playing a selection of themes from video games, a two part event entitled ‘Sound of Fear’ and the always entertaining Adam Buxton hosting a best of Bug night.

Head over here to buy tickets for the various events.

The organisers of Vision Sound Music in partnership with Pulse Films have also been holding a competition to find new talented filmmakers and whilst the entries are now closed you can watch the finalist’s short films online here.

The official programme of events from the Vision Sound Music press release can be found below:...

The Arizona Underground Film Festival keeps picking and screening the best in world extreme cinema and their fourth annual edition, which will run Sep. 16-24 in Tucson is no exception, compiling outrageous cult epics from countries such as Japan, Switzerland and Cuba; as well as some local nastiness produced in the fest’s own backyard.

The fest opens with Jack Perez’s Some Guy Who Kills People, a comedy thriller executive produced by John Landis and starring Kevin Corrigan as a loser who gets sadistic revenge on those he feels have wronged him.

While the opening night film is a big name affair, Auff is also celebrating local freaky film fare with films such as the film noir Sweet Love and Deadly, directed by Paul Clinco; and the horror comedy Dick Night, directed by Andy Viner.

From elsewhere around the U.S., there’s the fest’s annual celebration of extreme cinema,...

Note: We've republished Germain's earlier Cowboys & Aliens Review below: The best thing to be said about Cowboys & Aliens is that it looks beautiful. For a film that attempts to infuse sci-fi elements in a traditional western, traditional western fans - and sci-fi fans too - will recognize and feel comfortable with the iconic look of the director Jon Favreau's film. Beyond that though, Cowboys & Aliens is the cinematic equivalent of a flatline. A lifeless film that’s criminally plot driven and filled with surface characters, underdeveloped relationships and plot holes the size of the Wild Wild West. But, hey, at least it looks good. Cowboys & Aliens stars Daniel Craig as Jake Lonergan, a mysterious man who wakes up in the desert with no memory and a weird bracelet on his arm. He stumbles into town and butts heads with Woodrow Dolarhyde, played by Harrison Ford. Dolarhyde has a history...

How do you interview tough guys like Harrison Ford and Daniel Craig? Carefully, very carefully. It also helps if you bring their Cowboys & Aliens director Jon Favreau in on the conversation. Last week, the three men sat down with EW at a ranch in Montana to discuss their upcoming genre-mashing sci-fi-western about extraterrestrials invading New Mexico in the 1870s. “A journey of redemption,” Craig calls the film, which is a lot more serious than its title suggests (it was produced by an all-star team of heavyweights, including Steven Spielberg, Ron Howard, and Brian Grazer).

Beyond space invaders, the three amigos...

Universal won't pass on the massive Ron Howard and Akiva Goldsman adaptation of Stephen King's series The Dark Tower, but the studio is making some changes before it writes a check. We recently heard that the project, which is mean to come to life as three feature films and a couple of TV arcs, might be shelved [1] at Universal and offered up to other studio homes. Universal doesn't want to let it go -- understandable, as there is nothing execs like less than seeing projects they pass over do well somewhere else -- but is asking for a new look at the budget, and has pushed the start date for the first film back from this fall to some time next year. Will that mean The Dark Tower loses Javier Bardem as the lead? THR [2] reports only that "Ron Howard, Brian Grazer and Akiva Goldsman have regrouped to try to bring the budget down.

Editor’s Note: The following recap discusses things that happen in the first act of “The Impossible Astronaut” that are played for surprise. While it’s not a spoiler per se, you are probably better off having seen the episode before reading any further. Over the course of their first season at the wheel of the Tardis, new Doctor Matt Smith and wheelman Steven Moffat have presented us with one common theme: anything and everything is on the table for The Doctor and his faithful companions. Be it the explosion of the universe or the erasing (and subsequent reestablishment) of a character from the whole of human history, they are not afraid to take the adventure in unexpected and sometimes joyously mad directions. But the idea presented to us in the first ten minutes of “The Impossible Astronaut” is an even more interesting one. There in the middle of the picturesque American frontier, we...

"The Killing" is a crime show -- there are no two ways about that. It begins with a murder, and the detectives investigating it are front and center throughout.

Beyond that, though, AMC's new series, which premieres Sunday (April 3), bears little resemblance to a network procedural. That's by design, says executive producer Veena Sud, who adapted the Danish series "Forbrydelsen" for American audiences. "One of the biggest things I tried to do in developing this show is [think about] how can we tell a cop show differently, tell a cop show in a way that hasn't been done before?" Sud tells Zap2it. "How can we upend notions and tropes of the genre and make it fresh and unique?"

Sud, a former writer and producer on "Cold Case," had a good template in the Danish show. She carried over its format, in which each episode covers one day in the investigation of...

Hey gang! WonderCon 2011 invading San Francisco on Friday, April 1st through Sunday, April 3rd and the three-day schedule has been unleashed! Unfortunately we won't be able to make it up there this year, but if you are going, it looks like there's a ton of stuff for you to check out! I wish to hell I was going!

The convention will feature presentations and screenings for Falling Skies, Green Lantern, Super, Cowboys & Aliens, The Three Musketeers, Hanna, The Avengers: Earth's Mightiest Heroes, Iron Man Anime, Priest, Immortals, Doctor Who, Terra Nova, Thundercats, and more.

Check out the full schedule below and start planning you WonderCon adventure!

Friday, April 1

12:30-1:30 Nerds! The Secret Origins of Game Designers— Comics. Movies. Games. Did you know that a life of fandom might be perfect training for a career as a video game designer? Learn the secret origins of industry veterans Haden Blackman...

We salute one of Hollywood’s most underappreciated actors, and pick out ten of Timothy Olyphant’s finest movies...

Like so many of my on-screen heroes, Timothy Olyphant manages to fit the profile of being utterly superb and massively underappreciated, with the constant ability to make every film he’s in better.

Despite appearances in some high profile movies, a starring role that will launch him to the level he deserves, one that cements his name in mainstream consciousness, still seems elusive.

Olyphant’s TV work has seen success from the swear-a-thon that is Deadwood, a recurring role in Damages with Glenn Close and as Raylan Givens, the cowboy hat wearing, shoot first, ask questions later U.S. Marshall in Justified, whose second series is currently airing on FX.

He’s now on our screens in DreamWorks’ I Am Number Four, as well as lending his voice to the fantastic-looking Rango,...

By Sean O’Connell

Hollywoodnews.com: The trend of remaking classic board games into bigger-budget Hollywood productions looks to continue in 2011 and beyond.

We’re already bracing ourselves for “Battleship,” directed by Peter Berg (“Hancock,” “Friday Night Lights”). Ridley Scott had been circling a “Monopoly” movie before he got pulled back into the “Alien” realm. “Clue” and “Candyland” are other games looking to make the leap to the big screen (or back to the big screen, in the case of “Clue”).

Beyond that? It seems like a “Ouija” movie in the near future. And this morning, it is being reported that “Charlie’s Angels” and “Terminator Salvation” helmer McG will direct the picture for Universal. THR reports that McG beat out Breck Eisner (“The Crazies”), and will direct from a script by “Tron: Legacy” co-screenwriters Edward Kitsis and Adam Horowitz.

This is interesting, though. Instead of being a straight-up horror,...

Parvesh Cheena

When NBC’s new work place comedy Outsourced, about a call center in India, debuts on September 23rd, it won’t be breaking any new ground in terms of Glbt characters. But it will be groundbreaking in one important way: the cast includes Parvesh Cheena who might be the first out Indian actor on network television.

While the 31-year-old Parvesh will be playing an Indian man named Gupta, he’s actually a native of Elk Grove, Illinois, attended the University of Illinois and considers himself a theater baby from Chicago. AfterElton.com recently caught up with Cheena to discuss the role of Gupta, being a gay man of color and finally getting his first apartment.

AfterElton.com: Tell me about your character.

Parvesh Cheena: Gupta is the guy you do not want to be stuck in the office with. I'm the guy with the part in his hair,...

By Christopher Stipp

The Archives, Right Here

Check out my other column, This Week In Trailers, at SlashFilm.com and follow me on Twitter under the name: Stipp

Parenthood - Giveaway

I am thankful for shows like this.

I’m tired of the bloated guys in sitcoms with their bombshell wives, pontificating on all things funny about the human condition. I would hazard a guess that if I was 80 these kinds of things would appeal to me but they don’t. It’s shows like Parenthood that give a glimpse at the hairy underbelly that is regular life. Season 1 of Parenthood showed just how introspective you could get about the trials and tribulations of fathers, mothers, daughters and sons while also being kindhearted and likable. Peter Krause is just a dominant force, much like he was in Six Feet Under, and he proves to be just as dynamic of a presence in this series,...

The San Diego Comic-Con has finally posted its Thursday schedule of programming this year's event. There's quite a number of panels devoted strictly to movies and television shows, with a number of high profile actors, directors, writers and producers scheduled to make appearances at their respective presentations. I've pulled out the highlights as they pertain to Hollywood and the movies CA covers. Don't forget that this year's Masters of the Web panel is also happening on Thursday @ 3 Pm.

Thursday, July 22, 2010:

10:00-11:00 DreamWorks Animation: Megamind— DreamWorks Animation makes its Comic-Con debut with Megamind. The characters Megamind and Metro Man are jettisoned to Earth as babies when their home planets are destroyed. Megamind crash-lands inside a maximum-security prison, where he evolves into the wicked and diabolical genius he is today, while the dashingly handsome superhero Metro Man grows into the universally adored savior of Metro City, beloved by every man,...

And we're off! The first bit of programming for San Diego Comic-Con 2010 is up on the official site, and we've got a look at the horror-themed panels and events for both Preview Night (July 21st) and Thursday, July 22nd.

Wednesday – July 21

Not much real horror here, but if you're into anime (and sushi), this is the night for you!

Marriott Hotel and Marina:

Anime introduces its new big room with four screenings, plus a sushi and pizza meet and greet! Located in the Marriott Hall, the Anime rooms are 4, 5, and 6, with Wednesday night's screenings taking place in Room 4; the party is in the Marriott Hall foyer starting at 7:00 Pm.

The Films Department will screen three big movies starting at 6:00 pm in Marriott Hall 2, which will be the home for the Comic-Con International Independent Film Festival on Thursday through Sunday.

Convention Center:

6:00-9:00 Special Sneak Peek Pilot...

Plus we look at Running Wilde, wonder if Mean Moms will be as sexy as Mean Girls, and ogle MacGruber in all his glory.

Boy George has seen the BBC biography Worried About A Boy based on his life, and while he finds actor Douglas Booth beautifully shot as his younger self, he hates the actual story.

Speaking of Douglas Booth, the beautiful 17-year-old young man is playing gay again, this time in the Christopher Isherwood story starring Doctor Who’s Matt Smith. The film, titled Christopher and His Kind is shooting in Belfast, and Booth will play the role of a street cleaner Isherwood had a brief affair with.

Bristol Palin, the daughter of “my children are off limits” Sarah Palin has signed up to be a “motivational speaker” for $15-$30k a talk. No word on whether venues have to provide day care.

Even the UK is horrified...

Here's tonight's TV lineup (all times Eastern). All shows are new, unless otherwise noted.

It's Saturday, so don't expect too much from the schedule. Except for the one show that all us science fiction geeks will be tuning into at nine o'clock.

8:00 to 9:00

Fox: 'Cops'

Animal Planet: 'It's Me or the Dog'

BBC America: 'Doctor Who: The Ultimate Guide'

G4: 'Ninja Warrior' -- Two 30-minute episodes

Hgtv: 'Divine Design' and 'Sarah's House'

Nickelodeon: 'iCarly' and 'True Jackson, VP'

The Weather Channel: 'Storm Stories' -- Two 30-minute episodes

9:00 to 10:00

CBS: 'Strikeforce Saturday Night Fights' --Yes, it is on CBS! Two hours

Fox: 'America's Most Wanted'

BBC America: 'Doctor Who' -- Premiere of the newest doctor: Matt Smith

Diy: 'Renovation Realities'

HBO: '24/7 Mayweather/Mosley'

Spike: 'Ufc 110: Nogueira vs. Velasquez' -- Two and...

Clint Eastwood is making a bio-pic of J. Edgar Hoover, one of the most significant American public servants of the 20th century. Next to the presidents under which he served as head of the FBI, Hoover might have been the most important man in the United States for nearly 50 years.

The announcement about Hoover came a couple weeks ago, and yesterday, it was revealed that Eastwood and producer Brian Grazer like Leonardo DiCaprio for the role and why not? He gave a great performance a Howard Hughes in The Aviator, he's almost always reliable and is better in better movies, and it doesn't hurt that Shutter Island was a big hit. Beyond those salient business points, Leo has a passion about the bygone era, which is why he's developing a movie based on The Twilight Zone and why he fits in so well in all those mid-century period pieces.

He's in early negotiations to star,...

With the press launch of Doctor Who last night, the BBC Press Office have now released more information on the forthcoming 2010 series. As well as a brief listing of cast and crew (see our side bar for more details), the pack also includes interviews with the stars and production team.

New Doctor Matt Smith reflects on his version of the Time Lord, and the role of the Tardis:

He is still the same man but I think my Doctor is a bit more reckless; he's a thrill-seeker and addicted to time travel. He is the mad buffoon genius who saves the world because he's got a great heart, spirit and soul but he also doesn't suffer fools. I hope all of these things come across but I think I've also injected a bit of my own personality into the role. I also helped choose the Doctor's costume which was great fun.

Just days ago we told you about a proposed biopic of original FBI director J. Edgar Hoover that is being written by Milk scribe Dustin Lance Black. Now the film has a director attached, and it isn't who I expected to hear signing on. Clint Eastwood is now attached as the film looks for a studio home. THR reports that, while Black wrote the screenplay for Ron Howard and Brian Grazer at Imagine Entertainment under the auspices of a deal with Universal, that studio put the film into turnaround. So the Hoover biopic is now looking for a new studio. Given the fact of Eastwood's attachment it isn't difficult to guess that we'll see the film wearing a Warner Bros. shield, since his own production company Malpaso is based at WB. Beyond that, we don't have a lot more info than when I last covered the project. I'm oddly ambivalent...