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HOLLYWOOD Expanding its reach in the worldwide marketplace, Robert Rehme Prods. has inked a two-year, first-look deal with Kinowelt USA, the Stateside film production arm of Munich-based Kinowelt Medien. Rehme [...]

HOLLYWOOD Interscope Communications founder Ted Field and former Interscope president Scott Kroopf, along with former Interscope execs Erica Huggins and Tom Engelman, have launched Radar Pictures, a film company that […]

Lack of U.S. distrib deals, looming strikes vex sellers H0LLYW00D As the film industry Stateside and abroad prepares for this year's London Screenings (Oct. 23-27), observers say the poor health […]

New studio chief Schneider repolishes Disney brand I don't think there's a story here," says Walt Disney Studios chairman Peter Schneider, sitting in an office in the Team Disney building […]

With most movies that reach the marketplace mired in tired narratives, many cineastes have found Lars von Trier's 'Dancer in the Dark' a breath of fresh air. The film sports [...]

HOLLYWOOD Longtime friends Martin Scorsese and Steven Spielberg will collaborate on 'Into the Setting Sun.' Scorsese has agreed to direct and Spielberg, via DreamWorks, will produce. Bill Wittliff ('The Perfect [...]

HOLLYWOOD Brian De Palma will direct 'Femme Fatale,' a $30 million to $35 million pic to be financed by Tarak Ben Ammar's Paris-based production company Quinta, along with the German, [...]

Julia Roberts, John Cusack and Billy Crystal are in talks to star in the Revolution Studios comedy 'America's Sweethearts,' with conversations also ongoing with Catherine Zeta-Jones to play a lead [...]

HOLLYWOOD Martin Scorsese and Barbara De Fina are moving their Cappa Prods. shingle to Miramax Films, where they will have a first-look deal. The pact between Cappa (aka Cappa/De Fina) [...]

HOLLYWOOD With every kid who can get his hand on a camera making films, it's ironic that few have heard of the two minimoguls whose work may have first inspired [...]

With a little prompting from the French, Francis Ford Coppola has re-edited and re-mixed his 1979 classic, 'Apocalypse Now,' making the two-hour-and-33-minute pic roughly an hour longer. The film will [...]

Spanish distrib Lauren Films has taken Spanish rights to Woody Allen's next three pies and plans to finance a modern version of Aristophanes' "Lysistrata." The Allen trio is being co-financed […]

HOLLYWOOD Writer-director Kimberly Peirce, whose feature bow "Boys Don't Cry" won Hilary Swank an Academy Award, has signed a first-look deal with New Line Cinema. Pact is initially for two […]

Things were getting a bit lonely for Tom Sherak, chairman of the Twentieth Century Fox Domestic Film Group of Fox Filmed Entertainment. Another key exec, Bill Mechanic, had ankled the [...]

DIRECTORS CLOSE UP MODERATED AND EDITED BY JEREMY KAGAN (FOCAL PRESS; 253 PGS.; $19.95) Though at times not the easiest narrative to wade through, Jeremy Kagan's excerpts of interviews with [...]

HOLLYWOOD As studios grow increasingly cautious, striking more co-financing pacts, the ever-contrarian New Line is getting bolder with its risk-taking. Some say this year the bad boys may have gone [...]

HOLLYWOOD Scribes David Garrett and Jason Ward ('Corky Romano') are on a roll: They have signed on to pen three films, one for Universal-based producer Bob Simonds, and two for [...]

HOLLYWOOD The considerable German money now available for independent producers doesn't mean the indie game is getting any easier. Consider Destination Films. The company hopes that the title of its [...]

'Survivor' million-dollar winner Richard Hatch is eyeing a much bigger race: He has signed with the Creative Artists Agency, management firm Pure Arts and publicist Polaris PR. Reps for Hatch [...]

HOLLYWOOD Expanding the patchwork of talent pacts undertaken since its IPO in May, Germany's Intermedia Films last week closed in on a two-year, first-look deal with Nicolas Cage's Saturn Pictures. [...]

Canuck backers fund redubbed Mosaic Media HOLLYWOOD Atlas Entertainment/Gold Miller/Third Rail has a new name and a novel new source for operating capital: Canada. Now going by the simpler moniker [...]

The prototype of the new Euro-cash deals is Joe Roth's Revolution Studios. His six-year arrangement, which includes distribution through Germany's Senator for 36 pictures and in Japan via Toho-Towa and […]

HOLLYWOOD Robert De Niro has committed to making Franchise Pictures' "City by the Sea," a $60 million thriller, part of which Barry Baeres' German company Intertainment will finance. Based on […]

HOLLYWOOD It started as a paper role-playing game, spiraled into many popular bestselling novels, metamorphosed into multiple video- and online games, shot into the comic book arena -- and soon […]

Studios harvest Euro coin before big chill Even their own countrymen are questioning the wisdom of German companies investing millions in Hollywood. Der Speigel writes: "Viel Geld, Wenig Ahhung" (Plenty […]

HOLLYWOOD "This is not really a summer ... it's bizarre!" says an agent who carefully monitors the spec market. "It's a scary, scary time for everyone in the business," adds […]

Universal Studios Family & Home Entertainment is developing a live-action movie version of the classic children's book The Island of the Blue Dolphin for a potential premiere on home video [...]

HOLLYWOOD Roger Michell ("Notting Hill") has inked a deal to direct the thriller "Changing Lanes" for Paramount Pictures, with Scott Rudin on board to produce. Original script was penned by […]

HOLLYWOOD Joe Roth's Revolution Studios has enlisted Lawrence Kasdan to direct a large-scale police drama based on Kasdan's original screenplay. Kasdan and Charles Okun will produce. Lensing is expected to […]

HOLLYWOOD The Walt Disney Co. has greenlit "The Royal Tenenbaums," a script from Wes Anderson and Owen Wilson ("Rushmore"). Pic, about a dysfunctional family of geniuses that wind up as […]

SECOND IN A SERIES ON PRODUCER-MANAGERS HOLLYWOOD "This is off the record until Keith says it isn't," begins producer Nick Wechsler tentatively. "It's off the record!" interrupts Keith Addis. Friends […]

HOLLYWOOD Joe Roth's Revolution Studios has shelled out a seven-figure sum to Universal for 'Stealing Stanford,' an original script by Martin Hynes and rewritten by Peter Tolan ('We Fellow Americans') [...]

HOLLYWOOD In a move that signals the newly flush Intermedia's intent to become a major worldwide supplier, the indie production, financing and distribution outfit has hired Disney vet Jere Hausfater [...]

HOLLYWOOD Helmer Brad Silberling has tied down his next two films: He will develop and direct the Warner Bros. relationship comedy "For What It's Worth" for Village Roadshow Pictures and […]

HOLLYWOOD DreamWorks has committed to pay scribe Leslie Dixon ('The Thomas Crown Affair') $1 million against $1.5 million to pen an original animated pic tentatively titled 'Chakulan.' Idea for the [...]

For an organization that says it is nonpartisan and stands for open dialogue, the Gotham-based Creative Coalition, founded by a group of actors in 1989, is starting to seem suspiciously [...]

HOLLYWOOD Producer Jerry Bruckheimer, currently in production on the epic 'Pearl Harbor' for Disney, has anchored again at the Mouse House. Disney's largest and most successful supplier of films, Bruckheimer [...]

HOLLYWOOD You can hear it in their voices. In the rising pitch. In the edgy chatter spiced with tech lingo. These voices belong to a new breed of dot-com emigres [...]

HOLLYWOOD Warren Zide and Craig Perry have struck a one-year, first-look deal at New Line. Zide and Perry produced the recent New Line frightener "Final Destination" and U's hit 1999 […]

The Miramax acquisitions staff has undergone a major restructuring. Senior acquisitions and co-productions veeps Jason Blum and Amy Israel have ankled Miramax to form Blum Israel Prods., taking a nonexclusive […]

Studios ax producer pacts, strip frills from deals If you're a studio producer and want to keep your gig, your energy level better be frenetic and your output significant -- […]

DISNEY (*)American Empirical Pictures (Wes Anderson, Owen Wilson) Avnet/Kerner (Jon Avnet, Jordan Kerner) Bay Films (Michael Bay) Blue Wolf (Robin Williams) Boxing Cat (Tim Allen) Jerry Bruckheimer Films (First look [...]

The contours of producer Joe Roth's company have finally taken shape -- and they are revolutionary. In fact, his shingle signals a shift of power into the hands of a [...]

'Battlefield Earth' elicited the year's worst reviews and a domestic box office to match. But the film may not prove to be a B.O. Waterloo for its free-wheeling producer -- [...]

HOLLYWOOD With a deal valued at north of $50 million, the Lions Gate-Trimark merger is all but done. Lions Gate plans to use Trimark primarily as its video arm, effectively […]

HOLLYWOOD New Line Cinema has promoted Amy Henkels to senior veep of East Coast production. Henkels, based in Gotham, serves as one of the company's leading development executives. She is […]

NEW YORK Todd Harris, whose agenting career was almost as old as some of the stars he repped, may just be the operational future of Hollywood. The former William Morris [...]

HOLLYWOOD Gateway Computers founder Norm Waitt's Gold Circle Entertainment has launched Gold Circle Films, appointed David Kronemyer the company's president and committed roughly $100 million over the next two years […]

Franchise Pictures has closed a $6 million distribution deal with Japan's Nippon Herald for 'Get Carter,' directed by Stephen Kaye, starring Sylvester Stallone; 'Mercy,' written and directed by Damian Harris [...]

Artisan Entertainment is in final negotiations to distribute Robert Altman's 'Dr. T and the Women' in North America. Pic's ensemble cast is headed by Richard Gere. Artisan plans a nationwide [...]