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NBC/Universal Kidnaps News Cycle. Trade Roughage 10/21/08

Karina Longworth
By Karina Longworth posted 1 year ago
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  • Universal Studios is building a ride in its theme parks in Singapore and Los Angeles, based on Michael Bay’s Transformers. The attraction is expected to “use 3-D HD footage with special effects, robotics and track to place humans in the middle of a war between the friendly Autobots and evil Decepticons, who can turn into cars, trucks, planes and other vehicles.” Yay, war!
  • Meanwhile, Universal the studio is planning to sell genre division Rogue Pictures to Relativity Media for $150 million. Rogue has been moderately successful producing low-budget hits like The Strangers, to which a sequel is in development; Relativity will get the development slate as well as the library, although Univeral will agree to distribute all Rogue films through 2013.

MSNBC Films, the documentary unit announced by NBC/Universal’s news channel in June, has firmed up plans for their first two releases. The festival circuit acquisition Dear Zachary will premiere at Tribeca Cinemas on October 29 before rolling out to at least four markets, and in-house production Witness to Jonestown will premiere on the channel November 9. Being that two NBC employees died covering the events at Jonestown, this may be the closest thing to a personal project that a cable network could make.

SAG and Sleepers. Trade Roughage 07/01/08

Karina Longworth
By Karina Longworth posted 1 year ago
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  • The Screen Actors Guild are currently without a contract. The AMPTP offered a “final offer” late yesterday in hopes of nailing the union down before their previous contract expired at midnight, but SAG insisted on giving the “deeply flawed” proposal the once-over before meeting with the studios on Wednesday. They’re probably just stalling until AFTRA votes on their tentative deal with the AMPTP next week.
  • Variety takes note of the summer’s box office sleepers thus far, including The Strangers, which has quietly crossed $50 million, and What Happens in Vegas, an alleged bomb which nonetheless will almost certainly make close to $100 million.
  • The Gillian Anderson comeback train rolls on. The X Files star has acquired a biography of Martha Gellhorn for her to star in and her production company to adapt. Gellhorn was a pioneering war correspondant and sometime wife of Ernest Hemingway.
  • Philip Noyce will likely direct Edwin A Salt, a thriller in which Tom Cruise will play a “CIA officer who’s accused by a defector of being a Russian sleeper spy. He must elude capture long enough to clear his name.” Yes, Tom Cruise has now become so boring that news of his next project is relegated to the bottom of the roundup. Such is the way of the world, I guess.