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by Jeff Leins on: January 31st, 2010

Despite unrivalled jealousy amongst the usual quarters (Critics: People who can only decry other people’s talents) James Cameron’s Avatar won its seventh straight weekend with an estimated $30 million, which puts it within striking distance of the last major record. The expensive science fiction adventure is $6.3 million from passing Cameron’s Titanic to hold both the worldwide and domestic titles for largest theatrical total in history (not adjusted for inflation).
Overseas it added another $95.1 million in 120 markets to rack up a global total of $2.04 billion. Avatar is the first film ever to cross the unbelievable threshold.
Edge of Darkness performed as expected, earning a modest $17.1 million. As an actor, it’s Gibson’s worst wide opening since Braveheart, which doesn’t sound too bad until you remember that was 15 years ago. Not quite the Taken numbers Warner Bros was hoping for, but it’s hard to plan for a giant blue juggernaut and gauge audience willingness to give Gibson a second chance.
Disney’s When in Rome came in third with $12.1 million. The romantic comedy starring Kristen Bell and Josh Duhamel was hammered by critics (19% on RottenTomatoes) and from the looks of IMDB visitors it didn’t fare well with people paying money either.
Dwayne Johnson making a fool of himself took fourth, Denzel Washington slicing and dicing rounded out the top 5, angels battling on Earth dropped drastically to sixth, Peter Jackson’s teen drama ranked seventh, the 19th century bromance hung out in eighth, those annoying rodents took ninth, and the Meryl Streep love triangle landed the ten spot.
The Oscar nominations early Tuesday morning are sure to give a few critical favorites a boost next weekend.
3-Day U.S. Weekend Estimates:
1. Avatar $30 million
2. Edge of Darkness $17 million
3. When in Rome $12.1 million
4. Tooth Fairy $10 million
5. The Book of Eli $8.8 million
6. Legion $6.8 million
7. The Lovely Bones $4.7 million
8. Sherlock Holmes $4.5 million
9. Alvin and the Chipmunks 2 $4 million
10. It’s Complicated $3.7 million

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From Facebook hit view original post.

I put these figures up on  my blog every week around midnight LA time Sunday. I do it every week and have been for as long as I’ve had a blog. You can usually see the charts over on the top right of my blog over there>>>I’m counting down to when Avatar crosses the $2 Billion mark and it won’t be long. It’s already up to $1,838,802,321

USA Weekend Box-Office Summary
week of 22 January 2010

Rank		Title	Weekend	Gross
1		Avatar (2009)	$34.9M	$552M
2		Legion (2010)	$17.5M	$17.5M
3		The Book of Eli (2010)	$15.7M	$60.7M
4		Tooth Fairy (2010)	$14M	$14M
5		The Lovely Bones (2009)	$8.42M	$31.2M
6		Sherlock Holmes (2009)	$6.63M	$191M
7		Alvin and the Chipmunks: The Squeakquel (2009)	$6.4M	$204M
8		Extraordinary Measures (2010)	$6.01M	$6.01M
9		It’s Complicated (2009)	$5.81M	$98.3M
10		The Spy Next Door (2010)	$4.58M	$18.5M

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@raysmithinc:
UPDATE: Monday – I decide to try the  ”casting your film may be a way to attract finance” route. I email several casting agents. I also send query letters to a list of sales agents.

UPDATE: Tuesday – 3 film sales agents have requested the screenplay all of a sudden.

UPDATE: Wednesday –  ****** PICTURE’S Head of development requested the screenplay today as well as several others.

UPDATE: Wednesday – Ray Winstone’s agent request screenplay.

UPDATE: Thursday – Ray Winstone’s agent is reading my screenplay!

UPDATE: Thursday – 2 separate film finance companies send me forms that require me to disclose proposed-budget information as well as back-handing me the key to financing the whole thing.

UPDATE: Thursday – Today has been a weird day.

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Avatar took the Golden Globe for best Picture. What a surprise. Full list of winners here:

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The Chain – Fleetwood Mac

Listen to the wind blow
Watch the sun rise
Run in the shadows
Damn your love, damn your lies

{Refrain}
And if you don’t love me now
You will never love me again
I can still hear you saying
You would never break the chain
{Repeat}

Listen to the wind blow
Down comes the night
Run in the shadows
Damn your love, damn your lies
Break the silence
Damn the dark, damn the light

{Refrain thrice}

Chain, keep us together
Run in the shadows

OK, now where’s my check?

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Episode 3 of James Burke’s most well-known series “Connections” which explores the surprising and unexpected ways that our modern technological world came into existence. Each episode investigates the background of usually one particular modern invention and how it came into being. These explorations are an attempt to locate the “connections” between various historical figures who seemingly had nothing to do with each other in their own times, however once connected, these same figures combined to produce some of the most profound impacts on our modern day world; in a “1+1=3″ type of way.

It is this type of investigation that is the main idea behind the Knowledge Web project; whereby sophisticated software is used to attempt to discover these subtle interconnections automatically. See http://k-web.org

Watch Entire Show

More Shows

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Classic B movie: Invasion of the Bee Girls

(As embedding is disabled for this when you try to play it you will see

a LINK to play the movie in YouTube. Click it.)

*No pun intended*

Logline: They’ll Love The Very Life Out Of Your Body!

Synopsis: A powerful cosmic force is turning Earth women into queen bees who kill men by wearing them out sexually.

In the small town of Peckham, California, (not Sarf London) many men die for excessive effort during sexual intercourse. When a scientist from the Brandt research laboratory is found dead in a motel, the government sends Agent Neil Agar (William Smith) to investigate the mysterious deaths. He suspects that the deaths may be related to some experiments of Dr. Susan Harris (Anitra Ford), who is researching bees in the Brandt facility.

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http://www.deadline.com/hollywood/first-word-avatar-midnights-only-3-million-even-with-higher-3d-ticket-prices-hollywood-now-predicting-85m-weekend/.

BREAKING NEWS! (check for constantly updated and inserted info)

SUNDAY AM UPDATE: 20th Century Fox just said its big budget 3D technopic Avatargrossed $159.18M internationally from 106 territories (the six territories that have not opened are Japan, China, Italy, Poland, Argentina, and Uruguay). With North America’s snow-slowed grosses of $73M, that’s a worldwide total of $232.18M which the studio says is the “highest original content (non-sequel, non-franchise) opening weekend ever”.

Even with depressed U.S. grosses because of massive snowstorms in New York, Philadelphia, and Washington DC, Avatar finished Saturday only -5% down from Friday. That puts the technopic at $27M Friday and $25.6M for Saturday. With $20M estimated for Sunday, it’s officially a $73M pre-Xmas domestic opening weekend.

It’s the best-ever debut for director James Cameron, best-ever opening for a 3D movie with  IMAX shattering their records and selling out every seat and adding shows to keep up with demand. It’s also the 2nd best December debut of all time because of Avatar’s 3D ticket price premium compared to 2D films. (No. 1 is still 2007’s I Am Legend at $77,211,321, and No. 3 is now 2003’s The Lord Of The Rings: The Return Of The King at $72,629,713.) I’m told that 59% of 3D locations accounted for 71% of total business. The pic received a Cinemascore of “A” across every qudrant. In terms of audience demos, exit polling showed 57% male/43% female, and 38% under age 25/62% over age 25.

Avatar is playing in 3,542 total theaters in North America with 3D presentations at 2,038 sites accounting for almost 60% of the grosses. (Those 2,038 3D locations break down into 3,129 3D screens and 179 all 3D IMAX.) “Can’t wait for the East Coast snow to clear,” one upbeat Fox exec tells me about studio hopes for the tentpole to have legs because of “the tremendous word of mouth”.

Overseas, it’s playing in 17,222 screens (including a total 3D/3D Imax screens of 5,360, and a total IMAX 3D screens of 81). Fox just announced Avatarmade a whopping $159.18 internationally for a worldwide weekend total of $232.1 million – more than 2012’s hefty $225M 5-day debut number because ofAvatar’s higher 3D ticket prices.

Remember, this is the biggest 3D release in movie history, spurred by the excitement surrounding Cameron’s creation of the Fusion Camera System technology for photo-realistic computer-generated characters through motion capture animation. He wrote the script for Avatar back in the mid-1990s when he and Stan Winston co-founded Digital Domain. But when he took the screenplay to their special effects lab, Cameron was told it was just not possible to make the film with the current technology. So he sat on the project for more than a decade until there could be “several thousand 3-D screens” capable of showing the film.

All of Saturday’s pics were slammed by the snow. Disney’s holdover The Princess And The Frog placed No. 2 with a $12.2M weekend, or -49.5% from a week ago. Alcon Entertainment’s and Warner Bros’ The Blind Side finished No. 3 with $10.3M and closing in on $200M cume by still showing incredible legs at the start of its 5th week in release. Meanwhile, Sony Pictures is relieved that all the focus on Avatar this weekend meant it won’t attract much attention for the underperforming debut of Did You Hear About The Morgans? Starring Sarah Jessica Parker and Hugh Grant in what Rotten Tomatoes scored only 10% positive reviews — i.e. it’s unwatchable – the so-called comedy was lucky to open to $7M this weekend (not the $10M even the studio hoped for). It opened in 4th place Friday with just $2.5M from 2,758 runs and +5% for $2.6M Saturday. “Not what we wanted, but it will hang in throughout the holidays,” a too-optimistic Sony exec told me.

Here’s the Top 10:

1. Avatar (Fox) NEW [3,452 runs] Fri $27M
, Sat $25.6M, Wkd $73M
2. Princess And The Frog (Disney) Week 2 [3,475] Wkd $12.2M (-49.5%), Cume $44.7M
3. The Blind Side (Warner Bros) Week 5 [3,407] Wkd $10.3M, Cume $164.7M
4. The Morgans? (Sony) NEW [2,718] Fri $2.3M, Sat $2.4M, Wkd $7M
5. New Moon (Summit) Week 5 [3,035] Wkd $4.4M, Cume $274.6M
6. Invictus (Warner Bros) Week 2 [2,125] Wkd $4.1M, Cume $15.8M
7. A Christmas Carol (Disney) Week 7 [2,070] Wkd $3.4M, Wkd $130.7M
8. Up In The Air (Paramount) Week 3 [175] Wkd $3.1M, Cume $8.1M
9. Brothers (Relativity/Lionsgate) Week 3 [2,009] Wkd $2.6M, Cume $22M
10. Old Dogs (Disney) Week 4 [2,630] Wkd $2.2M, Cume $43.5M
—
Precious (Lionsgate) Week 7 [1,003 runs] Wkd $1.1M, Cume $40M
The Road (Weinstein) Week 4 [396] Wkd $665K, Cume $4.9M
Fantastic Mr Fox (Fox) Week 5 [575] Wkd $600K, Cume $17.3M
Nine (Weinstein) NEW [4] Wkd $246K, Per Screen $61K
Young Victoria (Apparition) NEW [44] Wkd $249K
Me And Orson Welles (Freestyle) Week 4 [134] Wkd $159K, Cume $554K
A Single Man (Weinstein) Week 2 [9] Wkd $137K, Cume $469K
Crazy Heart (Fox Searchlight) NEW [4] Wkd $84K, Per Screen $21K, Cume $109K
The Lovely Bones (Paramount) Week 2 [3] Wkd $40K, Cume $197K

SATURDAY PM: Studio sources tell me that 20th Century Fox’s Avatar is +15% from Friday when comparing matinees. But today’s total will likely be down from yesterday because of the severe winter storm on the Northeast where it could drop -5% or more today.

SATURDAY AM: Fox’s official figure for Avatar’s Friday total is $27M from its 3,542 total domestic theatrical release, including a slow $3.5M from midnight screenings in 2,000 venues. But the North American grosses, aided by higher 3D ticket prices, picked up steam throughout the day. Now America’s East Coast is slammed by a monster winter storm which could slow the movie’s grosses.

FRIDAY 11:15 PM UPDATE: Fox insiders are telling me that Avatar will make $27.5M to $28M Friday. As for the bad weather, an exec tells me: “Storm was in the Carolinas area today/tonight and I understand that the DC area was getting hammered. I would have to say we did get hurt in that area of the country, and I am worried about the effect in the Northeast tomorrow. Even so, this movie is getting such an incredibly positive reaction that I believe the word of mouth is just viral and those that may have been prevented from seeing the movie today or tomorrow will be there eventually without fail.”

FRIDAY 10 PM UPDATE: I’m told by sources that Avatar has been playing even with Star Trek all day until about 2:30 PM PT when 20th Century Fox’s overall gross and location average for James Cameron’s much ballyhooed technopic started pulling ahead. But 2D Star Trek had 400 more locations vs Avatar’s 3,542 total domestic theatrical release, and a shorter running time vs Avatar’s 160 minutes, and $7M in “pre-opening shows” vs. Avatar’s $3.5M midnights in about 2,000 dates with a 3D ticket price premium. Of course, Star Trek had the benefit of decades of franchise awareness, while Avatar is a wholly new creation. Now Fox could be looking at mid- to high- $20sM for today from its 2,038 domestic 3D locations and 3,129 North American 3D screens and 179 all 3D domestic IMAX. Because the filmmakers are very concerned about the severe winter storm hitting America’s East Coast and the huge negative effect it could have on the domestic box office. If there isn’t significant attendance loss, then Hollywood is now estimating this pre-Xmas 3-day weekend’s opening grosses at $80M — or $27M for Friday including the midnight shows, then $30M on Saturday, and $23M on Sunday when most colleges and high schools are out Monday.

FRIDAY 9:30 AM: ‘Twas the weekend before Christmas, but I refused to wax poetic about whether James Cameron’s long awaited, much discussed, big budget technopic would be a gigantic hit, big hit, or modest hit until I saw some actual numbers. That’s because 20th Century Fox’s Avatar finally opened in theaters last night in North America and 106 countries overseas after years of fan curiosity, followed by recent months of negative buzz, followed by the past two weeks of mostly strong reviews (82% positive on Rotten Tomatoes). No one is predicting disaster for the film. Especially not after I can reveal what Steven Spielberg said after screening it on the Fox lot: “The last time I came out of a movie feeling that way it was the first time I saw Star Wars.”

Rival studios reported to me this morning that midnight U.S. and Canada grosses were around $3 million with the 3D ticket premium. Then 20th Century Fox announced its official midnight screening gross of $3,537,000, including the 3D ticket price premium, from approximately 2000 theatres.

*UPDATE: I also just heard that internationally, Avatar is huge in Australia with $4.8 million from Thursday and Friday combined, and running double what 2012which did not have a 3D premium did there, or $2.3 million. (By contrast, New Moon opened to $7.8M.) In Germany, Avatar debuted to $1.7 million, compared to 2012’s $1.4M. (New Moon did $2.2M.) In Korea, Avatar opened to $1.4M, behind 2012’s $1.9M. (New Moon made only $800K.) But in the UK, opening day was hit by snow so grosses are running behind with Avatar $2.8M vs2012 $3.2M.*

*2ND UPDATE: Meanwhile, a giant snowstorm is expected on the America’s East Coast, with 20 inches predicted for Washington DC.*

I’ve learned that today’s matinees are running about 10% better than this summer’s Star Trek. But with 3D films, matinees are normally higher because a larger portion of the business is done via presales. Then again, Fox is warning that the weekend before Christmas can be dicey for moviegoing because everyone is more focused on shopping and partying. And weather is already a factor. But movies which open the weekend before Christmas tend to do better multiples than normal from opening box office to lifetime. While in the summer tentpoles tend to have lifetime grosses of 3 to 3.5 times opening weekend. Whereas movies that open the weekend before Christmas can do 4, 5 or even 6 times the opening weekend. So if Avatar were to do $75M to $85M this weekend, it could still get to a $300M-$400M lifetime total which is what the movie’s negative cost is thought to be.

Right now, Hollywood has refined its original unfocused $60M-$75M prediction upwards to $85 million for the 3-day domestic weekend — better than the all-time December opening of I Am Legend at $77,211,321 but only because ofAvatar’s 3D ticket price premium.*

Remember, this is the biggest 3D release in movie history, spurred by the excitement surrounding Cameron’s creation of the Fusion Camera System technology for photo-realistic computer-generated characters through motion capture animation. He wrote the script for Avatar back in the mid-1990s when he and Stan Winston co-founded Digital Domain. But when he took the screenplay to their special effects lab, Cameron was told it was just not possible to make the film with the current technology. So he sat on the project for more than a decade until there could be “several thousand 3-D screens” capable of showing the film.

This opening weekend, Avatar is playing in 3,542 total theaters domestic (including 2,038 3D locations and 3,129 3D screens and 179 all 3D IMAX), and into 17,222 screens overseas (including a total 3D and 3D Imax screens of 5,360, and a total IMAX 3D screens of 81).

Now, that’s a wide 2D release but by no means the widest. And yet last night there weren’t the usual reports pouring in to me of long lines and sold-out theaters after midnight, except for the IMAX 3D venues. Instead, Internet chatter and anecdotal accounts indicate moviehouses showing Avatar were not playing to packed houses — at least not yet.

Tracking, too, had been mixed for the film. While there was big awareness and wannasee among males of all ages, girls and women weren’t there at all. In fact, rival studios kept pointing out to me tht upcoming Sherlock Holmes was tracking better than Avatar in all quadrants.

Nevertheless, Fox is expecting Avatar to have legs domestically well into January. In any case, it’s expected to outperform internationally (not unlike 2012 did earlier this holiday season.) As for those dopey media comparisons to James Cameron’s legendary Titanic legs? Apples and oranges.

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I received an unsolicited email tonight:

Received: from Filmlg89@cs.com

Attention Screenwriter:

We’re former Beverly Hills agents who’ve represented ™Academy Award winning and nominated screenwriters. As literary consultants, we help aspiring talented writers with script coverage, story notes, editing, rewrites and adaptations of novels into screenplays. Our experienced and professional staff specializes in packaging and marketing your script to indie producers, executive producers with studio deals, plus foreign and domestic distributors.

If you’re strictly seeking an agent or manager to represent you, then this might not serve your needs. Otherwise,set aside free time to review our website, filmliterarygroup.com and please fill out the script submission form in the contact us drop down and contact us at 310-556-2040 to discuss submitting your project to interested buyers.

Sincerely,

www.filmliterarygroup.com

Film Literary Group | 1901 Ave of the Stars Suite 200 | Los Angeles | CA | 90067 | US

—————————————————–

My reply:

Yes, I have a screenplay I’ve just completed seeking representation. What are you offering? Is there an up-front fee? If so then we won’t be doing business but if not then we can talk.

Ray

—————————————————–

The response:

Received: from Filmlg89@cs.com

Ray,

You need to find an agent who are on salaries so they can schlepp for you and pay their mortgages. We were very clear with our message, we’re former agents. We get paid for by the job.

Remember, William Morris just merged with Endeavor and upwards of 200 agents were recently pink slipped. So we wish you the best of luck with that arduous task.

FLG

—————————————————–

Nice. Apparently an agent’s job is to “Schlepp”. OK then…hey, why don’t those 200 agents get together and start…an agency, how about that?

OK, little bit pedantic, but I have a question: Why would I go to a “former agent??”

The guy to ‘allegedly’ watch out for is called Stephen Gray  -   http://www.filmliterarygroup.com/stephan.htm

Here’s a thread about them on Done Deal:

http://messageboard.donedealpro.com/boards/showthread.php?p=602010#post602010

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Nice of Milla to get Paul W. S. Anderson’s permission to film first. (Looks like she’s got him wrapped appropriately.)

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Redbelt: Written and Directed by David Mamet.
Fascinatingly succinct  interview.

Synopsis: Mike Terry (Chiwetel Ejiofor), a jiu-jitsu practitioner and self-defense instructor, teaches his students the skills to persevere, both in unarmed combat and through difficulties in their lives. A series of circumstances brings Terry in contact with popular movie star, Chet Frank (Tim Allen), and a host of powerful people in the entertainment industry. Terry soon finds himself the victim of a con and, combined with a destitute financial situation, is pressed to enter the ring.

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Synopsis: A jealous husband and his friends plot the kidnapping of his wife’s lover with the intention of restoring his wounded ego.
Dir. Malcolm Venville. UK. 2008. 91 mins.

Main cast: Ray Winstone, Tom Wilkinson, Ian McShane, John Hurt, Stephen Dillane, Joanne Whalley.

Since their debut on the staggeringly good “Sexy Beast,” writers Louis Mellis and David Scinto have been more or less absent from the film world — Mellis is one of half-a-dozen credited writers on the messy comic-book Western “Blueberry,” and they were developing sci-fi novel “Jennifer Government” for Steven Soderbergh, but nothing’s been produced. Nothing, that is, until “44 Inch Chest,” which sees the writers teaming with photographer and director Malcolm Venville, who, like “Sexy Beast” helmer Jonathan Glazer, comes from the world of commercials.

Like their earlier film, it’s got overtones of a gangster movie, but skirting around the edges of the genre — it’s clear that the characters are somewhat disreputable, but you’re never quite sure how, and it bears more resemblance to a Harold Pinter play than a Guy Ritchie movie. Colin Diamond (Ray Winstone) is a car dealer, who’s been left by his wife (Joanne Whalley) for a French waiter, and has imploded completely, shrivelling into a weeping wreck of a human being. His friends Archie (Tom Wilkinson), Meredith (Ian McShane), Mal (Stephen Dillane) and Peanut (John Hurt), in an effort to restore some pride to their cuckolded pal, help him kidnap his wife’s new lover, and take him to a dilapidated house, with the intention of killing him.

The opening is fantastic – a catatonic Winstone lying in his trashed living room, listening to Harry Nilsson’s ‘Without You’ on repeat, and the first half-hour generally is very strong – like “Sexy Beast,” the dialogue is sharp and sweary, with almost certainly the most uses of the C-U-Next-Tuesday word in the history of cinema. The performances are generally terrific, although for the most part the actors are playing archetypes, rather than characters: John Hurt is vile and hilarious, but is basically channeling Harold Steptoe (the old man in the original UK version of “Sanford & Son“), while Ian McShane gives good value as a louche, homosexual gambler, but occasionally comes close to being a stereotype.

The honors probably go to Ray Winstone and Stephen Dillane – the former is astonishing, giving one of his best, and most atypical, performances, playing a man who, to all intents and purpose, has had his heart torn out. He’s a crumbled shell of a person, and we feel his pain, but we also get glimpses of why his wife would walk out on him. Dillane, a tremendous stage actor whose film work has rarely matched his abilities, with the possible exception of Michael Winterbottom’s “Welcome to Sarajevo,” looks like he’s really enjoying himself, as the shiftiest of Winstone’s crew, and it shows – he walks away with several of the key scenes. But all the actors are strong, and we would watch these five guys read a German-language computer textbook quite happily.

The trouble is, after a strong opening, the script and direction don’t quite deserve them. It’s a very stagey piece of work, almost entirely set in one location, and that’s fine – plenty of films have managed to wring real drama out of that (“Lebanon,” set entirely inside a tank, is a good example — our review’s coming later in the week), but the script can’t keep the tension up – there’s a lengthy dream sequence which doesn’t really reveal any more about Winstone’s psyche than we already knew, and the story basically peters out, anticlimactically.

Perhaps because of this, Venville doesn’t seem to trust his actors enough to keep the story contained, and tries to open it out, but it never quite works – for instance, a lengthy digressive story told by McShane’s character about a knight on the town with a gambler (played by Steven Berkoff, apparently auditioning to play The Penguin in the next Batman movie) is fun, but adds nothing, and is totally ill-fitting with the tone of the film around it.

There’s plenty to like about the film, particularly when viewed as a kind of
examination of the middle-aged male psyche, and it’s beautifully shot and scored
(by regular David Lynch collaborator
Angelo Badalamenti). But the unevenness
of the film means it pales in comparison to its predecessor. But then, so do
most films, we suppose…

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By Nikki Finke

Mel Gibson has always been better known as a movie star and film director than as a Hollywood mogul. Yet he has been at the head of LA-based Icon Group with partner Bruce Davey since 1989. Today they announced the sale of the UK operations of their film and entertainment business to the US-based industrial group, Access Industries. The deal includes Icon’s international sales company, the distribution operation based in the UK, and the Majestic Films & Television library. (But not the LA operation Icon Productions, which Gibson still owns outright with Davey who relocated to Australia.)  The UK business will continue to operate under the Icon name but former UK Film Council chairman Stewart Till will be appointed Icon UK’s new CEO as well as an equity holder in the business.

Commenting on the deal in a press statement, Stewart Till said: “This acquisition is a fantastic first step in our plans to build an international distribution network that will be operational in all the key major territories around the world, including Eastern Europe and Asia.”

Added Bruce Davey, Chairman, Icon Group “We’re very pleased to have done a deal with Stewart and Access and to know that the Icon brand will be in such experienced hands. We look forward to continuing a close relationship between the Icon UK and Australian businesses and keenly anticipate the company’s expansion plans into other territories.”

Icon UK and Icon Australia will continue to acquire territory distribution rights together. LA-based Icon Productions has also entered into a first-look deal with Icon UK. Icon Distribution’s upcoming UK slate includes Paranormal Activity, The Box, Nowhere Boy, The Road, Edge of Darkness (which stars Mel Gibson),Precious and A Single Man.

Unlike most other independent production companies, Icon internally funds most of its development and production costs, allowing it to retain creative control of its projects. Icon Productions films include “Hamlet,” “Forever Young”, “The Man Without a Face,” “Airborne,” “Maverick,” “Immortal Beloved,” the Academy Award winning “Braveheart,” “On Our Selection,” “Leo Tolstoy’s Anna Karenina,” “187,” “FairyTale: A True Story,” “Payback,” “An Ideal Husband,” “Felicia’s Journey,” “What Women Want,” “We Were Soldiers,” “The Singing Detective,” “Paparazzi,” “The Passion Of The Christ,” “Seraphim Falls” and “Apocalypto.”

Access Industries is a U.S.-based privately held industrial group founded in 1986 by Len Blavatnik. Its holdings span three sectors: natural resources and chemicals; telecommunications and media; and real estate. Access Industries’ holdings in the media sector currently include majority stakes in Perform Group (the online sports broadcaster), TopUpTV (a UK-based digital terrestrial TV service provider) and Amedia (an entertainment TV content developer and producer in Russia) together with minority stakes in RGE Group (an Israeli TV production company) and Warner Music Group (one of the world’s leading recorded music labels and music publishers).

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The Church of Scientology lost one of its most high-profile members when the Hollywood film-maker Paul Haggis quit the organisation in protest at its stance on same-sex marriages. In an explosive letter of resignation, Haggis claimed he could no longer “be a member of an organisation where gay-bashing is tolerated”.

Haggis, the writer of the Oscar-winning dramas Crash and Million Dollar Baby, had earlier called on spokesman Tommy Davis to denounce statements made by the church’s San Diego branch in support ofProposition 8, the controversial legislation that bans gay marriage inCalifornia. “The church’s refusal to denounce the actions of these bigots, hypocrites and homophobes is cowardly,” Haggis wrote in a letter addressed to Davis.

“Silence is consent, Tommy. I refuse to consent.” The resignation was later published on a blog by the former Scientology official, Marty Rathbun.

The Church of Scientology was founded in 1952 by the pulp novelist L Ron Hubbard. It is a system of beliefs that promises members a form of “spiritual rehabilitation” through a set of counselling sessions known as “auditing”. Scientology is recognised as a tax-exempt religion in the US where it has attracted a list of celebrity devotees that includes Tom Cruise, John Travolta and Lisa-Marie Presley.

However, Haggis’s outburst looks likely to be seized on by critics as proof of the organisation’s alleged heavy-handed tactics and lack of transparency. The film-maker goes on to list the other grievances that prompted his departure, accusing officials of waging a smear campaign against former members by leaking details of their private life to the press. For good measure, Haggis also suggests that Davis was lying when he publicly insisted that the organisation did not practise the policy of “disconnection”, whereby followers are encouraged to break off all contact with those who have criticised the church.

“I was shocked,” wrote Haggis. “We all know this policy exists. I didn’t have to search for verification – I didn’t even have to look any further than my own home. You might recall that my wife was ordered to disconnect from her own parents … although it caused her terrible personal pain, my wife broke off all contact with them.”

Haggis was a member of the Church of Scientology for 35 years. During that time, he wrote, “I saw the organisation – with all its warts, growing pains and problems – as an underdog. And I’ve always had a thing for underdogs.
But I reached a point several weeks ago where I no longer knew what to think. You had allowed your name to be allied with the worst impulses of the Christian Right … Despite all the church’s words about promoting freedom and human rights, its name is now in the public record alongside those who promote bigotry, intolerance, homophobia and fear.”

His letter ends: “I am only ashamed I waited this many months to act. I hereby resign my membership of the Church of Scientology.”

The Church of Scientology has yet to publicly respond to Haggis’s allegations. In the meantime, the Oscar-winner has hopped from one illustrious list to another. The roll-call of celebrities who have first joined and then abandoned the organisation reportedly includes Nicole Kidman, Van Morrison and comedian Jerry Seinfeld.

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When Larry and Andy Wachowski were pitching The Matrix to their producers, they played them a DVD of an 82-minute Japanese cartoon and said: “We wanna do that for real.” The film was 1995’s Ghost in the Shell, which defined a visual identity for cyberpunk cinema and counts James Cameron and Steven Spielberg among its most high-profile fans.

As it turned out, The Matrix wasn’t quite Ghost in the Shell “for real”, but it is indebted to it. Both films explore the virtual realm with a combination of existential questioning and kick-ass violence. The Wachowskis borrowed many of Ghost’s key details, including the digital “rain” of green numbers that signifies cyberspace, and the way humans plug themselves in through holes in the backs of their necks.

While he has just rereleased a “2.0″ refurbishment of his 15-year-old film, director Mamoru Oshii is modest about its pioneering qualities. “I did not revise it because I was dissatisfied with the original, but to prove how far we have progressed since then,” he explains. A cheerfully taciturn man with a penchant for basset hounds, Oshii doesn’t like to talk about the Matrix and any similarities to his film. “I’ve been asked this question hundreds of times. Frankly, it gets a bit annoying. I’m sure the Wachowski brothers feel the same. It is an entertaining movie, but I prefer their debut, Bound.”

Adapted from a comic book written by Masamune Shirow, Ghost in the Shell possesses many hallmarks of the anime (Japanese animation) genre: vast metropolises, lovingly detailed robots, military hardware, pneumatic women with huge eyes. The story is a future-noir thriller along the lines of Bladerunner, following a female cyborg detective on the trail of a mysterious hacker. She also questions her own identity: does she possess a “ghost” or a soul? Is she just a machine?

Surprisingly, the film was co-financed by a British company, Manga Films, an offshoot of Island records. Andy Frain, the movie’s executive producer, says: “I wanted to do a blend of east and west: western storytelling combined with Japanese artistry and a great soundtrack – we were talking to Massive Attack at one point.” But his suggestions were largely ignored, he says. The critics were lukewarm, and the film only reached a sizeable audience on video and DVD.

But it did appeal to an influential contingent of film-makers. James Cameron has described Ghost in the Shell as “a stunning work of speculative fiction . . . the first to reach a level of literary excellence”. (His forthcoming movie Avatar envisages a future in which humans can transfer their personalities into the bodies of an alien species. Sound familiar?)

Ghost in the Shell’s influence on Spielberg, another fan, is clear in AI: Artificial Intelligence, which ponders the philosophical implications of the human-automaton interface, and in the future-tech visions of Minority Report. In April this year, Spielberg’s Dreamworks studio acquired the remake rights to Ghost in the Shell; he plans to make a 3D live-action version.

In the past year, we’ve also had Joss Whedon’s enjoyable TV series Dollhouse, in which secret agents are wiped clean of their memories and personalities, so as to be implanted with new, temporary ones. And the sci-fi film Surrogates, out last month, imagines a future in which people prefer to stay at home and control avatars of themselves in the outside world.

But Ghost in the Shell went further than its Hollywood counterparts. Unlike the replicants in Blade Runner, the techno-slaves of The Matrix or the robot in AI, Ghost’s cyborg heroine does not seek to regain her “lost” humanity. Without giving away the ending, the film hints at the start of a brave new post-human era (or is it a Buddhist parable?) about the surrender of self into a larger entity. Quite a burden for an 82-minute cartoon.

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In 1986 NSUK, a UK Buddhist lay organisation, put on a show at Hammersmith Odeon theatre called ‘Alice’. It involved almost every member of the organisation, who gave their time to rehearsals and the performance freely. It was a life-changing experience for many, me included.

The rehearsals began in Spring 1986 and were almost nightly at the end.

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