May 29th, 2008 at 2:10 pm
Over 500 Hollywood producers and writers will work together with the AARP to bring attention to affordable health care. The announcement comes in conjunction with the ‘Divided We Fail’ campaign. The film industry agreed to include several story lines about the health care message in their movies and TV shows.
“[People] are putting their money into day-to-day survival. We started thinking what was really important was to reach out through popular culture. There’s nothing more effective,” AARP president Nancy LeaMond said. And since there are 49 million Americans without health insurance, the Motion Picture & Television Fund (MPTF) joined to help the good cause.
“The filmmakers, the storytellers, are the ones who are going to make this happen. They know how to entertain and enlighten at the same time,” MPFT chairman and DreamWorks CEO Jeffrey Katzenberg said. “Television, like it or not, teaches people. Writers are speaking to millions of people. Any forum that brings these issues to the forefront is both welcome and needed.“
It’s good to see it’s not all money in Hollywood.
May 21st, 2008 at 9:22 am
 | | Dreamworks is looking to repeat the success of their ‘The Ring’ remake in 2002. They’ve picked up the rights to the Japanese fantasy ‘Resurrection’ (’Yomigaeri’). It is not often I remake becomes a wild success. Most rehashed movies are burned by the critics. But ‘The Ring’ made an impressive $250 million worldwide with their $48 million budget.
William Nicholson, nominated for an Oscar for ‘Gladiator’ in 2001, will write the script about a missing girl who reappears after 60 years without having aged.
DreamWorks is currently finishing their remake of the South Korean ‘A Tale of Two Sisters,’ called ‘The Uninvited.’
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May 13th, 2008 at 10:00 am
Cory Edwards, who is currently working on ‘Hoodwinked 2: Hood vs. Evil,’ will be directing a ‘Fraggle Rock’ musical feature for TWC. Weinstein Co. has been pushing TWC to make more family orientated movies. “One of our main priorities when we first launched the Weinstein Company was to feature a broad range of family-friendly franchises like Fraggle Rock,” Weinstein said. The picture will again focus on the main characters’ interaction with humans, who they think are all aliens.
Director Cory Edwards debuted strongly with ‘Hoodwinked!’ in 2006. The animation not nearly had the high standards of a studio like Pixar or DreamWorks, but it made over $50 million in the US with a budget of just $15 million. For the sequel ‘Hoodwinked 2: Hood vs. Evil,’ Harvey Weinstein said to have doubled the budget to $30 million, still fairly low compared to its competition.
