Noticias

Open Road Films has acquired all U.S. rights to Arctic Justice: Thunder Squad – the epic 3D CGI animated family film from Andrea Iervolino and Monika Bacardi’s Ambi Media Group. The movie features the voices of Jeremy Renner, Alec Baldwin, Heidi Klum, John Cleese, James Franco, Anjelica Huston and Omar Sy, and is directed by Aaron Woodley. The announcement was made today by Tom Ortenberg, CEO of Open Road Films.

Open Road will release Arctic Justice wide in 2018. Animation work for the film is currently being done out of Ambi’s Toronto based studio, Aic Studios. The movie is fully financed and being produced by Ambi and its principals, Andrea Iervolino and Monika Bacardi.

Swifty (Jeremy Renner), an arctic fox, dreams of becoming one the famous Top Dogs, a team of huskies that deliver packages for the Arctic Blast Delivery Service. In the Arctic, every day trips can quickly turn into epic journeys,...

Two-time Academy Award nominee&#160Jeremy Renner&#160(The Hurt Locker, The Avengers, Mission Impossible: Ghost Protocol and Rogue Nation) has signed on to voice the lead character (Swifty) in the epic 3D, CGI animated family film Arctic Justice: Thunder Squad from&#160Andrea Iervolino&#160and&#160Monika Bacardi's&#160Ambi&#160Group.

Renner will lead an ensemble voice cast for Arctic Justice that includes Alec Baldwin (The Departed, Blue Jasmine, Mission Impossible - Rogue Nation),&#160Heidi Klum (The Devil Wears Prada, Project Runway),&#160John Cleese (A Fish Called Wanda, Monty Python and the Holy Grail, Life of Brian), James Franco (The Interview, 127 Hours, Spider-Man), Anjelica Huston (The Royal Tenenbaums, The Addams Family), and Omar Sy (Jurassic World,&#160Inferno).

When the sinister Doc Walrus (voiced by John Cleese) hatches a secret plot to accelerate global warming and melt the arctic circle, a rag-tag group of inexperienced heroes (voiced by Renner, Franco, Baldwin, Huston, Klum and Sy...

Alec Baldwin, James Franco, John Cleese, Anjelica Huston, Heidi Klum and Omar Sy are set to voice characters in Arctic Justice: Thunder Squad, director Dimos Vrysellas’ CGI family pic from Ambi Pictures. The film follows an arctic fox named Swifty who longs to join a team of package delivery huskies working for the Arctic Blast Delivery Service. To prove himself, Swifty commandeers a sled of his own and, by himself, takes a package to an icy fortress owned by an evil…...

As expected, overall box office numbers dropped sharply, as they always do the weekend after the Thanksgiving holiday.And the severe Arctic blast, which has affected most of the country, even as far south as Los Angeles County, no doubt didn’t help things either. That being said, people somehow managed to go the movies; and this weekend the Disney animated film Frozen grossed some $31.6 million, edging out The Hunger Games: Catching Fire for the No 1 slot, with Fire coming in at No. 2, earning some $27 million.The one major release this weekend, Out of the Furnace with Christian Bale, Woody Harrelson and Zoe Saldana, didn’t fare so well with under $5.4 million. But...

Veteran Australian producer Antony I Ginnane is one of the key creatives behind a new local CGI animated feature film.

Ginnane, the former Screen Producers Association of Australia president, is in a joint venture with Accent Media’s Peter and Caroline Campbell, and Rodney Whitham and British film company Gfm Films on Stonerunner.The film, set on a future Earth, is to be directed by Australian Steve Trenbirth, who helmed Jungle Book 2, The Legend of Secret Pass and worked across many other Disney films.

It is written by Melbourne-based Paul Western-Pittard.

Ginnane, who has produced or executive produced over 66 films including 1978 thriller Patrick and its current remake as well as Last Dance and Arctic Blast, introduced the film and Peter Campbell to Gfm Films at Cannes Film Market this year.

Gfm’s Michael Ryan said the film had potential to be a cross-platform hit.

Ryan said: “We were all quickly...

Film executive Ann Lyons has passed away after a short illness this week.

Lyons was co-founder of La-based Ifm World Releasing Inc and long time business partner of Antony I Ginnane in Australia’s Fg Film Productions Pty Ltd.

Ginnane said: “I have lost my best friend. Ann was the rock solid underpinning of our production and distribution activity for more than 30 years. She was an extraordinary judge of story and had an editor’s eye for structure.”

Lyons began her film industry career in 1976 on immigration to Australia, after joining the Melbourne-based studio Corporation and The Film House. In her early years she worked as an assistant to director Fred Schepisi.

Joining Ginanne in 1981 at Fg Productions, Lyons collaborated on the production and financing of films Turkey Shoot, High Tide and The Lighthorseman, and supervised their local and international distribution.

In 1996, after Lyons relocation to Los Angeles in 1993, she...

Outgoing Spaa President Antony I Ginnane and director Bruce Beresford will speak about their knowledge, insights and no doubt some salacious stories over the next two weeks of Aftrs Friday On My Mind sessions.

Mr Ginnane will be the guest speaker on Friday 12 August.

Mr Beresford will be the guest speaker on Friday 19 August.

A maverick of the Australian film industry and outgoing Spaa president, Antony I Ginnane will address the free Aftrs session. Producer of over 60 international feature films, mini series and TV movies such as Patrick, Arctic Blast, Screamers and Dark Age, Ginanne will no doubt have plenty to say about filmmaking and the state of the industry.

Bruce Beresford, director of Breaker Morant, Driving Miss Daisy and Moa’s last Dancer is busy both in Australia and Hollywood. He has just announced he’ll direct The White Mouse, the story of Nancy Wake, and is currently in...

Let’s look back, shall we?

Joe emcees.

So we did a thing at The Cinefamily. Because we have a new DVD out. Because Josh poked us with sticks and said we had to. Because we like movie theaters (especially The Cinefamily). Because we wanted to see what would happen if we got a bunch of gurus under one roof, in front of one screen.

Because we like movies.

No one had any clue how it might play out or even if anyone would show up. But, in point of fact, it turned out great and people did show up because the truth is this:

Any night that starts with Joe Dante screening never-before-seen test footage from an almost-happened 1981 version of The Creature from the Black Lagoon, reaches its midpoint with a blooper reel of John Landis trying and failing to record commentary, and ends with Larry Cohen doing impromptu,...

Director Brian Trenchard-Smith is in negotiations to direct the feature film Deception at the Village Roadshow Studios on the Gold Coast. Little is known about the suspense mystery-thriller, which will star Cuba Gooding Jr and is planned to shoot later this year. Trenchard-Smith is currently finishing up seven episodes of the HBO/Cinemax comedy series Chemistry. The last local project for the director, who has helmed such genre classics such as BMX Bandits and Turkey Shoot,.was the 2010 Australian-Canadian co-production Arctic Blast, which was filmed in Tasmania. In other local production news, Carey Mulligan (An Education) is reportedly attached to sci-fi action film Outback, which will be filmed in Australia, according to.Variety. Gary Ross will direct the.Nissar...

While there is no immediate release date for Us markets, legendary Aussie filmmaker Brian Trenchard Smith, via his Facebook page, announced that his new film Arctic Blast was #1 this past weekend in Spain. We also have the spiffy trailer for everyone below.

A Us research vessel sits on a calm Antarctic Ocean just 100 miles off the coast of Australia studying the thinning of the ozone. Suddenly a blast of sub zero air strikes the vessel, flash freezing the scientists and crew, bodily fluids turning to ice, skin splitting as ice crystals expand in muscle and tissue – the deaths are horrific and instant… Jack Tate, a brilliant, yet troubled physicist specializing in Earth Sciences is the land based support for the research vessel. Complicating his life is a messy divorce from the local medical examiner Emma and a strained relationship with his teenaged daughter Naomi. When Jack learns about the bizarre deaths of his colleagues,...

Brian Trenchard-Smith is awesome. He's like the Roger Corman of Australia. Escape 2000, Dead End Drive In, Night of the Demons 2, Frog Dreaming and Stunt Rock are just a few of the many kick ass titles in his arsenal of awesome.

Now the ozploitation master has returns with a schlocky made for TV post-apocalyptic flick called Arctic Blast. We reported on it a ways back, but we've got the trailer so it's time for an update.

Synopsis:

When a solar eclipse sends a colossal blast of super chilled air towards the earth, it sets off a catastrophic chain of events that threatens to engulf the world in ice!

Jack Tate is a brilliant yet troubled physicist specializing in Earth Sciences. Complicating his life is a messy divorce from the local medical examiner Emma (Alexandra Davies) and a strained relationship with his teenaged daughter Andrea (Indiana Evans). When Jack learns...

Hi in craft, but low in content, South Solitary is perfect for those who prize art for its own sake and a perfect example of why the rest of Australia is afraid of Australian films.

The Sydney Morning Herald won’t be getting a Christmas card from director Shirley Barrett.

At Encore, we recently published an unfavourable opinion of Brian Trenchard-Smith’s Arctic Blast, so we are not suggesting that all reviews of Australian films should be positive but… are the mainstream media too hard on most local projects? Would they have called Animal Kingdom “depressing” had it not won an award at Sundance and positive reviews from the Us?

Discuss.

Last night’s premiere of Brian Trenchard-Smith’s Arctic Blast left us cold, but probably not in the way the filmmakers intended.

Isn’t the charm of ‘bad movies’ the fact that those making them were being absolutely serious and failed miserably? Isn’t a cult movie something that stands out from the crowd and has a special, almost undefinable quality that connects with a very specific, adoring audience? However, deliberately trying to make a ‘bad movie’ (or a B-movie, as many would rather label certain filmic abominations), is a recipe for disaster.

Arctic Blast is a film that screams ‘look at me, look at me, I’m so bad I’m good!’, only to be told ‘no, you’re so bad you’re bad‘ by an audience that lost at least five of its members, who couldn’t process all 90 minutes of this The Day After Tomorrow tribute – we were sitting by the door,...

One of the coolest film festivals in Australia is Possible Worlds -- Sydney's Canadian Film Festival -- which always manages to attract some interesting and high profile Canadian films for their Australian and, occasionally, world premieres.

This year is no different, and they have just unveiled their full program, which includes Australian premiere of the Julianne Moore/Liam Neeson psychological thriller Chloe, and the world premieres of Brian Trenchard-Smith's sci-fi thriller Arctic Blast and the Margaret Atwood documentary In The Wake of The Flood.

Here's the full press release:

The fantastic program for Possible Worlds, Sydney's Canadian Film Festival has been announced and is showcasing the best new films made in Canada from August 2 to August 8 in a number of Sydney venues including Dendy Opera Quays and Dendy Newtown.

 The dynamic program is filled with a mixture of intelligent and entertaining events including premiere screenings, filmmaker Q&A's, industry talks and parties.

Brian Trenchard-Smith’s sci-fi/action/thriller Arctic Blast will premiere at the Possible Worlds Canadian Film Festival in Sydney on August 4.

The film is an Australian-Canadian co-production shot in Tasmania. The executive producer is Antony I. Ginnane, whose distribution venture Ifm/Filmways is set to release the film in Australia/New Zealand.

The other executive producers are Tom Berry (Montreal-based Premiere Bobine) and Pierre David (Imagination Worldwide)

In Arctic Blast, a solar eclipse sends a colossal blast of super-chilled air towards the earth, setting off a catastrophic chain of events that threatens to engulf the world in ice. As Coastal Australia undergoes mass evacuation, physicist Jack Tate races to find a solution while protecting his family.

The Possible Worlds festival will take place August 2-8 in Sydney.

Brian Trenchard-Smith (Escape 2000) is an Ozploitation legend, so I'm definitely stoked to see he's taking on the disaster genre with Arctic Blast. Currently in post-production, the film is based on a script by Jason Bourque.

Synopsis:

When a solar eclipse sends a colossal blast of super chilled air towards the earth, it sets off a catastrophic chain of events that threatens to engulf the world in ice!

Jack Tate is a brilliant yet troubled physicist specializing in Earth Sciences. Complicating his life is a messy divorce from the local medical examiner Emma (Alexandra Davies) and a strained relationship with his teenaged daughter Andrea (Indiana Evans). When Jack learns about the bizarre deaths of his colleagues, he sets off to discover the cause. By piecing together the chain of events: the solar eclipse, a sudden drop in temperature of the mesosphere, and a rip in the ozone layer, Jack concludes...