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Unlike the majority of Western, English-language shows — with the exception of certain cartoons — an anime's opening theme song is still a major aspect of the viewing experience. Thanks to anime production being largely based around 13-episode cours, most anime will regularly get updated opening and ending themes. On top of that, plenty of anime have been lucky enough to get talented composers who genuinely care about creating quality background music for the episodes themselves.

Although several anime on this last are iconic classics of the medium, the fact that they have such strong soundtracks may often by overlooked thanks to the other reasons for their popularity.

The original English Pokémon theme set the tone for the next three decades

Thanks to the mind-boggling popularity of the Pokémon anime, right from the very beginning, the words "I want to be the very best" got burned into a generation of young minds.

The Phantom of the Opera is sometimes considered one of the Universal Monsters. I get it. From the 1925 version that gave us one of the most infamous unmasking sequences ever courtesy of the great Lon Chaney Sr., through the Hammer iteration with Herbert Lom, all the way up to the 2004 film that gave a lot of us our intro to Gerard Butler. Speaking of that movie, its inspiration and reason for its existence was the Andrew Lloyd Weber musical that premiered in October of 1986 and has had runs all the way through as recently as 2021. 1989 was the beginning of its U.S. tour and we got not one but Two Phantom movies that year. Phantom of the Mall: Eric’s Revenge is cheesy and may just be more well known due to our friend Joe Bob featuring it on the Last Drive In recently. Here in the JoBlo Horror kitchen today...

It’s Scene 1, Take 1 for the 2021-22 class of ViacomCBS’ Directors Initiative. This year’s group, which is guaranteed to helm an episode of television on CBS, includes Julie Herlocker, Joy T. Lane Steven J. Kung, Pat Santana and Bao Tran.

The initiative provides a platform for experienced directors to gain access to showrunners, executives, managers and agents and the opportunity to shadow CBS Television Network and CBS Studios shows throughout the year. The program helps directors develop meaningful relationships with industry professionals that are essential to getting hired.

“The ViacomCBS Directors Initiative gives television directors the access, exposure and opportunity to be successful in this industry,” said Tiffany Smith-Anoa’i, EVP Entertainment Diversity and Inclusion, Global Inclusion, at ViacomCBS. “The success of this initiative has created a growing community of support, where past participants, who are now in positions of influence, are mentoring and hiring current participants.”

One of last year’s participants,...

New Clip from Motherly: "A single mother is attacked by a vengeful couple who believe she's responsible for their daughter's murder."

Director: Craig David Wallace

Writers: Ian Malone, Craig David Wallace

Producers: Avi Federgreen, Laura Tremblay

Cast: Lora Burke, Tessa Kozma, Kristen MacCulloch, Nick Smyth, Colin Paradine

Genre: Thriller, Horror

Run Time: 100 Mins

Rating: Rated TV-ma for Violence

Distributor: Entertainment Squad/The Horror Collective

Now available On Demand and Digital

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Official Poster for Wolf: " Believing he is a wolf trapped in a human body, Jacob (George MacKay) eats, sleeps, and lives like a wolf – much to the shock of his family. When he’s sent to a clinic, Jacob and his animal-bound peers are forced to undergo increasingly extreme forms of ‘curative’ therapies. However once he meets the mysterious Wildcat (Lily-Rose Depp), and as their friendship blossoms into an undeniable infatuation, Jacob is faced with a challenge: will he...

Acting as a soft reboot for both the original Millennium Trilogy from Sweden and the American remake of The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, the fifth Lisbeth Salander movie follows her latest conspiracy and a dangerous trek through memory lane.

Related: Ranking All The Lisbeth Salander Movies, From Dragon Tattoo To Spider's Web

In more ways than one, The Girl in the Spider’s Web is an in-name-only adaptation, changing a lot of plot points, arcs, and revelations for its transition to the big screen. Not all of these deviations paid off, though they do make for an interesting comparison with the printed version.

Millennium Media handles international sales.

IFC Films has picked up Us rights from Cinetic Media and Millennium Media to Sundance 2020 premiere Tesla starring Ethan Hawke.

Michael Almereyda wrote and directed the film about the efforts of Nikola Tesla, the pioneering electrical engineer and contemporary of Thomas Edison, to create an alternative current motor.

Starring alongside Hawke are Eve Hewson, Kyle MacLachlan, Jim Gaffigan, Donnie Keshawarz, Rebecca Dayan, Josh Hamilton, and Lucy Walters.

IFC Films said it has scheduled the film for release on August 7, 2020.

Tesla was awarded the Alfred P. Sloan Feature Film Prize in Park City, which Almereyda previously won in 2017 for Marjorie Prime.

When the Nordic entertainment group, one of Scandinavia’s largest media groups, announced last month during the Goteborg Film Festival that it was pulling out of non-scripted content to focus on scripted drama, and film production and distribution, it underscored two market trends in the Nordics: Subscription-based services, whether local or global, are driving the region’s booming drama business, and going forward, the investment into content will be more evenly split between Scandinavia series and movies.

Since Scandinavia is one of the first overseas markets where Netflix and HBO Nordic launched as early as 2012, local streaming services such as Viaplay, CMore and Elisa Viihde reacted fast and stepped up their investment in drama in order to compete. It paid off: Today, unlike in other European regions where local Svod services have either shut down or struggled, the Nordics are home to several powerful local streaming services that are coexisting alongside Netflix and HBO Nordic.

In today’s film news roundup, Noomi Rapace gets a starring role, ArcLight Cinemas hires Ted Mundorff and a “Karn Evil 9” movie is in the works.

Casting

Noomi Rapace will star in the thriller “O2,” which will launch sales next week at the European Film Market in Berlin through Wild Bunch International.

Franck Khalfoun is directing and Alexandre Aja is producing and supervising artistic direction. CAA Media Finance will represent domestic rights.

Echo Lake Entertainment, 42 and Wild Bunch International are also producing. The script by Christie LeBlanc was on the 2016 Black List. The story revolves around a woman who wakes up in a cryogenic medical pod and finds herself alone with no memory. She has 90 minutes of oxygen left and must figure out how to save herself.

Rapace achieved international fame with her portrayal of Lisbeth Salander in the Swedish film adaptations of the Millennium book series, which included “The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo,...

Sony label TriStar Pictures has acquired an untitled feature film about Nsync superfans who followed the boy band on tour in 2001, packed in a Winnebago bought with prize money from “The Price Is Right.”

Lance Bass, who first teased the project to Variety out of SXSW last year, is producing through his eponymous company along with Cindy Cowan.

Pitched as “Girls Trip” meets “Pitch Perfect,” the film is based on the true story of two best friends from Park City, Utah, who used game show earnings to buy a motor home and travel the U.S. to catch Bass and company — Justin Timberlake, Jc Chasez, Joey Fatone and Chris Kirkpatrick — on their fourth and final national tour.

The project was preemptively brought in by TrisStar Pictures head Nicole Brown, from an original concept by Bass.

Bass made his producing debut with “The Boy Band Con: The Lou Pearlman Story,” which...

Production set for March at Nu Boyana Studios in Sofia, Bulgaria.

Megan Fox has signed on to star in Till Death, Millennium Media’s high-concept horror thriller from director S.K. Dale that the company is taking to Efm in an aggressive push to worldwide buyers.

Production is scheduled to begin in March at Nu Boyana Studios in Sofia, Bulgaria on the story of Emma (Fox), who is left handcuffed to her dead husband as part of a sickening revenge plot and must survive two hired killers on their way to finish the job.

Jason Carvey wrote the ’Blood List’ screenplay and David Leslie Johnson-McGoldrick,...

Kwame Patterson (The Oath) is set for a major recurring role on the upcoming fourth season of FX’s Snowfall. Created by John Singleton & Eric Amadio and Dave Andron, the third season was set in the summer of 1984, with crack cocaine spreading like wildfire through South Central Los Angeles, continuing its path of destruction and changing the culture forever. Patterson will play the role of Lurp. Details are not being revealed. Patterson can next be seen in a major supporting role in Millennium feature The Outpost opposite, Orlando Bloom, Scott Eastwood and Caleb Landry Jones set for premiere at SXSW. Patterson recurred heavily on Ray Donovan and The Wire, as well as FX miniseries American Crime Story. His other work includes The Oath for Crackle and a series regular role in TNT pilot Monsters of God. Patterson is repped by Luber Roklin Entertainment and Global Artists Agency.

Jenna Rosenow (Neighbours...

The price of one kind of premium Disney theme parks’ day pass has shot above the $200 mark for the first time.

The so-called one-day hopper ticket, which lets fans visit Disneyland and neighboring Disney California Adventure, now costs $209 on peak days, usually weekends, up from $199. It’s part of a new five-tier pricing plan that charges more when demand is strongest and that comes months after a major expansion.

Moves in Disney’s park ticket prices are one of the few stories covered equally as avidly in the Hollywood trade press, business publications and sites from Travel + Leisure and The Points Guys.

The price of two-park hopper tickets on low-demand days rose to $159 from $154.

The price of a basic one-day ticket to visit Disneyland or California Adventure is flat at $104. It rose to $154 from $149 on peak days.

The MaxPass, which lets people jump lines by digitally booking reservations, increased to...

Because Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker moves so quickly, there aren’t many little moments that we get to enjoy between the characters. But there is one little moment fans have latched onto where Chewbacca says something to Rey as she hops back in the pilot seat of the Millennium Falcon and the rest of […]

The post Here’s What Chewbacca Said to Rey When She Got Back in the Millennium Falcon in ‘Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker’ appeared first on /Film.

Alec Bojalad Nov 24, 2019

Lady Trieu's Nostalgia pills have some amazing therapeutic (and presumably storytelling) properties for Watchmen.

The following contains spoilers for Watchmen.

The concept of nostalgia has always been important in the Watchmen universe. Back in 1985 when the U.S. and U.S.S.R. were on the verge of turning the planet to ash, a healthy dose of nostalgia was an appropriate way to remember the simpler days, where vigilantes donned masks to beat up bad guys. But nostalgia’s history with Watchmen goes beyond the merely conceptual. Nostalgia has turned up as an actual product both in the original book and now on the HBO series, albeit in very different ways.

In the ‘80s, “Nostalgia” was a brand of men’s and women’s cosmetics developed by Veidt Enterprises. Advertisements for the Nostalgia fragrance recur frequently throughout the panels of the comic. “Oh, how the ghost of you clings,...

Germany's Leonine is ready to roar. The hungry new producer/distributor — formed via multiple acquisitions by private equity giant Kkr — secured another high-profile acquisition, picking up all German-language rights to upcoming Samuel L. Jackson actioner The Asset from The Expendables producer Millennium Media. The film, from Casino Royale director Martin Campbell, co-stars Maggie Q and Michael Keaton. Millennium kicked off presales for the movie at the American Film Market earlier this month. Written by Richard Went (The Equalizer 2), The Asset plot follows Anna (Q), an assassin raised by Moody (Jackson) after he discovered her in the aftermath ...

Germany's Leonine is ready to roar. The hungry new producer/distributor — formed via multiple acquisitions by private equity giant Kkr — secured another high-profile acquisition, picking up all German-language rights to upcoming Samuel L. Jackson actioner The Asset from The Expendables producer Millennium Media. The film, from Casino Royale director Martin Campbell, co-stars Maggie Q and Michael Keaton. Millennium kicked off presales for the movie at the American Film Market earlier this month. Written by Richard Went (The Equalizer 2), The Asset plot follows Anna (Q), an assassin raised by Moody (Jackson) after he discovered her in the aftermath ...

“Angel Has Fallen” continues to fly at the box office. The Lionsgate and Millennium film is heading for a $14 million Labor Day weekend, following $2.8 million in Friday’s domestic ticket sales.

While slightly below earlier predictions, that should push the film’s total domestic gross to around $43 million come Monday. “Angel Has Fallen” beat expectations when it debuted to $21.25 million last weekend — on par with its predecessors, 2016’s “London Has Fallen” and 2013’s “Olympus Has Fallen.” Gerard Butler stars in the action franchise as a Secret Service agent who must prove his innocence after being framed for an attack on the United States president (Morgan Freeman).

Universal’s “Good Boys” also showed some staying power in its third weekend, earning $2.3 million on Friday for an estimated $11.4 million Labor Day Weekend. If estimates hold, the R-rated comedy should lift its 18-day total to about $57 million. Disney’s “The Lion King,” Universal...

Supernatural thriller “Don’t Let Go” has scared up $150,000 at 922 North American locations in Thursday night preview showings.

“Don’t Let Go” is expected to earn between $3 million and $5 million during what should be a typically mild Labor Day weekend at the nation’s multiplexes with the second session for “Angel Has Fallen” likely to repeat as the winner.

“Don’t Let Go,” which premiered at Sundance under the title “Relive,” stars David Oyelowo as a detective working to solve a murder after he receives a phone call from his dead niece, played by Storm Reid. It was produced by Jason Blum and directed by Jacob Aaron Estes, with Blumhouse Tilt and Otl Releasing handling distribution. Reviews have been mixed with a 47% rating on Rotten Tomatoes. “Don’t Let Go” has a modest $5 million production budget.

Also opening this weekend is Forrest Film’s drama “Bennett’s War” at around 800 venues amid similarly modest expectations.

Fox Searchlight went after whatever remaining 18-34 demo was out there this summer with the launch of its black comedy horror thriller Ready or Not yesterday. It grossed an estimated $1.9 million at 2,244 locations for Wednesday’s No. 2 spot. ComScore shows that by Friday the number of colleges remaining on summer break will be at 62%, down from 93% last Friday. K-12 schools on break erodes from 56% to 28%.

The first horror thriller for Searchlight since arguably 2013’s Stoker follows Samara Weaving as a bride who marries into a rich family with a vicious hazing ritual for its newfound family members. Directed by Matt Bettinelli-Olpin and Tyler Gillett, Ready or Not was praised by critics with a 91% certified fresh score, and so far has a good CinemaScore of B+. PostTrak exits were lower at 3 stars and a 50% recommend.

Currently, industry estimates are around $6.5M for Ready or Not‘s three-day...

As Taylor Swift prepares to release Lover on Friday, she is returning to a pop world that has undergone profound changes. “Before it was a push business,” ace songwriter Savan Kotecha (Ariana Grande, Justin Bieber) explained in 2018. “Labels would push an act on a TV show, an award show, get that spot, get radio [play] and [the song] goes. Now it’s more of a pull business… it’s all about throwing out content.” The TV screens and the program directors come later, if they come at all, but those gatekeepers are no...

Yellow Bird U.K. has optioned the screen rights to tell-all book “Spotify Untold” with plans to develop it into a limited series for television. Sven Carlsson and Jonas Leijonhufvud’s novel details the story behind the Swedish start-up which became one of the world’s leading music services and its attempts to take on U.S. giants including Apple.

Spotify’s turbulent journey into the U.S. will be central to the drama of the show. Yellow Bird U.K. Cco Berna Levin will serve as executive producer on the series with Luke Franklin producing. Carlsson and Leijonhufvud will serve as consultants.

“The rise of Spotify is one of the greatest stories to come out of Sweden in the past ten years,” said Leijonhufvud. “It’s a saga of a young founder who came out of nowhere and beat Apple at their own game.”

Launched in 2018, Yellow Bird U.

The 3rd Annual Hollywood Horrorfest takes off on Friday 9th August with the star-studded, red carpet West Coast Premiere of Girls & Corpses Productions’ Horror-Comedy Exorcism at 60,000 Feet. This special event features the film’s cast on-stage, including horror legends Lance Henriksen and Bill Moseley, with Robert […] The post Witness an Exorcism At 60,000 Feet on Opening Night of Hollywood Horrorfest appeared first on Dread Central.

This September we will finally see the return of Sylvester Stallone as John Rambo in Get the Gringo director Adrian Grunberg's Rambo: Last Blood. And based on the recently released teaser trailer, this new entry looks to be brutal and bloody as hell, which is just how us fans like our Rambo. But that said, and as the title suggests, I'm wondering if this "Last Blood" will really be, you know, the final Rambo movie we see hit the big screen in the franchise? Well, it seems that the answer is a big old, "No." At least if Stallone has anything to say about it. The actor was recently out and about talking up the newest Rambo film and let us all know that if it works, he'll just keep going.

Specifically, Sylvester Stallone said this about possibly returning to the role of John Rambo in Rambo 6: The...

James Hunt Jun 4, 2019

Think some parts of Godzilla: King Of The Monsters were crazy? Check out some of its non-Hollywood predecessors...

Since 1954, Godzilla has loomed large in popular culture. With 35 cinematic outings under his spines and a 36th (Godzilla vs. Kong) due for release next year, he’s the star of one of the longest-running and most prolific movie franchises ever, thanks to Japanese studio Toho.

One of the best things about Godzilla is that the idea is so simple it can work in almost any context. Across various media, Godzilla has been on sea, land, air, space, and (in one comic series) even the biblical Hell. He’s fought aliens, robots, King Kong, and the Avengers. There’s nothing this mutant monster can’t do.

And to prove it, here are some of crazier things we’ve seen him get up to in his non-Hollywood outings...

Son of Godzilla (1967)

Forget the extremely non-canon Godzooky.

All day today in Cannes is dedicated to Sylvester Stallone whose 43-year plus storied career is being lauded by the fest. The three-time Oscar nominated filmmaker/actor was at the Hotel du Cap for a junket about Rambo V, sat down for a Masterclass at the Salle Debussy, and will be feted tonight with an early glimpse of the latest Rambo along with a 4K restoration of First Blood.

Mobs of people akin to the throngs at Comic Con crowded the Croisette to get into the Debussy this afternoon for Stallone’s sit-down with Didier Allouch. In typical Cannes fashion, Stallone was greeted with a full house standing ovation as he walked up the aisle to the stage and greeted the audience with a big “Yo”.

While today’s “Rendez-vous with Stallone” was largely about his career, Stallone got a chance to talk up Rambo V: Last Blood which opens on Sept.

Hero Nation is the new hub for Deadline’s sci-fi, horror, fantasy, superhero, and animation coverage. And the article you’re reading now is the Hero Nation Index, a weekly roundup of news, rumors, tidbits, and happenings in Comic-Con culture, which is dominating Hollywood’s attention in unprecedented fashion.

Does This Mean Summer Is Coming? After stumbles, and slip-ups and a long Westeros winter of fan discontent, the sprawling saga of Game of Thrones is officially over – although all the pitched debate about the merits of the HBO show’s final season may rage on for weeks. What’s the legacy beyond that? To my mind, it’s a colossal legacy but, really, the show’s “death” on Sunday night will be just like Jon Snow’s evisceration in Season 5 – more like a temporary lull than a permanent exit, especially considering the ongoing publishing venture as well as the brand’s ramping spinoffs.

Sylvester Stallone is officially locked in for The Expendables 4, that much we know. Yes, after much back and forth, with the actor’s alleged fallout with Nu Image/Millennium chairman Avi Lerner leading fans to think that his time playing the cigar-chomping Barney Ross was done, Sly was finally able to reach an agreement that would allow him to return to the franchise for one last hurrah.

At the moment, filming on the star-studded blockbuster is expected to kick off in Bulgaria next month, and though we haven’t had any further updates on the project beyond that in quite a while, it looks like things are still gearing up to take flight in April. Or at least, it sure seems that way, as Stallone has taken to Instagram this week to share an awesome Expendables throwback photo along with the following caption:

The Three Wiseguys … the last of...

Exclusive: Members of the international industry community gathered on Thursday night in Los Angeles to celebrate the life of Samuel Hadida, the veteran French producer and distributor who passed away suddenly in November. The event was hosted by a group of companies that included Constantin, FilmNation, Lionsgate, Participant, eOne, Sierra/Affinity, Imr, Millennium and Stx Entertainment. More than 400 guests crowded Tiato in Santa Monica to pay tribute to the passionate executive and film lover.

Morocco-born Hadida was a pillar of the international business and an early champion of filmmakers including Quentin Tarantino, Roger Avary and Christophe Gans. Since its inception, Metropolitan FilmExport, the independent Paris-based distributor Hadida founded with his brother Victor and their father David, bridged a gap between France and the U.S. via long-term output deals with such companies as New Line Cinema (which included the Lord Of The Rings trilogy), Lionsgate (the Hunger Games franchise) and DreamWorks,...

With their 1994 breakthrough LP, CrazySexyCool, TLC members Tionne ‘T-Boz’ Watkins, Lisa ‘Left Eye’ Lopes and Rozonda ‘Chilli’ Thomas had finessed their R&B-to-pop crossover with flying colors. Hit songs like “Waterfalls” and “Creep” not only garnered the group multiple Grammy wins, but reflected a zeitgeist of sexually assertive and self-educated young women of the Nineties. Yet by the time they reentered the studio to record FanMail in 1998, TLC needed a miracle: America’s best-selling girl group had filed for bankruptcy.

Under their contract with Babyface and L.A. Reid’s label,...

Exclusive: The Wedding Singer and Around The World In 80 Days filmmaker Frank Coraci is set to direct The Legend Of Sinbad for The Expendables outfit Millennium and Middle East firm Eagle Films.

The big canvas English-language film will be based on the iconic One Thousand And One Nights character Sinbad, a fictional Middle East mariner who over the course of seven voyages across the seas east of Africa and south of Asia has spectacular adventures encountering monsters, magic and various supernatural phenomena. The film is expected to have a cast of Middle East origin, including in the lead role.

Screenplay comes from Andrew Cosby, writer of Lionsgate’s upcoming Hellboy reboot and creator of Syfy series Eureka, and Hank Woon (It Came From The Desert). Shoot is being lined up for this fall with location scouting underway.

Producers are Yariv Lerner (Acts Of Vengeance), Lloyd Levin (Hellboy) and Bea Levin,...

Already the highest-grossing Danish film ever — with each of its predecessors following closely behind — “The Purity of Vengeance” is the fourth adaptation of Jussi Adler-Olsen’s hugely popular “Department Q” novels about a Copenhagen cold-case police unit. It will also be the last in this particular series, as the screen rights have now transferred from Zentropa to Nordisk, with any future “Q” movies unlikely to retain the same cast or behind-scenes staples.

However lamented that baton-passing may be, there’s not much room for sentimental reflection in this high-gloss thriller, which is undeniably entertaining yet whose pleasures have the guilty edge of a particularly lurid airport read. The modern Scandinavian mysteries that have swept the globe (led by Stieg Larsson’s “Millennium” books) often have a heart-of-darkness willingness to address social and historical wrongs. But here, hot-button issues of anti-immigrant prejudice, forced sterilization, sexual abuse and more feel reduced to...

Joseph Baxter Feb 11, 2019

While Millennium Films had big plans to reboot Red Sonja with controversy-mired director Bryan Singer.

Red Sonja has been forced to put down her proverbial sword of a reboot movie, due to the insurmountable controversy surrounding appointed film director Bryan Singer.

Avi Lerner’s Millennium Films, which had put the Red Sonja reboot movie into development last September, has confirmed that it’s taking the project off its slate, as revealed via Deadline at Berlin’s European Film Market. The film, was, up until now, set to roll cameras for a shoot in Bulgaria sometime in 2019. While Singer has yet to be formally removed, Red Sonja is getting put on the back burner while the studio reassesses things.

The reason for the move is likely already apparent to anyone who’s been following the ongoing saga of the various sexual misconduct accusations levelled against Singer, the latest...

The Millennium novel series began in 2005 with The Girl in the Dragon Tattoo. It spawned four direct sequels, with a sixth slated for release this year. Columbia Pictures released a cinematic adaptation of the series’ pioneering book in 2011, which garnered critical acclaim. It received a sequel and soft reboot in last year’s Girl in the Spider’s […]...

Those expecting a documentary focusing on Stieg Larsson’s huge popular “Millennium” series — the high-grade pulp mysteries he wrote as a kind of hobby, and which weren’t published until after his death in 2004 at age 50 — are likely to be disappointed by “The Man Who Played With Fire.” The thing for which Larsson is posthumously world-famous is just barely touched on in Henrik Georgsson’s feature, though clips from the spinoff Swedish and U.S. features are scattered throughout.

Instead, this nonfiction biopic concentrates on something even more compelling: Larsson’s life pursuit of tracking extremist far-right groups as an investigative journalist, a personal obsession that made him an expert in a field that’s only grown more politically relevant since his demise. You don’t get a lot of Lisbeth Salander here. But you do get an overview of fascist/nationalist movements in Sweden and beyond over recent decades,...

Nearly 20 years after their last Number One album, Backstreet Boys are back atop the Billboard 200 with the boy band’s new album DNA.

Backstreet Boys‘ first Number One LP since 2000’s Black & Blue sold 227,000 total copies in its first week of release, a number largely bolstered by a deal that bundled a free copy of the album with each ticket purchased for the group’s upcoming tour in support of DNA.

DNA marks Backstreet Boys’ third Number One album, following 1999’s Millennium and 2000’s Black & Blue, and the...

Zdf Enterprises has bought into Nadcon, the German film and TV banner that co-produced upcoming Berlinale opener “The Kindness of Strangers.” Nadcon was co-founded by Peter Nadermann, one of the pioneers of the Nordic Noir genre.

The company was created in 2012 by Nadermann and German film and TV giant Constantin. Zdfe is the commercial arm of German pubcaster Zdf and said Monday that it had taken over Constantin’s stake in Nadcon. The deal gives it a 49% stake in the business.

Former Zdf and Zdfe executive Nadermann holds the remainder and stays on as managing director. His extensive credits include genre-defining Scandi series “The Killing” and “The Bridge” as well as Stieg Larsson’s “Millennium” trilogy. Cologne-based Nadcon’s recent work includes the buzzy Swedish-Danish series “Greyzone” and the highly anticipated Lone Scherfig movie “The Kindness of Strangers.”

“I’m really looking forward to the renewed collaboration with Zdf Enterprises,...

"Sure, he has written three good crime novels. But Stieg was also something completely different..." The Match Factory has debuted an international / festival promo trailer for the documentary Stieg Larsson: The Man Who Played with Fire, which is premiering at the 2019 Sundance Film Festival coming up. The doc film tells the life story of Swedish journalist and writer Stieg Larsson, renowned as the author of the internationally acclaimed "Millennium" series of novels - best known as the "The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo" trilogy. The film profiles Larsson's upbringing in Sweden, his years as a journalist, and involvement in fighting right wing extremists and neo-Nazis in the 1980s & 1990s. This fascinating film is much more than just another biopic doc, it's also a story about how journalism and putting a spotlight on the truth is the strongest way to fight fascism and neo-Nazi movements. I highly recommend keeping an eye on this one.

“Stieg Larsson: The Man Who Played With Fire” is the latest documentary feature from famed Swedish TV director Henrik Georgsson, and tells the story of the life and work of Swedish journalist and author Stieg Larsson, best known for his “Millennium” book series featuring journalist Mikael Blomqvist and punk-rock hacker Lisbeth Salander.

The film’s sales agent, The Match Factory, has shared an exclusive look at the first trailer for the film, set for its world premiere at Sundance later this month.

Georgsson is best known as a director of the internationally celebrated Swedish-Danish TV-series “The Bridge,” often credited as a foundation stone of the recent golden age of Scandinavian Noir. He has also directed other popular series such as “Wallander” and “Blue Eyes,” and recently wrapped on the British Nordic-noir-style series “Marcella,” broadcast on ITV and Netflix.

The trailer for the new documentary follows a similar formula to the film itself,...

Exclusive: Millennium Films has pacted with Russian businessman Andrey Georgiev on its upcoming slate of films as an investor and executive producer, including The Outpost, a film about American military valor based on CNN anchor and Chief Washington correspondent Jake Tapper’s best-selling book about one of the deadliest battles in Afghanistan.

Georgiev works in the field of energy-exploration and the production of gas condensate and is said to be a patron of the arts.

The complete list of films Georgiev will be involved in are some of the biggest projects on Millennium Films’ slate including: Angel Has Fallen; The Outpost, based on Tapper’s New York Times‘ best-seller The Outpost: An Untold Story of American Valor, starring Scott Eastwood, Caleb Landry Jones and Orlando Bloom (directed by Rod Lurie); Blackbird starring Susan Sarandon, Kate Winslet,...

’It makes no sense to do a co-production if you don’t have the product that fits your market and your partner.’

Peter Nadermann, the champion of high-end Scandinavian content who served as executive producer the original Millennium film series and launched Nadcon with Constantin Films six years ago, used a Ventana Sur keynote to emphasise the potential benefits of co-productions under the right circumstances.

Speaking at the Buenos Aires market’s new Fiction Factory programme on Wednesday (12), the former Zdf Enterprises executive who now plies his trade at Cologne-based producer Nadcon wasted no time disabusing attendees of the notion...

’It makes no send to do a co-production if you don’t have the product that fits your market and your partner.’

Peter Nadermann, the champion of high-end Scandinavian content who served as executive producer the original Millennium film series and launched Nadcon with Constantin Films six years ago, used a Ventana Sur keynote to emphasise the benefits of co-productions under the right circumstances.

Speaking at the Buenos Aires market’s new Fiction Factory programme on Wednesday (12), the former Zdf Enterprises executive who now plies his trade at Cologne-based producer Nadcon did not waste time disabusing attendees of the notion...

With five books and four films in the bag, the late Stieg Larsson’s Millennium series appears to be in great shape. At least in Sweden. As far as Sony are concerned, the English-speaking audience still has a lot of untapped potential.

2011’s first Hollywood adaptation of the Swedish crime thriller series was a non-starter. Beautifully shot by David Fincher with a stellar cast on fine form, the sterile atmosphere and complex plotting didn’t bring audiences out in the numbers Sony needed to justify making a sequel (despite Fincher and Mara’s enthusiasm).

Still, if you can compliment Sony for anything, then at least give them credit for persistence. Even if they do insist on rebooting a franchise when a sequel would have been far more welcome.

Instead of bringing the team back together, Sony have elected to not only recast and reboot (hence the new film’s confidence-free...

Happy Thursday,"Pretty Little Liars" fans. We've got some more pretty interesting and great news for you guys on "The Perfectionists" spin off front. The production team has decided to bring on another female character that will be a recurring role. That means she won't be a season regular, but we'll see her just enough to remember that she even exists. The character we are speaking of will be named Dana. The description for Dana is that she will be the new head of security at Beacon Heights University. She will be determined and perceptive almost to the point of omniscience. After recent events, Dana will keep Alison (Sasha Pieterse), Mona (Janel Parrish) and the Perfectionists on their toes. Wow, her character sounds like she will mean pretty serious business. According the folks over at Deadline.com, the actress who is playing her is someone that most of you guys might actually recognize.

Millennium alumna Klea Scott is set for a recurring role on Freeform’s upcoming Pretty Little Liars spinoff The Perfectionists.

Scott, who previously recurred as a different character on the original Pretty Little Liars series, will play Dana, the new head of security at Beacon Heights University, who is determined and perceptive almost to the point of omniscience. After recent events, she keeps Alison (Sasha Pieterse), Mona (Janel Parrish) and our Perfectionists on their toes.

The spinoff hails from the same auspices as the original series, writer/executive producer I. Marlene King, Alloy Entertainment and Warner Horizon Scripted Television, and it is based on the popular book series The Perfectionists, written by Pll author Sara Shepard. It’s set to premiere in 2019.

Scott, who recurred as Jillian Howe, on mothership series Pretty Little Liars, is best known for her series regular roles on Millennium, Robert Homicide Division and the Canadian series Intelligence,...

"Hey you! Feeling down? Tear down the walls!" Sammi Curr is hands-down our favorite fictitious heavy metal hero, beloved by all of us fans of box-office bomb Trick Or Treat, a 1986 horror flick that's gained cult status among the metal faithful. Here we'll take a look at 10 killer facts about Trick or Treat.

Freddy vs. Sammi

Touching on the supernatural, the Pmrc driven fears of the '80s, and a bit of "satanic panic," Trick Or Treat tells the story of Sammi Curr, a dead rocker resurrected through "back-masking" who helps his number one fan get revenge on the high school bullies. Trick Or Treat wasn't successful enough to earn sequels but its antihero's origin is connected to the much more successful supernaturally powered resurrected slasher, Freddy Krueger. Michael S. Murphey and Joel Soisson produced the movie after making Freddy's Revenge, bringing horror F/X master Kevin Yagher with them.

“The Grinch” proved it’s never too early for some holiday cheer as the animated family flick stole the weekend box office with $66 million from 4,141 locations.

Illumination and Universal’s adaptation of the Dr. Seuss holiday tale now ranks as the best start for a Christmas film. Benedict Cumberbatch voiced the animated green grouch in “The Grinch,” which cost the studio $75 million to make. While it trails the start of Illumination’s latest Dr. Seuss story “The Lorax” ($70 million), “The Grinch” should benefit from the holiday corridor.

Newcomers “The Girl in the Spider’s Web” and “Overlord” weren’t able to best “Bohemian Rhapsody.” Fox’s Queen biopic showed staying power with a solid $30.9 million in its sophomore frame, representing a drop of just 41%. That brings its 10-day domestic total just shy of $100 million.

Paramount’s “Overlord,” produced by J.J. Abrams, was able to nab third place, opening with opened with $10 million from 2,859 theaters.

Whether she royally commanded your attention on screen as Queen Elizabeth II in The Crown or made you scream throughout psychological thriller Unsane (Raise your hand if you still have nightmares about this movie!), Claire Foy has undoubtedly turned you into a fan. With the release of The Girl in the Spider's Web and her role as badass Lisbeth Slander, your Claire Foy fan club will most definitely be thriving.

In this latest installment of the Millennium series, Lisbeth Salander comes face-to-face with her estranged twin sister, Camilla. In celebration of the new film, Popsugar had Claire dish on a few things only sisters will truly understand - and between her on-screen roles and her real-life relationship with older sister Gemma Foy, she definitely knows a thing or two about what it means to have a sister. That includes everything from, "You can go from mortal enemies to co-conspirators in...

There’s a feeling you get, sort of like a low-grade fever, when a film franchise is starting to run down. It’s had three or four sequels, it’s going through the motions, there’s no more fresh terrain left to plow. That sensation hovers, like a gray cloud, over “The Girl in the Spider’s Web,” a movie that takes the feminist-hellion mystique of the haunted goth hacker Lisbeth Salander and combines it with a plot — about stopping a computer file with nuclear codes from falling into the wrong hands — that might have come out of a “Die Hard” chapter from the early ’90s. Is it any wonder that the movie is watchable, but that the thrill is gone?

The strange thing is, it’s only the second entry in the Hollywood version of the “Dragon Tattoo” series. So there’s no reason for it to feel this worn out.

His heart may be small, but that doesn’t mean his box office returns will be.

“Dr. Seuss’ The Grinch” is looking to top the weekend box office in its debut with an estimated $67 million from 4,141 North American locations.

Benedict Cumberbatch voices the titular green Whoville denizen in Universal’s new adaptation of Seuss’ 1957 story from Illumination. Scott Mosier and Yarrow Cheney directed the Yuletide pic from a screenplay by Michael LeSieur and Tommy Swerdlow. Rashida Jones, Kenan Thompson, Cameron Seely, and Angela Lansbury also lent their voices to the feature, with Pharrell Williams narrating and music by Danny Elfman.

The film has an early Rotten Tomatoes score of 54% and has landed an A- CinemaScore.

The last “Grinch” adaptation, 2000’s instant classic “How the Grinch Stole Christmas” starring Jim Carrey and directed by Ron Howard, earned $55 million in its opening weekend, giving this year’s animated version a significant box office edge.

Lisbeth Salander cannot be contained. For fans of the Millennium series, this information is nothing new. Salander, known for both her sleuthing skills and punishment of deserving men, has become an iconic figure, one unbound to any singular novel or adaptation. She is one of those prized creations that has grown beyond country, actress or even author. Like so many works adopted into the world of popular culture, the posthumously published Stieg Larsson novels have matured beyond his pen. This weekend’s release of Fede Alvarez’s The Girl in the Spider’s Web, adapted from David Lagercrantz’s 2015 novel ...