• "Harry's" quick dip cools hopes for a record
• Ashley Judd Untraceable For Castle Rock
• Bel-Air Entertainment Has Seized Brian Koppelman And David Levien's Spec Script
• Sister's Keeper for Jersey Films to produce
• Claire Bloom in Book of Eve
• Liam Neeson becomes a Prison Fish...
• Studios Eager For A Big Summer 2003 Picture Face Some Tense Times This Week.
• ContentFilm buys Wendigo, Magnolia set to release it
• Benicio Del Toro to receive Sundance Indie tribute
• EM.TV re-enters programme production
• Screenwriter Jason Laskay Announces Copyright Infringement Lawsuit Against Universal Pictures
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  • Friday Nov 30

"Harry's" quick dip cools hopes for a record

After a sizable 58% box office slip this weekend, it appears even a boy wizard has his limitations. The bigger question remains: How high can "Harry" fly?

Domestically, "Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone" has $220.1 million in the till already. It appears on track to approach $400 million by the end of its run. Such a performance would rank it far below 1997 record-holder Titanic ($600.8 million), as well as 1977's "Star Wars" ($461 million) and its 1999 prequel "Star Wars: Episode I -- The Phantom Menace" ($431.1 million).

Warner Bros. and others sources believe there's a substantial chance "Harry" will outdistance the No. 4 all-time grosser, "E.T., the Extra-Terrestrial" ($399.8 million). And a good second wind through the holiday season could see "Harry" soar past all but "Titanic."

Several holiday openers that could nip at potential "Harry" audiences have yet to bow, with "Lord of the Rings: Fellowship of the Ring" from Warners' corporate kin New Line chief among them. On the other hand, it's considered a plus that Christmas and New Year's fall on Tuesdays this season, stretching preceding weekends into effective five-day sessions that encourage more moviegoing.

"It's always like striking pay dirt when Christmas falls on a Tuesday," said Jeff Goldstein, executive VP of distribution at Warner Bros.

Internationally, "Harry" is an early high flyer. But the picture still hasn't bowed in several notable territories, so the ultimate foreign total for the family fantasy remains tougher to predict.

Executives say only that they are confident "Harry" at least will match its domestic box office in foreign grosses, but outside sources say that estimate is far too conservative. It's considered a lock the picture will see far more foreign box office than even its boffo domestic totals.

"Titanic" is also the reining champ in worldwide box office, after amassing a mind-bending $1.8 billion thanks to foreign grosses outpacing domestic two-to-one. "Phantom Menace" turned in the second-biggest worldwide performance at $925.6 million, a number "Harry" could match if it reaches the upper end of domestic and foreign forecasts.

"I think it's conceivable 'Harry Potter' could do $1 billion worldwide with a real marketing push," said David Davis, senior VP and box office analyst for investment firm Houlihan, Lokey, Howard & Zukin in Los Angeles. But Davis added it's unlikely Warner Bros. will flog "Harry" much into 2002 theatrically.

Consider that "Titanic" was helped by a lot of marketing related to its successful Oscar campaign, whereas "Harry" isn't the kind of picture that grabs lots of statuettes. Also, Warner Bros. won't want to stretch the picture's theatrical run so far as to jeopardize its important home video bow in the summer.

1. "Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone," $24.1 million.
2. "Behind Enemy Lines," $19.2 million.
3. "Spy Game," $11.2 million.
4. "Monsters, Inc.", $9.4 million.
5. "Black Knight," $5.7 million.
6. "Shallow Hal," $4.7 million.
7. "Out Cold," $2.9 million.
8. "Domestic Disturbance," $1.9 million.
9. "Amelie," $1.4 million.
10. "Heist," $1.2 million.

Ashley Judd Untraceable For Castle Rock

Castle Rock has purchased the psychological thriller pitch "Untraceable" as a starring vehicle for Ashley Judd.

Adam Gibgot is writing the script and Richard Zanuck will produce with sons Harrison and Dean through the Zanuck Co. Castle Rock bested several other bids to win the property in an auction brokered by the William Morris Agency, which represents the actress and the writer.

Judd has never before attached herself to a pitch deal, but the "Double Jeopardy" star sparked to the chance to play a woman whose identity is not at all what it seems to be. She is next expected to star in the title role of the Warner Bros. film "Catwoman," with will soon go out to directors. The hope is that she would follow that with "Untraceable."

"She's a woman with an identity disorder who discovers she's not the person she thought she was for the past eight years, when she is reintroduced to the life she repressed," said Gibgot, who will exec produce. "It's her journey as she uncovers and confronts the devastating memory which caused her to take on the other identity. I created it for (Judd), and she connected to the character and has contributed a lot of ideas." Gibgot most recently sold the script "Price" to producer Mark Canton.

Judd will next be seen reteaming with "Kiss the Girls" co-star Morgan Freeman in the Carl Franklin-directed "High Crimes" and starring with Sandra Bullock and Ellen Burstyn in the Callie Khouri-directed adaptation of "Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood." She also appears in "Frida," the Julie Taymor-directed biopic of Frida Kahlo that stars Salma Hayek.

Bel-Air Entertainment Has Seized Brian Koppelman And David Levien's Spec Script

Warner Bros. Pictures-based Bel-Air Entertainment has seized Brian Koppelman and David Levien's spec script "First Family" in deal potentially worth high seven figures.

"First Family" centers on a young Brooklyn mobster who discovers that he was adopted on the eve of becoming "made." He now needs to prove that he's 100% Sicilian, but instead learns that his real father is the president of the United States.

Koppelman and Levien are currently rewriting "Heart of a Soldier," a Paul Walker vehicle set up at Universal. The duo just completed rewrite work on the adaptation of John Grisham's "The Runaway Jury" for New Regency. That pic will likely star Will Smith for director Mike Newell.

Koppelman and Levien directed, wrote and produced "Knockaround Guys," which New Line Cinema will release next year.

Sister's Keeper for Jersey Films to produce

Disney's Touchstone Pictures has paid a seven-figure sum to acquire the pitch "Sister's Keeper," from scribe Todd Graff.

Jersey Films will produce the noirish thriller, which may have one major actress starring as twin sisters, one aggressive, the other timid and reclusive. In the tale, one of the twins dies and the other becomes the prime suspect in the murder hunt.

Graff recently polished "Coyote Ugly" for Bruckheimer Films and Disney, and he also teamed with Bruckheimer on an uncredited rewrite on "Dangerous Minds." His other credits include "The Vanishing" and "Used People."

Graff also penned the New Regency project "The Crowded Room," based on the real-life story of William Milligan, who developed multiple personalities after being abused as a child.

His book, "The Minds of Billy Milligan," co-written with Daniel Keyes, has been considered a hot project since 1988, when James Cameron was developing it to direct. Since then Brad Pitt and "Seven" director David Fincher have been linked to it; as have Leonardo DiCaprio and helmer Danny DeVito.

Claire Bloom in Book of Eve

Veteran British actress Claire Bloom has been tapped to star in "Book of Eve," a drama based on the 1973 novel by Montreal author Constance Beresford Howe. Filming began last week in Montreal.

Bloom plays a wealthy Montreal woman Eve who had a comfortable life in the well-to-do English neighborhood in Montreal, as a wife, and a mother of one grown son. On the day she received her first pension check, she walked out of that life to take up with a fortysomething Romanian immigrant, played by Canadian singer Daniel Lavoie to start a journey of personal growth and exploration. She made discoveries about herself, her husband, and her son along the way that shocked her, but she became self-sufficient and a stronger person.

Susannah York and Julian Glover co-star. Quebec filmmaker Claude Fournier ("The Tin Flute") is directing the Anglo-Canadian production. Lions Gate has world rights.

Liam Neeson becomes a Prison Fish...

Liam Neeson has taken on a new role as a businessman who kills another man while drunk. Liam who is now 49 is being lined up to play Jimmy A Learner in a gritty new movie called Prison Fish.

The story is based on a flashy phone executive called Learner who ended up in a tough Nevada jail after killing a man while on a boozy bender in Las Vegas. He was sentenced to 12 years for manslaughter in 1997.

The film is based on the man's life inside the tough prison where Learner puts his corporate skills to fit in with prison culture. Renee Russo is the favorite to play Neeson's wife while Mary McCormack will play his mistress.

Meanwhile Oscar winner Kate Blanchett has denied reports that the upcoming birth of her first child will stop her playing the role of the murdered journalist Veronica Guerin after Christmas.

Filming of Chasing the Dragon, The Veronica Guerin story, is starting after Christmas with the well-known director Joel Schumacher.

Blanchett is however due at Christmas but has said this will in no way stop filming. "It's just a sexist notion that a women's' career ends once her body changes and she gives birth to a child. Andrew and I have to bring a child into this world, which is pretty major but I am not about to abandon my career. "

However, being pregnant is making the star do you weird things. "I've already been waking up a 2am and cleaning the kitchen" she admits.

"Life is about to change with bringing a baby into the world. Having a child is the most unpredictable thing you can do apart from getting married. But, I look at getting pregnant as the ultimate expression of hope in this troubled world. Ours is a Christmas baby and we are both looking forward to it very much."

Studios Eager For A Big Summer 2003 Picture Face Some Tense Times This Week.

Nearly all of the majors are scrambling for U.S. distribution and video rights to "Terminator 3," which is expected to start shooting in April. Final contract details for Arnold Schwarzenegger to star and Jonathan Mostow to direct were being hammered out over the weekend.

Since the first two "Terminator" pictures had a combined worldwide gross surpassing $560 million, there's understandably avid studio interest.

But industry sources maintain "Terminator 3" will have a production budget well above $170 million, making it easily the most expensive movie ever greenlit. (The record is held by this year's "Pearl Harbor," which reportedly was greenlit with a $140 budget.)

Some familiar with the talks say obtaining the lucrative home video rights to the original "Terminator" and its sequel, "T2," will almost certainly be part of any negotiations for "T3," as a boxed set of the trio surely would fly off retailer shelves and help defray costs.

Anglo-American producer Intermedia Films is handling overseas distribution of the giant picture, which will be made in concert with its original producers, Andy Vajna and Mario Kassar of C-2 Pictures.

All this courting has been conducted in secret: No copies of the "T3" script, by John Brancato and Michael Ferris, were circulated. Studio execs wanting a read had to do so by visiting Intermedia's own suites, or by perusing it in their own offices with someone from Intermedia loitering outside.

Hundreds of Web sites have carried crumbs of "T3's" supposed plot -- some even allege to have excerpts from the script -- so producers' hypersensitivity about security is understandable.

ContentFilm buys Wendigo, Magnolia set to release it

ContentFilm, the New York independent recently formed by Edward R Pressman and John Schmidt, has acquired worldwide rights to Wendigo, a supernatural thriller starring Patricia Clarkson, and has enlisted Eamonn Bowles' brand new distribution outfit Magnolia Pictures to distribute it in the US.

Written, directed and edited by Larry Fessenden, a film-maker as well as an actor with credits such as Session 9, Bringing Out The Dead and Animal Factory, Wendigo is about a family (Clarkson, Jake Weber and Eric Per Sullivan) who accidentally trigger the spirit of a Native American myth which manifests itself in the imagination of the family's young son.

It is the first release for Magnolia which plans to open it in Feb 2002 in New York and Los Angeles before widening to other cities. Bowles most recently ran the distribution arm of defunct independent The Shooting Gallery, handling the successful release of Croupier as part of the ground-breaking film series.

ContentFilm acquired Wendigo from production company Antidote Films which was founded by Jeffrey Levy-Hinte last year and is currently in production on Lisa Cholodenko's new film Laurel Canyon starring Frances McDormand, Kate Beckinsale and Christian Bale. Fessenden's Glass Eye Pix was co-producer.

John Schmidt and head of business affairs Michael Roban negotiated on behalf of ContentFilm with Mary Jane Skalski of Antidote Films and Emerson Bruns of Rudoplph & Beer.

Benicio Del Toro to receive Sundance Indie tribute

Academy Award winner Benicio Del Toro will receive the Piper-Heidsieck Tribute to Independent Vision at next year's Sundance Film Festival. The tribute, which will be presented to Del Toro on Jan 13, 2002, during the festival, was created to honour a film artist "who has made a significant and unique contribution to independent film."

Del Toro won the Oscar last year for Best Supporting Actor in Steven Soderbergh's Traffic. His other film credits include Christopher McQuarrie's Way Of The Gun, Sean Penn's Indian Runner and The Pledge, Julian Schnabel's Basquiat, Abel Ferrara's The Funeral, Guy Ritchie's Snatch and Terry Gilliam's Fear And Loathing In Las Vegas.

The ten previous recipients of the tribute are Julianne Moore (2001), Kevin Spacey (2000), Laura Dern (1999), Frances MacDormand (1998), Tim Robbins (1997), Dianne Wiest (1996), Nicolas Cage (1995), Gena Rowlands (1994), Denzel Washington (1993), and John Turturro (1992).

EM.TV re-enters programme production

Following its radical programme of restructuring under the new CEO Werner Klatten, EM.TV & Merchandising is now planning to re-enter the arena of production in the field children’s and family programming.

In future, the Munich-based company intends to be involved annually in up to six animated or live-action series geared to teenagers as well as younger children. At present, EM.TV is serving as a co-production partner on the animated series Old Tom, Tabaluga III, The World Of Tosh and Fairy Tale Police Department (F.T.P.D.) and on the live-action series The Zack Files.

EM.TV’s revived commitment to production has been accompanied by the appointment of Anke Steinbacher as the new head of creative affairs.

This latest development comes as EM.TV reported that its sales in the third quarter were "substantially better" than the previous two quarters, largely due to licensing agreements for animated characters as well as the marketing of Formula One events.

EM.TV posted a nine-month result before interest and tax (EBIT) of DM 104m and a financial result of minus DM 218m which was significantly affected by interest charges from Formula One, meaning that the profit on ordinary activities (EBT) was minus DM 115m.