• Alfonso Cuaron To Rewrite And Direct ``Children Of Men
• Moving Pictures has teamed with Di Novi Pictures
• ThinkFilm Time Out
• Courtney Love Suit v. Universal to Go to Trial
• DreamWorks SKG and Nickelodeon go for Burger King
• Low-Budget Asian Horror Flicks Score in U.S.
• New Hollywood pix cut to the chaste
• The TV Industry’s Financial Prospects After The Impact Of The Sept 11 Events
• The verdict is in: "Legally Blonde" will try its case on ABC.
• 'Potter's Field' seeding Phoenix horror
• Working Title develops The Tale Of The Rat That Wrote
• Wayne Wang in final negotiations to direct 'Chambermaid'
• popular video game "Alone in the Dark" getas new life as movie
• Showcase Entertainment acquires Frost, Judgment
• Heroes Rise To Fore In Book Deals
• Sony to Unwrap 'Ali' Movie on Dec. 25
• Catch 23 Entertainment Lands Multimillion-Dollar Credit Facility With Comerica Bank
• Nadia Bronson Associates named three key staff hires

This weekend Openings Interviews

• Alex Linz (Max Keeble's Big Move)
• Ethan Hawke (Training Day)
• Kate Beckinsale, (Serendipity).

Alfonso Cuaron To Rewrite And Direct ``Children Of Men

Beacon Pictures has hired Mexican filmmaker Alfonso Cuaron to rewrite and direct ``Children of Men,'' an adaptation of the bestselling P.D. James novel, with an eye toward putting the film into production early next year.

Cuaron most recently wrote and directed the comedy ``And Your Mother Too,'' which is playing the New York Film Festival this weekend after winning the screenplay prize at the Venice fest.

 ``Children of Men'' is story that marked a departure for the bestselling mystery writer James when she published it in 1993 through Warner Books. The novel takes place at a time in the future when the human race has lost the ability to reproduce. Facing extinction, England has descended into chaos, until an iron-handed warden is brought in to institute martial law. The warden's ability to keep order is threatened when a woman finds that she is pregnant with what would be the first child to be born in 27 years.

The expectation is that the film will be a vehicle for a big male star to play the role of a history professor who is a former lover of the pregnant woman.

``I love this project because it is so timely in terms of politics and where humanity is going without preaching,'' Cuaron said. ``At its core, it's a story about hope.''

The book was initially adapted by Paul Chart, and then rewritten by Mark Fergus and Hawk Otsby. With writing partner Timothy Sexton, Cuaron will tailor it for himself.

Moving Pictures has teamed with Di Novi Pictures

Demi Moore's Moving Pictures has teamed with Denise Di Novi's Di Novi Pictures to produce a feature based on the 1958 Issac Asimov short story ``The Ugly Little Boy'' for Warner Bros. Pictures.

Mike Maples is adapting ``Ugly,'' the tale of a Neanderthal child transported 40,000 years into the future. He teams with a nurse who must protect him from the scientists who have their own designs on the boy. An expanded version of the story was published in 1993 by Bantam.

Another Asimov short story, ``Bicentennial Man,'' was adapted into a Disney feature starring Robin Williams.

ThinkFilm Time Out

Fledgling North American distributor ThinkFilm, the company set up by former Lion’s Gate executives Mark Urman and Randy Manis, has acquired US rights to Venice-winning French title L’Emploi Du Temps (Time Out), the second film by the director of Human Resources, Laurent Cantet.

Since the Toronto film festival, some ten companies have been seeking to bag US rights to Time Out, which won the Golden Lion in Venice's Cinema Of The Present section.

Celluloid Dreams, which is handling worldwide sales, has sold the title in some twenty territories. Europe is already sold out, including the UK (to Artificial Eye), Germany (Alamode Films), Italy (Mikado) and Spain (Golem), as well as most of Latin America (Mexico went to Quality Films, Colombia to Cineplex, Brazil to Imovision and Argentina to Orler) and Canadian rights have been acquired by Seville Pictures.

Time Out - based on the true story of a man who loses his job and fakes a professional career for over twenty years, which eventually leads him to murder - will be released in France in November by producer/distributor Haut & Court.

Courtney Love Suit v. Universal to Go to Trial

A Los Angeles judge has ruled that rock star Courtney Love's lawsuit aimed at breaking her contract with recording industry giant Universal Music can go to trial, a Love spokeswoman said on Thursday.

The California Superior court judge made her written ruling on Sept. 26, the spokeswoman said.

``This is an historic case: no artist has ever gone this far in litigation, and no record company has ever faced charges as serious as these,'' A. Barry Cappello, Love's attorney, said in a statement. A spokesman for Universal Music was not immediately available for comment.

Cappello has said that Love's suit, filed in February, targets the music industry's practice of locking artists into contracts that extend for much longer than allowed in other businesses such as television, film and sports.

Love took her action after Universal sued her in February 2000 seeking damages for five undelivered albums when she tried to end her contractual relationship with the recording company. Music and legal experts called Love's contract a standard agreement for the industry.

There was no indication when a trial would begin. Universal is a unit of Vivendi Universal

DreamWorks SKG and Nickelodeon go for Burger King

No. 2 U.S. hamburger chain Burger King Corp. Tuesday said it signed promotional deals with entertainment companies DreamWorks SKG and Nickelodeon, in moves to create more interest at its fast-food restaurants.

Burger King, a unit of London-based food and drink conglomerate Diageo Plc , said it formed an ongoing alliance with Glendale, California-based DreamWorks to promote animated and live-action films, including ``Spirit: Stallion of the Cimarron,'' due to be released next Memorial Day weekend. Burger King previously worked with DreamWorks on the hit cartoon ``Shrek.''

Miami-based Burger King will also build on its five-year relationship with New York-based Nickelodeon, a unit of Viacom Inc., to offer various meal premiums in 2002, including expanded Kids Meal and Big Kids Meal programs, and a live entertainment tour. Terms for the new media partnerships were not disclosed.

The agreements are the latest attempts by Burger King to drive up sales and improve the struggling financial performance at its more than 11,000 fast-food restaurants. Former Northwest Airlines Chief Executive John Dasburg was named CEO earlier this year, and under pressure from franchisees, is working on a plan to divest Burger King from its parent, Diageo.

``This is a top-to-bottom initiative that gives us broad entertainment industry access and coverage,'' said Chris Clouser, Burger King's chief global marketing officer, in a statement. ``We're on-air, online, in print and in-market with the brands that kids know and love.''

Low-Budget Asian Horror Flicks Score in U.S.

Low budgets, high concepts and twisting plots are stirring a wave of Asian horror films now sweeping the art house film circuit in North America.

In the past few months, two Japanese newfangled horror flicks and a macabre South Korean entry have made their way across the United States and Canada, winning over critics and chilling audiences.

In addition, major Hollywood studios have picked up rights to remake several Asian horror films that have done well in Asia over the past few years.

There are several reasons behind the Asian horror film boom, but a key influence is the surprise hit U.S. movie ``Blair Witch Project''.

``Blair Witch,'' made on a shoestring budget, went on to gross over $100 million in the United States. The movie, shot on jumpy hand-held movie and video cameras, impressed Hollywood for its new narrative technique that made suggested horror seem even more frightening than costly special effects scenes.

The Asian horror flicks, like ``Blair Witch'', cannot muster anything near the production budgets of Hollywood movies, so directors in places such as Japan and South Korea are taking a new look at the genre to spice their movies with original chills and ambiguous story lines that have sparked numerous discussions on Internet chat rooms.

The three Asian horror movies that hit U.S. cinemas over the past few months are ``Audition'' from Japanese director Takashi Miike, ``Cure'' from Japanese director Kiyoshi Kurosawa and ``Tell Me Something'' from Korean director Chang Youn-hyun.

These films have little in common except that they were made for budgets of under $3 million and rely on innovative, creepy turns of plot instead of costly special effects to keep viewers squirming in their seats.

CREATIVITY, SMALL BUDGETS

``I think it is a good thing that we have limited budgets because it increases our originality, responsibility and freedom in making films,'' ``Audition'' director Miike told Reuters.

``I really don't think of 'Audition' as a horror movie. It is more like a drama with original twists,'' Miike said.

``Audition'' tells the tale of a 42-year-old widower named Shigeharu Aoyama who runs a video production company. His only son encourages him to find a wife, so the widower and a movie industry friend arrange a bogus film audition where he chooses a prospective bride among the women vying for the leading role.

Aoyama finds a demure woman who seems ideal for him named Asami Yamasaki. But their tender courtship turns into a gruesome nightmare, the likes of which have rarely been seen on screen involving piano wire, needles and branding irons,

New York Times movie critic Elvis Mitchel said the movie ''has been responsible for sending throngs of shaken filmgoers staggering out of theaters.''

Another Japanese movie that won over critics during its U.S. run earlier this year is ``Cure'', which tells of a series of gruesome murders triggered by hypnotic suggestion. The killers stick around the crime scene until the police arrive and are dumbfounded as to why they committed the murders.

``Audition'' and ``Cure'' did moderately well at the box office in Japan when they came out a few years ago and have received much higher critical acclaim overseas than at home.

HOLLYWOOD REMAKES

The Korean director of ``Tell Me Something'' said that filmmakers in places such as Japan and South Korea cannot match Hollywood's costly production finesse but they can offer an original alternative.

``Korean movie makers are very much aware of Hollywood films and there are similarities between what we make and what they make,'' he said. ``But our movies are becoming more of a viable and original alternative to Hollywood films.''

``Tell Me Something'', a gruesome detective story centering around a beautiful woman whose ex-boyfriends end up murdered and dismembered, was a hit in Korea and did well in Japan.

Its ambiguous ending launched hundreds of chat room discussions on the Web in South Korea, but the movie opened to an almost empty theater in New York on Sept. 12, the day after the World Trade Center attack. It will tour the U.S. art house circuit later in the year.

The horror movie that made the biggest splash in Japan and in many Asian nations over the past few years was the Japanese movie ``Ring'', which will be remade by Hollywood studio DreamWorks.

The remake of ``Ring'', an urban legend-type of ghost story about a haunted videotape that causes people who watch it to die in a week, will start production next month.

The movie will be made by director Gore Verbinski, who scored at the box offices with movies ``The Mexican'' and ``Mouse Hunt''.

New Hollywood pix cut to the chaste

The movie industry expects to soon receive a round of applause from the ever-watchful Federal Trade Commission (FTC) on its revised marketing practices.

But the anticipated approbation will come at a time when Hollywood is asking itself some hard questions about content as well as marketing. Though D.C. may feel the studios have been immensely responsive on ad policies, the acts of Sept. 11 have stirred some revisionist thinking about what kinds of movies should be made and how they should be sold.

Sept. 11 marked the first anniversary of the FTC report, which demanded that Hollywood take more responsibility for its marketing -- specifically in the area of promoting R-rated films to those under age 17.

This month, the FTC is expected to give its follow-up findings. Hollywood is said to come off very well in the report -- and showbiz's discretion and helpfulness after the terrorist attacks could mean that D.C. will tone down its watchdog eagerness even more.

``Hollywood has really bent over backwards not to offend, or capitalize on events to make money. It has shown remarkable restraint,'' said Dan Gerstein, top aide to Sen. Joseph Lieberman (D-Conn.). ``The public's appetite and tolerance for violence has changed.''

When and if audiences' appetite for such material will return is, of course, the $64,000 question. And even before the attacks, the FTC report was putting pressure on violent, R-rated pics.

Since the 2000 FTC report, films emphasizing violence or lewdness have rarely succeeded at the box office. Total grosses for all R-rated new releases are down 42% for the period from September 2000 to September 2001. For every ``Hannibal'' or ``American Pie 2,'' there is a ``Rock Star'' or ``Book of Shadows: Blair Witch 2'' -- R-rated films whose most obvious target market (older teens and twentysomethings) is ever-more elusive.

Many film mavens insist the steep drop in the number of R releases is partly due to a more elastic PG-13 that has been attacked for weighing language, violence and sex on different scales. One way around controversy has been to cut just enough so that a picture can qualify for a PG-13.

Paramount's ``Hardball,'' for example, raised hackles in Chicago as the filmmakers intended to use plenty of four-letter words in telling the tale of a real-life local baseball coach. Star Keanu Reeves shrugged that the pic was intrinsically R. That was in summer 2000. By Sept. 14, 2001, well into the FTC era, the picture opened with a PG-13 -- and, like so many other PG-13s, it finished No. 1 at the weekend box office.

Hollywood's top lobbyist, Jack Valenti, vehemently denied that studios are shying away from the R rating, or that the new marketing rules have resulted in lowered box office receipts.

``If you have a movie that a lot of people want to see, no rating will matter,'' said Valenti, president of the Motion Picture Assn. of America.

Valenti, whose group administers the ratings system he helped develop more than 30 years ago, said he expects the FTC to commend studios in its follow-up report, slated for release later this month. He chairs a special marketing committee made up of compliance officers from each of the majors, appointed in the wake of the initial FTC findings.

``It's the first time we've done something on this scale,'' Valenti said. ``I think there have been great changes in how we address the public about movies.''

Abiding by the terms of a 12-point plan drawn up by Valenti, studios have kept a close eye on ad campaigns to make sure that R-rated movies aren't purposely marketed to kids under 17.

Movie trailers now contain more info about why a picture received its rating. Home video boxes have been redesigned to include the new ratings legend. There's also an increased effort to let parents know there are Web sites where rating info is available.

Some studios, such as Warner Bros., have gone further, promising they won't target ads for R-rated movies to venues where 35% or more of the audience is under 17.

Exhibitors also are under FTC scrutiny, with theaters everywhere trying to make sure kids don't go into R-rated movies unattended.

In short, studios are trying to do the right thing publicly while internally meeting bottom-line goals. Marketing practices are suddenly in question for the film studios (as well as a raft of TV shows, Broadway plays, etc.).

Hollywood acquiesced to D.C. concerns, but the Sept. 11 events have put a new spin on things.

``All of our stomachs now turn at the thought of violence,'' attested one top studio marketer. ``But we're still dealing with an insidious form of silent censorship. These guys in Washington have such a shallow understanding of what we do. Yet they're so eager to pontificate about our irresponsibility.''

Ultimately, the post-Sept. 11 climate could see politicos seize upon the industry's vulnerability to push further restrictions.

But many doubt that will happen. In the past few weeks, there has been a detente: Even the harshest D.C. critics toned down their attacks as studios execs shelved millions of dollars in product that could be in dubious taste. Also, the entertainment industry has held a number of benefits raising millions in relief funds.

In normal times, Congress would have held hearings once the FTC released its follow-up report. Now, it's not even clear whether lawmakers will remain in session past mid-October. Rumors are circulating that President Bush wants Congress to adjourn early.

In a climate of war, sensibilities may shift unpredictably when it comes to entertainment. As Gerstein said, ``There's no script for this. There's no predictable sequence of events.''

Hollywood also could prove an important ally for the Bush administration in times of military action, since films can be powerful propaganda in portraying the fight between good and evil.

While studios and theaters may be largely spared in the FTC follow-up, the music business and the video game industry are likely to take some hits. This spring, the FTC issued an interim report harshly criticizing labels for still plugging violent lyrics to kids.

Recording Industry Assn. of America president-CEO Hilary Rosen said the music biz, like the film biz, has responded to the FTC by adopting a series of marketing reforms.

And like its brethren, the music biz moved quickly after the terrorist attacks to yank content that might offend. Some audiences will still hunger for what they had grown accustomed to before Sept. 11, however. Days after the attacks, ``The Producers'' reclaimed the Broadway boards, rapper Jay-Z had the No. 1 album, and antagonistic metal band Megadeth played a sold-out gig in Los Angeles. More so than in previous eras, people need their targeted culture fix.

The TV Industry’s Financial Prospects After The Impact Of The Sept 11 Events

Three weeks on, and like the rest of the world, the film industry has begun to move beyond the initial shock and outrage of September 11 to start asking questions about the impact of the tragedy on business.

More salient are questions as to whether the terrorist actions, and the subsequent events, which still to unfold, have pushed the world economy into recession, or whether it was already heading that way. Is film as recession proof as is sometimes argued?

Jonathan Davis, media economist with the C-Quential division of consultancy giant Arthur D Little, argues that history is at best a misleading indicator. The film industry did indeed grow through the early 1930s Great Depression, but this was already a time of systemic shift in the industry; from silent films to talkies and from not enough cinemas to meet demand to a time of screen sufficiency.

"Non-specific anxiety was given a twist by Sept 11. Economists call this a 'shock' but it is not a new factor, rather it simply accelerates the existing economic downtrend. The direct impact on demand for entertainment products is probably not significant. Ultimately it will depend on good and bad films," says Davis. His comments are echoed by Rick Sands, chairman of worldwide distribution at Miramax, who says: "European TV started going down months ago. That had nothing to do with Sept 11."

The reactions of the first few days are not necessarily instructive. Cinema attendance dipped sharply on the first days after the crisis as people watched TV for news. But by the weekend US theatrical attendance had recovered and video rentals were soaring. The same was true in many international territories, although both the dip and the recovery were shallower.

Family entertainment, comedies and romantic titles are widely cited as becoming the cinematic trend in the short- to mid-term, post Sept 11. But how long will it be before the common mantra about action films being unreleasable is modified, or even reversed?

Concerns for the longer term are about how changing consumer confidence will affect different segments of the entertainment industry. For it should be clear that a recession will not sink every enterprise, although if the politicians' war of words turns into a hot war that involves in many nations, the situation will change dramatically. A series of articles over the coming days will try to identify some of the winners and losers.

Broadcasters
To date the worst affected companies are the advertising-dependent networks and free-TV companies. Increased news coverage has pushed up their costs at exactly the same time as advertisers have cut back their spending. Viacom chief Mel Karmazin said this week that CBS had suffered an $85m loss of ads and that it had suffered some $200m in costs due to the Sept 11 crisis.

But as the crisis has settled, advertising has not fully recovered, reflecting a serious change in consumer and business confidence. While the IMF last week tried to argue that recession is not inevitable many economists are now talking about a U-shaped or even a "bath-shaped" pattern of economic slowdown and eventual recovery.

Davis reminds us that recession does not mean that the economy stops, rather it reverts back to the levels of a few years ago. What makes the plight of the commercial broadcasters so dramatic is that they have thin margins, may be heavily borrowed and their paying customers react very swiftly.

"The media sector was already in recession [before the events of September 11], with free TV companies among the worst hit. They are companies with the most operating leverage [in the entertainment sector] and any fluctuations in revenue fall straight through to the bottom line," says Neil Carter, European media analyst at ABN Amro.

According to ad tracking company CMR, national TV groups in the US lost $188m of revenue in the September 11 week, while local stations lost a further $93m, or 30% of their weekly advertising. In contrast cable stations lost only 16% or $32m.

But although they are nothing like as advertising dependent as the free networks, the share values of cable, satellite and pay-TV companies have also plunged. Carter explains: "They are long duration shares. The value of the stock is all in the terminal value. And the cost of capital has increased as the market risk premium has shifted. The cost of holding equities compared with bonds has moved against them." And although many cable firms are massively borrowed, interest rate cuts have not yet made much difference.