EXCLUSIVE: Getting a leg-up here on our Thanksgiving stretch preview, Apple Studios production of Ridley Scott’s Napoleon will invade the global box office via Sony this Wednesday, in what’s shaping up to be a $46M WW global start.
30.10.2023 - 17:39 / variety.com
Angus Finney Industry players treading the floors of Le Meridien Delfina, the American Film Market’s new venue, will be besieged by aggressive funding offers and fliers tubthumping diverse landscapes and state-of-the-art facilities from all around the world — marketing tools promoting incentives and driving the heated battle for productions across the globe.
The incentive wars have been raging for decades, with several U.S. states and leading producing nations — such as Canada, the U.K., France, Spain, Australia, New Zealand and Germany — battling over a $177 billion worldwide production pot being spent on film, scripted TV and docs in 2019 alone, according to consultants OlsbergSPI.
Given the inherent link between total production spend and automatic funding systems as a crude percentage, that indicates that some $20 billion-$30 billion of tax credits, production rebates and other automatic mechanisms are underpinning worldwide production.
But just as the industry at large is reeling from strike actions, the impact of streamers and talk of a “great spend re-correction,” all is not well in the land of automatic funding incentives.
A quick headline scroll shows how disrupted the incentive landscape is today: Germany is pivoting to an almost exclusively automatic system; France has introduced a non-cultural 30% incentive known as TRIP in direct response to the fact that the U.K. is attracting more than 50% of Europe’s offshore traffic; Denmark has shunned rebates entirely; Romania’s was gone by 2022 amid a flurry of lawsuits; Australia’s New South Wales Made in NSW incentive was slashed in September to instant uproar; and the U.S.
EXCLUSIVE: Getting a leg-up here on our Thanksgiving stretch preview, Apple Studios production of Ridley Scott’s Napoleon will invade the global box office via Sony this Wednesday, in what’s shaping up to be a $46M WW global start.
The Smile have revealed details of their brand-new album, Wall Of Eyes. The album is the second from the trio (Radiohead's Thom Yorke and Jonny Greenwood plus drummer Tom Skinner) and follows their 2022 debut A Light For Attracting Attention.
‘Quicksand‘s FLX Gets New CEO
Rafa Sales Ross Guest Contributor Roger Ross Williams is having quite the year. So far, the Oscar-winning director has released his first fiction film, Amazon Studios’ “Cassandro”; the HBO documentary “Love to Love You, Donna Summer”; AppleTV+ docuseries “The Super Models”; and Hulu miniseries “The 1619 Project.” Joining Williams’ impressive output this year is Netflix’s “Stamped From the Beginning,” an adaptation of the eponymous bestselling book by Ibram X. Kendi about the history of racism and anti-Blackness in the U.S.
John Hopewell Chief International Correspondent There’s “an enormous amount of fresh talent coming through, and those new voices, that for the most part don’t come from the U.S.,” CAA Media Finance’s said at San Sebastian’s Creative Investors Conference this September. Getting noticed ia another matter. Global content spend has near doubled in a decade, from $136 billion in 2013 to $250 billion this year, according to Ampere Analysis.
EXCLUSIVE: Lone Scherfig‘s The Shift has been renewed for a second season and distributor Beta Film has struck a deal for the first with North American streamer MHz Choice and Australia’s SBS. The Killing star Sofie Gråbøl, who led the first run, is returning as guest.
Méridien Blues
Martin Scorsese’s Killers of the Flower Moon, from Apple, Paramount and Imperative Entertainment, has set a milestone, crossing the $100M mark at the global box office through Thursday. As it heads into its third frame, the epic western crime saga is at $102.1M worldwide, including $45.3M domestic and $56.8M from the international box office.
Prince Harry has frequently made headlines since his shock exit from the Royal Family in 2020 with Meghan Markle which saw the couple relocate to the US.
tribute to the late Friends star Matthew Perry.The Unley in Parkside found itself in hot water after introducing an $18 cocktail named the “Chandler Bing” in honor of Perry, who tragically passed away at his Los Angeles residence on Sunday.The cocktail, composed of Southern Comfort, peach schnapps, cranberry juice, fresh lime, and sugar, was introduced as the “cocktail of the month.”The pub’s Instagram post featured a caption that read: “A tribute to our sarcastic king.
Green Day is hitting the road!
Refresh for latest…: Universal/Blumhouse’s Five Nights at Freddy’s is gaming its way to an estimated $130.6M global opening, higher even than we had it yesterday as this phenom is now eyeing a $52.6M bow from 64 international box office markets. As Anthony has chronicled, the domestic $78M opening is a stunner — and amid the day-and-date Peacock bow. Overseas, the play is purely theatrical and has set a number of records.
The phenomenon that is Universal/Blumhouse’s Five Nights at Freddy’s is currently looking at a global opening of $130M. Fazbear and crew are playing in 64 international box office markets where they are expected to reach $52M through Sunday.
Malia Obama, the eldest daughter of former President Barack Obama and former First Lady Michelle Obama, has always been in the public eye. Her fashion choices and personal style have consistently drawn attention.
The headless horseman of Sleepy Hollow haunts the American imagination each autumn. New York City native Washington Irving breathed life into the galloping ghost in 1819, when he penned "The Legend of Sleepy Hollow," one of his tales of life among Dutch settlers along the Hudson River. It stands 203 years later as one of the most famous ghost stories in world history — remade in many versions and retold in scores of languages.
Marta Balaga DR Sales has been racking up sales for Danish drama series “Prisoner.” Starring Sofie Gråbøl, David Dencik, Youssef Wayne Hvidtfeldt and Charlotte Fich, it has been picked up by BBC (UK and Ireland), Canal+ Group’s channel Polar+ (France), MHz Networks (U.S.), SBS (Australia), NPO (Netherlands) and BeTV (French-speaking Belgium). Revolving around four desperate prison guards, forced to deal with everything from rampant drug trade to their personal problems and imminent closure of the prison, the show was created by Kim Fupz Aakeson.
The B-52s will perform at the White House State Dinner on Wednesday for Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese and partner Jodie Haydon.
There were two major new entries this weekend at the international box office, one local (Tamil thriller Leo: Bloody Sweet) and one from Hollywood. Starting with the latter, Martin Scorsese’s Killers of the Flower Moon from Apple, Paramount and Imperative Entertainment, had a big opening with $21M in 63 offshore markets and No. 1s in 24 of those, including France, Germany, Australia, Spain, Netherlands and Switzerland. The global bow, factoring in its strong domestic opening, was $44M; great for a period movie with a long running time and at a moment when talent could not promote it due to the actors strike.
A man from Wythenshawe has completed the massive achievement of cycling just under 1200 miles across 11 countries in just over two weeks.
Rep. Jim Jordan (R-OH) sought to flip 22 Republican holdouts who have blocked his path to House speakership today, but there was little sign that he is getting any closer to clinching the leadership post.