Harrison Ford will no longer be part of the Indiana Jones franchise, after playing the iconic character for 42 years.
14.04.2023 - 07:37 / variety.com
Patrick Frater Asia Bureau Chief Comcast, the conglomerate behind NBCUniversal and the Sky European TV giant, is to invest $200 million in Bodhi Tree Systems, a company headed by James Murdoch and Uday Shankar, a former head of Disney in India. The move was approved by the Competition Commission of India on Wednesday. The funds will be directed to buying a small minority stake in Indian media group Viacom18. The move is part of a complicated series of transactions that bind Viacom18 ever closer to Reliance Industries, the petroleum to telecoms conglomerate controlled by Mukesh Ambani which is now upending Indian media with its Jio cellular, broadband internet and streaming companies.
Bodhi Tree, which was also behind Viacom18’s nearly $3 billion bid for digital rights to the Indian Premier League cricket tournament, has a commitment to invest a total of $1.69 billion into Viacom18, with $538 million as an initial tranche.
Bodhi Tree’s current transaction is reported to be backed by payments of $250 million by the Qatar investment Authority, Bodhi Tree and Comcast. It is understood that Bodhi Tree will go out to investors to raise the remaining portion of the $1.69 billion funding. In a statement, Viacom18 said that the dealmaking will mean that its equity is 50.994% owned by TV18, 48.994% owned by Paramount Global and that Bodhi Tree has a 0.11% stake. Additionally, Reliance Industries will own 82% of Viacom18’s convertible preference shares and Bodhi Tree the remaining 17.8%. When all those stakes are converted, the fully diluted ownership looks somewhat different: Reliance Industries would own 60.4%, TV18 13.5%, Bodhi Tree (and its backers) 13.1% and Paramount Global 13%. Viacom 18 explains that it gets $1.89
Harrison Ford will no longer be part of the Indiana Jones franchise, after playing the iconic character for 42 years.
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Harrison Ford was de-aged for a 25-minute scene in the forthcoming fifth installment of Indiana Jones. The trailer for Indiana Jones and Dial Of Destiny featured a jaw-dropping moment when a bag is pulled from Ford’s head to reveal a significantly younger version of him created through the use of VFX technology.Director James Mangold revealed to Total Film magazine that there is actually a 25-minute-long sequence where the character of Jones is back to being 35. “It was an incredible technology, and, in many ways, I just didn’t think about it,” the director shared.He continued: “I just focused on shooting what’s approximately a 25-minute opening extravaganza that was my chance to just let it rip.
Naman Ramachandran A galaxy of senior Indian content creators shared their insights on burning topics dominating the local landscape. They were speaking at at Indiantelevision.com’s annual industry event, The Content Hub, in Mumbai on Tuesday. At the Content Creation: No More Formulas panel, Shobha Sant, head of content alliances at Jio Studios, broke down the process behind the selection of its 100-title slate. Sant said that the selection was the result of five years of very a definite plan in terms of understanding audience segmentation and what people are watching.
"Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny" director James Mangold said this week that the fifth installment of the franchise opens with a 25-minute action sequence in which Harrison Ford, 80, plays a 35-year-old version of himself. "I just shot him, and he just pretended that he was 35," Mangold told Total Film magazine of Ford who he called "incredibly gifted and agile." He added, "But the technology involved is a whole other thing." Mangold explained that dots were placed on Ford’s face during the scene that takes place in 1944 and using VFX technology and old Lucasfilm footage of the actor as a younger man, he was de-aged. The new film is set in the space race-era of 1969. "We had hundreds of hours of footage of him in close-ups, in mediums, in wides, in every kind of lighting, night and day," he told the magazine. "I could shoot Harrison on a Monday as, you know, a 79-year-old playing a 35-year-old, and I could see dailies by Wednesday with his head already replaced." The director called the technology "incredible," saying he did not think about it while shooting the sequence.
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Zack Sharf Digital News Director “Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny” director James Mangold confirmed in a new interview with Total Film magazine that Harrison Ford spends approximately 25 minutes of the sequel de-aged to appear around the age he was in “Raiders of the Lost Ark.” The “Dial of Destiny” team previously disclosed that new VFX technology was created for the film in order to de-age Ford, but now fans know it was for an extended act of the movie and not just a simple flashback scene. Mangold called Ford “incredibly gifted and agile,” which made it easy for the actor to “pretend that he was 35” when filming the scenes. “But the technology involved is a whole other thing,” Mangold said. “We had hundreds of hours of footage of him in close-ups, in mediums, in wides, in every kind of lighting, night and day. I could shoot Harrison on a Monday as, you know, a 79-year-old playing a 35-year-old, and I could see dailies by Wednesday with his head already replaced,”
Patrick Frater Asia Bureau Chief Director Stanley Tong (“Rumble in the Bronx”) is to team up with Jackie Chan for the tenth time on “The Legend.” State media in China report that Chan, who recently reached the top spot in the mainland Chinese box office with aged stuntman comedy “Ride On,” will play an archaeologist on a quest through time and space. With production by Bona Film Group, “The Legend” is pitched as being in the same vein as Tong and Chan’s 2005 effort “The Myth,” which was a fantasy love story. Tong and Chan have worked together on other titles including “Police Story 3,” “Supercop” and “Vanguard.” India’s Jio Studios is backing “Khashaba,” a Marathi-language film on the life of India’s first Olympic medalist Khasaba Dadasaheb. After delivering the sleeper hit Sairat and Fandry, the new film will be directed by Nagraj Manjule. The title is considered as part of Jio Studio’s ambition to deliver more than 100 stories this year. With production to begin shortly, the film will be mounted on a large scale. “Along with entertaining the audience, this film will also introduce the audience to a brave and exceptional athlete who made India proud all over the world,” said Manjule. “Khashaba” will be presented by JioStudios and produced by Aatpat Production, Jyoti Deshpande and Manjule.
Naman Ramachandran The south Indian media and entertainment industry grew 33% in 2022 to record revenues of $3.57 billion in 2022, a new report has revealed. The report, titled South India: Setting Benchmarks for the Nation in Media & Entertainment, was prepared by Team MCube Insights for the Confederation of Indian Industry (CII), southern region, and was released during the recently-concluded Dakshin conference. It covers in detail the region’s key sectors – film, television, streaming/digital, radio and print – across the four language vectors of Tamil, Telugu, Kannada and Malayalam spread across the states of Tamil Nadu, Andhra Pradesh, Telangana, Karnataka, Kerala and union territory Puducherry.
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Patrick Frater Asia Bureau Chief The Indian Film Festival of Los Angeles is expanding its efforts to engage the industry side of the business and in June will host its inaugural IFFLA Industry Day. The festival was founded in 2002 and, now in its third decade of operation, has pivoted to a strategy of year-round programming and events. The center piece of the IFFLA Industry Day will be a pitch competition that involves selected emerging and established film and TV writers and directors who pitch their upcoming project to a panel of executives from different sectors of the industry. The executives and a live public audience will provide feedback and heighten the sense of discovery. The winner will receive a $10,000 development grant.
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NBCU and Sky owner Comcast has invested in James Murdoch’s Bodhi Tree Systems, which in turn is becoming a key player in a new-look Viacom18.
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“Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny” during the Lucasfilm Studio Showcase at the Star Wars Celebration convention in London on Friday.Described as the final film in the franchise, “Indiana Jones 5” finds Harrison Ford reprising his iconic role as the legendary hero archaeologist grapples with a new era (1969) and new characters (Phoebe Waller-Bridge plays his goddaughter Helena Shaw). The globe-trotting trek will take Indy to Morocco and Sicily.
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