Embracer Group Acquires Full Film & TV IP Rights To ‘The Lord Of The Rings’ And ‘The Hobbit’

Lea Michele is having a huge opening night so far!

Four standing ovations before intermission. Sounds like Lea Michele’s first night as Fanny Brice in Funny Girl is going, well, gleefully.

Burgeoning Saudi Arabian content company Arabia Pictures Group is joining forces with Greece-based audiovisual group Tanweer on a strategic partnership that will see them cooperate on production and distribution across all formats in the Middle East and North Africa.

global premiere last night — and thanked the showrunners for ignoring his notes on the series.The Amazon founder traveled to London’s Leicester Square for the premiere of the big-budget TV show in a move to establish its importance to the company.Bezos, 58, honored showrunners Patrick McKay and John D. Payne while introducing the first two episodes of the series.“Every showrunner’s dream – and I mean every showrunner – their dream is to get notes on scripts and early cuts from the founder and executive chairman,” the Amazon boss joked. “They loved that.

Nick Vivarelli International Correspondent Is Hillary Rodham Clinton making the fall film festival rounds? The former U.S. secretary of state will be attending the DVF Awards charity gala being held on the sidelines of the Venice Film Festival on Sept. 1 by fashion designer Diane von Furstenberg to honor extraordinary women.  Clinton will be flying into Venice prior to her previously announced appearance as a guest speaker at the Toronto International Film Festival. Diane von Furstenberg and The Diller-von Furstenberg Family Foundation founded the DVF Awards more than a decade ago. They are being held in Venice for the first time after taking place in Paris last year. This year’s DVF honorees include groundbreaking U.S. director, producer and social justice activist Ava DuVernay; European Central Bank President Christine Lagarde; Ukrainian educator Zoya Lytvyn; climate activist Hindou Oumarou Ibrahim and 10 outstanding women from Afghanistan “who are working to ensure a safe and sustainable future for the most at-risk Afghan women and girls,” a DVF statement said.

With the Fall Film Festival upon us, the Venice Film Festival, and Telluride Film Festival launching this week, streamers like Netflix are about to premiere some of their biggest titles of the year. Namely, Noah Baumbach’s “White Noise,” Alejandro Innaritu’s “Bardo,” Andrew Dominik’s “Blonde,” and Sebastian Lilo’s “The Wonder.” Rian Johnson’s “Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery,” which premieres at the Toronto International Film Festival in early September, was recently dated for December 23 for a Netflix release, and while Netflix has revealed its entire fall slate today, December looks like it’ll be the month for most of its Oscar contenders.

Embracer Group has today announced that its acquisition of Crystal Dynamics, Eidos-Montréal and Square Enix Montréal is complete, following the agreement in May 2022.The acquisition sees Embracer Group taking ownership of the three development studios alongside a host of intellectual properties (IPs) including Tomb Raider, Deux Ex, Legacy of Kain and “more than 50 back-catalogue games from Square Enix Holdings Co., Ltd.” according to an announcement on its website.Today (August 26) Embracer Group has announced that “all conditions for the transaction, including regulatory approvals, have now been fulfilled and the transaction may be completed.” The acquired studios will form the 12th operative group under the leadership of Square Enix America and Europe CEO, Phil Rogers.In a statement on the acquisition, Rogers said, “Embracer is the best kept secret in gaming: a massive, decentralised collection of entrepreneurs whom we are thrilled to become a part of today.”Embracer Group completed the acquisition for a reported £253.6million ($300million), with the valuation raising some eyebrows, but was decided on the basis that there was “limited competition for acquisition of the assets” (via, Euro News).

Gkids has acquired North American rights to New Gods: Yang Jian, the latest feature from renowned Chinese animation studio Light Chaser Animation (White Snake, New Gods: Nezha Reborn). The producer and distributor of award-winning animated features has slated Yang Jian for theatrical release in both its original Mandarin-language form and an all-new English language dub early next year. The deal marks the latest collaboration between Gkids and Light Chaser Animation, following the former’s local distribution of the 2019 feature White Snake.

Wilson Chapman editor Animation specialists GKIDS has acquired North American distribution rights for Chinese animated film “New Gods: Yang Jian,” with plans to release the film in theaters early next year. Directed by Ji Zhao, “Yang Jian” is the second installment in his “New Gods” series of animated fantasy films adapted from Chinese mythology. The series, which began last year with “New Gods: Nezha Reborn,” is produced by Chinese animation studio Light Chaser Animation, which also produced Zhao’s directorial debut “White Snake” in 2019. “Yang Jian” follows the titular Chinese god, also known as Erlang Shen, who was famous for his truth-seeing eye in the middle of his forehead. Thirteen years after he imprisoned his own sister beneath a mountain, the god works as a bounty hunter, and is hired by a mysterious woman to stop his nephew Chenxiang from obtaining a magical lotus lantern with incredible power. The film was released in Chinese theaters last week, where it beat “Minions: Rise of Gru” to top the box office with a $19.8 million opening weekend.

The Academy of Motion Picture Arts & Sciences is going global in a big way, hitting major festivals around the world and the US, beginning with the Fall trifecta of Venice, Telluride, and Toronto. All that is according to new CEO Bill Kramer who is continuing his inaugural outreach tour not just to members of AMPAS, but also the press. In addition to the A.Frame interview earlier this month with Kramer that was distributed to all 10,000 ish members as well as media outlets (and which Deadline reported on), Kramer this week held a Zoom press conference with key consumer outlets as well as the Hollywood Trades. He was keen to emphasize the org is going to once again be front and center at major events , and that means everywhere including reinstating their London membership meeting, and even adding one in Copenhagen.

Charles S. Cohen’s Cohen Media Group, which owns the Landmark Theatres chain of art-houses, has acquired HanWay Films, the U.K.-based international film sales giant founded by Jeremy Thomas and long run by his partner Peter Watson.

The woman suing Horatio Sanz for alleged sexual assault has added Jimmy Fallon to the suit. In a filing obtained by Deadline on Tuesday, the woman, who claims former Saturday Night Live star Sanz sexually assaulted her in 2002, added Fallon, Tracy Morgan, and SNL creator Lorne Michaels to the complaint as “enablers”. The original filing claimed Sanz assaulted the woman - who remains anonymous - when she was 17.

The upcoming British version of Jimmy Fallon’s show That’s My Jam will shoot entirely in LA after a successful pilot, Universal Television Alternative Studio chiefs confirmed today here at the Edinburgh TV Festival.

A Pennsylvania woman filed legal papers today in an attempt to add Jimmy Fallon, Tracy Morgan and Lorne Michaels to a 2021 lawsuit in which she accuses then-Saturday Night Live castmember Horatio Sanz of sexually assaulting her when she was 17.

EXCLUSIVE: Lionsgate’s Grindstone Entertainment Group has acquired North American rights to A Place in the Field, a drama infused with magical realism, which marks the feature directorial debut of 2021 AFI graduate Nicole Mejia.

Love Island finalist Gemma Owen has reunited with her fellow Islanders for the first time since the ITV show ended. The 19-year-old and her beau Luca Bish, 23, caught up with their series eight contestants in London after missing out on previous get-togethers.

Swedish video game company Embracer Group has acquired Middle-earth Enterprises, a division of The Saul Zaentz Company, which owns the intellectual property catalogue and worldwide rights to The Lord of the Rings trilogy and The Hobbit by J.R.R. Tolkien.

President Zelenskyy Comedy ‘Servant Of The People’ Remade In Poland

The classic musical Merrily We Roll Along is rolling back into the New York theater scene for the holiday season and a star-studded cast is attached!

When he transitioned from the squared circle to the silver screen, Dwayne Johnson built his Hollywood pedigree playing good guys with a tough exterior and a just as solid moral code. Of course, one has to overlook his villainous early turn as The Scorpion King in “The Mummy Returns” for that narrative to work.