NewImages XR Market Blazes International Trails

Patrick Frater Asia Bureau Chief The Cannes Market has hitched up with the Ties That Bind and Focus Asia organizations to launch Spotlight Asia, a new industry support structure. Debuting during this year’s Cannes film festival, the program aims to foster greater film collaboration between Asia and Europe. Spotlight Asia will take the form of a series of round table discussions, short presentations and networking events between May 16-24. They will cover genres ranging from fiction to animation. The collaborative events will especially focus on the tools that potential co-producers from Europe and Asia need to equip themselves with in order to navigate the different forms of cooperative working, ranging from introducing existing funding opportunities to helping navigate each country’s specific laws and production functionalities.

Refresh for latest…: Illumination/Nintendo/Universal’s The Super Mario Bros Movie continues its global domination, now with an estimated $871.8M through Sunday. Of that, $437.5M is from the international box office. The next worldwide benchmark of $900M will hit in the next days. It is only a matter of time for the Bros to get to $1B, particularly as Korea and Japan are due to release this week.

Naman Ramachandran U.K.-based sales and distribution company Blue Finch Film Releasing has acquired international sales rights, excluding North America, to the debut feature from the Burghart Brothers, “Head Count.” The company plans to begin sales on the film during the Cannes Film Market. “Head Count” follows the story of an escaped prisoner, Kat, who finds himself facing an unknown assailant with his own revolver pointed straight at his head. To survive, he must remember what happened on the crazy ride that brought him to this point, one bullet at a time. The cast includes Ryan Kwanten (“True Blood”), Aaron Jakubenko (“Tidelands”), Melanie Zanetti (“Bluey”), Chris Bylsma (“El Camino: A Breaking Bad Movie”), Addam Bramich (“Poker Face”), Polaris Banks (“Reklaw”) and Cinnamon Shultz (“Winter’s Bone”).

Elsa Keslassy International Correspondent Memento International has boarded Vladimir Perisic’s Serbian film “Lost Country” which will have its world premiere at Cannes’ Critics Week. Set in Serbia in 1996, “Lost Country” unfolds during the student demonstrations against the Milosevic regime. Story follows 15-year-old Stefan who has to confront his beloved mother, spokesperson and accomplice of the corrupted government that his friends are rising against. The cast is lead by Serbian debuting actor Jovan Ginic and Jasna Djuricic, the actor of Oscar-nominated film “Quo Vadis Aida.” “Lost Country” was penned by Vladimir Perisic and celebrated French writer-director Alice Winocour, whose latest film “Revoir Paris” earned Virginie Efira the Cesar award for best actress.

Emiliano De Pablos Spain’s fast-growing production house Mediacrest Entertainment is launching high-concept eco-reality contest format “El pueblo” (“The Village”), which will have its international market premiere at this week’s MipTV trade fair. Designed as a primetime reality show, “El pueblo” has been structured as a social experiment, charting five families’ attempt to settle in an abandoned village, guided by the principles of sustainability and globally connected self-sufficiency.  The families’ will create their own rules, events and traditions, will initiate agriculture and livestock initiatives and start trading with nearby towns, sand later with the world. The twist: Only one winning family finally gets to stay in the village.

The Sands International Film Festival, Scotland’s burgeoning film event, opened its second edition this weekend with the world premiere screening of Citadel, the much-talked-about Prime Video series from Marvel auteurs Anthony and Joe Russo.

Dead Ringers stars Rachel Weisz, Alice Birch and Britne Oldford dazzle at a photocall for their series during Day Two of the 6th Canneseries International Festival on Saturday (April 15) in Cannes, France.

After passing $500M globally through Thursday, Illumination/Nintendo/Universal’s The Super Mario Bros Movie is now on its way to an estimated $659M through Sunday worldwide. Of that, the international box office is estimated to rep $318.6M. 

Christopher Vourlias If you wanted to gauge how far the growing Greek TV industry has come in just a few short years, you’d have to look no further than last month in Lille, France, where Series Mania offered a splashy showcase for the Mediterranean nation’s sudden rise. The prestigious French fest opened with Amazon Prime Video’s “Greek Salad,” director Cédric Klapisch’s follow-up to his beloved “Spanish Apartment” trilogy that chose Athens as the setting for its portrait of contemporary Europe at a crossroads. Meanwhile, a Greek series bowed in the festival’s international competition for the first time: Vasilis Kekatos’ “Milky Way.”

Good afternoon Insiders, Max Goldbart here penning the weekly mailer a day after Cannes revealed its long-awaited lineup. Read on for all the details and plenty more, and sign up to the International Insider here.

Ben Croll An irreverent fable that imagines a civilization’s rise, fracture and fall, Pedro Harres’ “From the Main Square” took top honors at the NewImages Festival on Friday, claiming the festival’s Grand Prize, which came with €6,000 ($6,597) in prize money. Born in Brazil and based in Berlin, Harres channeled his frustrations and heartache about his native country into a tragicomic frenzy, orchestrating a 360-degree symphony of animated antics, human folly, and shocking bursts of violence that follows an allegorical country as it speed-runs toward oblivion. The filmmaker described the project as “a collage of urban absurdities, sometimes funny, sometimes brutal, that arise in societies in the process of political polarization and environmental collapse.”

Naman Ramachandran After the relaunch of Epix as MGM+ in the U.S. in January, Amazon has revealed that its MGM international streaming service will relaunch as MGM+ International in key European countries. MGM+ has also concluded a content deal with Lionsgate for a package of premium films and television series and under this arrangement, MGM+ International will stream premier series from Lionsgate and Starz in Germany, Austria, Italy, Spain and the Netherlands, at no extra cost to their current subscription, which is €3.99 ($4.36) per month. Beginning this weekend, series available will include the Power franchise, “Black Sails,” “Black Mafia Family,” “Mad Men” and “Nashville” with more new, first-run and exclusive Lionsgate titles titles to follow. Lionsgate+ subscribers who joined via Prime Video Channels will now get access to the MGM+ International streaming service and will be able to watch Lionsgate content alongside films from MGM Studios.

Ben Croll Paris’ NewImages Festival and parent organization Forum des Images have recently launched NewImages Hub, a support network offering XR professionals a set of complementary creative and mentoring programs throughout the year. Divided into three poles, the new lab will help immersive projects across development, production, and distribution, offering residencies and networking assistance at each phase. Administered by Forum des Images – a non-profit cultural organization subsidized by the City of Paris – and supported by France’s CNC, NewImages Hub will oversee international writing residencies both in Paris and abroad, while developing additional workshops with partners in Taiwan, Chile and South Africa. The new lab will also administer existing programs in Rome, Ecuador and Taipei, while making industry analysis available to all.

Rebecca Rubin Film and Media Reporter “Dungeons and Dragons: Honor Among Thieves,” an adaptation of the popular role-playing game, ignited at the international box office with $33 million from 60 markets. Paramount and eOne’s film also opened in North America with $38.5 million, bringing its global tally to $71 million. It’s a good start, especially considering Hollywood’s track record in adapting games for the big screen. But “Dungeons and Dragons” needs to keep playing in theaters to justify its $150 million price tag before marketing. Overseas audiences will be key to the success of “D&D.” The film, directed Jonathan Goldstein and John Francis Daley and starring Chris Pine and Regé-Jean Page, enjoyed the biggest start in China with $5 million, followed by the U.K. with $4.3 million, Mexico with $2.4 million, Australia with $2.4 million, and Germany with $2 million.

The Sands International Film Festival of St Andrews has set Stanley Tucci as a special guest for this year’s edition, where he will present a screening of his 1996 culinary comedy Big Night.

Elsa Keslassy International Correspondent France engaged in a record 144 international co-productions in 2022, while the number of majority French movies produced dropped by 10% to 208 titles, according to a study unveiled by the National Film Board (CNC). For the first time since 2003, half of the movies produced in France were international co-productions (with 33 countries) last year, compared with 42.1 % in 2021 and 39.6 % between 2017 and 2019. Investment in films dropped by 12.8% to €1.18 billion ($1.30 billion) compared with 2021, while foreign investment broke a 10-year record. In France, TV channels as well as streamers (since the start of 2022) are required to invest a percentage of annual revenue on French and European productions. As such, they invested a total of €280.78 million in 159 films in 2022, a 8.3 % drop compared with the average invested between 2017 and 2019.

Elsa Keslassy International Correspondent Wild Bunch International, the sales company behind “Titane” and “Happening” (pictured), has renamed itself as Goodfellas. In a brief press release, the company said “there are no other changes to the structure created in 2019.” Wild Bunch International was launched in 2019 as a standalone sales company by French film industry veterans Vincent Maraval and Brahim Chioua. The pair had previously co-founded Wild Bunch, which is now owned by German entrepreneur Lars Windhorst and ran by former NBCUniversal vice chairman Ron Meyer and former beIN Media Group executive Sophie Jordan. Wild Bunch International was created shortly after Wild Bunch completed its restructuring plan. Under their three-year deal, Wild Bunch had a minority stake in the new banner and allowed it to use the Wild Bunch brand. The three-year pact ended in November and the two companies no longer have corporate ties. But Goodfellas said it will continue working with Wild Bunch on select project through a new deal.

Refresh for latest…: It was a bow-wow-wow! start for Lionsgate/Thunder Road Films/87 Eleven’s John Wick: Chapter 4 with $137.5M global this session. Of that, $64M is estimated from 71 international box office markets. All were No. 1 starts and cumulatively are 73% above John Wick 3 – Parabellum’s 2019 start.

John Hopewell Chief International Correspondent LILLE, France — Headed by a commanding performance from Navid Mohammadzadeh, superbly shot and packing arguably the best opening scene of any series in Series Mania main competition, Navid Javidi’s “The Actor” won the Grand Prize at Series Mania on Friday night. The top Series Mania award for the “The Actor” also proves vindication for the Festival which this year has broadened its geographical reach in an effort to discover new narrative modes and styles. Consistently subordinating narrative to mood, “The Actor” certainly wins on that score. Main scribe John Kåre Raake (“The Quake”) and co-scribe Linn-Jeanethe Kyed (“Bø”) scooped best writing for “The Fortress,” a banner upcoming Viaplay title produced by Norway’s Maipo Film and sold by TrustNordisk, which delivers a telling political cautionary tale for our times, a chic isolationist parable thriller set in an alternative Norway which has built a wall to keep foreigners out. When a virus strikes, it becomes a prison.

EXCLUSIVE: Brian Cox is back as Logan Roy on Sunday, and the Succession star is next getting a special on BritBox International.