Robert Munoz Named Amblin Partners Chief Financial Officer

Gale Anne Hurd has been selected by the Visual Effects Society (VES) as the next recipient of the VES Lifetime Achievement Award in recognition of her contributions to visual arts and filmed entertainment. The award will be presented at the 21st Annual VES Awards on February 15, 2023, at The Beverly Hilton Hotel.

Sony’s A Man Called Otto began the first phase of a three-step rollout this weekend in an exclusive run at four LA and NY theaters, grossing $60k, for a $15k per screen average, over the three-day weekend. The four-day estimated gross is $75K, or an $18.7k PSA.

EXCLUSIVE: Fangoria Studios has hired Amir Moini as its first Chief Marketing Officer.

A24’s release of Darren Aronofsky’s The Whale had a strong holdover its second weekend out, grossing $168.5k on the same six screens in NYC and LA where it opened its first frame to the biggest per theater average of the year – beating the distributor’s March release of Everything Everywhere All At Once.

Judd Hirsch has to be on the verge of making history. The Emmy and Tony Award winner is an ensemble member of Steven Spielberg’s “The Fablemans,” a movie that is almost guaranteed to earn a Best Picture nomination next month.

EXCLUSIVE: Following an extensive search that had a number of top directors chasing the job, sources tell Deadline that Oscar-nominated Minari director Lee Isaac Chung is in early talks to helm Universal Pictures and Amblin Entertainment’s Twisters, the sequel to the blockbuster Twister. Warner Bros., which released the 1996 pic, will co-finance. Mark L. Smith penned the script, with Frank Marshall producing through his Kennedy/Marshall banner.

Jake Johnson hopes that audiences haven’t seen the last of Minx.

Period erotic comedy Minx will not coming back for a second helping after all.

In addition to Manwaring’s professional experience, he is married to Chinese filmmaker Zhang Mo, the daughter and frequent collaborator of renowned Chinese film director Zhang Yimou (“The Great Wall,” “Hero,” House of Flying Daggers”). 

Best Feature: “All That Breathes”Best Director: Shaunak Sen, “All That Breathes”Best Short: “Haulot”Best TV Feature Documentary or Mini-Series: “Fannie Lou Hamer’s America: An America ReFramed Special”Best Curated Series: “POV”Best Episodic Series: “Origins of Hip Hop”Best Multi-Part Documentary: “We Need to Talk About Cosby”Best Short-Form Series: “POV Shorts”Best Stand-Alone Audio Documentary: “Documenting a Death by Euthanasia”Best Multi-Part Audio Documentary or Series: “Stolen: Surviving St. Michael’s”Best Music Documentary: “Louis Armstrong’s Black & Blues”David L. Wolper Student Documentary Award: “Requiem for a Whale”  (The Steve Tisch School of Film and Television, Tel Aviv University)Best Cinematography: “Fire of Love”Cinematographers: Maurice Krafft, Katia Krafft, Pablo Alvarez-MesaBest Editing: “All That Breathes”Editors: Charlotte Munch Bengtsen, Vedant JoshiBest Music Score: “The Melt Goes On Forever: The Art & Times of David Hammons”Composer: Ramachandra BorcarBest Writing: “Fire of Love”Writers: Sara Dosa, Erin Casper, Jocelyne Chaput, Shane Boris)ABC News VideoSource Award: “Riotsville, U.S.A.”Pare Lorentz Award: “All That Breathes”Pare Lorentz Honorable Mention: “Nuisance Bear”

What happens when there’s no wide theatrical releases and it’s the holiday season as we emerge from the pandemic? Why, you get the second-lowest box office weekend of the year at an estimated $37.2M. We’ll see if Saturday night business is so bad that that this weekend becomes the lowest of 2022, unseating that of Jan. 28-30, when all movies grossed $34.87M, per Comscore.