‘Spider-Man: No Way Home’ Tops $1.6B WW & Becomes Biggest Movie Ever In Mexico; ‘Scream’ Shouts With $49M Global Bow – International Box Office

Naman Ramachandran In cheering news for the British entertainment business, film and high-end television production spend in the U.K. reached over £5.64 billion ($7.65 billion) in 2021, £1.27 billion higher than for the pre-pandemic year 2019. Official figures published on Friday by the BFI’s Research and Statistics Unit reveal that film production reached £1.55 billion, 3% up on 2020, while high-end TV production soared to £4.09 billion, nearly double pre-pandemic 2019 levels.

Alamo Drafthouse Cinema announced a major expansion with seven new theaters including three new regions, Chicago, Birmingham, and St. Louis, and expansions in Washington, D.C. and New York City — with a kung fu-themed Staten island location opening this spring. The move also includes locations in Colorado and Texas.

TOKYO -- Sony’s profit for the quarter through December edged up 11% on healthy sales from its film division, including the new Spider-Man movie, the Japanese electronics and entertainment company said Wednesday.Tokyo-based Sony Corp. recorded a 346 billion yen ($3 billion) profit for the fiscal third quarter, up from 310.7 billion yen the previous year.Quarterly sales edged up to 3 trillion yen ($26 billion) from 2.7 trillion yen.Sony said strong offerings in its music division, like the album “30" from Adele; movies like “Spider-Man: No Way Home” and licensing income from the “Seinfeld” series lifted earnings.Its imaging and sensor unit also posted solid results.In video games, sales fell short of expectations as a parts supply crunch, especially of semiconductors, dented sales of its PlayStation 5 machine, Sony said.The company's chief financial officer, Hiroki Totoki, said Sony's acquisition of Bungie Inc., known for its Halo and Destiny games, for $3.6 billion highlighted its commitment to the gaming business.The purchase includes payments to the shareholder creators at the independent studio to ensure their retention, he said.Analysts say the addition complements Sony’s strength in shooting games and will further solidify its position.But competition is heating up in the video game industry.Microsoft Corp.

Patrick Frater Asia Bureau ChiefSony’s pictures division achieved net profits of $1.3 billion in the three months to December 2021, boosted by a return to theatrical releasing and the blockbuster performance of “Spider-Man: No Way Home.” The $1.31 billion figure compares with profits of $194 million in the equivalent quarter of 2020, and with profits of $288 million in the preceding three months to end of September 2021.Parent company, Sony Group’s net profits grew by 20% in the three months to December 2021 hitting JPY461 billion. Sales were up by 13% to JPY3.03 trillion.The bumper results, unusually, made the pictures division the largest contributor to Sony’s consolidated net profits.

Refresh for latest…: Sony/Marvel’s Spider-Man: No Way Home scaled fresh heights this session as it reached an amazing new milestone by crossing the $1B mark at the international box office. The offshore cume through Sunday is an estimated $1.003B for a global total of $1.74B.

Spider-Man: No Way Home isn’t slowing down.

another disinformation campaign to put a positive public relations spin on its aggression, and had enlisted anti-vaxxer Aaron Rodgers to star in propaganda commercials.With fake news headlines like “American CDC Strongly Recommends Russia Invades Ukraine,” and “Neil Young to Remove Music for Spotify Unless Ukraine Surrenders” going viral, the White House turned to a high school junior to counter Moscow’s cyberattack.“Mr President I think your generation could learn a lot from mine,” the teenage social media pro (Chloe Fineman) said. “Like we don’t believe in drone strikes we believe in breaking down our enemies psychologically.

Willem Dafoe, has had one of the most celebrated careers in Hollywood with four Oscar nominations, including one for Best Supporting Actor in 1987’s Platoon and one for Best Actor for playing Vincent Van Gogh in 2019’s At Eternity’s Gate. The 66-year-old Wisconsin native found a new legion of fans as the supervillain Norman Osborn/Green Goblin in the original Tobey MacGuire Spider-Man trilogy, as well as in the most recent edition of the Marvel web-crawler franchise, Spider-Man: No Way Home.

Willem Dafoe has been a major Hollywood star since the late 1980s, thanks to attention-grabbing early roles in such films as “Platoon”, “The Last Temptation of Christ” and “Mississippi Burning”.

Brad Pitt and George Clooney are putting their money where their mouths are to stick up for movie theatres.

12 nominations:“Dune”: DGA, PGA, WGA, ACE, ASC, ADG, CAS.

The Writers Guild of America has penciled in the film nominees for its 74th annual WGA Awards, which will be virtual again this year.

Clayton Davis The Writers Guild of America Awards announced its 2022 nominations, where huge boosts were given to films such as “Being the Ricardos,” “Don’t Look Up,” “The French Dispatch,” “King Richard” and “Licorice Pizza” in original screenplay.Adapted screenplay includes “CODA,” “Dune,” “Nightmare Alley,” “Tick, Tick … Boom!” and “West Side Story.” Missing from the lineup are “C’mon C’mon” from Mike Mills and “The Tragedy of Macbeth” from Joel Coen.On the adapted screenplay side, notable awards contenders that were ineligible included “Benedetta” (IFC Films), “Cyrano” (MGM/United Artists Releasing), “Drive My Car” (Janus Films/Sideshow), “The Lost Daughter” (Netflix), “Passing” (Netflix), “The Power of the Dog” (Netflix), “Spider-Man: No Way Home” (Sony Pictures) and “Zola” (A24).

Because the WGA created its award to be a prize for its members and those who write under its jurisdiction, a Writers Guild nomination is a less accurate predictor of Oscar success than noms from the other three major Hollywood guilds, the Screen Actors Guild, Producers Guild and Directors Guild.WGA rules restrict eligibility to screenplays that were written under the guild’s Minimum Basic Agreement or under a collective bargaining agreement from one of 11 affiliate guilds around the world. As usual, that rule disqualified a number of top screenplays this year, including “The Power of the Dog,” “Cyrano,” “Passing,” “The Lost Daughter,” “Drive My Car” and “Spider-Man: No Way Home” in the adapted-screenplay category and “Belfast,” “A Hero,” “The Hand of God,” “Parallel Mothers” and “Prayers for the Stolen” in original screenplay.“Belfast,” “The Power of the Dog” and “The Lost Daughter” in particular are strong favorites for Oscar nominations.In the documentary category, only three screenplays were nominated: “Being Cousteau,” “Exposing Muybridge” and “Like a Rolling Stone: The Life and Times of Ben Fong-Torres.”Winners will be announced at the WGA Awards on March 20, one week before the Oscars.The nominations: ORIGINAL SCREENPLAYBeing the Ricardos, Written by Aaron Sorkin;Amazon StudiosDon’t Look Up, Screenplay by Adam McKay, Story by Adam McKay & David Sirota; NetflixThe French Dispatch of the Liberty, Kansas Evening Sun, Screenplay by Wes Anderson, Story by Wes Anderson & Roman Coppola & Hugo Guinness & Jason Schwartzman;Searchlight PicturesKing Richard, Written by Zach Baylin; Warner Bros.

“Belfast,” “Dune,” “King Richard,” “No Time to Die” and “The Power of the Dog” have been nominated as the best dramatic film editing of 2021 by the American Cinema Editors, which announced the nominees for the 72nd annual ACE Eddie Awards on Thursday.Those five films will compete in the Best Edited Feature Film (Dramatic) category, while the field in Best Edited Feature Film (Comedy) will consist of “Cruella,” “Don’t Look Up,” “The French Dispatch,” “Licorice Pizza” and “tick, tick…BOOM!”The most surprising omission was probably “West Side Story,” while ACE Eddie voters also bypassed “Nightmare Alley,” “CODA” and “Spider-Man: No Way Home.”Nominations for the editing of animated features went to the same five animated films that have also been nominated by the Cinema Audio Society, Motion Picture Sound Editors, Visual Effects Society and Art Directors Guild: “Encanto,” “Luca,” “The Mitchells vs. the Machines,” “Raya and the Last Dragon” and “Sing 2.”In the television categories, “Kevin Can F**k Himself” received three nominations to sweep the Best Edited Multi-Camera Comedy Series category, while “Curb Your Enthusiasm,” “Ted Lasso,” “Succession,” “Mare of Easttown” and “The White Lotus” each received two.The nominations were announced on a day that will also see nomination announcements from the Producers Guild, Directors Guild and Writers Guild, capping a wild four-day blitz in which 10 different guilds or professional societies announced their nominations.

The Costume Designers Guild on Wednesday revealed nominees for its 24th annual CDG Awards, recognizing excellence in the craft across eight film, TV and short-form categories. The guild also said its winners will be announced at an in-person ceremony March 9 at The Broad Stage in Santa Monica.

Rebecca Rubin Film and Media ReporterAdd another notch on “Spider-Man: No Way Home’s” long list of box office achievements.Over the weekend, Sony’s comic book adventure became the sixth-highest grossing movie in history with $1.69 billion at the global box office (not adjusted for inflation). It passed “Jurassic World” ($1.67 billion) and “The Lion King” ($1.66 billion) to secure that spot.Now in its sixth weekend of release, “Spider-Man: No Way Home” returned to the No.