The threat of an actors' strike in the months ahead has put movie studios in a tenuous situation. Filmmakers are reluctant to launch any production that cannot be completed before the expiration of the Screen Actors Guild's (SAG) major film and TV contract ends on June 30.
"The studios for the most part are not greenlighting any movies that would have to be in production after that (June 30) deadline," said an insider at one leading talent agency.
Labor jitters have even prompted Hollywood's leading insurance carrier, Fireman's Fund Insurance Co, to offer a first-of-its-kind "strike expense" policy for studios.
PHOTO: AP
In light of strike concerns, Steven Spielberg has called off the April start to a DreamWorks film about the trial of the 1968 anti-war activists, the Chicago Seven, according to Variety.
Michael Bay, director of Transformers, is keeping his fingers crossed as he sticks to an early June start date for a sequel to the movie.
India's Supreme Court on Tuesday lifted state bans on the screening of Jodhaa Akbar, a blockbuster film about the love between a Muslim emperor and his Hindu wife.
Several states last month prohibited cinemas from showing the film after it sparked protests by Hindu Rajputs - a traditional warrior caste - against a "wrong interpretation" of history.
But the court lifted the bans until March 14, when a hearing will receive a petition from the Bollywood film's producers, who say the protests have cost them heavy losses.
Cinemas in western Rajasthan state were the first to refuse to screen the film after threats came from the Rajput community, which says it is grossly inaccurate.
The film - one of the most expensive Bollywood productions with an estimated budget of US$10 million - depicts a romance between the 16th-century Mughal ruler Akbar and Rajput princess Jodha Bai.
Former Miss World Aishwarya Rai portrays Jodha while Akbar is played by Bollywood heartthrob Hrithik Roshan.
In Hollywood, some insiders are scratching their heads over comments by French Oscar winner Marion Cotillard.
"I think we're lied to about a lot of things," Cotillard said during a television program first broadcast last year, which has resurfaced on the Internet.
The actress, who picked up her award for playing Edith Piaf in the French film La Vie en Rose, cited the attacks on New York and Washington in 2001 as one example, adding: "I tend to believe in the conspiracy theory."
Cotillard's lawyer Vincent Toledano said she had "never intended to contest nor question the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, and regrets the way old remarks have been taken out of context."
Paul Raymond, the porn baron and multi-millionaire property developer credited with staging the first live striptease show in London, has died, his company said Monday. He was 82.
Raymond, who amassed an estimated US$1.2 billion fortune, was once dubbed the "King of Soho" for his businesses, including Raymond's Revue Bar, in the London nightlife district.
His stable of top-shelf magazines, overseen by his company, the Paul Raymond Organisation, included Razzle, Men's World and Mayfair. Born Geoffrey Anthony Quinn, the son of a haulage contractor, Raymond left school at 15 vowing to make his name in show business. He started out with a mind-reading act, before becoming producer for a touring vaudeville show.
For many commentators he brought erotica into the mainstream, hosting a ground-breaking live striptease in 1958, before going on to make a vast fortune by buying and developing property in Soho and west London.
He was also described as a British version of Playboy founder Hugh Heffner in the US.
Bienvenue Chez les Ch'tis (Welcome to the Land of the Ch'tis), a French comedy mocking national stereotypes about the country's north, usually depicted as a bleak, depressed land of beer-swilling brutes, looks set to be the movie of the year in France after smashing box office records.
Released last Wednesday, it has already overtaken France's most costly film ever, Asterix at the Olympic Games, which came out in January.
Films and novels about the area, which is a stark contrast to the glamour of Paris or the sunny mountains and coast of the Riviera, often feature coal mining, unemployment, rain or heavy drinking.
This grim social realist tradition can be traced back to the 19th-century writer Emile Zola and his bleak mining novel Germinal.
But Bienvenue Chez les Ch'tis, written and directed by comedian Danny Boon, a Ch'ti himself who also stars in the movie, satirizes the prejudices about the area to reveal the warmth and big hearts of its people.
My friends and I have been enjoying the last two weeks of revelation after revelation of the financial and legal shenanigans of Taiwan People’s Party (TPP) head and recent presidential candidate Ko Wen-je (柯文哲). Every day brings fresh news — allegations that a building had purchased with party subsidies but listed in Ko’s name, allegations of downloading party subsidy funds into his personal accounts. Ko’s call last December for the regulations for the government’s special budgets to be amended to enforce fiscal discipline, and his September unveiling of his party’s anti-corruption plan, have now taken on a certain delightful irony.
The number of scandals and setbacks hitting the Taiwan People’s Party (TPP) in such quick and daily succession in the last few weeks is unprecedented, at least in the countries whose politics I am familiar with. The local media is covering this train wreck on an almost hourly basis, which in the latest news saw party chair Ko Wen-je (柯文哲) detained by prosecutors on Friday and released without bail yesterday. The number of links collected to produce these detailed columns may reach 400 by the time this hits the streets. To get up to speed, two columns have been written: “Donovan’s
President William Lai’s (賴清德) vision for Taiwan to become an “AI island” has three conditions: constructing advanced data centers, ensuring a stable and green energy supply, and cultivating AI talent. However, the energy issue supply is the greatest challenge. To clarify, let’s reframe the problem in terms of the Olympics. Given Taiwan’s OEM (original equipment manufacturer) roles in the technology sector, Taiwan is not an athlete in the AI Olympics, or even a trainer, but rather a training ground for global AI athletes (AI companies). In other words, Taiwan’s semiconductor ecosystem provides world-class training facilities and equipment that have already attracted
Despite her well-paying tech job, Li Daijing didn’t hesitate when her cousin asked for help running a restaurant in Mexico City. She packed up and left China for the Mexican capital last year, with dreams of a new adventure. The 30-year-old woman from Chengdu, the Sichuan provincial capital, hopes one day to start an online business importing furniture from her home country. “I want more,” Li said. “I want to be a strong woman. I want independence.” Li is among a new wave of Chinese migrants who are leaving their country in search of opportunities, more freedom or better financial prospects at a