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Kiah Roache-Turner directed film wraps production in Sydney.

Kiah Roache-Turner’s Sting has wrapped filming in Sydney, Australia, with Studiocanal picking up the title for release in the UK, Australia, New Zealand, France, Germany, Switzerland and Benelux.

Additional deals include Lucky Red (Italy), Diamond Films, Nordisk (Scandinavia), Kinoswiat (Poland), Pasatiempo Pictures, Karantanija (ex-Yugoslavia), Italia (Middle East), Filmfinity (South Africa) and Terry Steiner International (airlines).

The UK’s Cornerstone Films represents world sales.

The film centres on a 12-year-old girl living in New York who forms a bond with a strange spider. As her fascination with Sting the spider increases, so does the spider’s size.

If “Bullet Train” is one of the worst movies that Brad Pitt has ever starred in — better than “Troy,” but a hair short of “The Mexican” — this big shiny nothing of a blockbuster is also a remarkable testament to the actor’s batting average over the last 30 years, and some of the best evidence we have as to why he’s been synonymous with the movies themselves for that entire time. Because that’s the thing about movie stars, and why the last of them still matter in a franchise-mad world where characters tend to be more famous than the people who play them on-screen: They often get minted in good films, but they always get proven in bad ones.

“Bullet Train” is not a good film, but Pitt is having a truly palpable amount of fun in it, and the energy that radiates off of him as he fights...

After Kellie Madison released the proof of concept short The Gate, the high octane film became a viral sensation with 4 million views and it got her the job directing Never Back Down: Revolt, a low budget action film back by Sony Pictures Home Entertainment that got released recently.

With that film under her belt, Madison is hoping to make the leap to direct the feature version of the short that put her on the map. Briarcliff Entertainment’s Tom Ortenberg is taking the concept out to financiers. The short stars Captain America: The Winter Soldier’s Amy Johnston and The Raid 2’s Cecep Arif in a violent struggle by a young woman to save her suicidal sister, whose soul is about to be captured by an unsavory Indonesian crime boss. It leads to a larger adventure to find a pathway to ultimate power, called The Gate.

Madison, who previously directed The Tank,...

Exclusive: Kellie Madison (Never Back Down: Revolt) has signed on to direct a supernatural action thriller, centered on a geothermic explosion inside the ruins of Pompeii, for Pressman Film.

The script for the as-yet untitled feature will be penned by Kalen Egan and Travis Sentell (Electric Dreams). Edward R. Pressman and Kelly McKee of Pressman Film are on board to produce along with veteran Korean producer Lewis Taewan Kim. Korean VFX company Westworld will co-produce, with Jihyun Kim (Train to Busan) leading creature design and concept artwork.

“I’ve been a fan of Pressman Film since the original Bad Lieutenant. I’m so excited to be collaborating with them to create something really special and unique,” said Madison. “The type of hybrid production team we are putting together has never been done before.

Just hours after the nominations for the Golden Globe Awards, the Writers Guild of America, West and Writers Guild of America, East announced the latest batch of nominees for the upcoming WGA Awards, including honorees from television, new media, and news.

AMC’s “Better Call Saul” nabbed four nominations, one in drama series and three in episodic drama, which recognizes scripts from individual episodes of the season. Of particular note from today’s WGA announcement is the notable achievement of both Apple TV+’s “Ted Lasso” and Hulu’s “The Great” scoring nominations in both new series and comedy series. Both freshman shows also earned a nomination apiece in episodic comedy.

All the nominees will be celebrated at the joint 2021 Writers Guild Awards virtual ceremony, taking place on Sunday, March 21, 2021.

A partial list of nominees is below. A complete list of today’s nominations, including categories for radio/audio and...

When it released Wonder Woman 1984 to its HBO Max servers in December, WarnerMedia made it abundantly clear that it was ready for a new era of movie distribution. Now, in its list of new releases for February 2021, Warner is attempting another grand experiment for HBO Max.

Judas and the Black Messiah premieres on HBO Max this Feb. 12 and is by every indication the kind of film that awards shows go gaga over. Both Daniel Kaluuya and and Lakeith Stanfield look to be at the top of their respective games in this story about Black Panther Party chairman Fred Hampton and the FBI that wants to take him down. Will this have the same rhetorical oomph on the small screen? Guess we’ll find out!

Read more Movies How Wonder Woman 1984’s Practical Effects Set it Apart By Delia Harrington Movies Why It’s Important that Themyscira Is Back...

Exclusive: Dolphin Entertainment has acquired Kellie Madison’s horror film script The Wall. Madison will direct. Tom Ortenberg will co-produce through his Briarcliff Entertainment banner.

The Wall tells the supernatural story of a young woman who is forced to unlock memories of a traumatic event after removing a mysterious painting from the wall of her rented apartment.

This adds to the development slate of Dolphin, the content creation arm of the company that owns 42West and The Door. Emerson Davis will oversee this film for Dolphin. Ortenberg started the production/distribution Briarcliff after exiting the distribution company he created, Open Road. He released such films as the Oscar-winning Spotlight, Monster’s Ball and Crash.

“Kellie Madison is a terrific new talent,” said Ortenberg, who is Briarcliff’s CEO. “The Wall is a smart and scary script that takes a familiar genre and turns it on its head.”

Said Dolphin Entertainment...

TheWrap has partnered with Canvs, the emotion measurement AI company, for a weekly look at some of the characters and personalities that have TV viewers the most worked up on social media. The data below covers Aug. 8-14 and is drawn from the most emotionally reacted-to television programs, including broadcast, cable, streaming and PPV.

A professional wrestler, the creator/star of HBO’s “Insecure” and a bachelor in paradise had viewers talking passionately on social media over the past seven days.

USA Network’s recent episode of “WWE Monday Night Raw” scored 46,235 Emotional Reactions (ERs), with professional wrestler Dean Ambrose driving a lot of the emotional conversation. This was his first appearance on WWE programming in months and viewers were psyched for his return. And, of course, there were the requisite comments about his physical appearance.

Seeing Dean Ambrose back on #Raw was the best part of the night!! Can't...

{Flying} Dutchman Written by Amiri Baraka Directed by Christopher-Rashee Stevenson Presented by Theatre of War at The Tank, NYC February 9-25, 2018

The 1964 play Dutchman was born from the pen of the prolific, impassioned, and often controversial Amiri Baraka, who died in 2014 after a nearly 50-year career as a playwright, poet, essayist, and activist. When Baraka wrote the play, he was still known as LeRoi Jones, but he would later change his name, hardening his commitment to revolutionary black nationalism. The 1970s would see his politics shift again, this time to Marxism, and he made forays into academia beginning in the 1980s and continued to publish new work right up until his death. Dutchman won an Obie award the year that it premiered, at New York City's Cherry Lane Theatre, and Theatre of War has revived this militant classic at the relocated and expanded The Tank, which serves emerging artists. This...

Pillowtalk Written and directed by Kyoung H. Park P resented by Kyoung's Pacific Beat at The Tank, NYC January 11-27, 2018

"Radical" may not the first descriptor that most people would instinctively assign to the word "love," but it is precisely that pairing, in its multiplicity of meanings, that lies at the heart of Pillowtalk, by Chilean-born Korean playwright Kyoung H. Park, whose company Kyoung's Pacific Beat dedicates itself to promoting a culture of peace and serving as a conduit for marginalized voices. Pillowtalk, making its world premiere at the recently relocated and expanded The Tank as part of the Exponential festival, which showcases NY-based artists, delves deeply, fearlessly, and often hilariously into the marital life of crusading Asian-American journalist Buck (Jp Moraga) and his African-American ex-athlete husband, Sam (Basit Shittu). Park, who also directs, provides the audience with a dramatic look at the specific relationship between two incisively drawn individuals...

Female filmmaker releases gritty “proof of concept” film The Gate. Hot off her most recent sci-fi/horror feature film The Tank, director Kellie Madison has just released a short film to serve as a ‘proof of concept’ for an intended dark action feature called The Gate. The movie stars Amy Johnson (Captain America: The Winter…

The post Watch Kellie Madison’s Ballistic Dark Action Short The Gate Now appeared first on Shock Till You Drop.

Who says Kathryn Bigelow is the only female director who can direct action? Kellie Madison, a writer and producer who moved up to directing with the Open Road thriller The Tank –a fact based story where six people entered an Isolated Confined Environment tank to simulate a trip to Mars that turned into a catastrophic failure—is out with a proof of concept video called The Gate, and hopes it will allow her to crack the ranks of hardcore action feature directors. The short…...

Ryan Kavanaugh’s embattled studio said on Wednesday it had closed a major equity financing deal with Michael Wexler and Tove Christensen’s Maple Leaf Films.

The parties said Maple Leaf Films will finance 75% of future Relativity Media films for each of the next five years.

“We are excited to have the support of Michael and Tove as we continue to identify, develop and produce ground-breaking films,” said a Relativity spokesperson.

“And we very much look forward to the opportunity to work alongside Maple Leaf on future projects. We value their creative perspective and their investment in Relativity.”

“Tove and I believe in the leadership and vision of Ryan, Dana [Brunetti, president of prpduction] and the Relativity team, and are proud to partner with them as they forge a new path forward creating formidable films,” said Wexler.

“We believe Ryan is assembling the right teams to take advantage of their existing infrastructure and position in the marketplace, both foreign...

Filmmaker Kellie Madison (“The Tank”) has taken to Kickstarter to crowdfund a TV series teaser pitch she’s directing and producing titled “The Gate,” which is a supernatural saga chronicling the epic battle between good and evil. After serving as Scarlett Johansson‘s stunt double in “Captain America: The Winter Soldier,” Amy Johnston stars as Cassie Weston, who as a child lived on the streets with her sister after their drug-addicted mother is killed by the leader of a Haitian voodoo cult. Cassie makes it her life’s mission to become a vigilante crime-fighter in order to rid the world of the evil.

Exclusive: Glacier Films backer and producer Vladimir Poliakov is launching a $100m fund to ramp up production at the year-old company.

The Russian businessman and Glacier’s Tove Christensen are in Cannes taking meetings to identify the next wave of productions.

Glacier launched at Cannes last year with Christensen and his brother Hayden Christensen, Sarik Andreasyan, Gevond Andreasyan, Georgy Malkov and Poliakov on board as partners.

In that time they have produced four features: Sundance premiere Cooties, which Lionsgate will release; the in-post duo of American Heist starring Christensen and Adrien Brody and Russian-language Lady Of Csejte; and horror The Tank, which is set up at Open Road and due to wrap in two weeks.

All four projects were part of a buyers presentation here hosted by Russian promotion agency Roskino and Poliakov’s Renovatio Entertainment.

Poliakov told ScreenDaily that the goal now was to create larger films with global appeal that would put Glacier on the...

Screen Daily just checked in with some news reporting that Brian O’Shea has struck a deal to handle international sales in Cannes on producer Steven Schneider’s horror film, The Tank, which Open Road will distribute in the U.S.

The Tank follows six test subjects placed in an isolation tank for a Mars mission simulation. Kellie Madison wrote the screenplay and makes her feature directorial debut.

Producing alongside Schneider are Glacier Films, the company that Hayden Christensen, Tove Christensen, Sarik Andreasyan, Gevond Andreasyan, Georgy Malkov, Vladimir Poliakov launched one year ago and is backed by Russia’s Renovatio.

“The Exchange is excited to work with an incredibly successful producer like Steven Schneider,” said O’Shea.

“The Tank is the kind of picture he specializes in. People better not stand in its way — The Tank is poised to charge up the box office charts.”

More on this one soon!

Exclusive: CEO Brian O’Shea has struck a deal to handle international sales in Cannes on producer Steven Schneider’s horror film, which Open Road will distribute in the Us.

The Tank follows six test subjects placed in an isolation tank for a Mars mission simulation. Kellie Madison wrote the screenplay and makes her feature directorial debut.

Producing alongside Schneider are Glacier Films, the company that Hayden Christensen (pictured), Tove Christensen, Sarik Andreasyan, Gevond Andreasyan, Georgy Malkov, Vladimir Poliakov launched one year ago and is backed by Russia’s Renovatio.

“The Exchange is excited to work with an incredibly successful producer like Steven Schneider,” said O’Shea.

“The Tank is the kind of picture he specialises in. People better not stand in its way — The Tank is poised to charge up the box office charts.”...

​Shock is getting word today that The Tank, a new film from Glacier Films, is getting a theatrical release from Open Road. Steven Schneider, of Paranormal Activity and the Insidious films, produced the film. The Tank is a horror film about six test subjects placed in an isolation chamber to simulate an extended space mission to Mars.

The post Open Road to Release The Tank from Paranormal Activity Producer appeared first on Shock Till You Drop.

The sequel to “Alice in Wonderland” has a casting director attached, Backstage has learned. Feature sequels are often cast by the same casting directors as the originals. But for "Through the Looking Glass," John Papsidera of Automatic Sweat, is set to take over casting duties from Susie Figgis, who worked on the 2010 feature based on Lewis Carroll's novel. "Looking Glass" will also have a new director, with James Bobin is set to succeed Tim Burton. Actors Johnny Depp and Mia Wasikowska, however, will reprise their roles as the Mad Hatter and Alice. Shooting begins July 14 in London. Meanwhile, Kellie Madison's upcoming feature, "The Tank," will be cast by Michael Hothorn. The thriller, which follows six people who enter an isolation tank designed to mimic the trip to Mars, will start shooting next month in Ohio.