Controversial goth-rocker Marilyn Manson is planning to direct and star in a movie about the life of beloved children's author Lewis Carroll, according to Production Weekly on Wednesday. The movie, Phantasmagoria -- The Visions of Lewis Carroll, will see Manson, 37, play the author of Alice in Wonderland and tie Lewis' life into his famous poem, Phantasmagoria. Manson wrote the script with Anthony Silva and will score the music for the film, and is hoping to persuade Angelina Jolie to play the Red Queen. Production is scheduled to begin this summer.
Oscar voters took the lead from bored movie-goers when picking the nominees for this year, shunning studio blockbusters in favor of small-budget films that tackle thorny topics from gay love to race tensions. Following a year of falling cinema ticket sales, only two big-budget movies from Hollywood's powerful studios featured among the six most-nominated films for the 78th annual Academy Awards when contenders were unveiled Tuesday.
Unmoved by flashy special effects and big productions, the 5,856 Oscar voters picked thoughtful, low-budget movies led by gay cowboy tale Brokeback Mountain with eight nods, the race drama Crash, (six nods) the political film Good Night, and Good Luck (six) and the biopic Capote (five).
"When you look at 2005, which overflowed with remakes and sequels, I think that the Academy recognized that the best films came from independent filmmakers not the big studios," said Gitesh Pandya of Boxofficeguru.com.
Only Sony Pictures' Geisha, from Oscar-winning Chicago director Rob Marshall, and Universal's Munich by Steven Spielberg featured in the six most-nominated movies of 2005, scoring six and five nods respectively.
Peter Jackson's epic US$200-million-remake of King Kong was shut out of the major categories, managing only four nods, while Oscar-winner Ron Howard's boxing tale Cinderella Man, also from Universal Studios, got three. "I think this shows a growing divide between the expensive Hollywood films, which make a lot of money, and the artistic lower budget films which are made more from quality," Pandya said.
Japanese filmgoers cooled to Hollywood last year, sending box office revenue down, but domestic productions drew more interest led by animation maestro Hayao Miyazaki's latest, an industry association said. Revenue at the world's second biggest box office slipped 6 percent to US$1.7 billion last year from record-high revenue in 2004, according to Motion Picture Producers Association of Japan.
"US films slumped a bit last year," Isao Matsuoka, chairman of the association, told a press conference this week. "Most of the US films drew smaller audiences than expected, except for Charlie and the Chocolate Factory," he said.
Revenue from Japanese films grew 3.4 percent to US$699 million dollars thanks to animation legend Hayao Miyazaki's fantasy Howl's Moving Castle.
By contrast, foreign films dipped 11.7 percent to US$995
million last year with only Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire doing really well. Among foreign films, Star Wars: Episode III -- Revenge of the Sith ranked second, War of the Worlds came in third and Charlie and the Chocolate Factory surpassed expectations by coming in fourth.
Hollywood movie giant Paramount Pictures has finalized its US$1.6 billion purchase of rival DreamWorks SKG, makers of such hits as Shrek and Madagascar, Paramount said on Wednesday. Under the deal, announced in December, the Viacom Inc unit Paramount would acquire DreamWorks studios for the sum that would include cash and the purchase of Dreamworks' debt.
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