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Weekend Box Office: 'The Croods' Notches Best Animated Opening Since November

  • By Gabe Toro
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  • March 24, 2013 11:33 AM
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  • 0 Comments
Box Office
Normally, we’re besieged by animated fare during all months, but not so far in 2013. The only animated film of the year thus far was “Escape From Planet Earth,” a production from The Weinstein Company that was treated like a last minute dump, posting numbers that only counted as a hit compared to the film’s small budget and meager ad campaign. Before that, DreamWorks kept “Rise of the Guardians” active in over 3,000 sparsely-attended engagements, though over the holidays it seemed kids would rather toss snowballs around than watch a weirdly oppressive, vaguely non-denominational holiday movie. Which meant that all Fox had to do was not embarrass themselves with “The Croods,” supplying the kids market with a 3D diversion that stands as the second biggest opening of the year, far ahead of the middling 'Guardians' debut.
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More: Weekend Box-Office, The Croods, Olympus Has Fallen, Gerard Butler, Oz The Great And Powerful, DreamWorks Animation, FilmDistrict, Admission, James Franco, Spring Breakers, Megan Ellison

Harmony Korine May Direct A Southern Crime Family Tale Next; Is Developing Projects With Annapurna Pictures

  • By Rodrigo Perez
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  • March 18, 2013 8:09 PM
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  • 1 Comment
News
Harmony Korine's "Spring Breakers" is a hit in limited release. In fact, the girls gone wild meets Korine's enfante terrible aesthetics flick, posted the biggest limited release of 2013 thus far — a per-theater average $90,000 making it the the 10th-highest average ever for a live-action film in limited release. Not too shabby. And while 'Breakers' opens in wide release this weekend via A24 pictures, Korine is already shoring up his next project.
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More: Harmony Korine, Spring Breakers, Annapurna Pictures, Megan Ellison

Watch: Annapurna Pictures Sizzle Reel Celebrates 'The Master,' 'Zero Dark Thirty,' 'Lawless' & More

  • By Ken Guidry
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  • February 26, 2013 9:17 AM
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  • 6 Comments
News
With the Oscars over, it looks like we are finally ready to stop talking about last year’s movies and keep our focus entirely on this year’s crop of films. Well, most of us are ready to do that. Annapurna Pictures has posted a nifty little sizzle reel on their site showcasing the collection of challenging adult dramas that they’ve released and/or have been involved with over the past year. This includes clips from "Lawless," "The Master," "Zero Dark Thirty," "Killing Them Softly," "Spring Breakers" (premiered in Venice last summer) and "The Grandmaster" (premiered in Berlin a few weeks ago), with the latter two set to be released theatrically this year. The reel is a must watch for fans of any or all of these films.
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More: Annapurna Pictures, The Master, Zero Dark Thirty, Killing Them Softly, Spring Breakers, The Grandmaster, Lawless, Megan Ellison

Megan Ellison Hates Harvey Weinstein & More: 7 Highlights From The Juicy Vanity Fair Profile On The Annapurna Scion

  • By Edward Davis
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  • February 1, 2013 10:00 AM
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  • 33 Comments
News
Vanity Fair’s 2013 Hollywood issue is kind of the gift that keeps on giving. It not only has an awesome oral history of “Pulp Fiction” (highlights of which you can read here), but it also has some pretty in-depth and juicy profiles. But, the most tantalizing is about Megan Ellison, the 27-year old daughter of the third richest man in the U.S. She’s rumored to have been given a bankroll as large as $2 billion from her Dad on her 25th birthday (though her reps deny the figure), with the movie buff using the amount to help bankroll her slate of films.
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More: Megan Ellison, Annapurna Pictures, Andrew Dominik, Blonde, Harvey Weinstein, The Master, Bennett Miller, Side Effects, Steven Soderbergh, David O. Russell, Killing Them Softly

Folks Behind 'Avatar' & 'Drive Angry' Teaming To Write Megan Ellison's New 'Terminator' Movie

  • By Kevin Jagernauth
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  • January 17, 2013 1:58 PM
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  • 1 Comment
News
While Megan Ellison has made her name on working with auteurs like Paul Thomas Anderson, Harmony Korine and Kathryn Bigelow, she's got blockbuster aspirations. Way back in the spring of 2011, she snapped up the rights to the "The Terminator" franchise, and while there has been plenty of speculation and rumor, there hasn't been much in the way of action. But last month, movement began with her brother David Ellison of Skydance ("Mission: Impossible - Ghost Protocol," "Jack Reacher," "Star Trek Into Darkness") teaming up with her on "The Terminator," and now the project is taking on some fresh blood.
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More: Terminator 5, Megan Ellison, James Cameron, Laeta Kalogridis, Patrick Lussier

Megan Ellison Teams With David Ellison To Bring The Terminator Back To The Big Screen

  • By Cain Rodriguez
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  • December 4, 2012 10:52 AM
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  • 0 Comments
News
Well, this isn’t much of a shocking development. In a surprise move last year, our favorite billionaire producer Megan Ellison -- earning fans of arthouse fare by getting behind recent pictures by Paul Thomas Anderson, Andrew Dominik, John Hillcoat, Kathryn Bigelow and Harmony Korine -- won the rights to the very high-in-demand "The Terminator" franchise. It's certainly a bit out of step with her more auteur-driven leanings, but now it seems she’s drafting the help of her brother, David Ellison, who has worked exclusively on the tentpole side of things (“Mission: Impossible - Ghost Protocol,” “Jack Reacher,” “Star Trek Into The Darkness,” and “G.I. Joe: Retaliation”).
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More: Terminator 5, Megan Ellison, David Ellison

Megan Ellison One-Ups Sly Stallone, Guarantees An R-Rating For Next 'Terminator' Film

  • By Gabe Toro
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  • January 27, 2012 8:59 AM
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  • 7 Comments
News
Let's face it. Even if you weren't a fan of the first "Expendables" film, the normally fan-friendly Sylvester Stallone spit in the face of his fans, declaring "Expendables 2" a PG-13 affair, putting commerce before...we don't want to say art, but integrity sure fits. In a media age where there are entire blocks of channels dedicated to 24/7 children's, tween and teen programming, surely there was space for another R-rated action film. Action films provide thrills for all ages, but explosions, violence, and teeth-shattering carnage are best appreciated by adults that have lived a little, that have been places, garnered accomplishments. Perhaps those who are over seventeen. Megan Ellison knows what we're talking about.
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More: Megan Ellison, Arnold Schwarzenegger

Exclusive: Blake Lively, Jude Law & Channing Tatum Will Lead Steven Soderbergh's 'The Side Effects'

  • By Oliver Lyttelton
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  • January 9, 2012 11:38 AM
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  • 28 Comments
News
We're a couple of weeks away from the arrival of the actioner "Haywire," the first of two Steven Soderbergh films getting released this year (to be followed by male stripper drama "Magic Mike" in the summer), but with the director's retirement/hiatus from filmmaking looming, he's not hanging around.
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More: Side Effects, Steven Soderbergh, Blake Lively, Channing Tatum, Jude Law, Megan Ellison

Acclaimed Music Video Director Chris Milk To Helm 'Bitterroot' Produced By Gore Verbinski

  • By Kevin Jagernauth
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  • October 28, 2011 1:17 AM
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  • 0 Comments
Megan Ellison's Annapurna Pictures To FinanceIt seems acclaimed music video director Chris Milk has found a new best bud in everyone's favorite young, billionaire movie producer/financier Megan Ellison. Earlier in the month it was announced the pair were teaming on an ambitious film adaptation of the album Rome, a record that teamed Gnarls Barkley/Beck producer Danger Mouse and Italian composer Daniele Luppi on an album of spaghetti Western homages. But it looks like he's going to get something a bit less high concept for his first crack at a feature film.
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More: Films, Producers, Gore Verbinski, Chris Milk, Megan Ellison

Arcade Fire Video Director Chris Milk & Megan Ellison To Turn Danger Mouse Album 'Rome' Into Movie

  • By Oliver Lyttelton
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  • October 5, 2011 1:45 AM
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  • 0 Comments
With music videos being the background of filmmakers as disparate as Spike Jonze and Michael Bay, it's always worth keeping an eye on who's coming up in that world, and a few months ago, we picked five who seemed the most likely to break out. One was Chris Milk, an artist who's combined more traditional clips for people like Kanye West and Modest Mouse with boundary-pushing interactive videos. That Arcade Fire clip from last year, the Google Chrome one for "We Used To Wait," where it showed your childhood home on Google Maps? That was him.
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More: Films, Musicians, Producers, Chris Milk, Rome, Danger Mouse, Megan Ellison, The Reapers Saw The Angels

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