Yahoo Lifestyle International Insider: Berlin Begins; Farrell’s Farewell From Amazon MGM; JioHotstar Debuts
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Berlin Begins
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Straight to a snowy Berlin, where Zac has this report…
Tilda’s the talk of the town: The Berlin Film Festival kicked off Thursday evening with a brief ceremony that, despite all its German sensibility, belonged to Scottish actor Tilda Swinton. The Oscar winner was in town to receive the festival’s achievement award, and she gave a rousing speech touching on global politics. “The inhumane is being perpetrated on our watch,” she bellowed from the stage, before taking a swipe at Donald Trump in her rebuke of “efforts of occupation, colonization, takeover, ownership or the development of Riviera property.” The growing dominance of streamers should “encourage them to spend a large chunk of their squillions on building renovating and enlivening cinema theaters in every territory they reach,” Swinton pleaded later, as she turned her attention to the current industry landscape. The speech was a hit with the Berlinale audience, which is a credit to Swinton’s dynamism. She’s an actor who is almost always on the festival circuit and who picks up this kind of award multiple times a year, but has remained an engaged and principled artist. Berlinale jury head Todd Haynes — who himself laid out a few political views yesterday — called her a “visionary.” This morning, Swinton revealed she won’t film any more movies this year and is instead planning an extended break at her home in Scotland. The opening night ended with a screening of the festival’s opening film, Tom Tykwer’s The Light, which our reviewer Stephanie Bunbury described as a “farrago of nonsense.” Great use of ‘farrago.’ There’s been lots more happening in the snowy German capital, including politics on the red carpet and plenty of packages for your perusal. Follow our Berlin and EFM coverage here and here, and our growing list of reviews here.
Farrell’s Farewell
Amazoff: In the executive world, the big news this week was Max and Stewart’s scoop revealing the exit of Amazon MGM Studios’ main man on the international front, James Farrell. Having been with Prime Video for a decade and been Head of International Originals since 2018, he is the exec who has given the ultimate greenlight to huge hits including Clarkson’s Farm, Maxton Hall – The World Between Us and romcom movie hit Culpa Tuya, whose UK spin-off, My Fault, launched this week (we spoke to its directors ahead of Valentine’s Day today). Under his leadership, Amazon has grown to around 150 original TV shows and films per year from 17 offices around the world. His exit was confirmed in a note to staff, in which he couldn’t help slipping into management speak, noting he would be taking his favorite “leadership principle” — ‘Bias for Action’ — to his new business, a young adult-focused production business. Given his success, we can forgive it. The news came a week after our stateside colleague Anthony D’Alessandro ran a story noting Amazon MGM is eyeing a theatrical distribution arm that would launch early next year, with Amazon renewing its interest in theatrical windows after buying MGM in 2022 for $8.5B. Perhaps Amazon MGM Studios having full hold on the global distribution of a future 007 movie would assuage some of the concerns of James Bond super-producer Barbara Broccoli, Anthony wrote.
Jio Politics
Star attraction: Today in India, a new streaming service hits the market with the ever-so-small ambition to “light up a billion screens.” JioHotstar is the merged JioCinema and Disney Hotstar+ service that has come out of the deal that tied Reliance Industries’ media assets and Disney India’s operation together. I sat down (digitally) with the three CEOs leading its introduction — Kiran Mani, Kevin Vaz and Sanjog Gupta — and heard about the plan to establish the streamer. JioHotstar’s library is huge: Indian shows from the Viacom18 and Star India channels, Disney+ Hotstar originals, JioCinema’s IPL cricket rights and U.S. studio fare (Vaz believes it is the only service in the world with rights to all the studios’ content). Almost everything is being dubbed into multiple Indian languages, and there is a desire to see the service transcend Indian borders. However, as digital chief Mani notes, all this doesn’t come cheap. “This is an industry in which reputation size means little. Resonance, relevance and making sure that we are part of everyday life means everything… At our scale, we can’t afford to fail,” he says. Let’s see how many of those billion screens light up.
“We Insist You Cease-And-Desist“
Picking through Pikes palaver: A few weeks back, Zac broke the news of a feature film based on the life of Ibiza hotelier Tony Pike, one of the Balearic Islands’ most storied sons. The pic, Mr Pikes, produced by High Fliers Films, would look at the hedonistic happenings at his San Antonio guest house, where 1990s celebrities would gather to party away from the peering lenses of the paparazzi and where Wham! shot the video for ‘Club Tropicana’ (the drinks were free, and there was enough for everyone, remember?). Soon after our initial scoop, a murky picture emerged as Zac and I learned that the publisher and co-writer of Pike’s autobiography, ‘Mr Pikes: The Story Behind the Ibiza Legend’ had written a cease-and-desist letter, claiming the film was passing itself off as being based on the book. Mr Pikes writers Irvine Welsh and Dean Cavanagh had been involved in a previous incarnation of the film that was developed from the book while under option with Layer Cake actor Tamer Hassan. With that option now expired and the rights with a different unnamed production company, the contention is High Fliers’ film would unfairly use material from the bio. High Flies denied the assertion, saying its film is based off of independent research. Not a situation that Pike, who passed away from cancer in 2019, would likely have thought deserves a party. Read on for more.
Canal+ In The Spotlight
Marshland: Diana bagged an Interview of the Week candidate, tying down Studiocanal and Canal+ Deputy CEO Anna Marsh for a wide-ranging conversation at the company’s Paris headquarters spanning everything from Paddington‘s future to the ongoing quest to buy African broadcast and streaming giant MultiChoice. Marsh addressed Canal+’s recent listing on the UK stock market, an unusual move for a French media company, calling it a “great opportunity.” Despite the IPO not quite going according to plan — its initial value of £2.5B ($3.1B) was well below the £5.7B value parent Vivendi had hoped for — Canal+ remains one of Europe’s most important legacy players, with French media mogul Vincent Bolloré’s every move under scrutiny in his home country. Marsh also discussed the controversial recent media chronology deal Disney+ signed to bring down the current theatrical window of 17 months to just nine in exchange for content commitments. Her boss, Maxime Saada, has been heavily critical of the move given that Canal+ now pays a lot more for seemingly a lot less. More on that and plenty else can be found here.
The Essentials
🌶️ Hot One: Catherine Zeta-Jones will star in a TV adaptation of Aidan Truhen’s “gonzo thriller” The Price You Pay for Prime Video, Fremantle and Steel Springs Pictures.
🌶️ More fire: Bill Nighy is close to boarding BBC series Clifftops from The English writer Hugo Blick, Jake revealed.
🌶️ Very Hot: Stewart was first with the news Sam Mendes’ documentary directorial debut would be a BBC doc about the liberation of the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp.
🌶️ Even more spice: Moritz Binder, Oscar-nominated screenwriter of September 5, has linked with director Alireza Golafshan on AI-themed courtroom drama Zoma, Mel reported exclusively.
🪖 Waugh story: Andreas had the scoop on a Ric Roman Waugh action pic starring everyone’s favorite British punch master, Jason Statham.
🌍 Globie: Gaelic-language drama series The Island was our Global Breakout this week.
⚠️ Exiting: Colin From Accounts commissioner Alison Hurbert-Burns from Australia’s Foxtel Group.
🍝 Saucey: ITV drama commissioner Helen Ziegler left the UK network for new Sony label Hot Sauce.
🪓 Breaking Baz: Our man with the best little black book in the biz first sat down with Ralph Fiennes and followed up with an Anthony Mackie interview.
⛺ Fest: Series Mania will welcome the likes of Amanda Seyfried, Pamela Adlon, James Norton and Sally Wainwright.
🤏 Feeling the pinch: Jake reported on the “austerity” era in UK drama series financing.
🍿 Box office: Ne Zha 2‘s box office blitz in China took it near $1.4B and into third place in all-time gross for an animated film.
🖋️ Signed: Finding Ola and Four Daughters star Hend Sabry in the MENA region. CAA continues to rep the Netflix actress internationally.
👀 First look deals: In Europe, where Spain’s Secuoya Studios teamed with the UK’s Blackbox Multimedia, and in Brazil, where Diosual Entertainment and Medialand Production pacted for true-crime content.
👀 First look image: At Russell Crowe’s martial-arts actioner Beast in Me, currently shooting in Australia and Thailand.
This week’s International Insider was written by Jesse Whittock and edited by Max Goldbart. Zac Ntim contributed.
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