As both a market and a launch-pad for fall titles, TIFF remains an essential barometer for indie film in terms of high-profile pictures, stars and distribution deals.

The 2008 edition of TIFF saw Summit Entertainment pay top dollar for Kathryn Bigelow’s “The Hurt Locker,” while Fox Searchlight snapped up Darren Aronofsky’s “The Wrestler,” with Mickey Rourke’s comeback performance, after a first-weekend bidding war.

To top it off, Danny Boyle’s “Slumdog Millionaire” picked up the 2008 People’s Choice Award in Toronto, voted on by festival audiences, after a world premiere here.

But TIFF, like rival festivals internationally, struggled last year as indie film buyers and sellers ran into a crisis-era market.

Bidding wars never emerged, and the only seven-figure deals were The Weinstein Company acquiring Tom Ford’s “A Single Man” and Sony Worldwide Acquisitions’ purchase of Canadian director Peter Stebbings’ “Defendor.”

Elsewhere, a slew of high-profile indie pics that came into Toronto without North American distribution deals went home empty-handed, and had to wait until after the festival, and especially to AFM, for reluctant distributors to finally pull the trigger on deals.

With Toronto now gearing up for a new Sept. 9 to 19 installment, hope springs anew among festival organizers that the industry gloom from the 2009 financial market meltdown may be lifting.

“The years of bidding wars are over,” cautioned Toronto festival director Piers Handling.

But deals will get done, Handling added, just not at the festival, with acquisition titles in Toronto more likely to sell in the weeks and months after the festival wraps.

“Every festival has noticed this: Sundance, Cannes, Toronto, where a lot of deals used to be done. It’s definitely a buyer’s market. Buyers can sit and wait for prices to come down, assess whether they actually want to invest the resources,” he said.

Toronto has made only its first programming announcements so far, with roughly 80% of its lineup still be unveiled in the coming weeks.

Festival co-director Cameron Bailey predicts roughly half of the festival’s 270 to 280 films this September will be eyeing U.S. distribution.

“There’s lots of acquisition titles coming in this year. Robert Redford’s ‘The Conspirator’ will come without a distributor, and that’s one all the buyers will be looking to see,” he said.

Other high-profile acquisition titles already announced for Toronto include Emilio Estevez’ “The Way,” a family drama that stars Martin Sheen, Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu’s “Biutiful,” which earned a best-actor prize for Javier Bardem at Cannes, and Barry Blaustein’s “Peep World.”

Whether these and other acquisition titles will get picked up in Toronto any faster than last year, Bailey is uncertain.

“It might be a little quicker this year, or that may just be the new reality. It’s hard to say,” he said of slow buying times in 2009.

Even when Toronto titles are bought, either before, during or after the festival, acquisition prices will be lower than might have been secured in better times.

“Advances are decreasing, so people are not getting as much money for their films,” Handling observed.

“Films that used to have bidding wars in the past, especially in the States because there’s only one or two key companies left, there’s a buyers market today. Whether that will continue for how many years, no one knows at this stage of the game,” he added.

Away from the market, even the Toronto festival will feel the cold wind of the studio and indie film downturn.

“Everyone is looking at their bottom line. They plan shorter stays at the festival. The parties will be toned down, or producers will hold smaller sit-down dinners,” Handling predicted.

But Toronto’s role in introducing Oscar contenders or fall titles remains strong, he adds.

“People still see this (festival) as an important launch-pad. If they have a film they want to launch in the fall, or for the awards season, there’s still lots of pressure to get those films to Toronto,” Handling said.

Source: The Hollywood Reporter

All shows take place at Amsterdam Brewery (21 Bathurst St., one block south of Front St. in Toronto).

To purchase tickets, or to see additional information on the organization, the films and the founders, visit openroomfilms.com.

Toronto-based Rogers on Tuesday saw second quarter earnings rise 13% to $464 million, against a profit of $374 million in 2009, as overall revenue climbed 5% to $3.02 billion, against a year-earlier $2.89 billion.

Wireless revenue was up 5% to $1.7 billion, while cable revenue rose 4% to $790 million.

The media giant pointed to continued revenue and subscriber growth “from efficiency gains” across wireless, cable and Internet businesses.

At the same time, Rogers signed up 119,000 new wireless phone customers during the latest financial quarter, against 142,000 in the year-earlier period, as sector competition heats up.

To fend off new market entrants, Rogers recently introduced a discount prepaid wireless brand, Chatr, with unlimited talk and text offerings.

Rogers also sliced bandwidth caps on cable broadband services for new customers to deal with the upcoming entry of Netflix into the Canadian online movie rental market.

Source: The Hollywood Reporter

Following a summer that has shown few flickers of life, this year’s TIFF, led by a Canadian entry, Barney’s Version, based on the late Mordecai Richler’s acclaimed novel, staring Paul Giamatti and Dustin Hoffman, should be a test of the audience appetite for quality film and, more than in the most years, a rehearsal for the Oscar race.

At a jammed news conference Tuesday near the almost-complete Bell Lightbox (TIFF’s new headquarters, set to open Sept. 12), TIFF co-director Piers Handling vowed the festival would continue its quest to find the “little gems” that often premiere in Toronto with no profile only to later find international acclaim.

“We take great pride in our international role,” Handling said Tuesday. “Last year, for example, the Argentinian film, The Secret in Their Eyes, came to our festival with no North American distribution. It was bought here, and subsequently won the Oscar for best foreign-language film, and is still running in Toronto cinemas after a three-month run. This role of discovery is central to our mission, and, no doubt, there will be similar stories this year.”

Fifty-one films were announced at the opening press conference Tuesday. The festival should see visits by such stars as Robert De Niro, Dustin Hoffman, Helen Mirren, Nicole Kidman, Javier Bardem, Marion Cotillard, Clive Owen, Colin Firth, Christopher Plummer, Ben Affleck, Hilary Swank, Christopher Plummer, and Natalie Portman. Major directors attached to the films on offer include Robert Redford, Michael Winterbottom, Woody Allen, François Ozon, Mike Leigh, Julian Schnabel, Stephen Frears and Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu.

Redford’s The Conspirator, about a young woman (Robin Wright) charged as a co-conspirator in the assassination trial of Abraham Lincoln, is among the most high-profile films to have its world premiere at TIFF. It also stars James McAvoy, Kevin Kline, and Evan Rachel Wood.

Mirren and Sam Worthington appear in John Madden’s The Debt, a thriller about three Israeli Mossad agents on a mission to capture a Nazi war criminal. Oscar-winner Cotillard headlines Guillaume Canet’s film, Little White Lies, about a group of friends forced to own up to the untruths they’ve been spinning about each other.

In Rabbit Hole, Kidman teams up with Aaron Eckhart to portray a couple devastated by the loss of their son. And in Beginners, with Ewan McGregor and Plummer, a son and father struggle to reaffirm their relationship after the elderly dad comes out of the closet.

With so many films in the festival (the remaining titles will dribble out through August), TIFF co-director Cameron Bailey said Tuesday that it is “always hard to pick and choose themes”.

“However, I think what we’re seeing is what we often do: filmmakers addressing the current issues in the world. Migration is a theme we’ve found in many films, and there are a lot of stories exploring tough family issues, particularly from American filmmakers. David Schwimmer’s film, Trust, is one that you’re going to want to see. It’s a very challenging film about what can happen inside a family.” It co-stars Owen and Catherine Keener.

Also in the lineup are Darren Aronofsky’s psychological thriller Black Swan, Affleck’s The Town (Jon Hamm, Blake Lively and Rebecca Hall), Andy De Emmony’s West Is West (the sequel to the acclaimed East Is East), Inarritu’s Biutiful (which won a best-actor prize for Bardem at Cannes), Rowan Joffe’s Brighton Rock (based on Graham Greene’s 1938 novel), Tony Goldwyn’s Conviction (with Swank and Sam Rockwell), Philip Seymour Hoffman’s Jack Goes Boating (Amy Ryan and John Ortiz), Schnabel’s Miral (about the establishment of an orphanage in Jerusalem in 1948), John Curran’s Stone (De Niro and Edward Norton), Frears’s Tamara Drewe (Jemma Arterton), Winterbottom’s The Trip (Steve Coogan and Rob Brydon) and Allen’s You Will Meet a Tall Dark Stranger (with an ensemble that includes Antonio Banderas, Josh Brolin, Anthony Hopkins and Naomi Watts).

Last year, many of the films that came to TIFF with no North American distribution also left without any, only to get picked up in the months immediately following the festival. This year, Bailey predicted “it might be a little quicker,” but added “[the slower buy time] may just be the new reality. It’s hard to say.”

Whereas in past years the festival has boasted a lineup of 300-plus films, the number has been pared down slightly this year to between 280 and 290, a move Bailey explained as designed to “make the festival a little more manageable for those attending.”

To commemorate the 35th anniversary of the festival, TIFF also announced it will be offering free public screenings of seminal films in the festival’s history (Road Kill, Water, Crash) at the 550-seat Cinema One in Bell Lightbox. The organizers also tacked an extra day (Sept. 19) onto the festival for rescreenings of popular films. TIFF kicks off Sept. 9.

Source: The Globe and Mail

So, too, does his “work ethic and maybe my blind stupidity of just putting your head down and pushing through it,” adds Gander, Nfld.-born Peyton, whose first big-budget movie, Cats & Dogs: The Revenge of Kitty Galore, opens Friday.

It’s quite a leap for a young producer-director probably best known to hip Canadian TV viewers as the creative force behind the darkly funny stop-motion claymation What It’s Like Being Alone, which ran on CBC in 2005. Its animated cast of freakish orphaned kids earned a loyal following.

Peyton spoke to the Star last week while visiting Toronto.

Q: Did you have to tone the darker elements of your sense of humour down to make a studio picture?

A: I showed the movie to a friend of mind and he said, “It’s very much a family movie but it’s very much you.” I have a dark sense of humour and they don’t want a whole lot of that in Cats & Dogs (he laughs). But when you have someone like Bette Midler as Kitty Galore on your side and she is going to these fun, dark places, then you have a partner in crime. I really liked working with Bette and I really liked the character of Kitty Galore — a hairless cat who accidentally fell into a vat of bikini cream. It’s ridiculous and a little twisted and that’s pretty much me.

Q: Did you do much writing on the movie?

A: I had input and worked with the screenwriters a lot. I feel as a director on a big movie you constantly work with them. When the actors come in to voice record, you want to give them some freedom. I don’t know if there’s one line from Bette that stayed the same. I also liked what Katt Williams (the comic who voices Seamus the Pigeon) did. It was just him being him. He made the stuff up. I’d shot the scene and then run the scene with their lines and you tweak it as you go.

Q: How did you get former James Bond Roger Moore to voice Tab Lazenby, the head of MEOWS?

A: We called him! That was a real moment of excitement. For me, Roger Moore was James Bond when I was growing up. My dad and I argued about who was Bond — he’d say Sean Connery and I’d say Roger Moore. I hadn’t seen him in a movie for a while and I love his voice and he agreed. For me, as a total movie nerd, I loved it.

Q: You’ve gone from small Canadian projects to helming a big-budget Hollywood movie. How did that happen?

A: It’s funny, everybody asks that. Is it that shocking? (He laughs.) I think most of it speaks more to my work ethic than anything else. I don’t feel I’m close to anywhere in my top form as a director and I want to just get better with everything. I took this project knowing it was going to challenge me every day and I was going to learn a lot about aspects of moviemaking I hadn’t done before, like animatronics and pyrotechnics … All I know how to do is go my hardest and give myself over to it fully, whether it’s an independent music video for a Toronto band, I’ll work as hard on that as I do a Warner Brothers movie. I don’t know how to do it any differently.

Q: You have another big movie in the works: a Journey to the Center of the Earth sequel. Brendan Fraser has left the franchise, Anything you can tell us about casting?`

A: We’re casting now, but I can tell you that Josh Hutcherson (The Kids Are All Right), who was 13 in the first movie, is now 17 and what we decided to do is for him to go out and have his own adventure. Which I could totally relate to when I was 17 in Gander.

Source: The Toronto Star

Gov. David Paterson has called Empire State lawmakers back to Albany for a 6 p.m. Wednesday special session that will interrupt the legislature’s summer break to approve the budget, which was supposed to be signed off on by April 1, as well as various other bills.

State lawmakers went on summer hiatus before the July 4 weekend, with the senate having failed to approve one key part of the budget bill.

Some senators are believed to plan to argue that the governor can’t force them back to Albany. Even if they show up, legislators could do so without voting on bills, which would put the state closer to a new record for a delayed budget.

In 2004, it took politicians in the state capital until Aug. 11 to finalize a budget.

The governor’s $136 billion budget proposal includes a revenue-generation section that calls for the continuation of a 30% tax credit for film and TV productions through 2014, with some fine-tuning of eligibility criteria designed to focus the benefits on state businesses.

The incentives, worth $2.1 billion over five years, would be larger than the one-time $350 million production-incentives allocation made last year that ended up being exhausted early this year. State politicians have cited the program’s job creation and tax-revenue benefits.

The proposed incentives also meets the industry’s demand for a longer-term commitment that many say is key to attracting film and especially TV shows.

“The state has lost hundreds of millions of dollars in tax money and thousands of jobs,” Silvercup Studios president Stuart Suna said. “Hopefully, the senate will recognize the importance of the tax credits and the budget for New Yorkers and pass them.”

New York had a disappointing TV pilot season this year, which New York Production Alliance executive director John Johnston attributed to the uncertain future of the tax incentives. The state usually get more than a dozen TV pilots each season (it had 20 in 2008), this season it only had four, according to the state film and TV office.

In addition, several indie films went to Michigan and other states.

One show, ABC’s “Body of Proof,” shot its pilot in Rhode Island but looked at New York and other states for a while until remaining in Rhode Island after that state renewed production incentives well ahead of New York.

Some productions are waiting to come to the Big Apple until the incentives situation is resolved.

“We also have a number of folks who have applied in anticipation to start filming in the fall,” a spokeswoman for the state film and TV commission said.

New York recently got an assist from neighboring New Jersey when the latter ended its production tax-credit program. As a result, the NBC series “Law & Order: SVU” moved to New York.

Source: The Hollywood Reporter

But now, with DVR penetration approaching 40%, according to Nielsen — and with more than 50% of ads skipped in DVR playback mode — some network executives acknowledge that they’re on-air promo efforts aren’t as effective as they once were.

So is it finally time for the broadcast networks to start promoting their offerings on one another’s air? It’s a thorny competitive issue that has stirred debate recently as the networks gear up to promote their fall 2010-11 program lineups.

Five years ago, the idea of the broadcast networks promoting their shows on rivals’ air would have been unthinkable. But now, at least one veteran TV audience analyst, Steve Sternberg, says the networks need to do it to remain competitively viable.

“If ABC could, for example, promote a new show on CBS, NBC and Fox at the same time, it would be like advertising on the Winter Olympics every night,” he said. “To simply ignore such a large group of potential viewers is ridiculous. Network ratings could easily go up by 10%-20% if they consistently promoted themselves on the other networks.”

But even while some network executives agree it might make sense in terms of reaching a broader audience, the technique isn’t likely to be embraced anytime soon, they said.

“From a marketing standpoint, I would love to do that,” said Rick Haskins, executive vp marketing at the CW. “But from a competitive standpoint, it raises a lot of issues. I’m not sure I’d love seeing a commercial for (CBS’) “Hawaii Five-0″ on CW. I think we’re a ways off from that.”

CBS marketing president George Schweitzer agreed. “I don’t see us selling time to ABC, NBC or Fox and vice versa,” he said.

Some other analysts take issue with Sternberg’s position. Don Seaman, vp-director of communications analysis at MPG, believes viewers would be confused after decades of conditioning to look for a new show solely on the network where they saw it promoted.

In the short term, networks are taking steps to enhance the power of on-air promos in the DVR era. For one, they’ve appropriated the last position in commercial pods for themselves. The position is less susceptible to skipping.

Haskins said the CW takes advantage of that by producing shorter on-air promos that direct viewers to the Web for more in-depth information. Indeed, with its younger audience, Haskins said the network uses up to 30% of its promo efforts online for some programs. “We’re making our on-air work harder to drive viewers online,” he said.

And most of the networks have started advertising on DVR platforms like TiVo. Tara Maitra, TiVo’s vp-GM of content services, said the company offers several kinds of program “tags.” One lets viewers know when they’re fast-forwarding through a promo with a static visual, and others redirect them to places where they can view longer clips or set up recording of programs. Ads also can be placed on TiVo’s home page.

Of course, it was TiVo that caused the ad-skipping headaches for the networks in the first place.

“Now we have solutions,” said Maitra, adding that since introducing its ad capability about 18 months ago, all but one of the broadcast networks have signed up for packages.

Source: The Hollywood Reporter

SAG said Saturday it has agreed to an AFTRA proposal to form a small working group headed by their respective presidents to discuss the possibility of a merger of the actors unions. A larger joint committee already has been batting around a possible SAG-AFTRA combo.

AFTRA and its president Roberta Reardon long have been on record as favoring a merger with SAG. But SAG only recently has shown signs of warming to the idea following a turnover in leadership at the guild.

“This is a positive step toward uniting SAG and AFTRA and good news for our members,” SAG president Ken Howard said. “The creation of a single performers’ union is overdue, and I’m pleased to be working with Roberta Reardon, who’s been such a champion of that goal.”

In 2003, a proposed SAG-AFTRA combo was batted down when 75% of AFTRA members voted to approve the proposal but SAG membership mustered only 58% approval, short of a required 60% “yes” vote by the guild.

In the fall, the unions will begin early joint negotiations with studio reps on their next theatrical and primetime TV pacts, which are set to expire June 30. In a departure from decades of precedent, SAG and AFTRA negotiated their current agreements separately.

Among other actions at the one-day SAG board meeting, Bob Bergen was named national chair of the guild’s negotiating committee on TV animation.

Source: The Hollywood Reporter

For the Weinsteins to succeed requires two things that appear unlikely at this moment: The current leading bidders, Colony Capital and Ronald Tutor, must falter; and Disney must take a lower price, which it hasn’t been willing to do in months of talks so far.

Disney has made it clear it values Miramax at $700 million. The winning Tutor/Colony offer was $675 million, according to sources. The Weinsteins’ last offer with investor Ron Burkle, which Disney declined, was $565 million. Other investors were spurned who offered about $550 million.

It seemed the brothers’ final spark might have been extinguished Friday when the New York Post reported that Fortress Investments, another financial backer, was “out of the picture.”

The lead on the Post story said, “There will be no second chances for the Weinsteins.”

The Post, citing “a source with direct knowledge” of the Miramax negotiations, predicted that the Colony group would announce the closing of their Miramax deal Wednesday.

If that happens, the money would come from equity investments by Tutor, whose day job is CEO of Tutor-Perini construction, and Colony Capital, led by chairman and founder Tom Barrack, whose online bio credits him with overseeing placement of $45 billion in assets for his investors.

The deal was brought to Tutor by David Bergstein, CEO of Pangea Media Group, who has taken a backseat in the final stages of talks since Tutor brought in Colony as a partner. Instead, former Disney CFO Richard Nanula, now a partner at Colony, led the negotiations with Disney.

This investment might mean Tutor will take a more active role in movies. Over the past half-dozen years, Tutor has been a silent partner to Bergstein in Capitol, ThinkFilm and other deals; but in an interview two weeks ago, Tutor said he will be more involved and that Bergstein (who remains an adviser on the sale) won’t have an operational role in the new movie studio planned to exploit and rebuild Miramax.

Aside from running a global construction giant, Tutor also has a date Friday to be deposed (over his strenuous legal objections) in the involuntary bankruptcy action brought March 17 in federal court in Los Angeles by creditors against five companies controlled by Bergstein, at least one of which, R2D2, Tutor co-owned with Bergstein until January 2009. Bergstein also was ordered last Tuesday to be deposed Aug. 3 by federal Judge Barry Russell.

Tutor and Bergstein did not respond to a request for comment made through their attorney.

Tutor/Colony minority investors include Jim Robinson, CEO of Morgan Creek Prods., which apparently is in line to handle foreign sales for the proposed studio; and Gulf Capital, an investment firm in Abu Dhabi, which has been involved since Bergstein put the deal together for Tutor in April.

Tutor had said that actor Rob Lowe would not be part of the buying group, but the “Brothers and Sisters” star said in an interview last week that he is involved.

“We are right now in very heavy negotiating with Disney, and we’re governed by all these nondisclosures, so really all I can say is that it’s real, it’s on, it’s happening,” Lowe told Zap2it. “I think it’s going to close, and it’s going to be really, really exciting.”

There are estimated to be $150 million-$250 million in receivables over the next five years that go with the library, which will help reduce the buyers’ cost.

Tutor’s nondisclosure agreement with Disney expires Wednesday, which is when due diligence on the deal is supposed to be done, barring an extension.

If, however, the partners don’t line up all the financing or, if after gazing at the books they lower their offer and Disney balks again, then the deal still could fall apart.

If it does, the Weinsteins and Burkle are ready to re-open talks, and Fortress will be part of it. Although Burkle is expected to provide the equity investment, Fortress and a related hedge fund would handle the debt portion of the buy, which would probably be more than $200 million.

In a statement late Friday, Fortress said: “The New York Post’s report that Bob and Harvey Weinstein and Ron Burkle have lost the financial backing of Fortress Investment Group is patently false. Fortress remains committed to providing financial support for the Weinsteins’ and Mr. Burkle’s bid for Miramax. Our relationship with the Weinsteins and Mr. Burkle, also contrary to yesterday’s report, remains strong and constructive, and the group has ample financial backing to successfully pursue an acquisition of Miramax. We look forward to continuing to work closely with our partners in support of their efforts.”

The Weinsteins’ ace in the hole was supposed to be their 2007 exit agreement with Disney, which sources at the Weinstein Co. continue to insist requires the brothers’ approval before anyone else can remake a dozen of Miramax’s key franchise movies including “Halloween” and “Scary Movie.”

Tutor said in an interview two weeks ago that their group doesn’t believe it needs the Weinsteins’ approval for the sale of the assets or to remake those movies.

If Tutor/Colony does close, the Weinsteins are likely to assert those claims, keeping the sparks flying.

Source: The Hollywood Reporter

The Milken Institute report says 10,600 entertainment jobs have fled the state since 1997 along with 25,500 jobs indirectly related to the industry.

The entertainment industry jobs that have been lost paid an average salary of $92,000 per year, according to the report, titled “Film Flight: Lost Production and Its Economic Impact on California.”

It lists a sample of movies that chose to film outside of California to take advantage of more lucrative tax credits and other business incentives. The most ironic title? “Captain America: The First Avenger,” which is filming in England.

The 40-page report says 42 states, including California, and the District of Columbia offer incentives for film and television production, but it also notes that California’s are less ambitious than many others.

New York recently won “Salt,” for example, and Georgia got “The Blind Side” and “Zombieland.” New Mexico has “Cowboys & Aliens” and “Thor,” and Clint Eastwood took “Gran Torino” to Michigan.

Joining “Captain America” in the ironic category is “Battle: Los Angeles,” which Columbia Pictures is filming in Louisiana.

The report says the film production industry is worth $57 billion annually and that California has given up $2.4 billion in wages and $4.2 billion in economic output since 1997, the peak year in entertainment employment in the state, when its share of North American employment in the industry was 40%. By 2008, it had dropped to 37%.

A year ago, California implemented a tax credit for projects budgeted below $75 million, and 75 TV and movie productions have been approved to receive those credits. But the report says California should do much more, including:

– Make the tax credits, scheduled to end in 2014, permanent.

– Provide the California Film Commission with enhanced staffing and marketing resources.

– Expand tax credits for TV production to include network and premium cable shows.

– Consider digital-media tax credits to retain developers of digital animation, visual effects and video games.

– Encourage investments in infrastructure by implementing tax credits for building and upgrading studio and post-production space.

“The motion picture and television industry may trade in fantasy and escapism,” the report says, “but as a business, it is hardly immune to economic pressures and the imperatives of technological change.”

Source: The Hollywood Reporter