News

‘The Twilight Saga: New Moon’ Breaks Midnight Screening Record!

By Shannon Nystedt
Movieset.com

After the long hard wait for the second installment of the Twilight franchise fans flocking to the midnight screening of New Moon broke the previous midnight screening record by scooping up an estimated $26.27 million in 3,514 theaters.  The previous record holder was Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, which opened July 15th with $22.2 million.

The Twilight Saga: New Moon hits theaters for regular screenings today!

Read the full article here.

Townsend & Stevenson Join Cast of ‘Thor’

By Shannon Nystedt
MovieSet.com

Two more actors have been added to the already star studded cast of Marvel Studio’s latest comic adapted film, Thor. 

Irish actors Stuart Townsend (Battle in Seattle) and Ray Stevenson (Punisher: War Zone) play two of the warriors three, Asgardian warriors that fight alongside Thor. 

Directed by Kenneth Branagh, Thor also stars Chris Hemsworth, Natalie Portman, Anthony Hopkins, Tom Hiddleston, Jaimie Alexander, Colm Feore and Stellan Skarsgard. 

Thor begins filming in early January 2010, and you can expect to see it in theaters mid 2011. 

Read the full article here.

‘The Road’: Hear How Director John Hillcoat Stayed True to McCarthy’s Novel

By Shannon Nystedt
MovieSet.com

It’s easy for films based on novels to get off topic, and often you’ll hear that the book is far better than the movie. So for director John Hollcoat’s adaptation of Cormac McCarthy’s novel The Road, he kept McCarthy on hand to make sure the film’s focus didn’t deviate too far from the novel. To prevent the film from getting swept up in action, explosions and cannibalism and to put the foccuss back on the characters and their journey, McCarthy demanded four lines of dialogue remain in the film.

“…Just those four lines. Nothing else. He didn't miss any of it.” Said director John Hillcoat “It's been great, because he could see the more you focus on that other stuff [post apocalyptic doom, explosions and cannibalism] the more unbalanced it becomes, and it becomes something else…”

Find out what McCarthy insisted on keeping in the film here.

Shyama gets warm welcome at the Kolkata Film Festival

Shyama, Obhi Chatterjee’s widescreen feature film version of Rabindranath Tagore’s classic Bengali dance drama, had its Asian première at the Kolkata Film Festival. Produced by UK-based Inner Eye, the film was conceived as an authentic reference work. Through subtitles and the film medium, it will raise global awareness of Tagore and the Tagore dance form (Rabindra nritya).

The film features leading dancers, singers and musicians from Santiniketan. Kaberi Chatterjee dances the title role of Shyama, whose songs are performed by Manini Mukhopadhyay Bagchi. TS Vasunni dances the role of Bojroshen, sung by Jayanta Chatterjee. The production design and costumes are based on Kaberi’s research. So far, Shyama is available in Bengali, English, French, German, Hungarian, Italian, Portuguese & Spanish.

“We were thrilled to be invited to present Shyama at the Kolkata Film Festival”, said Obhi. “It was a great surprise to find that some of the audience were so absorbed by the film that they were singing along at Wednesday’s screening.” 70 years after Tagore created it, Shyama will use the latest digital distribution techniques to help this classic work cross linguistic boundaries as he had intended.

Shyama will be screened at 6.30pm on December 10 at the Satyajit Ray Auditorium of the Rabindranath Tagore Centre, ICCR, Kolkata, as part of a Tagore Festival called Tagore Beyond Frontiers, which will be inaugurated by the Governor on December 4. Kaberi’s book Tagore dance, which uses production stills from Shyama to illustrate different aspects of this unique, semi-classical dance form, will be published shortly.

Notes to editors

1. Film website: www.shyamathemovie.com includes the first episodes of the 10-part Shyama podcast series introduced by Obhi & Kaberi Chatterjee. Web search term: ‘Shyama podcast’. Production stills can be downloaded from www.innereye.eu/shyama/press/Shyama_production_stills.zip .
2. The English translation of Shyama by Jayanta, Obhi & Kaberi Chatterjee is published by Inner Eye. ISBN: 1440402043. The Shyama soundtrack album is available from online digital music stores.
3. Shyama is available on DVD and video-on-demand from amazon.com in the US. It will shortly be released on various global online platforms, such as indieflix.com. With the help of the Java-based video technology of Forbidden Technologies plc, Shyama will also be available free online.
4. Rabindranath Tagore Centre website: www.tagorecentreiccr.org .

Contacts:
Obhi Chatterjee - M: (+91) 94758 48651 until 22 November
Kaberi Chatterjee - M: (+91) 99336 00358 until 28 November; T: +44 20 8144 9690 from 29 November