WTF moves in 'House,' 'Chop'

Posted: Sat., Nov. 5, 2011, 1:40pm PTDimitri Stephanides' WTF has acquired international sales rights to "The Bleeding House" and "Chop."

The new Paris-based sales house specializes in genre films and will rep titles that have strong international potential, explained Stephanides. He worked as senior VP of sales at TF1 Intl. for seven years where he developed connections with buyers handling sales on pics including "Caged," "Mutants" and "Hobo With a Shotgun."

A Southern horror tale, helmer Philip Gelatt's "The Bleeding House" was released in the U.S. in April by Tribeca Films.

Helmed by Trent Haaga ("Deadgirl") and penned by Adam Minarovich ("The Walking Dead"), "Chop" was picked up by Bloody Disgusting Selects in the U.S.

" 'Chop' is a wild ride evoking the 'Saw' movies, transposed to a comic Californian setting," said Stephanides.

At AFM, WTF is also shopping Michael Biehn's grindhouse horror pic "The Victim," which preemed at Sitges in Spain this year. Contact Variety Staff at mailto:news@variety.com?subject=WTF moves in 'House,' 'Chop'

'Payne 3' ready to load

Posted: Sat., Nov. 5, 2011, 4:00am PT

'Max Payne 3'

The 'Max Payne' games feature a flawed hero and sophisticated narrative.

There aren't a lot of surprises in the entertainment world these days -- particularly when it comes to tentpole events.

Whether it's a quick-cut trailer, the interview circuit or an online spoiler site, audiences generally have a pretty solid idea of what they're going to experience -- with movies, TV shows and videogames.

But that's rarely, if ever, the case with new releases from Rockstar Games. The vidgame developer tightly controls the flow of information before a title's ship date and seldom emerges from the studio to talk about its products. The reason, says Dan Houser, the veep and co-founder of creative at Rockstar, is pretty simple: Letting people peek behind the curtain spoils the fun.

"It's really important to us that the games (feel) kind of magical," he says. "It might annoy people that we don't give out more information, but I think the end point is people enjoy the experience. … The less they know about how things are pieced together and how things are broken down and what our processes are, the more it will feel like this thing is alive, that you are being dragged into the experience. That's what we want."

Houser himself prefers to stay in the background, but as the company's next major release, "Max Payne 3," nears its March 2012 due date, he was willing to talk with Variety about the game, the challenges it faces and the studio's philosophy.

"Max Payne 3" is the sequel to an action series that, in many ways, introduced cinematic aspects to the videogame world and remains one of the more story-driven shooters to come out. Payne was a fugitive undercover cop, framed for murder and hunted by the NYPD and the mob -- and the first two games had a very noir feel to them. The 2008 cinematic adaptation was critically panned (and not much of a commercial success), but fans of the game series have stayed loyal, despite an eight-year gap since the last installment.

That puts Rockstar in something of a complicated space: Not only will the game compete against other titles in its genre, it has to fight the nostalgic memories of players who have long since forgotten any of its weaknesses. (It's a battle not unlike the one ABC faced with "Charlie's Angels" and "V.")

"I think the challenge of nostalgia is a profound one, because one thing about videogames is your memory tends to remove the horrendous," Houser says. "(The games) become these great, perfect experiences. … It's definitely a challenge to get the right pitch when you want to appeal to the fans of the original and bring in a new audience."

The new game sees Max working as a private security specialist protecting an industrialist and his family in Sao Paulo. When gangs target the family, Max must battle not only the gangsters, but also the inner demons that have driven him for so long.

It's a story that, on the surface, sounds formulaic, but both Rockstar and the Max Payne series have always taken pains to weave a complex tale into the games, rather than loosely tying event moments together with a threadbare plot.

Houser, who is also lead writer on "Max Payne 3" (as he was on "Grand Theft Auto IV"), says he believes refining writing is essential to the maturation of the industry.

"If games are to be the next major form of creative consumption, art, cultural expression or whatever the correct term is, then strong narrative has to be part of that," he says. "If the mechanics are fine and the story is ridiculous, the experience is much diminished."

Maintaining control over story -- and any cinematic qualities -- is especially challenging as the gaming world moves toward a more multiplayer focus. Players still appreciate a good campaign, but if a game doesn't have a strong online component where they can play with (or, even better, against) others, it hurts the game's earnings potential.

Rockstar hasn't talked much about the multiplayer aspects of "Max Payne 3," but Houser hints that just because those elements of the game live outside of the campaign, it doesn't mean they're not part of the narrative.

"We wanted to put some elements of single player into the multiplayer so the multiplayer will have a lot more detail and have elements of story in it and have a sort of an immersive quality," he says. "We think that's something that is underexplored in multiplayer."

"Max Payne 3" has been a long time coming. First announced in 2009, with an expected ship date of that winter, it has been pushed back a couple of times to let the development team polish it and ensure the quality was up to Rockstar's exacting standards. This includes an excruciating attention to detail, which Houser says is the real key to the company's success.

Realism, he says, is also a major goal. "We are building a film set, but it's a 360-degree film set that has to join together and feel real," he explains. "Some of the stuff we end up being most obsessed by are the things that join between walls. And where a lot of other games fail is their models may look great, but they don't sit together very well."

While Rockstar likens itself more to a film studio than a traditional game developer (the company shoots the equivalent of a feature film every few weeks with its motion capture rig, Houser notes), it's not eager to embrace a film industry trend other gamemakers are chasing: 3D.

While the PC version of "Max Payne 3" may be 3D-compatible (nothing, so far, is confirmed, but most major PC games offer the feature these days), Houser says it's not a passion of his. "I don't think anyone has solved the riddle of how you make 3D an integral part of the gaming experience," he says simply. Contact the Variety newsroom at news@variety.com

J. Edgar

Posted: Thu., Nov. 3, 2011, 10:00pm PT

Leonardo DiCaprio plays longtime FBI honcho J. Edgar Hoover in Clint Eastwood's biopic.

A Warner Bros. release and presentation of an Imagine Entertainment, Malpaso production. Produced by Brian Grazer, Robert Lorenz. Executive producers, Tim Moore, Erica Huggins. Directed by Clint Eastwood. Screenplay, Dustin Lance Black.J. Edgar Hoover - Leonardo DiCaprio
Helen Gandy - Naomi Watts
Clyde Tolson - Armie Hammer
Charles Lindbergh - Josh Lucas
Annie Hoover - Judi DenchJ. Edgar Hoover's mystique lies in the fact that while he kept meticulous files with compromising details on some of America's most powerful figures, nobody knew the man's own secrets. Therefore, any movie in which the longtime FBI honcho features as the central character must supply some insight into what made him tick, or suffer from the reality that the Bureau's exploits were far more interesting than the bureaucrat who ran it -- a dilemma "J. Edgar" never rises above. With Leonardo DiCaprio bringing empathy to the controversial Washington power-monger, Clint Eastwood's old-school biopic should do solid midrange business.

In 1993, Anthony Summers published a tawdry expose titled "Official and Confidential, the Secret Life of J. Edgar Hoover," which aired Susan Rosenstiel's claim that she had witnessed Hoover, a lifelong bachelor who was seldom seen without trusted deputy Clyde Tolson, wearing a cocktail dress at a gay orgy in New York. Though never corroborated, the claim stuck, and the legacy of this much-feared public figure -- who served as FBI director under eight presidents, across 48 years and through some of the most trying cases of the 20th century -- is now dominated by associations with cross-dressing.

If the assumptions about his sex life are true, that would make "J. Edgar" the story of the highest-ranking homosexual in American history, produced by a major Hollywood studio and directed by one of the industry's most venerable directors -- hardly insignificant in an industry that goes to great lengths to obfuscate the sexuality of its own stars. While not exactly coy, Eastwood's classically styled look at Hoover's life takes a long time to arrive at questions of the character's proclivities. When it does get there, however, this new dimension of the character so enlivens what has been a mostly dry portrayal of one man's crusade to reform law enforcement that it becomes the pic's focus.

True to Eastwood's understated nature, "J. Edgar" offers the "tasteful" treatment of such potentially salacious subject matter, though a more outre Oliver Stone-like approach might have made for a livelier film. With the exception of a few profanities (enough to land the pic an audience-limiting R rating) and a lone homoerotic wrestling scene so tame that Ken Russell's "Women in Love" feels like an X by comparison, the film could pass for something Warners would have released in an earlier era -- earlier even than many of the events depicted onscreen, as suggested by Tom Stern's cinematography, desaturated nearly to black-and-white.

Eastwood's restraint applies to not only the kid-gloves depiction of how Hoover slyly manipulated politicos and press, including a loathsome attempt to blackmail Martin Luther King Jr. into declining the Nobel Peace Prize, but also to his oddly nonjudgmental approach to Hoover's sexual identity, depicting him as a man too Puritanical to pursue intimacy with someone of either gender.

As he did with "Milk," screenwriter Dustin Lance Black follows the print-the-legend philosophy, building to what could have been the ultimate tragic love story between two men: Johnny and Clyde (as Truman Capote dubbed Hoover and Tolson), companions for the better part of five decades who never had the chance to express their affection -- a consequence of Hoover's insistence that FBI employees live up to the strictest code of conduct (he wouldn't even allow them to drink coffee on the job).

The opening reel establishes both the scope of the story, which ranges from Hoover's 20s to his final days overseeing the FBI at age 77, and DiCaprio's remarkable ability to play the character at any point along that timeline. Aided by a convincing combination of facial appliances, makeup and wigs, the thesp draws auds past that gimmick and into the character within a matter of a few scenes. There's an innate kindliness to DiCaprio that makes for a more likable protagonist than Hoover as the tempestuous monster so many biographers describe, which is good news for the film's commercial prospects but seemingly at odds with reality.

Surely this can't be the glory hound who collaborated with Sen. Joseph McCarthy on his anti-communist witch hunt and called King "the most notorious liar in the country," nor the same FBI chief accused of racism (the Bureau antagonized civil-rights leaders and employed few blacks), homophobia (gays were dismissed from service) and sexism (women were allowed to serve as secretaries and assistants, but never agents).

Rather than seriously engaging with any of these common accusations, Black's script skips back and forth through Hoover's CV, alternating public grandstanding with invented insights into his private life. Annie Hoover (Judi Dench) exerts enormous control over her son's personality, telling him, "I'd rather have a dead son than a daffodil for a son," in the film's most chilling scene. Tolson (Armie Hammer), whose prissiness accounts for the film's scant laughs, also surfaces early, lurking behind the frosted-glass door to an adjoining office while Hoover dictates a self-aggrandizing book.

Considering how critical any other character's perspective might be, allowing Hoover to narrate his own story comes as a generous gift from Black. Hoover's voiceover gives form to a story that starts out as an institutionally approved version of how the FBI came to be, punctuated every so often by a high-profile arrest or newfangled forensic development (an investigation into the kidnapping of Charles Lindbergh's son supplies the sort of procedural intrigue that comes comfortably to Eastwood). As the pic progresses, however, Hoover's words grow increasingly defensive, and the episodes drift into far more personal territory.

Since you can't put a face on the love interest in a workaholic's story, Black must manufacture romance on the margins. In the first act, Hoover briefly courts Helen Gandy (Naomi Watts), an office girl who declines his marriage proposal on their third date, but agrees to become his secretary. A short time later, Hoover meets Tolson in a scene staged to suggest love at first sight.

As written, Tolson's character is clearly gay, but Eastwood seems noncommittal about Hoover. Certainly there are clues in nearly every aspect of the production, from Deborah Hopper's ever-dapper wardrobe to the meticulously appointed sets overseen by James Murakami and decorated by Gary Fettis. At one point, auds catch a glimpse of the entry stairwell to Hoover's home, where a framed portrait of his mother hangs alone. What's missing from this picture? Why, the famous nude photo of Marilyn Monroe that hung in the real-life Hoover's hallway. Camera (Technicolor/B&W, Panavision widescreen), Tom Stern; editors, Joel Cox, Gary D. Roach; music, Eastwood; production designer, James Murakami; supervising art director, Patrick M. Sullivan; art director, Greg Berry; set decorator, Gary Fettis; costume designer, Deborah Hopper; sound (Dolby Digital/SDDS/Datasat), Jose Antonio Garcia; supervising sound editors, Alan Robert Murray; re-recording mixers, John Reitz, Gregg Rudloff; special effects supervisor, Steven Riley; visual effects supervisor, Michael Owens; visual effects, Method Studios Vancouver, Lola Visual Effects; stunt coordinator, Buddy Van Horn; assistant director, David M. Bernstein; casting, Fiona Weir. Reviewed at Warner Bros. Studios, Burbank, Nov. 2, 2011. (In AFI Film Festival -- opener.) MPAA Rating: R. Running time: 136 MIN.With: Jeffrey Donovan, Miles Fisher, Damon Herriman, Ary Katz, Dermot Mulroney, Geoff Pierson, Michael Rady, Stephen Root, Ed Westwick.Contact Peter Debruge at peter.debruge@variety.com

Beijing Besieged by Waste (Wei cheng la ji)

Posted: Thu., Nov. 3, 2011, 1:51pm PTA Wang Jiu-liang Studio production. (International sales: dGenerate Films, Brooklyn.) Produced, directed, written, edited by Wang Jiu-liang.Narrator: Wang Jiu-liang. (Mandarin dialogue)Maverick photographer Wang Jiu-liang transfers his documentation of Beijing's garbage dumps onto the bigscreen in the eye-opening and disturbing docu "Beijing Besieged by Waste." Since 2008, the multihyphenate has been photographing how the Chinese capital is rapidly becoming surrounded by an enormous swath of unchecked landfills, making him deeply unpopular with the government. Though "Beijing Besieged" was screened at the underground Beijing Independent Film Fest, it can't be shown commercially at home; international fests, streaming sites and private events will get Wang's alarming message across.

Some 400-500 landfills now encircle China's capital, and in three years, all existing legal dumps will be full. Beijing's unchecked construction boom is partly to blame, along with relatively primitive waste collection, a culture of official unaccountability, and corruption. Wang visited hundreds of landfills recording the situation in all their stomach-churning details: sheep and cows grazing on rubbish heaps, roadsides littered with bags full of excrement dumped by long-distance buses, rivers of pungent black crud, and recycled swill oil (don't ask). Wang's narration is overly simple yet perhaps tailored to unsuspecting local crowds. Visuals aim for documentation more than artistry. Camera (color, DigiBeta), Fan Xue-song; music, Wen Bin. Reviewed at Abu Dhabi Film Festival (Our World), Oct. 21, 2011. Running time: 72 MIN.Contact the Variety newsroom at news@variety.com

Bank lending steadies, after downsizing

Posted: Sat., Nov. 5, 2011, 1:26pm PTIndie film lending cratered with the 2008 global credit freeze, but has regained balance at a downsized volume that seems sustainable and steady, say film finance executives.

"There's a 'new normal' and that is to be very conservative," said Christine Ball, who is senior VP/group head and senior relationship manager handling entertainment at Wells Fargo Commercial Banking. "Certainly, the banks all get this."

Wells Fargo has a $500 million film loan portfolio.

Movie finance executives say that for single picture financing the new environment means pre-selling more territories. As a result, so-called "gap" financing for remaining unsold territories is smaller than was acceptable during the easy-money period from 2004 to 2008.

For sizing corporate credit lines, this means tilting more to bad-case scenarios for calculating the earning power of films and other assets used as collateral, rather than more-generous medium performance assumptions used a few years ago.

The trend to tighter qualifications means fewer films are financed by banks, though a silver lining is that a less congested film landscape means the movies that make the credit grade have a clearer shot at selling and generating revenue in distribution.

"There seems to be a better caliber of movie product today that very often is easier to finance," said Lisa Wolofsky, the Montreal-based manager of gap and international financing in the entertainment unit of National Bank of Canada. "I'm seeing more projects that are viable."

One independent segment where bank financing is plentiful is high-end movies.

"The pre-sale market is as robust as I've seen in maybe 15 years for films with budgets of $20 million or more," said Jared Underwood, senior VP and group manager of entertainment lending at Comerica. "Films with major stars and directors are selling well. But the lower- to mid-level budget films with smaller stars, tend to be more difficult to pre-sell and riskier in general."

Comerica has been a banker to the film, TV and videogame industries for over 20 years, financing over 800 movies.

Finance executives say that another effect of fewer pics being funded is lower production costs, particularly because top creative talents have lower salary demands in comparison to the boom years.

Another characteristic of the new normal is that a slew of European banks that were significant lenders to the international and Hollywood movie sector have mostly disappeared.

"European banks will be slow to return, and not any time soon, I think, given the magnitude of sovereign debt issues gripping Western Europe," said David Molner, managing director of media finance specialist Screen Capital Intl.

Finance executives say remaining banks seem to have sufficient lending capacity for the downsized indie film sector, and if a void appears, then non-banking financing such as equity investments, soft money subsidies or insurance-backed financing can fill it.

"Given the major studios are distributing few pictures…this is good for the domestic financiers that survived," added Dominic Ianno, CEO of film financing company Indomitable Entertainment. Contact the Variety newsroom at news@variety.com

Ordino finds home for Pozo's 'Pets'

Posted: Sat., Nov. 5, 2011, 2:02pm PTSpanish animator Jose Pozo ("El Cid: The Legend," "Donkey Xote") is attached to exec produce 3D toon pic "No Pets Allowed," set up at Andorra's Ordino Studios Media Group.

"Pets" is part of an ambitious plan by Ordino, Andorra's flagship film-TV group, to turn the principality, nestling between France and Spain in the high Pyrenees, into a new Southern Europe talent hub offering film and TV product, services and finance.

Andorra's low taxes and intellectual property stance makes the location attractive.

"Pets," which will go into production next year, turns on a boy who must fend off wacky monsters in the London apartment building where his father is the janitor. "We want something that looks international with lots of humor," said OSMG managing director Jordi Alba.

Adrian Garcia, Victor Maldonado and Alfredo Torres, who head animation company Headless, will direct "Pets." They have completed a first-draft screenplay. Garcia and Maldonado directed the delicately drawn 2007 animated feature "Nocturna," a Filmax production.

"Cid" and "Donkey," both also produced by Filmax, were two of Spain's highest-profile toon pics of the last decade. Pozo is Ordino's creative director, Alba said.

This spring, Ordino also acquired Studio Nest, a 3D animation, character design and vfx company.

Studio Nest CG artists have worked on many recent high-profile animation and vfx-heavy films out of Barcelona, including Filmax's "El Cid" and "Fragile" and Rodar y Rodar's upcoming "XP 3D."

Alba and Ordino Studios marketing head Laurie Severn are at AFM with "Pets," for which Ordino will tap 25% of the budget out of Andorra. It is looking for completion finance through a mix of equity -- from Europe or the U.S. -- and gap financing.

The studio's push into animation comes as Andorra diversifies from tourism by developing advanced service industries. Low social security payments keep labor costs competitive, key as Ordino sets out to provide services on third-party productions, Alba argued.

Closer to the U.S. or U.K. model, Andorra's intellectual property laws also make it easier to acquire rights to properties, Severn said. Alba said Ordino aims to become "a kind of creative high-performance center."

OSMG's other companies include live-action producer Smoke Sellers, Ordino Music, Ordino Studios Services and AV Experience, whch organizes events, museums and interactive exhibit expos. Ordino will also manage a fund to invest in local pics. Contact the Variety newsroom at news@variety.com

Outsider takes U.S., Canada on 'Finisterrae'

Posted: Sat., Nov. 5, 2011, 2:01pm PTOutsider Pictures has picked up all U.S. and Canadian rights to Sergio Caballero's comedic drama "Finisterrae," sold by Buenos Aires' FilmSharks Intl.

A L.A.-based sales agent and distributor, releasing films in the U.S., Canada and Latin America, Outsider aims to bring moviegoers the most original stories from around the world, according to its mission statement.

Winning a Tiger Award for debut feature at the 2010 Rotterdam Festival, pic turns on two Russian ghosts, who walk the St. James Way to Finisterrae, a cape in northwest Spain, in an attempt to rejoin the land of the living.

Pic is peppered with surreal moments which seem to spoof highbrow artfilms.

"Finisterrae" is produced by Luis Minarro's Barcelona-based Eddie Saeta, co-producer of Cannes Palme d'Or winner "Uncle Boonmee…," and one of the driving forces behind left-of-field filmmaking in Europe.

In a separate deal closed at the Rome Festival's Business Street, Inmovision has acquired Brazilian rights to Argentinean Marcos Carnevale's "Widows." Argentina's biggest late-summer local hit, grossing $1.9 million for BVI from a Aug. 18 bow, "Widow" toplines two of the country's best-regarded actresses, Graciela Borges ("The Hands") and Valeria Bertuccelli ("A Boyfriend For My Wife") in the story of the widow of a man who grudgingly looks after his mistress, now pregnant with his child.

Produced by Fernando Sokolowicz and Disney co-owned Patagonik, "Widows" has sparked distributor interest in the U.S., Japan, France and Spain, said FilmSharks' Guido Rud. Contact the Variety newsroom at news@variety.com