In Contention

Tag: Picturehouse Entertainment

  • Warner ventures into the arthouse with ‘Chanel’

    Well, if nothing else, 2009’s Best Costume Design award is forespoken.

    Screen Daily reports that Warner Brothers is beginning production next month on “Coco Before Chanel,” a French-language biopic of the iconic fashion designer. Warner will distribute the film internationally next year.

    Audrey Tautou will play Chanel (presumably after flipping a coin with Marion Cotillard), while an interesting supporting cast includes Alessandro Nivola and Emmanuelle Devos. Actress-turned-filmmaker Anne Fontaine, probably best-known for the family melodrama “How I Killed My Father” is at the helm; she also wrote the script, with Christopher Hampton, no less, as consultant.

    In a nice touch, proving that Warner really is throwing a lot into the project, they’ve lined up none other than current Chanel director Karl Lagerfeld to personally supervise the costumes.

    A lot could be riding on this: after shamefully shutting down both Warner Independent Pictures and Picturehouse (which interestingly had great success with another biopic of a French icon, “La Vie en Rose”), “Coco Before Chanel” will test how well the parent studio can handle this kind of bijou release. It’s not the most adventurous foray into the arthouse they could have made – we all know how wary the Academy is of pretty period biopics – but it’s an encouraging sign nonetheless.

  • Israel leaves Vantage: “It’s not the same company”

    This strikes me as very bad news indeed. Amy Israel, head of acquisition and production at Paramount Vantage, has been shown the exit. You’d think overseeing the production of such titles as “No Country for Old Men” and “There Will Be Blood,” and acquiring, among others, “An Inconvenient Truth,” would count for something. Apparently not.

    Replacing Israel is Guy Stodel, a former exec from New Line. He has some history of acquiring arthouse titles (“The Sea Inside,” “The Upside of Anger”), but worryingly, his most emphasised accomplishment in the press release is having brought the two “Texas Chainsaw Massacre” remakes to fruition. Because that’s the kind of thing we’re looking for, right?

    Israel’s parting statement is diplomatic, but somewhat ominous:

    I’m proud of having been a part of building Paramount Vantage from the ground up under John Lesher, making great films. I love the company we built. It’s not the same company. (It) is evolving a different direction.

    Truthfully, we all knew this was coming. When Vantage was incorporated into the main body of the studio last month, it was pretty obvious they wanted to broaden their focus to more commercial genre projects. Vantage president Nicholas Meyer insists specialty films will remain a priority:

    Although the moves signal that Vantage is moving more in the genre direction, Meyer insists the studio is pursuing a more “eclectic and elastic” slate. “We are not abandoning the specialty business. We are too committed to it,” Meyer said. “As the company evolves, we need to morph and mutate in order to survive in a challenging environment.”

    (more…)

  • Time Warner weeds out indie filmmaking

    The news that Time Warner is phasing out Picturehouse Entertainment and Warner Independent Pictures was a bit upsetting this morning, I have to say.

    WIP may not have hit any major strides (though a Best Picture nominee one year after it became a brand wasn’t too shabby), but I believe Bob Berney had built something special at Picturehouse, a company that was beginning to look like a real home for filmmakers and visions you can’t put into little boxes.

    Of course, the “dependent” circuit, as it were, has claimed this sort of artists’ haven thing for some time. But long ago many of them began to succumb to the same inflated budgets and profit-obsessed mentalities as their parent companies. I never got that vibe from Picturehouse.

    Just look at some of the product: “Fur,” “A Prairie Home Companion,” “Pan’s Labyrinth,” “Tristam Shandy,” “Mongol” and “La Vie en Rose,” featuring a lead performance whose ultimate Oscar victory caught more than a few people off guard.

    Forgive me, but the notion that the now in-house New Line Cinema is somehow going to reach the niches that Berney and WIP did is a stretch. The potential seems all too clear for the brand to go back to the genre-soaked days of old, Dimension Films to Warners’ Miramax. But I’m happy to be proven wrong.

    But for me, it’s a sad moment. I liked what Berney had cooking and on the occassions that I spoke to him about this project or that, I thought he had a pretty hip (and, thankfully, realistic) vision of what he could do at the company.

    But what do I know?