Check out the trailer for CHERRY, starring CHRONICLE’s Ashley Hinshaw, James Franco, Dev Patel, and Heather Graham. The film, about an 18 year old girl who escapes her hard life by forging a new one in the porn industry. It’s your standard festival fare. But see that for yourself, below.
Congratulations to the winners of the Writer’s Guild awards. For the full list, click through to TheWrap’s coverage.
Screen Categories:
Original Screenplay: “Midnight in Paris,” Woody Allen
Adapted Screenplay: “The Descendants,” written by Alexander Payne and Nat Faxon & Jim Rash
Documentary Screenplay: “Better This World,” Katie Galloway and Kelly Duane de la Vega
Television categories:
Drama Series: “Breaking Bad,” written by Sam Caitlin, Vince Gilligan, Peter Gould, Gennifer Hutchison, George Mastras, Thomas Schaunz and Moira Welley-Beckett
Comedy Series: “Modern Family,” written by Cindy Chupack, Paul Corrigan, Abraham Higginbotham, Ben Karlin, Elaine Ko, Carol Leifer, Steven Levitan, Christopher Lloyd, Dan O’Shannon, Jeffrey Richman, Brad Walsh, Ilana Wernick, Bill Wrubel, Danny Zuker
New Series: “Homeland,” written by Henry Bromell, Alexander Cary, Alex Gansa, Howard Gordon, Chip Johannessen, Gideon Raff, Meredith Stiehm
Episodic Drama: (tie) “Box Cutter” (“Breaking Bad”), written by Vince Gilligan, and “The Good Soldier” (“Homeland”), written by Henry Bromell
Episodic Comedy: “Caught in the Act” (“Modern Family”), written by Steven Levitan and Jeffrey Richman
Long Form – Original: “Cinema Verite,” written by David Seltzer
Long Form – Adapted: “Too Big to Fail,” written by Peter Gould
Animation: “Homer the Father” (“The Simpsons”), written by Joel H. Cohen
Comedy/Variety (Including Talk) Series: “The Colbert Report,” written by Michael Brumm, Stephen Colbert, Rich Dahm, Paul Dinello, Eric Drysdale, Rob Dubbin, Glenn Eichler, Dan Guterman, Peter Gwinn, Jay Katsir, Barry Julien, Frank Lesser, Opus Moreschi, Tom Purcell, Meredith Scardino, Scott Sherman and Max Werner
Comedy/Variety – Music, Awards, Tributes – Specials: “After the Academy Awards,” Jimmy Kimmel, written by Gary Greenberg, Molly McNearney, Tom Barbieri, Jonathan Bines, John N. Huss, Sal Iacono, Eric Immerman, Jimmy Kimmel, Jonathan Kimmel, Jacob Lentz, Danny Ricker and Richard G. Rosner.
Daytime Drama: “General Hospital,” written by Meg Bennett, Nathan Fissell, David Goldschmid, Robert Guza, Jr., Karen Harris, Elizabeth Korte, Mary Sue Price, Michele Val Jean, Susan Wald and Tracey Thomson
Children’s – Episodic and Specials: “Hero of the Shadows” (“Supah Ninjas”), written by Leo Chu and Eric S. Garcia
via ‘The Descendants,’ ‘Midnight in Paris’ Are Tops With Writers Guild | The Wrap Awards.
Brett Danaher of Wellesley College and Joel Waldfogel of the University of Minnesota and NBER conducted a study on the effect of online piracy on box office totals. It’s an extensive look at a really hot-button issue affecting the business. However, the results are somewhat surprising. The availability of pirated films online doesn’t cause a decrease in domestic box office numbers (hey, MPAA, how does it feel to breathe a wee-bit easier) but there is a decrease in international box office sales since the advent of BitTorrent technology, especially when there are longer lag times from the US release to the international release.
You can read the whole study in the embedded PDF below. It’s pretty short, and quite frankly, President’s Day sales are overrated.
Based on estimates, Safe House edged The Vow for the weekend, but that huge Valentine’s Day number for The Vow has its cume significantly ahead.
| Title | Distributor | Wk | Weekend (est.) | Cume | Theaters |
| Safe House | Universal | 2 | 23,969,280 | 78,238,895 | 3121 |
| The Vow | Sony | 2 | 23,600,000 | 85,526,837 | 2958 |
| Ghost Rider 2 | Sony | 1 | 22,000,000 | 22,000,000 | 3174 |
| Journey 2 | Warner Bros. | 2 | 20,085,000 | 53,201,342 | 3500 |
| This Means War | Fox | 1 | 17,550,000 | 19,159,805 | 3189 |
| Phantom Menace | Fox | 2 | 7,865,000 | 33,738,235 | 2655 |
| Chronicle | Fox | 3 | 7,500,000 | 50,979,426 | 2556 |
| The Woman in Black | CBS Films | 3 | 6,645,000 | 45,255,618 | 2559 |
| The Secret…Arrietty | Disney | 1 | 6,375,000 | 6,375,000 | 1522 |
| The Grey | Open Road | 4 | 3,031,454 | 47,924,513 | 2107 |
| The Descendants | Fox Searchlight | 14 | 2,925,000 | 75,007,770 | 1243 |
| The Artist | TWC | 13 | 2,325,000 | 27,423,959 | 808 |
Numbers courtesy of our friends at Rentrak.com.
A bevy of specs hit the market this week. So get ready for a long weekend of reading. It should be super fun. If you want to know more about the specs you see below, simply click through the links to the database. You’ll find everything you ever wanted to know, and it’s only a subscription away. Mind you, that subscription comes with a two-week free trial, so it’s a little silly to pass up this opportunity to explore Hollywood’s more relevant film database. Just saying.
IN THE NAME OF LOVE by Jennifer Maisel
EXPOSURE by Jeff Addis and Will Matthews
OLYMPUS by the Rothenbergers
BORDER COUNTRY by Jonathan Stokes
RIKKI by Norm Harper
THEY REPAIR US by Craig Zahler
HAITIAN VACATION by Dan Southard
NSFW b y Adam Mason and Simon Boyes sold to Universal
THE WAITING by Mark Bianculli and Jeff Richard sold to Warner Bros.
Craig Zahler‘s spec THEY REPAIR US is out from Emerson Davis and Julien Thuan at UTA and Adam Marshall and Dallas Sonnier at Caliber.
Brandy Rivers at Magnet Management is repping the film rights to Brittany Geragotelis‘ YA novel LIFE’S A WITCH.
6-17 Management‘s Geoff Alexander and David Greathouse are out with RIKKI, an animation spec by Norm Harper.
Dan Southard‘s HAITIAN VACATION spec is out from David Saunders at APA and Jim Wedaa at Parallax.
Wondering what new writing and directing assignments are open at the various studios/production companies around town? Wonder no more. Just peruse our roundup below, and click through to the database for the full info. You’ll need a subscription to access TheGrid, but we’re offering a free 2-week trial. Just enter promo code “ODA1″ when you sign up, and enjoy complimentary access to TheGrid for 14 days. You’ll wonder what you ever did without it.
Route One
SAFE DISTANCE (ODA)
TERMINAL D (ODA)
Sidney Kimmel Entertainment
THE IMMACULATE (OWA, ODA)
NEW NEIGHBORS (ODA)
Universal
13 REASONS WHY (ODA)
PROSTHESIS (OWA)
Warner Bros.
MERCHANT (ODA)
