Two former top execs of Sony Pictures Entertainment will lead a potentially watershed new Hollywood consulting venture for JPMorgan.
Former SPE president Alan Levine and the studio's one-time co-president Ken Lemberger will be based at the investment bank's longtime headquarters in Century City, where the initiative will complement film-finance operations.
John Miller, veteran managing director of JPMorgan Securities in Los Angeles, will have ultimate responsibility over both the film-finance operations, known as JPMorgan's Entertainment Industries Group, and the new consulting unit, JPMorgan Entertainment Advisors.
"This could be transformative for our business and what we want to accomplish," Miller said.
He declined to project revenue of the new unit but said the startup unit is as much about relationship-building as generating immediate new income for the firm. JPMorgan's entertainment finance operations are known to contribute hundreds of millions of dollars annually to the parent firm's top-line revenue.
"I've been talking to Alan and Ken for literally years to try to do something like this," Miller said. "We have had -- and will continue to have -- the dominant position in the film-finance business. But because of that, the question has been: How do you grow that business?"
Timing of the venture could prove propitious as there has been a recent surge in activity by nontraditional producers in Hollywood.
Former SPE president Alan Levine and the studio's one-time co-president Ken Lemberger will be based at the investment bank's longtime headquarters in Century City, where the initiative will complement film-finance operations.
John Miller, veteran managing director of JPMorgan Securities in Los Angeles, will have ultimate responsibility over both the film-finance operations, known as JPMorgan's Entertainment Industries Group, and the new consulting unit, JPMorgan Entertainment Advisors.
"This could be transformative for our business and what we want to accomplish," Miller said.
He declined to project revenue of the new unit but said the startup unit is as much about relationship-building as generating immediate new income for the firm. JPMorgan's entertainment finance operations are known to contribute hundreds of millions of dollars annually to the parent firm's top-line revenue.
"I've been talking to Alan and Ken for literally years to try to do something like this," Miller said. "We have had -- and will continue to have -- the dominant position in the film-finance business. But because of that, the question has been: How do you grow that business?"
Timing of the venture could prove propitious as there has been a recent surge in activity by nontraditional producers in Hollywood.
- 4/23/2007
- The Hollywood Reporter - Movie News
This review was written for the festival screening of All the King's Men.
TORONTO -- You would not immediately think of Sean Penn for the role of Willie Stark, the powerful and hugely ambitious Southern politician around whom Robert Penn Warren's famous 1946 novel revolves. You think of a big man because the character was modeled after Louisiana's flamboyant governor Huey P. Long and was played in the original 1949 movie by Broderick Crawford, both stocky men. But Penn fills the screen with this cagey and cunning character, his oratory so loquacious an enemy would vote for him and a body seeming to move in several different directions with every step. In one of his greatest screen performances, Penn nails the contradictory and compelling genius of a small-time rural pol, who dreams and schemes his way to the top of a corrupt system designed to keep men like him on the outside.
This charismatic performance, surrounded by incisive turns by an all-star ensemble cast, gives furious energy to a movie that doesn't seem to know how to contain it. Writer-director Steven Zaillian's questionable solution is to fit this rambunctious portrait of unruly Southern politics in a monumental frame where Southern Gothic meets Leni Riefenstahl. Neo-classical buildings and old-money mansions tower over mere mortals or glower with oligarchic rage. Ominous darkness reaches into the corners of a screen that is as close to black-and-white as a color movie can achieve. James Horner's music thunders so melodramatically you expect lightning to fill the sky at any moment.
Audience can certainly find entertainment in this movie, so long as no one takes things too seriously. One suspects, however, that Zaillian and a vast team of producers and executive producers that includes political consultant and pundit James Carville believe they are making a serious commentary on American politics. It comes closer to kitsch. Columbia Pictures will have a job selling a movie where drawbacks nearly equal winning attributes, and its great star has never meant much at the boxoffice.
Curiously, Zaillian moves the story from the 1930s to the postwar era, apparently to let Willie Stark deliver his common-man message to integrated audiences, making it seem as if Stark/Long reached out to poor blacks as well as poor whites. He certainly never did.
This particular type of demagogue grew out of a rural region in a Southern state dominated by cigar-smoking old-boy politics of the worst sort. To defeat such men, Willie had to use their own methods against them. Thus, the idealist often worked outside the law and believed the ends always justified any means. Penn, in even Willie's earliest moments as a hick politician in a backwater town, conveys this duality. He truly believes in the hopes and aspirations of his "fellow hicks," but know he can't deliver on his promise by playing fair.
Lapsed idealist and alcoholic journalist Jack Burden (Jude Law), the novel and movie's eyes and ears, picks up on this aspect of Willie right away. From Old Southern aristocracy himself, he gloms onto Willie as a breath of fresh air blowing through smoke-filled rooms. Jack joins Willie's administration after he is elected. But when the governor is threatened by impeachment, Willie asks Jack to dig up dirt on the prominent Judge Irwin (Anthony Hopkins), a man who acted as father to Jack between and during his mother's (Kathy Baker) four marriages.
His reluctant sleuthing proves everyone's undoing as Jack is forced to confront his own past, including his long lost love, the daughter of a former governor, Anne Stanton (Kate Winslet), and her melancholy brother Adam (Mark Ruffalo), the story's only true idealist. Meanwhile, Willis' press attache and sometime lover Sadie (Patricia Clarkson) jealously stirs the pot while Tiny Duffy (James Gandolfini), a man of wide girth and low cunning, prods everyone with jabs of unimaginative pragmatism.
Subplots from the novel get shorn or abbreviated as the movie takes great leaps to get to its crucial moments. It can't afford too much subtlety, but then Willie is not a subtle guy. Nevertheless, the hammy neo-Third Reich trappings of the production design and cinematography feel disingenuous and imposed on a milieu and a political climate that produced a different kind of corruption. What you are left with then is a towering performance as Penn plays one of the great figures of 20th century American literature with a verve and vitality that is breathtaking.
ALL THE KING'S MEN
Columbia Pictures in association with Relatively Media a Phoenix Pictures production
Writer/director: Steven Zaillian
Based on the novel by Robert Penn Warren
Producers: Mike Medavoy, Arnold W. Messer, Ken Lemberger, Steven Zaillian
Executive producers: Todd Phillips, Andreas Schmid, Michael Hausman, David Thwaites, James Carville, Andy Grosch, Ryan Kavanaugh
Director of photography: Pawel Edelman
Production designer: Patrizia Von Brandenstein
Costumes: Marit Allen
Music: James Horner
Editor: Wayne Wahrman
Cast:
Willie Stark: Sean Penn
Jack Burden: Jude Law
Judge Irwin: Anthony Hopkins
Anne Stanton; Kate Winslet
Adam Stanton: Mark Ruffalo
Sadie Burke: Patricia Clarkson
Tiny Duffy: James Gandolfini
Sugar Boy: Jackie Earle Haley
Mrs. Burden: Kathy Baker
Running time -- 128 minutes
MPAA rating: PG-13...
TORONTO -- You would not immediately think of Sean Penn for the role of Willie Stark, the powerful and hugely ambitious Southern politician around whom Robert Penn Warren's famous 1946 novel revolves. You think of a big man because the character was modeled after Louisiana's flamboyant governor Huey P. Long and was played in the original 1949 movie by Broderick Crawford, both stocky men. But Penn fills the screen with this cagey and cunning character, his oratory so loquacious an enemy would vote for him and a body seeming to move in several different directions with every step. In one of his greatest screen performances, Penn nails the contradictory and compelling genius of a small-time rural pol, who dreams and schemes his way to the top of a corrupt system designed to keep men like him on the outside.
This charismatic performance, surrounded by incisive turns by an all-star ensemble cast, gives furious energy to a movie that doesn't seem to know how to contain it. Writer-director Steven Zaillian's questionable solution is to fit this rambunctious portrait of unruly Southern politics in a monumental frame where Southern Gothic meets Leni Riefenstahl. Neo-classical buildings and old-money mansions tower over mere mortals or glower with oligarchic rage. Ominous darkness reaches into the corners of a screen that is as close to black-and-white as a color movie can achieve. James Horner's music thunders so melodramatically you expect lightning to fill the sky at any moment.
Audience can certainly find entertainment in this movie, so long as no one takes things too seriously. One suspects, however, that Zaillian and a vast team of producers and executive producers that includes political consultant and pundit James Carville believe they are making a serious commentary on American politics. It comes closer to kitsch. Columbia Pictures will have a job selling a movie where drawbacks nearly equal winning attributes, and its great star has never meant much at the boxoffice.
Curiously, Zaillian moves the story from the 1930s to the postwar era, apparently to let Willie Stark deliver his common-man message to integrated audiences, making it seem as if Stark/Long reached out to poor blacks as well as poor whites. He certainly never did.
This particular type of demagogue grew out of a rural region in a Southern state dominated by cigar-smoking old-boy politics of the worst sort. To defeat such men, Willie had to use their own methods against them. Thus, the idealist often worked outside the law and believed the ends always justified any means. Penn, in even Willie's earliest moments as a hick politician in a backwater town, conveys this duality. He truly believes in the hopes and aspirations of his "fellow hicks," but know he can't deliver on his promise by playing fair.
Lapsed idealist and alcoholic journalist Jack Burden (Jude Law), the novel and movie's eyes and ears, picks up on this aspect of Willie right away. From Old Southern aristocracy himself, he gloms onto Willie as a breath of fresh air blowing through smoke-filled rooms. Jack joins Willie's administration after he is elected. But when the governor is threatened by impeachment, Willie asks Jack to dig up dirt on the prominent Judge Irwin (Anthony Hopkins), a man who acted as father to Jack between and during his mother's (Kathy Baker) four marriages.
His reluctant sleuthing proves everyone's undoing as Jack is forced to confront his own past, including his long lost love, the daughter of a former governor, Anne Stanton (Kate Winslet), and her melancholy brother Adam (Mark Ruffalo), the story's only true idealist. Meanwhile, Willis' press attache and sometime lover Sadie (Patricia Clarkson) jealously stirs the pot while Tiny Duffy (James Gandolfini), a man of wide girth and low cunning, prods everyone with jabs of unimaginative pragmatism.
Subplots from the novel get shorn or abbreviated as the movie takes great leaps to get to its crucial moments. It can't afford too much subtlety, but then Willie is not a subtle guy. Nevertheless, the hammy neo-Third Reich trappings of the production design and cinematography feel disingenuous and imposed on a milieu and a political climate that produced a different kind of corruption. What you are left with then is a towering performance as Penn plays one of the great figures of 20th century American literature with a verve and vitality that is breathtaking.
ALL THE KING'S MEN
Columbia Pictures in association with Relatively Media a Phoenix Pictures production
Writer/director: Steven Zaillian
Based on the novel by Robert Penn Warren
Producers: Mike Medavoy, Arnold W. Messer, Ken Lemberger, Steven Zaillian
Executive producers: Todd Phillips, Andreas Schmid, Michael Hausman, David Thwaites, James Carville, Andy Grosch, Ryan Kavanaugh
Director of photography: Pawel Edelman
Production designer: Patrizia Von Brandenstein
Costumes: Marit Allen
Music: James Horner
Editor: Wayne Wahrman
Cast:
Willie Stark: Sean Penn
Jack Burden: Jude Law
Judge Irwin: Anthony Hopkins
Anne Stanton; Kate Winslet
Adam Stanton: Mark Ruffalo
Sadie Burke: Patricia Clarkson
Tiny Duffy: James Gandolfini
Sugar Boy: Jackie Earle Haley
Mrs. Burden: Kathy Baker
Running time -- 128 minutes
MPAA rating: PG-13...
- 9/21/2006
- The Hollywood Reporter - Movie News
NEW YORK -- This remake of the 1978 horror film "When a Stranger Calls" provides a couple of new ways to measure the rate of inflation. The original was set in a nondescript, perfectly normal suburban home. In this update, the action takes place in a palatial waterside estate so elaborately conceived that it even has its own ecosystem.
Also, this film uses only the first episode of the earlier one, in which a hapless baby-sitter is terrorized by a menacing phone caller, and manages to stretch it out over a numbing 90-plus minutes.
Another, more predictable, difference comes with the casting. Instead of the quirky, average looking Carol Kane, the baby-sitter here is played by the beautiful Camilla Belle, whose nubile qualities are highlighted in a completely irrelevant scene in which she appears in a skimpy runner's outfit.
This week's installment in the "this film is so bad we're not screening it for critics" series, this remake directed by Simon West ("Lara Croft: Tomb Raider", "Con Air") is designed to capitalize on the title and premise of the original but offers little to those who fondly remember it.
Once again, a terrified sitter, Jill (Belle), becomes increasingly unglued as she spends a blustery night alone in a house, receiving call after call from a heavy-breathing psycho. Finally contacting the police and having the calls traced, she's horrified to learn that they're coming from inside the house. Mayhem ensues.
Eschewing gore and largely devoid of real thrills, the film will be most gratifying to those heavily invested in telephone company stocks, because the damn thing never stops ringing. Although a variety of supporting characters (including the nondescript psycho, played by Tommy Flanagan) make fleeting appearances, it's largely a one-woman show, with Belle forced to do the majority of her acting with her head stuck to a receiver.
Director West handles the proceedings in capable fashion, providing the requisite atmosphere of menace via sound and lighting effects, etc.
Arriving after such innovate horror flicks as "Hostel" and the "Saw" series, "When a Stranger Calls" seems less a well-timed remake than hopelessly retro.
When a Stranger Calls
A Screen Gems release
A Davis Entertainment production
Credits:
Director: Simon West
Screenwriter: Jake Wade Wall
Producers: John Davis, Ken Lemberger, Wyck Godfrey
Executive Producer: Paddy Cullen
Director of Photography: Peter Menzies
Production Designer: Jon Gary Steele
Editor: Jeff Betancourt
Costume Designer: Marie-Sylvie Deveau
Music: James Dooley
Cast:
Jill Johnson: Camilla Belle
Stranger: Tommy Flanagan
Scarlet: Tessa Thompson
Bobby: Brian Geraghty
Mr. Johnson: Clark Gregg
Dr. Mandrakis: Derek de Lint
Mrs. Mandrakis: Kate Jennings Grant
MPAA rating PG-13
Running time -- 97 minutes...
Also, this film uses only the first episode of the earlier one, in which a hapless baby-sitter is terrorized by a menacing phone caller, and manages to stretch it out over a numbing 90-plus minutes.
Another, more predictable, difference comes with the casting. Instead of the quirky, average looking Carol Kane, the baby-sitter here is played by the beautiful Camilla Belle, whose nubile qualities are highlighted in a completely irrelevant scene in which she appears in a skimpy runner's outfit.
This week's installment in the "this film is so bad we're not screening it for critics" series, this remake directed by Simon West ("Lara Croft: Tomb Raider", "Con Air") is designed to capitalize on the title and premise of the original but offers little to those who fondly remember it.
Once again, a terrified sitter, Jill (Belle), becomes increasingly unglued as she spends a blustery night alone in a house, receiving call after call from a heavy-breathing psycho. Finally contacting the police and having the calls traced, she's horrified to learn that they're coming from inside the house. Mayhem ensues.
Eschewing gore and largely devoid of real thrills, the film will be most gratifying to those heavily invested in telephone company stocks, because the damn thing never stops ringing. Although a variety of supporting characters (including the nondescript psycho, played by Tommy Flanagan) make fleeting appearances, it's largely a one-woman show, with Belle forced to do the majority of her acting with her head stuck to a receiver.
Director West handles the proceedings in capable fashion, providing the requisite atmosphere of menace via sound and lighting effects, etc.
Arriving after such innovate horror flicks as "Hostel" and the "Saw" series, "When a Stranger Calls" seems less a well-timed remake than hopelessly retro.
When a Stranger Calls
A Screen Gems release
A Davis Entertainment production
Credits:
Director: Simon West
Screenwriter: Jake Wade Wall
Producers: John Davis, Ken Lemberger, Wyck Godfrey
Executive Producer: Paddy Cullen
Director of Photography: Peter Menzies
Production Designer: Jon Gary Steele
Editor: Jeff Betancourt
Costume Designer: Marie-Sylvie Deveau
Music: James Dooley
Cast:
Jill Johnson: Camilla Belle
Stranger: Tommy Flanagan
Scarlet: Tessa Thompson
Bobby: Brian Geraghty
Mr. Johnson: Clark Gregg
Dr. Mandrakis: Derek de Lint
Mrs. Mandrakis: Kate Jennings Grant
MPAA rating PG-13
Running time -- 97 minutes...
Simon West is in negotiations to direct a remake of the cult horror flick When a Stranger Calls for Sony's Screen Gems division. Jake Wadewall is writing the script for the redo of the 1979 film, which was released by Columbia Pictures. Ken Lemberger is producing. The studio also is developing a sequel called When a Stranger Returns. Stacy Cramer is overseeing the project. The original film starred Carol Kane as a high school student traumatized while baby-sitting, after she receives calls she thinks are coming from the parents asking her to check on the kids. The calls turn out to be coming from inside the house. West's credits include Lara Croft: Tomb Raider, The General's Daughter and Con Air. He also is set to direct RPM. He is repped by CAA.
- 4/13/2005
- The Hollywood Reporter - Movie News
Columbia Pictures' remake of the gritty social drama All the King's Men is turning into a glamorous, star-studded movie. Meryl Streep is in negotiations to join the cast, headed by Sean Penn and Jude Law, while Kate Winslet and Mark Ruffalo are in talks about the project. An offer has already gone out to Winslet, while one is pending in Ruffalo's case. Streep, who most recently played an ambitious senator in The Manchurian Candidate, would play Sadie, an aide to Southern politician Willie Stark (Penn). Law is set to appear as protagonist Jack Burden, a journalist who falls under Stark's spell. Steven Zaillian is set to direct from his own adaptation of Robert Penn Warren's novel, which is based on the life of late Louisiana Gov. Huey Long. Phoenix Pictures chairman Mike Medavoy and president Arnold Messer are producing with Zaillian. Former Columbia executive Ken Lemberger, political consultant James Carville and Todd Phillips are executive producing. Phoenix Pictures director of development David Thwaites is overseeing on behalf of the company, with Amy Baer overseeing on behalf of the studio. Streep is repped by CAA. Winslet and Ruffalo are repped by WMA.
- 9/29/2004
- The Hollywood Reporter - Movie News
Jude Law has signed on to play protagonist Jack Burden in Columbia Pictures' remake of the triple Oscar winner All the King's Men. Played by John Ireland in the 1949 version, Burden is a journalist who falls under the spell of Southern populist politician Willie Stark, whose tale is at the center of the story. Ireland received an Oscar nomination for his performance. Sean Penn is in negotiations to play Stark. Steven Zaillian is on board to direct from his own adaptation of Robert Penn Warren's novel. Phoenix Pictures chairman Mike Medavoy and president Arnold Messer are producing together with Zaillian and former Columbia executive Ken Lemberger. James Carville, President Clinton's one-time political consultant, and Todd Phillips are executive producing. Phoenix director of development David Thwaites is overseeing for the studio, with Amy Baer handling the project for Columbia. The project is aiming for a fall start date. Law, who next can be seen in Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow and Alfie, is repped by CAA and attorney Karl Austen of Hirsch, Jackoway, Tyerman, Mandelbaum & Morris.
- 7/23/2004
- The Hollywood Reporter - Movie News
Even though it eventually won three Academy Awards, the original 1949 version of All the King's Men, starring Broderick Crawford and John Ireland, was a definite underdog in its day. But the new adaptation of Robert Penn Warren's novel, which Phoenix Pictures and writer-director Steven Zaillian are readying, promises to be a much starrier affair. Sean Penn is being sought for the role of Willie Stark, the populist politician whose rise and fall is at the center of the tale. And though negotiations have not yet begun, the latest names to enter the mix are those of Brad Pitt and Jude Law. Although the Stark role is a juicy one -- it earned Crawford an Oscar -- the protagonist of Warren's novel is actually Jack Burden (played by Ireland in the '49 version), a journalist who falls under Stark's spell and loses his idealism in the process. The project, with Zaillian at the helm, is aiming for a September start date, with Phoenix producing for Columbia Pictures. Phoenix chairman Mike Medavoy and president Arnie Messer are producing together with Zaillian and former Columbia executive Ken Lemberger. James Carville, former President Clinton's one-time political consultant, and Todd Phillips are executive producing. Director of development David Thwaites is overseeing for Phoenix, with Amy Baer handling the project for Columbia.
- 4/29/2004
- The Hollywood Reporter - Movie News
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