NZ | Movie + TV News

[KIWIKAAS]

Perfect Creature

Set during the 1960s in an alternate New Zealand known as Nuovo Zelandia, PERFECT CREATURE imagines a world where vampires and humans peacefully co-exist, with the bloodsuckers the next step in human evolution. This delicate balance looks to be destroyed when an influenza epidemic begins to sweep the human population and one vampire turns to preying on humans. The church sends out Silus (Scott) to catch the renegade vampire, Edgar. Silus joins forces with a human police captain (Burrows), and discovers that Edgar harbors dark secrets.

20th Century Fox is set to acquire Glenn Standring's edgy vampire film "Perfect Creature," which stars Dougray Scott ("Mission: Impossible II"), Saffron Burrows ("Troy"), Stuart Wilson, and Scott Wills. The horror film displays a retro-futuristic world in which humans and vampires coexist. The deal is the largest sale ever made of a New Zealand film and is first time a U.S. studio has acquired a film from the compact market. The film should be in wide release later this year.







Dunedin vampire movie NZ's biggest film deal


15.05.05


By David Fisher


A horror film made in Dunedin and partly funded by taxpayers has been tipped as New Zealand's biggest movie deal.

The movie watchers' bible, Empire, says the film Perfect Creature is being bought by 20th Century Fox and is planned for wide release before the end of the year.

With a budget of $20 million, it could bring in huge money for the film's backers, including the NZ Film Fund.

"Forget The Lord of the Rings, forget King Kong, this is apparently the biggest sale ever made of a Kiwi film," Empire said.

The film is directed by New Zealander Glenn Standring and is being shown at the Cannes Film Festival in France.

Standring yesterday played down comparisons of success, but he did admit: "We've done pretty well."

Perfect Creature stars British actor Dougray Scott and Saffron Burrows. It is set in an alternate reality - a "retro-futuristic world" - in which humans and vampires coexist.

Standring's previous feature film The Irrefutable Truth About Demons sold strongly internationally.

According to the Hollywood Reporter, the deal is "the largest sale ever made of a New Zealand film". It has already been sold in the United Kingdom, Japan, across Europe and in Southeast Asia.

HERALD ON SUNDAY

[flyin_higher]

NZ's movie industry sure is going from strength to strength. Awesome stuff

[SYDNEY]

I believe that King Kong is also being filmed in NZ - where in particular I don't know. There is also another fantasy film being shot - something about a witch and a cupboard ??? does anybody know about this film ?

[KIWIKAAS]

Originally Posted by gandalf33

I believe that King Kong is also being filmed in NZ - where in particular I don't know. There is also another fantasy film being shot - something about a witch and a cupboard ??? does anybody know about this film ?

King Kong is Peter Jackson's latest baby and is being filmed in Wellington in the same studios where LOTR was made. As with LOTR Jackson has recieved funding from New Line Cinema to make the film.

The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe is a foreign enterprise (as far as I know) where NZ is being used for locations only. Nicole Kidman has a leading role.

[atkinson1]

Yep I think The Lion the Witch and the Wardrobe is British. There was another NZ film called Boogyman which parts of were filmed in my uni building, and scenes from another film called Spooked were filmed right at the top of my street!

They seem to be following me around LOL.

[flyin_higher]

Are you spooked tom?

[KIWIKAAS]

King Kong





Starring: Naomi Watts, Jack Black, Adrien Brody, Jamie Bell, Andy Serkis, Lobo Chan, Kyle Chandler, Evan Parke, Thomas Kretschmann, John Sumner, Colin Hanks, Stephen Hall, David Dengelo, Louis Sutherland

Director: Peter Jackson
Release Date: December 14th, 2005
Studio: Universal Pictures
Synopsis: Story of the gigantic gorilla captured in the wilds and brought to civilization, where he meets a tragic fate. Based on the original story by Merian C. Cooper and Edgar Wallace.

[KIWIKAAS]

Filmmaker Peter Jackson--assiduously disheveled, frequently barefoot and barely 5-and-a-half feet tall--is a giant in Hollywood. But in his native New Zealand he is something even bigger: its newest national hero. That much is clear from the moment you land at the airport in Wellington, where a red carpet is lined with giant golden replicas of the 11 Oscars awarded to Lord of the Rings: Return of the King and a massive model of the film's eerie Golum character peers over the roof of the main terminal. Weeks after the Academy Awards onslaught, articles about him still splash across the front pages of the local papers. Around town people breathlessly recount the true story of how a fully clothed Paris Hilton accidentally fell into a swimming pool at an Oscar party--only to be rescued by Jackson himself. "We're thinking of naming one of the islands after him," jokes Belinda Todd, a local television writer. "I mean, it's only fair."

Jackson, 42, suddenly is one of the richest and most powerful people in the movie business, having turned J.R.R. Tolkien's classic into a film franchise that has generated $4 billion in ticket sales, DVDs and merchandise. In all Jackson, as director and producer, has reaped more than $125 million from the three Rings films, an oeuvre that took eight years of his life to complete. In the past year he earned $35 million, ranking him 20th in pay and 12th overall on the Forbes Celebrity 100 list. He got a 7.5% cut of the gross profits from DVD sales of the second Rings film and from theater sales for the third.

And Jackson is receiving a beastly upfront fee of $20 million to direct and produce his next film and write the screenplay for it. Finished with Hobbits, Jackson is taking on a remake of King Kong, which will star Naomi Watts in the role first made famous by Fay Wray in 1933 (and reprised by an ingenue named Jessica Lange in the Dino De Laurentiis remake in 1976). He also will receive 20% of the gross profits. It is a record-breaking deal for a director. "It's a lot of money,'' he admits sheepishly, though he emphasizes that part of the loot will go to his co-writers. "Obviously, it's at the top end of what you can get paid."

Now New Zealand's favorite native son is betting it all on his homeland. He is plowing upwards of $50 million of his own money into building a studio empire here, complete with giant sound stages, special-effects workshops and futuristic editing operations. On a recent day bulldozers roar outside as Jackson sits inside the nearly completed Park Road Post, an old chemical factory that he is converting into a lavish postproduction site. It is filled with voice-dubbing stages and editing rooms and designed to evoke Frank Lloyd Wright's famous Prairie style. Cost: $35 million. "We just had this money coming in from Lord of the Rings," he says with an embarrassed laugh. "So we just turned it all around and put it into this."

Jackson is putting another $7 million into a new soundstage to complement the two stages he already owns. He also is part-owner of a digital-effects company--Weta Ltd., which handled the brilliant pixilated stunts in the Rings series--and a props design firm, Weta Workshop, which created the suits of armor and weaponry for Middle-earth.

[KIWIKAAS]

Halo movie recruits Peter Jackson

Halo has sold more than five million copies
Oscar-winning film director Peter Jackson and his team will produce the forthcoming film based on popular video game Halo.
The director, who is reported to be an avid fan of Halo, will use his Weta production facilities in Wellington, New Zealand where the film will also be shot.

Alex Garland, author of popular novel The Beach, has written the script.

A director and cast are expected to be named in coming weeks.

Alien race

Universal film studios, which will oversee the film's production and distribution, hinted that the movie will draw heavily on the game.

"The game is a good template," said Donna Langley, Universal's production president.

Halo has a complex mix of mythology, characters and worlds and follows the adventures of futuristic super-soldier Master Chief as he fights to save mankind from an alien race.

The game, originally released in 2001, has sold in excess of five million copies around the world. A sequel came out last year.

Peter Jackson is best known for his Lord of the Rings trilogy which was heralded as a movie triumph. On the Halo film Mr Jackson and his wife have been named as executive producers.

In a recorded clip shown at Microsoft's X05 Summit held in Amsterdam Mr Jackson said he had been playing Halo 2 in the evening while shooting King Kong and added that he "can't wait" to work on the film.

The Halo film is due to be released in mid-2007 by Universal Pictures and Twentieth Century Fox film studios.

It joins a growing trend of video games turned movies.

Lara Croft: Tomb Raider, Resident Evil and Doom have all already made it to the silver screen.

Microsoft has done well out of the Halo deal, receiving a reported payment of £2.8m plus 10% of movie ticket sales.

Bungie, the Microsoft-owned venture which developed Halo, said at the time it was looking for "someone who's as committed to the Halo universe as Peter Jackson was to Tolkien's Middle-Earth".

[mtb_nz]

Excellent news aye... Peter Jackson should be given some type of merit award... he has done an awesome job of getting movies done here and also spent millions on movie infrastructure here in NZ.

[mtb_nz]

yeah I watched the Worlds Fastest Indian movie last weekend.... it had quite a good story line behind it... I’m not sure how well it has done overseas, but its definitely a movie that would mean more to New Zealanders than anyone else.

And I think Anthony Hopkins did a good job of having a NZ accent too

[Neitzsche]

As fate would have it I've been working on a house that Alex Garland bought with the coin microsoft gave him for the script. Asked him about the film and if he was happy Jackson was EP, but seems that he has fallen out of the loop with the studio. He wasn't even sure that his script was going to be used for the film. Will post if he mentions anything else.

[KIWIKAAS]

Wellington to roll out red carpet for King Kong

24.11.05 1.00pm


Wellington will roll out the red carpet for more than 200 metres at the New Zealand premiere of Peter Jackson's film of King Kong.

Jackson, Weta Workshop's Richard Taylor and stars Naomi Watts, Adrien Brody, Andy Serkis and Thomas Kretschmann will attend the premiere on December 14.

Actor Jack Black is not expected to attend.

The capital's nightlife strip Courtenay Place will be the centre of the action, with the premiere screened at the Embassy Theatre, where Jackson's three The Lord of the Rings films had their world premieres.

The world premiere of the US$207 million ($298 million) movie will be in New York on December 5.

Even though the three-hour movie is set in New York, Wellington Mayor Kerry Prendergast considers it to be a home-town film.

"It's a privilege to host another red carpet event for Peter Jackson.

"Peter is a home-town hero and we consider this a home-town film because so much filming was done locally," she said today.

While there will be no city centre parade as was the case for The Lord of the Rings, there will be red carpet entertainment, a Wellington City Council spokeswoman said.

The red carpet will run for 217m from Allen St to the Embassy Theatre.

Grandstands will be erected to cater for some of the thousands of spectators expected to pour into the city for the event.

There will be road closures, and public transport will be diverted.

- NZPA

[KingKong1]

apparently the people that have already seen King Kong (movie executives, big wigs and what not) are comparing it to Titanic and calling it a masterpiece, hard to tell if it will be that successful but i have the feeling it could be something special maybe more oscars for lord jackson

[Jade456]

I wish he would just make a movie for the Hobbit! Although the trailers for King Kong look pretty good, as do the special effects.

[CULWULLA]

ive seen a sneak preview and it was impressive.
aparently kong was made more "life like" and givern a squinty eye and greying hair!

dec14 opening day
http://www.kingkongmovie.com/

ESB and Kong seem to go hand in hand











miss watts should be good.


jessica lang in 77 movie

[KIWIKAAS]

Sneak preview gives King Kong a roar of approval

29.11.05 1.00pm


American magazine Newsweek has given Peter Jackson's King Kong a roar of approval after a sneak preview of the director's $292 million epic.

In an otherwise dismal year for the North American box office, hopes are high King Kong will be a major hit.

Newsweek reporter Devin Gordon, who was flown from the United States to New Zealand by Jackson to see the nearly-finished product, said the director had honoured his favourite film in the best possible way -- by recapturing its heart-pounding, escapist glee.

He also said it was a "surprisingly tender, even heartbreaking film".

There were a few nerve-racking scenes, including one in which a Venture crew member had his head eaten by a 2.4m slug, Gordon said.

He also thought a scene on a frozen pond in New York's Central Park tilted "toward the corny".

"It must have made Jackson impatient, too. He ends it abruptly with a giddy blast of artillery fire."

Otherwise Gordon was impressed with the three-hour film. The 1933 original was just 100 minutes.

"Some critics will complain that the film's length is an act of Oscar-drunk hubris, but while Kong may be indulgent, it's not pretentious. And it's certainly never dull."

Gordon said the relationship between Kong and Ann Darrow, played by Naomi Watts, was "poignantly drawn" and Watts "is the soul of the film".

Andy Serkis, who was the model for the computer-generated Gollum in The Lord of the Rings, did the same for the computer-generated Kong.

"Once again, he puts a big, thumping heart inside a digital body."

Jackson, Weta Digital chief Richard Taylor and his crew, and most major cast members head for New York this week for the world premiere on December 5.

The world's media will see special advance screenings of King Kong this weekend in New York, where Jackson and the main cast and crew will also be interviewed.

After other premieres, including Berlin and London, Jackson will return to Wellington for the New Zealand premiere on December 14.

[isoboy]

Perfect Creature sounds great! I really wanna see this! Even more appealing, it's actually set in NZ, not just using the country as a backdrop. I assume it's been released by now in NZ (and perhaps elsewhere?) - any reports?

[KIWIKAAS]

King Kong opening in NY

Is it just me or has Jackson lost weight?





[/QUOTE]

[KIWIKAAS]

Filming Locations for
King Kong (2005)
Beach Road, Parnell, Auckland, New Zealand
(Auckland Studio)


Camperdown Studios, Miramar, Wellington, New Zealand
(studio; Venture Set)


Civic Theatre, Queen Street, Auckland Central Business District, Auckland, New Zealand
(New York theater; interior)


Cook Strait, New Zealand
(Venture Ocean Scenes)


Hutt Valley, Wellington, New Zealand
(New York City Settings)


Kapiti Island, Wellington Region, New Zealand
(Venture Ocean Scenes)


Los Angeles, California, USA
(post production shots)


Lyall Bay, Wellington, New Zealand
(Skull Island Wall)


Miramar Wharf, Cobham Drive, Miramar, Wellington, New Zealand
(Venture pier scenes)


Miramar, Wellington, New Zealand
(various studio warehouses)


New Zealand


Opera House, Manners Street, Wellington Central Business District, Wellington, New Zealand
(theater rehearsals)


Seaview, Wellington, New Zealand
(New York Set)


Thailand
(Skull Island Jungle Footage)


WETA Studios, Miramar, Wellington, New Zealand
(studio)