France’s CGR Cinemas Keeps Moving Forward, ‘Super Mario’ Success in ICE Format Touted at CineEurope

Manchester United are reportedly keen on AS Monaco defender Axel Disasi.

Refresh for latest…: Busy weekend at the international box office with a strong scary new entry, some unexpected spark in holds and a milestone for a long-running franchise.

Elsa Keslassy International Correspondent After starring in Mona Achache’s “Little Girl Blue” which played at Cannes, Marion Cotillard will work with another daring French female auteur, Lucile Hadzihalilovic, on her next film “La tour de glace.” The long-gestated film marks the first collaboration between Hadzihalilovic and Muriel Merlin (“France,” “The Truth”), producer at 3B Productions. Hadzihalilovic’s follow up to “Earwig,” which won the jury prize at San Sebastian, “La Tour de glace” is expected to be the director’s most accessible and ambitious film to date. The movie will reteam Hadzihalilovic with Cotillard who had starred in her 2004 film “Innocence.” Co-written by Geoff Cox, “La tour de glace” is set in the 1970s and follows Jeanne, a teenage girl who runs away from her orphanage located in a mountain village. She flees to Paris with big dreams to fulfill and finds shelter in a warehouse which turns out to be used as a studio where The Snow Queen is being filmed. The film’s star, Cristina, a beautiful woman in her forties, takes Jeanne under her wing, exerting a dangerous and overpowering influence over the young girl she sees herself in.

The fatal shooting of a 17-year-old by a police officer in Nanterre, France earlier this week has set off a swath of nationwide riots and violence, resulting in early closures of some cinemas, curfews in certain cities and a plea for calm from the national football team, among more widespread issues.

The Match Factory has acquired international sales rights to Cinema Laika, a documentary feature about Finnish filmmaker Aki Kaurismäki and his process of building a personal movie theater in Karkkila, Finland.

Leo Barraclough International Features Editor Sales company The Match Factory has boarded the documentary “Cinéma Laika,” which focuses on Aki Kaurismäki’s construction of his own movie theater in Karkkila, Finland. Veljko Vidak directed the film, which was shot “in close harmony with Kaurismäki’s cinematic style,” according to a statement. The documentary offers an opportunity for the audience to delve into the realm of the Finnish master, engage with his peers, including Jim Jarmusch, and fully immerse themselves in the world of Kaurismäki’s cinema. In Karkkila, a small village in Finland, which has relied solely on metallurgical activities for the past two centuries, Kaurismäki and his friend the poet and writer Mika Lätti construct their own movie theater, called Kino Laika, within an old foundry. Using recycled wood and metal, and pre-owned furniture, Kaurismäki and the residents of Karkkila collaboratively craft Kino Laika.

Brits travelling to Paris this summer have been warned about violent protests that have erupted in the capital of France.

Two of the most successful specialty films of the year expand this weekend and a handful of others jump into an arthouse market that’s seen few new entrants in recent weeks as wide release piled on wide release.

Hit U.S. Gameshow ‘Password’ Coming To ITV

Patrick Frater Asia Bureau Chief French pay-TV giant Canal+ is to take a significant minority stake in successful Asian streaming firm Viu. It could end up becoming its majority owner.

Ben Croll An evangelist for the premium format, France’s CGR Cinemas has forged a growing number of international partnerships since the exhibition chain began exporting its proprietary Immersive Cinema Experience (ICE) model in 2017. At the start of this year, CGR – through its export arm ICE Theaters – had already opened premium rooms in Barcelona, Los Angeles, New Dehli and Jeddah, among others; by December, the premium format will win over new converts in Colombia, Ecuador, Thailand and Estonia, with even more to come. As part of its strategy, ICE Theaters teams with local distributors and top exhibition chains, lending “legitimacy” to a still-young brand, designed in-house, that outfits a row of LED panels on both sides of an auditorium and fills them with bespoke visuals extending the action onscreen (“It’s like surround sound but for light,” is how an ICE exec describes it).

Leigh Francis has announced that for the first time in decades he is ditching his Keith Lemon alter ego for his first ever UK tour. The 50-year-old Celebrity Juice star will embark on an 18-date tour entitled My First Time, which kicks off in Bath on March 6, 2024.

Justice are expected to release a new album and hit the road next year.The news was teased by Pedro Winter — the boss for Ed Banger Records — in a new interview.Speaking with French news outlet, France Inter, the music mogul confirmed that the electronic duo have been busy working on a new album, which is set for release in 2024. He also announced that the pair — comprised of Gaspard Augé and Xavier de Rosnay — are going to be embarking on a series of live dates to coincide with the release.“I can tell you right now, they will have a new album and a new tour in 2024,” he said, discussing the French electronic band (via Billboard).Winter, who is also known by his producer moniker Busy P, has had an extensive history with the band, and worked with them for all three of their albums.

Naman Ramachandran Illumination founder and CEO Chris Meledandri was presented with the Annecy International Film Festival’s lifetime accreditation Golden Ticket on Wednesday. In a surprise appearance, two-time Oscar nominee and Grammy-winning global superstar Pharrell Williams presented Meledandri with the festival’s honor. Meledandri is the creative producer behind “The Super Mario Bros. Movie,” the Despicable Me, Minions, Sing and The Secret Life of Pets franchises, and the upcoming action comedy, “Migration.” Williams, a longtime creative partner with Illumination, earned his first Academy Award nomination for his blockbuster song “Happy” from the studio’s “Despicable Me 2.”

Owen Gleiberman Chief Film Critic It’s one of the inside-out realities of our era that scandal, if you give it enough time, turns into myth. So it is with the story of Milli Vanilli, the German-French R&B pop duo of the late ’80s and early ’90s who, having sold close to 50 million records, were revealed to be a fake: a pair of lip-syncing Euro pretty boys who hadn’t sung a note on any of their hits or at any of their concerts. Once they’d been unmasked, the rise and fall of Milli Vanilli played out on two levels. The first was the spectacular embarrassing bad joke of it all — though it was never just a joke, since Milli Vanilli’s fans felt a tremendous sense of anger and betrayal at having been fooled. (The joke was on them.) The second level recognized a crucial and obvious truth: that the scandal wasn’t only about Rob Pilatus and Fabrice Morvan, with their teenybop dreads and break-lite dance moves, getting up onstage and singing to prerecorded tracks, as if it had all been their idea. No, the brazen fakery of Milli Vanilli echoed, or at least rhymed with, various other kinds of fakery that were embedded in the music industry (the packaging of boy bands, the use of lip-syncing by established stars). This was certainly more extreme, and worthy of being called on the carpet for, but it wasn’t a stand-alone sin.

Johnny Depp is not worrying about the Amber Heard drama as he celebrates a huge milestone in his life.

ABC is passing on its pilots.

Bryan Cranston has set a date for his temporary retirement and a move to France in the future.The Breaking Bad actor revealed to British GQ that he plans to temporarily retire from acting and his business ventures in 2026 for at least six months, in order to spend more time with his wife, Robin.“I want to change the paradigm once again,” he told the publication. “For the last 24 years, Robin has led her life holding onto my tail. She’s been the plus one, she’s been the wife of a celebrity.

Bryan Cranston hits the big screen next as part of the ensemble cast of Wes Anderson‘s latest opus, “Asteroid City.” But don’t expect the actor in any follow-ups Anderson plans, at least after 2026. Indiewire (via British GQ) reports that Cranston plans to retire that year after he turns 70 and then move to France.

Manori Ravindran Executive Editor of International Israeli crime drama “Your Honor,” which was adapted by Showtime as the Bryan Cranston-led thriller, has been revealed as the most successful new scripted format in the last three years by U.K. media intelligence consultancy K7 Media. The Yes Studios-produced scripted format has had seven adaptations since 2020, including the Showtime series, alongside versions in India, France, Russia, Germany, Italy and Turkey. Other top-performing scripted formats with five or six new adaptations since 2020 include ITV’s he said-she said thriller “Liar” out of Britain; Stan’s Australian police comedy “No Activity”; Argentinian parenting telenovela “Dear Daddies” from Telefe; and the French showbiz dramedy “Call My Agent!” from M6.