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A sort of general roundup for you today, pertinent news if you quite enjoy sometimes reading about film and TV.
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Headlines around BACKROOMS are easy to find. Kane Parsons (20 year old YouTuber) found a partner in A24 to make a £10m movie which is now nearing an astounding $400 million in revenue. A unicorn story in a potholed landscape. However, delving deeper into the origins of the story is completely fascinating. We live in a world where audience and fans can shape IP. And in turn those communities can play a role in its creation and ownership. A24 recently withdrew copyright takedown notices against the community who were part of the reason the show existed in the first place. I’d encourage anyone interested in the future of storytelling and filmmaking to absorb this article from State of Brand which dives into the saga. Wild times.
The Odyssey is set to become Nolan’s most successful release to date, having already surpassed $700 million in the global box office in just 13 days, and some territories, like China, are only being released on August 14th. The film is set to do $1.3 billion total, surpassing The Dark Knight Rises by a coupla bill. Decent.
The BFI has a new director of their yearly fund - Isabel Davis will head up the £50 million per annum allocated to the UK’s screen industry. Did you also see that the BBC and Channel 4 might share their streaming programming with the iPlayer hosting shows from both platforms. Most likely to give some leverage to the broadcasters given Sky/Comcast’s recent £1.6 billion acquisition of ITV.
And, Canal+ are investing $1.1 billion into French and European films over the next 5 years. Though this comes at a rather turbulent time in France and this news has added to a real ongoing kerfuffle - Netflix and Amazon are bringing cases behind closed doors to loosen France’s regulations, traditionally speaking 20% of streamer revenue has to go back into French cinema. If interested do read about the whole affair here.
OUR PICK OF THE WEEK
Steven Soderbergh's two-hander is built for the screen even though it could easily have been a stage play, and it's all the better for it. Ian McKellen and Michaela Coel circle each other for the whole runtime, and the mismatch is what makes the it.
McKellen, plays a notorious bad-boy British artist nearing death. Coel is a gifted young painter roped in to finish eight canvases she abandoned years ago. The setup is a con: his grasping grown-up children (Jessica Gunning and James Corden) know the unfinished works are locked upstairs, each completed one worth millions, so they plant Coel's character as his new assistant to quietly complete and lift them.
What follows is knottier than just a heist. It's days of mental sparring with the man who first made her want to paint, and who then wrecked her early career, humiliating her on national telly as a teenager on a talent show. So she holds real power: restore his legacy, or bury it once he's gone.
McKellen is having a feast, bloviating away in states of undress no one asked for, a fading seducer whose body has quit but whose ego hasn't. Coel plays the opposite register entirely, watchful, guarded, everything happening in flickers across the face as she weighs up her fallen idol. She's the future looking back at the past: her sharp, measured critique lands harder than his tantrums ever could.
Soderbergh skips lightly over the forgery mechanics because the real question is who the genuine fraud is here. Underneath the game sits something bigger: what an artwork is, who it belongs to, and how we choose to be remembered. Eloquent, sly, quietly moving.
See yas next time.
Ed
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