Anyone who has heard the scores of award-winning composer Dan Romer knows the emotion that flows through his music. Making a splash in 2012 with Ben Zeitlin’s socially conscious fairy tale Beasts of the Southern Wild—a little, lovingly made indie that went on to receive four Oscar nominations—Romer’s presence has been…

EXCLUSIVE: The Mazur/Kaplan Company and Olympus Pictures have optioned Holly Goldberg Sloan’s bestselling novel Counting By 7s. They’ve attached Oscar-nominated Beasts Of The Southern Wild star Quvenzhané Wallis and will build the movie around her. The bestseller centers on Willow Chance, a bright young girl who…

EXCLUSIVE: Following in the footsteps of Beasts Of The Southern Wild or Fruitvale Station, the 13 projects selected today for this June's Sundance Institute Directors and Screenwriters Labs could end up as Oscar nominees or at Cannes too. The projects’ origins range from the U.S. and the U.K. to Mexico, Peru, Germany…

BREAKING: Sony Pictures and Overbrook Entertainment have found their title character for Annie. They’ve set Oscar nominated Beasts Of The Southern Wild star Quvenzhane Wallis to play the role, in a film to be directed and produced by Will Gluck. Also producing are James Lassiter, Jada Pinkett Smith and Will Smith…

The 28th Annual Film Independent Spirit Awards, being held Saturday afternoon as usual under a huge tent at Santa Monica beach, is always one of the most loose and laid-back award shows of the season. Coming as it does a day before the far more formal Oscars, it provides a chance for stars and filmmakers to relax and…

Chris Terrio | Argo Chris Terrio had a trove of primary and secondary material to consult in writing the screenplay for Argo, most notably the memoir Master of Disguise, by former CIA agent Tony Mendez, and Joshuah Bearman's 2007 article in Wired magazine based on declassified documents about the remarkable…

As the industry kicks into full awards mode, with one guild after another handing out trophies to whomever they consider the year's best in any given field, it's become increasingly clear this is a year like we have not seen in a while. Certainly every season we go through this ritual of watching the crème de la crème…

The last in a three-part series in which AwardsLine breaks down all nine of the best picture contenders. Django Unchained What the Academy says:  5 nominations (Picture: Stacey Sher, Reginald Hudlin, Pilar Savone; Supporting Actor: Christoph Waltz; Original Screenplay: Quentin Tarantino; Cinematography: Robert…

With less than a month to go, the stage is set for one of the strangest Oscar showdowns in memory. Certainly the season started with some clear favorites emerging, like Argo at Telluride, Silver Linings Playbook at Toronto, then Lincoln just after the election, followed by Life Of Pi. I thought Paramount's Flight also…

EXCLUSIVE: Another script developed at the Sundance Institute's Screenwriters Lab is being made into a movie. TideRock Media and Taggart Productions  said today that they're taking Mark Elijah Rosenberg's feature debut Ad Inexplorata into production this summer. The film, which Rosenberg will also direct, is about an…

As the Sundance Film Festival marketplace gets underway this morning in frigid Park City, here’s the forecast from buyers and sellers: strong accumulation of deals, low minimum guarantees, and potentially an avalanche of multi-platform sales. There is much to be excited about here, even if buyers say they won’t let…

In the wake of its four Oscar nominations last week, Fox Searchlight said today that Beasts Of The Southern Wild will be re-released in theaters beginning Friday. The film’s return engagement will hit a limited number of cities — New York, Los Angeles, Chicago, Phoenix, Atlanta, Philadelphia, Boston, San Francisco…