EXCLUSIVE: The Heat team of Fox, Chernin Entertainment and Paul Feig are developing a spinoff of last summer’s hit, creating a comic vehicle that will focus on the characters played by Jamie Denbo and Jessica Chaffin. That Feig-directed and Katie Dippold-scripted film, which starred Melissa McCarthy and Sandra…

SUNDAY 10:30 AM, 7H UPDATE: It’s already crowded at the pre-Fourth Of July domestic box office which will need to expand in time to accommodate so many movies playing during the holiday. True, total filmgoing this weekend went down -8.5% from a year ago for only $192M. But studios are scrambling to see when the last…

When Melissa McCarthy didn’t lash back after New York Observer film critic Rex Reed’s out-of-bounds review of Identity Thief back in February — in which out of the blue and most cruelly he called the actress “tractor-sized” and “a gimmick comedian who has devoted her short career to being obese and obnoxious with…

Anyone who predicts sleeper hits ahead of the summer is either very brave or very spun. But these are the pics expected to emerge through the cracks of tentpole action: All benefit from obvious counterprogramming, festival hype, and demo-targeted storytelling. In chronological order: — IFC's Frances Ha has high…

EXCLUSIVE: You can always tell if a studio is bullish over the tracking of an upcoming film by whether they start the wheels moving on the sequel before the film even comes out. I’ve heard of two cases on upcoming buddy cop-genre films where this is true, The Heat and Ride Along. The Heat, the Paul Feig-directed…

20th Century Fox (“and it is called 20th Century Fox,” as Distribution President Chris Aronson wryly noted in his welcoming remarks) presented to theater owners at CinemaCon today. The highlight was about 12 minutes of selected scenes from the studio’s holiday release The Secret Life Of Walter Mitty as a “special…

Paul Feig's Feigco Entertainment has tapped Jessie Henderson to be the company’s executive vice president. Henderson, who leaves Chernin Entertainment to take this job, will be in charge of finding and developing new projects for the company to produce as well as shepherding the ones generated internally. Feigco…

EXCLUSIVE: Chernin Entertainment and Fox are so convinced they have a hit in the Paul Feig-directed comedy The Heat with Melissa McCarthy and Sandra Bullock that they moved the picture right into the heat of the July 4th holiday corridor. Now, Chernin Entertainment has closed a low-7-figure deal with that film’s…

Sony has shifted the release of its reboot with FilmDistrict of Evil Dead to April 5 now that Fox has moved its Sandra Bullock–Melissa McCarthy comedy The Heat to June 28. The bump to summer puts the Paul Feig-directed buddy cop pic in prime position to capture Bridesmaids-esque box office magic, but it left the April…

This one provides a little more graphic look at Sandra Bullock and Melissa McCarthy as reluctant partners in The Heat, written by Katie Dippold (Parks And Recreation) and directed by Bridesmaids‘ Paul…

Think this will work? Sandra Bullock and Melissa McCarthy play mismatched officers of the law who are forced together as partners to go after a drug lord. The Heat is directed by Bridesmaids‘ Paul Feig and written by Katie Dippold (Parks & Recreation). The 20th Century Fox release from Chernin Entertainment opens…

Madison Davenport has joined the cast of Noah. The teen will play the role of Na'el in the Darren Aronofsky-directed film. Noah also stars Russell Crowe, Anthony Hopkins, Logan Lerman, Jennifer Connelly and Emma Watson. In the Bible, Na'eltama'uk is the wife of Ham, one of Noah's sons. Lerman is playing Ham in the…