Lionsgate UK and Idris Elba's Green Door Pictures are partnering to launch the Write To Green Light competition, designed to discover new creative voices for television in the returnable drama space. Lionsgate's Zygi Kamasa and Elba will judge the entries alongside a panel of industry experts. The winner receives a…

EXCLUSIVE: In what may be one of the bolder casting exercises in some time, Joaquin Phoenix is being eyed to play Jesus Christ in Garth Davis’ Mary Magdalene opposite Rooney Mara. A deal is still some way off being done, with scheduling believed to be one concern, but if this goes down it would be a clear statement of…

The Mark Gordon Company, Koch Company, China’s Pegasus Media Group and the China Film Group are teaming with The King’s Speech scribe David Seidler and Jacqueline Feather on English-language feature Edge of the World. Pegasus and China Film Group will finance the action-filled transcontinental love story, which will…

Film financier Prescience has launched subsidiary Ignition Media Finance to provide short term media finance and pre-production funding for producers. During the last decade, Prescience, directly or via Hindsight and Bridgeworks, has lent in excess of $100m to film and TV companies in the US, UK and Europe, including T…

Similar to the way that the Weinstein Co. has a knack for eyeing awards-worthy films to acquire or produce, the company has continually excelled with platforming titles to higher grosses and crossing them over from New York and Los Angeles arthouse-goers to mainstream auds. It’s a B.O. strategy that goes back to…

'Tis the season. For prognostication, that is. The other day someone interviewed me and asked if I would like to be identified in the article as an "Oscarologist." Say what? Certainly the term has been used for some time on websites such as Gold Derby, but I wonder what the dictionary definition would be…

Unrepped writer Richard Galazka’s romantic comedy Matinee Idol and Malachi Smyth’s Gateway 6 topped the annual Brit List of best unproduced screenplays. Both projects received nine votes. The list is compiled by UK producers, agents, distributors and sales companies, who aren’t allowed to vote for their own projects…

UK-based financier Cascade Pictures, which launched at Toronto in September, has boarded its first feature, The Lady Who Went Too Far. Oscar-winning King’s Speech writer David Seidler is adapting the screenplay from Kristen Ellis’ biography, S…

EXCLUSIVE: London and LA-based film music provider The Cutting Edge Group invests cash in film music budgets and provides or brokers services for scoring, clearances and music supervision. It then recoups from soundtrack and sheet-music sales along with licensing and royalties from ticket sales and TV deals. New…

Although the Harry Potter series has drawn to a close, the UK film industry believes the movies will continue to work their magic for years to come. In releasing its 2012 statistical yearbook today, the BFI pointed to long tail benefits from the Potter decade that include Warner Bros’ new studio facility at Leavesden…

BREAKING: David Seidler, who won the Oscar for his The King’s Speech script, has signed with WME. Seidler famously waited 28 years for the Queen Mother to die after she asked him not to make a movie out of King George VI’s story because memories of WWII was too upsetting for her. He turned his work into a play, which…

The Weinstein Co in full awards-season glory thanks to this year’s Best Picture Oscar frontrunner The Artist leading the distributor’s 16 overall nominations. But the black-and-white silent film hasn’t been a blockbuster at the box office, having taken in only about $28 million domestically to date. So it’s not…