Entertaining Posts: 07/18/11

Monday, July 18, 2011

Charlie Sheen gets his "Anger Management" on TV show

LOS ANGELES | Mon Jul 18, 2011 2:06pm EDT

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - He's "winning" -- again. Charlie Sheen, who had a spectacular fall from TV grace on his former sitcom "Two and a Half Men," confirmed on Monday reports that he will return to television in a new comedy, "Anger Management," based on the 2003 movie of the same name.

The film starred Adam Sandler as a man who is forced into anger management counseling only to meet an instructor (Jack Nicholson), who is more than a bit angry himself. Sheen will take the Sandler role in the TV show and retain an ownership stake in the series, the producers said in a statement.

"I chose 'Anger Management' because, while it might be a big stretch for me to play a guy with serious anger management issues, I think it's a great concept," Sheen said.

Sheen had been TV's highest paid actor for his role as Charlie Harper, a boozing womanizing bachelor on No. 1-rated comedy "Two and a Half-Men." But earlier this year he was fired by its makers and CBS, the network that aired the show, after he lashed out in public rants at "Men" creator Chuck Lorre.

The actor's firing followed a series of incidents in late 2009 and 2010 that landed him in legal trouble and in rehab for drug and alcohol abuse.

After he was kicked off "Men" in March this year, Sheen began a posting videos and making statements on Twitter to his fans in which he characterized his detractors as losers and touted his "winning" ways. He also embarked on a one-man, live stage show -- his "Violent Torpedo of Truth" comedy tour -- which met with mixed results in various cities.

In May, CBS and the "Men" hired Ashton Kutcher to replace Sheen, and since then, speculation has mounted about Sheen's future. Reports surfaced recently on celebrity news websites that he reached a deal to work on the "Anger Management" TV show, and Monday's announcement from Sheen and the show's producers, Lionsgate Television," confirmed those reports.

"Who better than Charlie Sheen to tackle Anger Management," said Joe Roth, who heads up Revolution Studios, which produced the movie and backed the TV show. "With Charlie's incredible talent and comedic gifts, he remains the leading man of TV sitcoms. I'm excited to collaborate with him once again."

Sheen and Roth had worked together on previous films including "Major League" and "Young Guns."

The actor said the new deal gives him "real ownership" in the series and "a certain amount of creative control."

"Anger Management" does not yet have a U.S. network. It will be syndicated by Lionsgate unit, Debmar-Mercury.

(Reporting by Bob Tourtellotte, Editing by Christine Kearney)

Russia lures Hollywood, raising bar for local film

By Nastassia Astrasheuskaya

MOSCOW | Mon Jul 18, 2011 6:17am EDT

MOSCOW (Reuters) - Russia may not become the next Hollywood, but Tinseltown is definitely coming to Russia, where audience numbers are growing fast and U.S. blockbusters are gaining greater popularity over domestic films.

Recognizing Russia's potential as a rapidly emerging film market, Hollywood has been flying silver screen stars to Moscow for red carpet events, to the delight of avid Russian fans.

Johnny Depp and Penelope Cruz visited Moscow for the Russian premiere of "Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides" in May, while the world premiere of Hollywood 3D blockbuster "Transformers: The Dark of the Moon" attracted 80 Hollywood names including director Michael Bay.

"Moscow is an emerging market, it plays a very important international role," Bay said before the premiere. The film made $22 million in Russia in its first week, 3.4 percent of the global box office take so far.

Cinema-going is booming in Russia two decades after the collapse of the Soviet Union put a night out at the movies out of reach for many. Cinemas made a record $1 billion in sales last year on the back of 15.2 percent audience growth.

"We're seeing a solidly positive trend, which shows that people feel comfortable. Russians are adopting the lifestyles and consumer behaviors of the developed nations," said Yevgeny Nadorshin, an economist and former government adviser.

Foreign movies became Russian favorites two years ago, when their Russian returns first outperformed those of domestic films. Last year, U.S. productions made almost five times as much as the Russian ones.

The latest high-profile Russian film "Tired with the Sun-2: The Citadel", heavily promoted at last year's Cannes festival by veteran actor-director Nikita Mikhalkov, flopped, earning less than 4 percent of its $34-million budget in its first two weeks.

"The problem with producers here is they don't co-produce well with other countries, or with each other, and a lot of them get money too easily. They are not as hungry as foreign producers are, they churn out movies with very little quality," said Russian-based independent film director Johnny O'Reilly.

FILM FINANCING

The Russian government invested a record 4.5 billion roubles ($159 million) in the film industry in 2010, nearly twice as much as the previous year.

A similar amount will be put into the industry in 2011, Prime Minister Vladimir Putin said earlier this year,. However, the investment will primarily go on doubling the number of cinemas from 2,246, instead of supporting individual production companies as before.

Independent industry research firm Movie Research forecasts that even if the project boosts ticket sales by a third, domestic filmmakers may still struggle to find funding.

Russian World Studios, Russia's largest independent TV production company, last week obtained a $42 million loan from ING bank and Sberbank, using its library content as collateral, in the first such funding deal in Russia.

And production group Bazelevs launched a fund with broker Troika Dialog last month to raise funds for cartoon film "Smeshariki", which is due for release in December.

"This is the first opportunity in the history of the (Russian) film industry when filmmakers can offer their projects to investors directly," Nikita Trynkin, chief executive at Bazelevs, told Reuters.

But seeking financial backing, especially from foreigners, will not prove an easy task in Russia.

Overseas film financiers are used to making money from DVD sales, which have never been great in Russia as most viewers illegally download films online for free.

(Editing by Douglas Busvine and Paul Casciato)