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June 14 - June 20

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Two highly anticipated Apple original thrillers will be hitting theaters in the summer of 2024, with both films being released within a span of a few months. The Instigators is an upcoming heist thriller starring Matt Damon and Casey Affleck which will be released by Sony Pictures Releasing in theaters on August 2, 2024, and will be available to stream on Apple TV+ on August 9, 2024. Wolfs is an upcoming psychological thriller starring other Ocean's Eleven alumni George Clooney and Brad Pitt that is set to hit theaters on September 20, 2024. Wolfs will also be available to stream exclusively on Apple TV+ on an unspecified date...

As the 2024 Tribeca Festival comes to a close, the top film prizes have just been announced at an awards ceremony at Racket NYC. This year, the Founders Award for Best U.S. Narrative Feature went to “Griffin in Summer,” while “Bikechess” scored the prize of Best International Narrative Feature, and “Hacking Hate,” Best Documentary Feature. The competition categories include Feature Film, Short Film, Audio Storytelling, Immersive, Games, Viewpoints, Human/Nature, and Tribeca X...

In 2023, IMDb teamed up with data analytics platform Tableau to empower movie fans and data lovers to create and share free data visualizations using IMDb’s movie data. So far, Tableau users have created more than 600 data visualizations using IMDb user ratings, genres, Academy Award wins, and more to create deep dives on topics like Disney movies, the films of Jim Carrey, horror movies, and many others. Now, IMDb is thrilled to share that hard work by highlighting some of the visualizations. “Our new collaboration with Tableau will empower entertainment fans and professionals to surface and share insights from the IMDb database in visually compelling ways,” said Nikki Santoro, Chief Operating Officer, IMDb. “This is an exciting, unique opportunity for users to showcase their love of film for a global audience by creating new and distinctive data visualizations that will entertain and inform movie fans.”...

Former Head of Reel FX Originals and Paramount Animation vice president Jared Mass announced at the Annecy Animation Festival, the first project at Chalkdust Animation Studios, a new CG label based in Atlanta, Ga. focused on real-time, virtual production for film and TV projects. Chalkdust’s debut project, “Boxen: The Childhood Chronicles of C.S. Lewis,” weighs in as a serialized adaptation of Lewis’ first-ever short stories, written with his brother when he was still a child. Financing for the first season has already been finalized by Noble Road Media, a new Atlanta-based organization formed by Michael Carney, who will executive produce with Mass and Vincent Sieber-Smith, co-director of The C.S. Lewis Company. Production of “Boxen” will feature a mix of traditional animation tools, motion capture and cutting-edge software. It’s a production pipeline that Mass is familiar with from his time producing Netflix’s “Super Giant Robot Brothers” at Reel FX Originals....

Sony Pictures Entertainment has acquired Alamo Drafthouse Cinema, the theater chain that inspired a passionate following with its creative cocktails, extensive food menu and strict “no talking, no texting” policies. The media company acquired Alamo Drafthouse from owners Altamont Capital Partners, Fortress Investment Group and its founder Tim League. Founded in 1997 by Tim and Karrie League as a single-screen repertory theater in Austin, the company has become the seventh-largest theater chain in North America, catering to over 10 million guests annually. ..

Hollywood since COVID has figured out new ways to wring riches after a film’s theatrical life. Domestic box office revenues, however, determine how lucrative a licensing deal a movie can get from streamers, cable TV or other downstream sources. And cinema owners still get to keep about 50% of box office ticket sales. So the rule of thumb is that studios need movies to gross 2.5 times their production budgets to climb out of the red...