Witherspoon, Vergara team up in ‘Pursuit’
LOS ANGELES, May 2, (RTRS): Hollywood actress Reese Witherspoon teams up with “Modern Family” star Sofia Vergara in “Hot Pursuit”, a female-driven comedy directed, produced and led by a strong presence of women on set.
Academy Award winner Witherspoon, also one of the film’s producers, plays an uptight police officer who has to protect the more outgoing widow of a drug boss, played by Colombian-born Vergara.
“It’s not just that it’s better, you know? It’s just that it’s comfortable,” Vergara said at the film’s premiere on Thursday night, when asked about having more women involved in a production.
“We all were taking care of each other like ‘Oh you need to sit straight because your dress is not looking good’. You know (with) things like that that (as) girls we’re always like watching (out) for each other.”
Empowerment
Witherspoon has been vocal about the empowerment of women in Hollywood. She has been quoted as saying she began her production company after she saw “six of my favourite actresses fighting over a really crappy role”.
“It’s an easier kind of communication working with just women,” Witherspoon said at the premiere. “We have just a kind of a short hand. We think the same things are funny. It’s also we just enjoy the process, it’s fun.”
“Hot Pursuit” is scheduled for US release on May 8.
LOS ANGELES:
Director Bryan Singer has given fans their first look at Sophie Turner’s Jean Grey and Lana Condor
“I just got an idea for another project with Sofia but I’ll wait till we’re done on selling this before we talk about it,” Witherspoon said.
Vergara said in response that it would be a “dream come true” to work with Witherspoon again. “She’s so easy, super professional.”
“Hot Pursuit” is the third film from Witherspoon and partner Bruna Papandrea’s Pacific Standard that’s opened within the last seen months following “Gone Girl” and “Wild.”
“I saw a white space in the marketplace. Alot of people weren’t developing movies with strong female leads, so I decided to start a company and that’s been our main directive,” said Witherspoon.
“Doing a comedy after doing two very serious films was a good shift for us,” noted Papandrea at the Hollywood Roosevelt after-party — dressed up like a quinceanera from the comedy. “Comedy is hard. I don’t think comedians get the respect they deserve.”
She noted that Pacific Standard has more than a dozen projects in development in a variety of genres, adding, “There’s nothing that we won’t do.”
Efforts
Director Anne Fletcher said she’s pleased about the recent efforts by Sony to develop female-centric reboots of franchises such as “Ghostbusters” and “21 Jump Street.” “I’m so mad I didn’t come up with that idea,” she said. “‘Ghostbusters’ with chicks is the best!”
Co-star Richard T. Jones suggested “Goodfellas” with an all-black cast.
Fletcher mulled the movie with a female cast instead. “I think the world wants to see some tough, thuggy ladies,” she laughed.
One of the biggest hits on the carpet was Abby James Witherspoon, who plays a young version of her aunt’s police officer character in the opening sequence. Asked what advice her aunt had given her for the red carpet, she responded, “She told me to keep smiling.”
In its second recent high-profile digital domain alliance, Cinando, the film industry’s premier data base/B2B VOD site, has teamed with Digital Film Cloud Network (DFCN), a newly launched software platform, to allow film/TV content creators to streamline business processes.
The move comes as content owners are finding new revenue growth in volume sales to platforms- iTunes, Netflix, Amazon, national VOD sites — or specific territories — such as the US Latino — and the amount of product — be it movies or dramas — hitting the international market has risen exponentially.
The venture allows the 60,000-plus users of Cinando, instant access to the DFCN platform and, at the click of a button, the migration of their films/TV shows’ Cinando data onto DFCN, allowing them to make their sales rights available via DFCN and streamline the processes of financing, licensing and distribution.
Launched last
November,
the DFCN Digital Rights Marketplace now features 10,000-plus films. Physical markets will not go away. As global film production levels have skyrocketed, the Cannes Film Market has also grown for 18 out of the 20 years since 1995, reaching an all-time record of 11,806 participants in 2014. The DFCN-Cinando alliance seeks to facilitate tools to battle an increasingly complex content rights business. DFCN can also increase sales through its global reach, the partners argue.
“With over 8,000 films entering the global distribution market this year, and 200,000-plus sales agents, distributors and exhibitors scattered across the world, each with their own business objectives, rights holdings, sales plans, and revenue targets, the approach of buying and selling movie rights licenses at physical marketplaces has become a costly and highly inefficient proposition,” said Ray Bell, CEO of Digital Film Cloud Network. “Our rapid customer growth and industry-wide endorsement is testament to the demand for an online marketplace that directly addresses these growing issues.”
“We are excited to be able to offer our Cinando users the ability to easily post their films in the DFCN Film Rights Marketplace for financing and licensing,” said Jerome Paillard, executive director of Cinando and Marche du Film. “We need to erase the boundaries between physical and digital markets to increase the efficiency of film professionals. This is a radical step that only Marche du Film, Cinando, and solutions as DFCN can deliver.”