James Cameron to film three Avatar sequels in New Zealand

Hollywooddirector James Cameron

Director James Cameron announced Monday he will film three sequels to the record-breaking sci-fi blockbuster "Avatar" in New Zealand after striking a deal with the government for increased production subsidies.

Cameron said the movies, with a combined minimum budget of at least NZ$500 million (US$415 million), will be shot back-to-back with each sequel released every 12 months from late 2016.

"It's quite a thrill to officially say that we'll be bringing the Avatar films to New Zealand," Cameron told reporters.

The original "Avatar" was partially shot in New Zealand and its Oscar-winning special effects were created by Wellington's Weta Digital, best known for its work on Kiwi director Peter Jackson's "The Lord of the Rings" and "The Hobbit" trilogies.

Aside from a boosted subsidy that will account for up to 25 percent of the films' budget, Cameron said New Zealand offered skilled production crews and the special effects expertise needed to bring his Avatar vision to life.

"I've worked with crews all over the world, quite a bit in the US and Canada, and you don't have that same spark (there)," he said.

The first "Avatar" was released in 2009 and tells the story of a blue-skinned indigenous species fighting to stop miners exploiting their planet Pandora.

It earned US$2.78 billion worldwide and remains the highest-grossing movie of all time, according to industry website boxofficemojo.com.

"It's a great pleasure for us to recreate that winning combination," said Cameron, who agreed as part of the production deal to advise the government on how to maintain a sustainable film industry.

Prime Minister John Key said securing the sequels was a coup that "will scream out to the world that New Zealand is a great place to make movies".

"We've got to be a lot more as a country than just lamb chops and All Blacks," he said, referring to two of the country's best-known symbols.

"That's what the movie industry does, it demonstrates to the world that there's more to us."

There were fears late last year that New Zealand would lose the deal, with the government reluctant to lift its screen production rebate from 15 to 25 percent to match the sweeteners available in countries such as Britain and Australia.

Key faced criticism in 2010 when he changed New Zealand's industrial relations laws to ensure "The Hobbit" trilogy stayed in the country, a move he said had created about 5,500 jobs.

He denied the "Avatar" deal was another example of Hollywood forcing concessions out of his government, saying "there will always be people who want to look at this as a glass half empty situation".

For all the technical skills available in New Zealand, Cameron said he and 20th Century Fox would have had to look elsewhere if the government had not offered increased subsidies.

"Business sense would have had to prevail and I'm glad that it never came to that," he said.

Cameron -- whose other hits include "Titanic", "Terminator" and "Aliens" -- refused to reveal how much he thought the three films would cost to make but said he hoped it would be less US$1.0 billion.

The Canadian-born director, who owns a rural property just outside Wellington and is in the process of obtaining New Zealand residency with his family, said pre-production work had already begun.

He said the sequels may employ the 48-frame a second technology -- twice the standard rate -- that Jackson used to mixed reviews in "The Hobbit".

"I might just use it in selected scenes, such as when the camera's panning, aerial vistas and that sort of thing," he said.

On December 16, 2013

Peter O'Toole 'Lawrence of Arabia' star dead at 81

File photo: 'Lawrence of Arabia' star Peter O'Toole

London — Peter O'toole, the magnetic performer who attained moment fame as Lawrence of Arabia and was selected eight times for an Academy Award, has passed on, his executor said Sunday. He was 81. 

O'toole kicked the bucket Saturday after a long disease, Steve Kenis said in a short articulation. 

The family was moved "by the overflowing of true love and friendship being communicated towards him, and to us, throughout this unhappy time. ... At the appointed time course there will be a dedication loaded with tune and positivity, as he might have wished," O'toole's little girl Kate said in the proclamation. 

O'toole got his first Oscar selection for 1962's "Lawrence of Arabia," his keep going for "Venus" in 2006. With that he set the record for most designations while never winning, however he had acknowledged a privileged Oscar in 2003. 

A transformed — however unrepentant — heck raiser, O'toole since a long time ago experienced sick health. Continuously thin, he had become wraithlike in later years, his broadly good looking face disintegrated by years of hard drinking. 

Anyhow nothing decreased his flashy way and realism. 

"Assuming that you can't do something enthusiastically and euphorically, then don't do it," he once said. "Assuming that you surrender drinking, don't make a go at groaning about it; backpedal on the container. Do. As. Thou. Wither." 

O'toole started his acting profession as a standout amongst the most energizing youthful abilities on the British stage. His 1955 "Hamlet," at the Bristol Old Vic, was discriminatingly acclaimed. 

Universal fame came in David Lean's "Lawrence of Arabia." With just a couple of minor motion picture parts behind him, O'toole was obscure to most moviegoers when they first saw him as T.e. Lawrence, the mythic British World War I officer and researcher who headed an Arab insubordination to the Turks. 

His delicate depiction of Lawrence's complex character earned O'toole his first Oscar designation. 

O'toole was tall, reasonable and strikingly attractive, and the picture of his splendid blue eyes peering out of an Arab hood in Lean's fabulously shot desert epic was life-changing. 

Writer Noel Coward once said that if O'toole had been any prettier, they might have needed to call the motion picture "Florence of Arabia." 

In 1964's "Becket," O'toole played King Henry Ii to Richard Burton's Thomas Becket, and won an alternate Oscar designation. Burton imparted O'toole's affection for drinking, and their counterbalance celebrating made features. 

O'toole played Henry again in 1968 in "The Lion in Winter," inverse Katharine Hepburn, for his third Oscar designation. 

Four more designations emulated: in 1968 for "Goodbye, Mr. Chips," in 1971 for "The Ruling Class," in 1980 for "The Stunt Man," and in 1982 for "My Favorite Year." It was just about a quarter-century before he gained his eighth and keep going, for "Venus." 

Seamus Peter O'toole was conceived Aug. 2, 1932, the child of Irish bookie Patrick "Spats" O'toole and his wife Constance. There is some address about if Peter was conceived in Connemara, Ireland, or in Leeds, northern England, where he acted like an adult. 

After a high school raid into reporting at the Yorkshire Evening Post and national military administration with the war fleet, junior O'toole auditioned for the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art and won a grant. 

He headed off from that point to the Bristol Old Vic and soon was en route to fame, helped along by an early triumph in 1959 at London's Royal Court Theatre in "The Long and The Short and The Tall." 

The picture of the rebel damnation raiser stayed with O'toole for quite some time, despite the fact that he surrendered drinking in 1975 emulating genuine health issues and major surgery. 

He didn't, on the other hand, surrender smoking unfiltered Gauloises cigarettes in a dark holder. That and his affinity for green socks, voluminous jackets and trailing scarves loaned him a dapper air and suited his affection for dramatization in the out-dated designed "bravura" way. 

A prior month his 80th birthday in 2012, O'toole advertised his retirement from a profession that he said had satisfied him zealously and monetarily, uniting "me with fine individuals, great colleagues with whom I've imparted the certain parcel of all on-screen characters: flounders and hits." 

"On the other hand, its my conviction that one might as well choose for oneself when the time it now, opportunity to end one's stay," he said. "So I offer the calling a dry-eyed and significantly appreciative goodbye." 

In retirement, O'toole said he might concentrate on the third volume of his journals. 

Exceptional parts were now and then few and far between, however "I take whatever great part goes along," O'toole told The Independent on Sunday daily paper in 1990. 

"Furthermore if there isn't an exceptional part, then I do anything, just to pay the rent. Cash is dependably a weight. Furthermore sitting tight for the right part — you could hold up eternity. So I turn up and do the best I can." 

The 1980 "Macbeth" in which he featured was a basic catastrophe of brave extents. However it played to sellout gatherings of people, to a great extent since the savaging by the commentators carried out the interest seekers. 

"The possibility of it makes my nose drain," he said years after the fact. 

In 1989, notwithstanding, O'toole had an enormous arrange victory with "Jeffrey Bernard is Unwell," a parody about his old drinking amigo, the fabulous layabout and women's man who composed The Spectator magazine's week by week "Low Life" section when he was calm enough to do so. 

The privileged Oscar came 20 years after his seventh selection for "My Favorite Year." By then it appeared a protected wager that O'toole's prospects for an alternate assignment were thin. He was all the while working customarily, yet in more diminutive parts unrealistic to win grants consideration. 

O'toole thoughtfully acknowledged the privileged grant, jesting, "Always a bridesmaid, never a spouse, my foot," as he grasped his Oscar statuette. 

He had about turned down the grant, sending a letter requiring that the Academy from Motion Picture Arts and Sciences hold off on the privileged Oscar until he turned 80. 

Trusting an alternate Oscar-commendable part might come his direction, O'toole thought of: "I am still in the diversion and may win the bugger by and large." 

The last chance came in, for "Venus," in which he played a lecherous old actor consigned to roles as feeble-minded royals or aged men on their death beds. By failing again to win, he broke the tie for futility which had been shared with his old drinking buddy, Richard Burton.

O'Toole divorced Welsh actress Sian Phillips in 1979 after 19 years of marriage. The couple had two daughters, Kate and Pat.

A brief relationship with American model Karen Somerville led to the birth of his son Lorcan in 1983, and a change of lifestyle for O'Toole.

After a long custody battle, a U.S. judge ruled Somerville should have her son during school vacations, and O'Toole would have custody during the school year.

"The pirate ship has berthed," he declared, happily taking on the responsibilities of fatherhood. He learned to coach schoolboy cricket and, when he was in a play, the curtain time was moved back to allow him part of the evenings at home with his son.

On December 15, 2013

Nominees for Golden Globe Award will be unveiled, in crowded race

Hollywood sign file photo

Golden Globe coordinators uncover nominations for their twelve-month film honors demonstrate on Thursday, as Hollywood's respects season gets into full swing with a guard throws of hotly-tipped contenders. 

Historical show "12 Years a Slave" got an early help on the eve of the Globes nominations, topping the Screen Actors Guild (Sags) nods Wednesday with four. 

At the same time in the not so distant future race dangers being especially crowded, with a string of movies winning basic approval, ranging from 3d sci-fi exhibition "Gravity" to historical stories like "Lee Daniels' The Butler" and wrongdoing dramatization "American Hustle." 

On the acting front, unanticipated leaders include enormous names like Meryl Streep, Forest Whitaker, Tom Hanks, Robert Redford and Cate Blanchett, additionally lesser known Chiwetel Ejiofor ("12 Years a Slave") and June Squibb ("Nebraska"). 

"This is effortlessly the best year I've seen," said Variety's grants editor Tim Gray, who has worked at the industry diary since 1981. 

"Typically there are three or four movies that are certain to be nominated for best picture, and afterward you speculate what movies will fill alternate spaces. In the not so distant future, there are no less than 15 movies that merit a best picture nomination." 

Those movies additionally include Woody Allen's "Blue Jasmine," Walt Disney Mary Poppins story "Saving Mr Banks," and no less than three films dependent upon true occasions: "Captain Phillips," "Dallas Buyers Club" and Stephen Frears' new film "Philomena." 

Blanchett is tipped as a leader for Allen's film in the vicinity of an agitated New York socialite, while Sandra Bullock awed both faultfinders and filmgoers as an outer-space man stranded in space with George Clooney in "Gravity." 

Emma Thompson dazzled as Mary Poppins author P.l. Travers against Hanks' Walt Disney, and individual British veteran Judi Dench could be nominated for the title part in "Philomena," around the range of a lady seeking her mature person child lost after she was compelled into a community as a kid. 

For show, Ejiofor is broadly tipped for "12 Years a Slave," in the vicinity of a man sold into subjugation in nineteenth century America, while Matthew Mcconaughey has won applauses for "Dallas Buyers Club," for which he lost 30 pounds to play a rodeo hawker diagnosed with the Hiv infection in the 1980s. 

Hollywood veteran Redford could additionally get a shot at grants gold for his performance execution in "All is Lost," around the range of a mariner facing his mortality after his vessel is wrecked in a crash with a container vessel. 

On the little screen, best acting piece arrangement nominees are liable to include faction arrangement "Breaking Bad" and Netflix's political dramatization "House of Cards," while "Girls" and "Modern Family" are relied upon to be shortlisted in the best drama class. 

Best acting nominees might include Bryan Cranston ("Breaking Bad"), Kevin Spacey ("House of Cards"), Claire Danes ("Homeland"), Kerry Washington ("Scandal"), Jim Parsons ("The Big Bang Theory"), Michael J Fox ("The Michael J Fox Show"), Julia Louis-Dreyfus ("Veep") and Lena Dunham ("Girls"). 

The Golden Globe nominations will be advertised soon after 5:30 am (1330 Gmt) Thursday. The 71st yearly Golden Globes will be held on January 12 in Beverly Hills.

On December 12, 2013