Walt Disney has merged its theatrical and home entertainment arms in Japan; Walt Disney Studios Motion Pictures Japan and Walt Disney Studios Home Entertainment Japan - which handles DVD, Blu-ray, the Disney Channel and VoD will now all operate under the name Walt Disney Studios Japan.

The restructure, which came into effect on March 1, is intended to streamline the studio’s releases and so meet changing customer demand. Walt Disney USA is also looking to address the shifting balance between cinema and home entertainment audiences, including the implementation of shorter theatrical release windows.

One of the big winners at Sunday’s Academy Awards Ceremony was hard-hitting film The Cove, which won Best Documentary. The film, which focuses on the annual slaughter of thousands of dolphins in the western Japanese port of Taiji, has gathered critical acclaim and universal plaudits - but, unsurprisingly, the mayor of Taiji is not among its fans.

“The film has mistakes of fact,” mayor Kazutaka Sangen told local press. “I’m surprised that it won the award even though its content is not truthful.” And, although the film is being released in Japan later this year, Sangen was adamant that audiences would not respond well to it. “[Theatres] with common sense will call off screenings. We intend as a town to tell the truth about the dolphin fishery, both domestically and internationally.”

And Yoshinobu Nisaku, the governor of Wakayama Prefecture in which Taiji is located, also weighed in on the argument, saying “Criticizing this business, which has been contributing to the livelihood of Taiji for a long time, with incorrect information and one-sided value judgments, is not the way of a gentleman.”

Katsutoshi Mihara, chairman of the Taiji town council, added, “The Academy Award will be a perfect platform for them (the filmmakers) to trumpet their views, while earning them money in various ways. But nothing will change for us.”

But, with an Oscar now added to director Louie Psihoyos’s bulging awards cabinet - which already includes the audience award from the Sundance Film Festival, trophies from both the Writers and Directors Guilds, the National Board of Review prize and one from the Los Angeles Film Critics - it’s clear that the film’s message is striking a chord with audiences across the globe. And, as anyone who has seen the The Cove knows all too well, it’s a message that’s pretty hard to ignore.

After putting itself up for sale back in November, MGM has been open to offers on its assets, but now a deadline of March 19 has been set for receiving bids; a possible sign that it may be close to working out a sale or a programme of restructure.

Over the last month, around six bidders - including, if insider reports are to be believed, Time Warner and Lionsgate - have been invited to get involved in a second round of bidding, with the studio opening up their books to these chosen few.

On January 29, MGM was given two further months of exemption from its debt payments, with money-lenders agreeing to a March 31 deadline for this agreement.

MGM received two more months of exemption from debt payments on Jan. 29 as lenders agreed to extend the “forbearance” period on interest payments on its debts until March 31. With a looming repayment of its $250 million credit line in April, and a further $1 billion payment on its $3.7 billion debt due in July 2011, it’s clearly in MGM’s best interests to get a deal in place soon.

One of the producers of Kathryn Bigelow’s The Hurt Locker has been banned from attending this year’s Academy Awards, where the film is nominated for nine Oscars including Best Film, for openly campaigning against rival movie Avatar. Nicolas Chartier sent emails urging Academy voters to get behind his movie, and “not a $500m film”. Such behaviour goes against the rules of AMPAS, which prohibit ‘casting a negative or derogatory light on a competing film” - although some suggest that the practice is widespread, and that Chartier’s punishment is unfair. If The Hurt Locker does win the Best Picture award, Chartier will receive his statuette at a later date.

Chartier, who financed the film himself, has been described as having a volatile temprement by screenwriter Mark Boal (who is also one of the other producers of the film). “It was a hard movie to get made,” Boal told The Daily Beast. “It was a challenging shoot and it’s the nature of the things that tempers can flare and strong disagreements can arise. And Nic was eventually asked not to come back to the set.”

And if that’s not enough, The Hurt Locker filmmakers are facing a potential lawsuit from American soldier Master Sergeant Jeffrey S Sarver, who alleges that the narrative follows his own experiences as the leader of a bomb disposal unit. Sarver says that screenwriter Boal traveled with his unit in Iraq, and that the character of Sergeant William James (played by Jeremy Renner) has based on him. He is seeking the financial compensation he believes he deserves, which reportedly runs into millions of dollars.

American distributors Summit Entertainment dispute the claims, with a spokesman issuing the following statement. “Ever since Summit acquired the distribution rights to the finished feature film during the 2008 Toronto International Film Festival we have been proud to showcase the film to audiences in the US. The film is a story about heroes depicting a fictional account of what brave men and women do on the battlefield. We have no doubt that Master Sgt Sarver served his country with honour and commitment, risking his life for a greater good, but we distributed the film based on a fictional screenplay written by Mark Boal. We hope for a quick resolution to the claims made by Master Sgt Sarver.”

A Man’s Story

Directed by Varon Bonicos, A Man’s Story documents ten years in the life of fashion icon Ozwald Boateng, profiling his design, his business and his personal life. Starring Boateng as himself. Produced by Rachel Robey and Alastair Clark, Wellington Films.
Funding awarded: £13,500 (development); £190,000 (production)

Africa United
Marking the feature film directorial debut of Debs Gardner-Paterson, Africa United is the extraordinary story of three Rwandan children who run away from home in a bid to take part in the opening ceremony of the 2010 Football World Cup in Johannesburg. On their epic 3000 mile journey they gather a “dream team” of displaced kids through whose eyes we witness an Africa few have ever seen. Written by Rhidian Brook. A UK/Rwanda/South African co-production produced by Mark Blaney, Jackie Sheppard and Eric Kabera alongside co-producers Mark Hubbard and Lance Samuels.
Funding awarded: £500,000 (production)

Another Year
The latest film from established director Mike Leigh (Happy Go Lucky), featuring Michele Austin, David Bradley, Jim Broadbent, Phil Davis, Karina Fernandez, Oliver Maltman, Lesley Manville, Stuart McQuarrie, Martin Savage, Ruth Sheen, Imelda Staunton and Peter Wight. Produced by Georgina Lowe, and executive produced by Gail Egan, Thin Man Films.
Funding awarded: £1.2m (production)

Attack the Block
The writer-directorial debut of Joe Cornish, about a gang of south London teenagers defending their tower block against an alien attack. Produced by Nira Park, James Wilson and executive produced by Matthew Justice, all for Big Talk Pictures.
Funding awarded: development (Big Talk slate); £1,094,239 (production)

Brighton Rock
Writer/director Rowan Joffe’s debut feature, adapted from Graham Greene’s 1939 novel about the fall of Pinkie, a razor-wielding disadvantaged teenager with a religious death wish. Starring Sam Riley, Andrea Riseborough, Helen Mirren and John Hurt. Produced by Paul Webster, Kudos Pictures/Brighton Rock Productions.
Funding awarded: development (Optimum/Big Talk slate); £1,052,083 (production)

CAMERAMAN: The Life and Work of Jack Cardiff
A 90 minute feature documentary illuminating the incomparable life and work of cinematographer Jack Cardiff. Craig McCall’s passionate and detailed film reveals a unique figure in British and international cinema whose career was inextricably interwoven with the history of cinema itself - incredibly spanning nine of moving picture’s first ten decades. His story is told by Jack himself and twenty leading actors, directors and producers (including Martin Scorsese, Kirk Douglas, Lauren Bacall, Charlton Heston, Alan Parker, Sir John Mills and Sir Richard Attenborough) and includes unique behind-the scenes footage from Jack’s own personal archive. Produced by Craig McCall and Richard McGill, Modus Operandi Films.
Funding awarded: £150,000 (production)

Centurion
A gripping survival thriller written and directed by Neil Marshall (The Descent, Dog Soldiers), set against a background of conquest and invasion, based on the legend of the 9th Legion of the Roman Army in AD 117 who mysteriously vanished. Cast includes Michael Fassbender, Noel Clarke, Dominic West and Olga Kurylenko. Produced by Oscar®-winning Christian Colson (Slumdog Millionaire) and Robert Jones, Celador Films.
Funding awarded: £1.2m (production)

Chatroom
Thriller by acclaimed writer Enda Walsh (Hunger) directed by Hideo Nakata (The Ring, Dark Water). When five teenagers meet online in a chatroom they form innocent friendships, but soon one dysfunctional member of the group singles out the most vulnerable, seizing the chance to erase his own past. Cast includes Aaron Johnson, Imogen Poots and Daniel Kaluuya. Produced by Alison Owen and Paul Trijbits at Ruby Films and Laura Hastings-Smith.
Funding awarded: £39,860 (development); £700,000 (production)

Cherry Tree Lane
Written and directed by Paul Andrew Williams (London to Brighton). An urban thriller about a couple who are terrorised by a gang of youths hunting their son. Cast includes Rachael Blake and Tom Butcher. Produced by Ken Marshall, Steel Mill Pictures.
Funding awarded: £155,000 (production)

Cirkus Columbia
Danis Tanovic’s Cirkus Columbia, set in former Yugoslavia, is the story of a man who returns to his native Herzegovina from Germany, with plenty of cash and a great revenge to take. Things start off quite well for him, but soon old passions and the threat of war disrupt his schemes… Produced by Cedomir Kolar, Marc Baschet, Mirsad Purivatra and Amra Baksic-Camo. Co-produced by Cat Villiers, Gerhard Meixner, Roman Paul, Dunja Klemenc and Marion Hänsel.
Funding awarded: £20,800 (development); £435,000 (production)

Donkeys
Directed by Morag McKinnon, and written by Colin Mclaren, Donkeys is a bittersweet, tragi-comic tale. When Alfred learns of his impending death he realises it’s time to make amends with his estranged family. However, before things get better they get a whole lot worse and a blast from the past injects calamity, comedy and confusion into Alfred’s efforts. Cast includes James Cosmo, Brian Pettifer, Kate Dickie, Martin Compston, Natasha Watson, Natalie Press, Tony Curran. Produced by Anna Duffield, Gillian Berrie, Sigma Films.
Funding awarded: £18,375 (development); £350,000 (production)

First Grader
Directed by Justin Chadwick (The Other Boleyn Girl) and written by Emmy-winner Ann Peacock. The true story of an 84 year-old Kenyan villager and ex Mau Mau freedom fighter who fights for his right to go to school for the first time to get the education he could never afford. Cast includes Oliver Litondo and Naomie Harris. The first feature from David Thompson’s new production company, Origin Pictures, who is producing alongside Richard Harding and Sam Feuer for Sixth Sense Productions.
Funding awarded: £35,500 (development); £600,000 (production)

Neds
Written and directed by Peter Mullan. Neds (Non Educated Delinquents) is the story of a young man’s journey from prize winning schoolboy to knife carrying teenager. Struggling against the low expectations of those around him, John McGill changes from victim to avenger, scholar to Ned, altar boy to glue sniffer. When he attempts to revert back again, his new reality and recent past makes conformity near impossible and violent self determination near inevitable. Cast includes Peter Mullan, Louise Goodall, Marianna Palka, Conor McCarron and Gregg Forrest. Produced by Alain de la Mata, Marc Missonnier and Olivier Delbosc and co-produced by Conchita Airoldi, Peter Mullan, Lucinda Van Rie. Production companies; blueLight, Fidelite and Studio Urania.
Funding awarded: £650,000 (production)

Project Nim (working title)
The new film from Oscar®-winning team, director James Marsh and producer Simon Chinn (Man on Wire). Produced by Red Box Films in association with John Battsek’s Passion Pictures. Funding awarded: £49,900 (development); £510,095 (production)

Self Made
Directed by Turner Prize-winning artist Gillian Wearing, and co-written by Gillian Wearing and playwright Leo Butler. Based on an idea by Gillian, Self Made follows seven participants discovering their invented selves through a method workshop. Produced by Lisa Marie Russo.
Funding awarded: £35,000 (development); £250,000 (production)

Son of Babylon
Directed by Mohamed Al Daradji (Ahlaam). A UK/Iraqi film which tells the tale of a young Kurdish boy and his grandmother as they travel through Iraq searching for their father/son in the wake of Saddam Hussein’s fall from power. Screenplay by Jennifer Norridge, Mohamed al-Daradji and Mithal Ghazi. Produced by Isabelle Stead, Atia Al-Daradji, Mohamed Al-Daradji and Dimitri de Clercq. Production companies: Human Film and Iraq Al-Rafidain. Winner of the Amnesty International Film Award and the Peace Film Award at this year’s Berlin International Film Festival.
Funding awarded: £17,750 (development); £150,000 (production)

StreetDance 3D
Directed by Max Giwa and Diana Pasquini and written by Jane English (Sugar Rush). The first ever fiction 3D film to be produced in the UK, following the exploits of a London dance crew training for the UK Street Dance Championships who are forced to work with ballet dancers from the Royal Dance School in return for rehearsal space. Cast includes Charlotte Rampling, Nichola Burley, Richard Winsor, and Britain’s Got Talent dance sensations George Sampson, Diversity and Flawless. Produced by James Richardson and Allan Niblo, Vertigo Films.
Funding awarded: £1,003,300 (production)

Submarine
The feature film debut from writer/director Richard Ayoade. A coming of age comedy set in Swansea following 15 year old Oliver Tate through the impending break-up of his parents’ marriage and his first relationship. Cast includes Sally Hawkins, Noah Taylor, Paddy Considine, Craig Roberts and Yasmin Paige. A Warp Films production in association with Red Box Films, produced by Andy Stebbing, Mark Herbert and Mary Burke.
Funding awarded: £700,000 (production)

Tamara Drewe
Directed by Stephen Frears (The Queen) and adapted by Moira Buffini from Posy Simmonds’ graphic novel and Saturday Guardian strip. A modern-day take on the Hardy classic, Far From The Madding Crowd starring Gemma Arterton – a story of love and lust in a rural idyll. Cast also includes Dominic Cooper, Roger Allam, Luke Evans, Bill Camp and Tamsin Greig. A Ruby Films production produced by Alison Owen and Tracey Seaward.
Funding awarded: £102,625 (development); £780,000 (production)

The Arbor
Directed by artist Clio Barnard. A feature documentary about the Buttershaw Estate, the setting for Andrea Dunbar’s autobiographical stage plays and Alan Clark’s film adaptation Rita, Sue and Bob Too (1987), as well as A State Affair (2000) by Robin Soans. Cast includes Manjinder Virk, Christine Bottomley, Neil Dudgeon, Jimi Mistry, Kathryn Pogson, Natalie Gavin, Danny Webb, George Costigan. Exec-produced by Michael Morris for Artangel, and produced by Tracy O’Riordan for the Jerwood Artangel OPEN.
Funding awarded: £25,000 (development); £128,885 (production)

The Guard
Written and directed by John Michael McDonagh. An unorthodox Irish policeman joins forces with a straitlaced FBI agent, to take on an international drug-smuggling gang. Cast includes Brendan Gleeson, Don Cheadle, Mark Strong, Liam Cunningham, Fionnuala Flanagan, David Wilmot, Rory Keenan, Pat Shortt and newcomer Katarina Cas. Produced by Reprisal Films’ Chris Clark and Flora Fernandez Marengo and Element Pictures’ Ed Guiney and Andrew Lowe.
Funding awarded: £250,000 (production)

The King’s Speech
Directed by Tom Hooper (The Damned United) and written by David Seidler. The true story of the unorthodox relationship between England’s reluctant King George VI, plagued by a nervous stammer, and the irreverent Australian speech therapist who cures him. Starring Colin Firth, Geoffrey Rush, Helena Bonham Carter and Timothy Spall. Produced by See-Saw’s Iain Canning, Emile Sherman and Bedlam’s Gareth Unwin.
Funding awarded: £21,080 (development); £1m (production)

Tracker
Directed by Ian Sharp (Tess of the D’Urbervilles, TV) and written by Nicolas van Pallandt. A manhunt thriller starring Ray Winstone and Temuera Morrison about a Boer War veteran who is promised a bounty to capture a Maori seafarer accused of killing a British soldier. A UK/NZ co-production and produced by David Burns and Trevor Haysom. Production companies: Eden Films, T.H.E. Film in association with Phoenix Wiley and Liberty Films.
Funding awarded: £971,291 (production)

Untitled, Gabriel Range
Writer Jeremy Brock and producer Andrea Calderwood collaborate for the first time since the Oscar®-winning The Last King of Scotland. They are joined by director Gabriel Range (Death of a President) on the currently untitled project, which, inspired by real life events, is an extraordinary story about one woman’s fight for freedom from modern day slavery. Cast includes upcoming international talent, Wunmi Mosaku (Moses Jones), Lubna Azabal (Occupation, Body of Lies), Igal Naor (The House of Saddam) and Nonso Anozie (Occupation, Atonement). Produced by Slate Films/Potboiler Productions and the Borough Picture Company.
Funding awarded: £55,600 (development); £632,500 (production)

We Want Sex
Directed by Nigel Cole (Calendar Girls). Sally Hawkins stars as Rita O’Grady, the catalyst for the 1968 Ford Dagenham strike by 187 sewing machinists which led to the advent of the Equal Pay Act. Cast also includes Andrea Riseborough, Bob Hoskins, Daniel Mays, Geraldine James, Jaime Winstone, Kenneth Cranham, Miranda Richardson, Roger Lloyd-Pack, Rosamund Pike, Rupert Graves and Richard Schiff. Screenplay by Billy Ivory. Produced by Stephen Woolley and Elizabeth Karlsen, Number 9 Films.
Funding awarded: development (Number 9 Films slate); £903,077 (production)

West is West
Directed by Andy De Emmony and written by Ayub Khan Din, West is West is the sequel to the internationally acclaimed and successful East is East, which takes the Khan family on a journey from Salford, England to rural Pakistan. Cast includes Om Puri, Linda Bassett, Aqib Khan, Emil Marwa, Jimi Mistry, Veejay Raaz, Lesley Nicol and Ila Arun. Produced by Leslee Udwin, Assassin Films.
Funding awarded: £106,956 (development)

PROJECTS IN DEVELOPMENT

The UK Film Council is also supporting the development of new projects from a range of talent, including:

• Award-winning director Lynne Ramsay (Morvern Callar, Ratcatcher), whois currently developing her upcoming feature We Need To Talk About Kevin;
• Oscar® and Cannes winning director Andrea Arnold (Fish Tank, Red Road), who is working on an original idea called The Cleaner;
• Bestselling author Nick Hornby, Oscar®-nominated for An Education, who is co-writing family animation The Babymakers withGiles Smith;
• Award-winning author Sadie Jones who is adapting her debut novel The Outcast for John Madden (Shakespeare in Love) to direct;
• Lee Hall, award-winning writer of Billy Elliot, currently working on For The End of Time about French musical genius, Olivier Messiaen;
• Oliver Hirschbiegel, director of Five Minutes of Heaven, currently working with the Bond writers Neal Purvis and Robert Wade on mafia thriller Corsica 72;
• Conor McPherson (The Eclipse), who is writing a ghost story Strangers to be directed by Oscar®-winning director James Marsh;
• Leading British author Jeanette Winterson (Oranges are Not the Only Fruit), writing her screen debut Gertrude and Alice about Gertrude Stein and Alice B Tokles;
• Hanif Kureishi, the renowned novelist, playwright, screenwriter and filmmaker, who is adapting Aravind Adiga’s Man Booker Prize-winning novel The White Tiger;
• John Crowley (Boy A, Is Anybody There?), developing his new project Iggy, about the Jamaica-based Sister Iggy, the nun who nurtured reggae;
• Actor Paddy Considine,(Dead Man’s Shoes, My Summer of Love), who is writing and directing his first feature The Journeyman;
• BAFTA-winning screenwriter Jeremy Brock (The Last King of Scotland), currently writing The Spare about Prince Harry, to be directed by Peter Kosminsky, and also working on How I Live Now, based on the novel by Meg Rosoff;
• James Watkins, breakthrough director of BIFA award-winning film Eden Lake, whois developing his next, as yet untitled, project;
• Noel Clarke, 2009 BAFTA Rising Star and actor/writer/director (Adulthood, Kidulthood), who is currently co-writing his new Olympics film Fast Girls with Jay Basu, and working with Kidulthood director Menhaj Huda on new film Despatched;
• Enda Walsh (Hunger, Chatroom), writing an adaptation of Dancing with Demons, the authorised biography of Dusty Springfield;
• BAFTA award winning writer Matt Greenhalgh (Control, Nowhere Boy), who is developing his new project Xcalibre;
• Stephen Fry, the writer, actor, and film director, who is developing Hallelujah!, a film about Handel’s Messiah, co-written with Nick Adams;
• John Maybury (The Edge of Love), developing Lee Miller, about the American model, muse, photographer and war reporter;
• Director Peter Strickland (Katalin Varga), who is developing The Berberian Sound Studio, a horror set in Italy;
• Actor Danny Huston (21 Grams, The Constant Gardener), currently writing and directing Mexican thriller Day of the Dead;
• Tony Grisoni (Death Defying Acts) and Terry Gilliam (The Imaginarium of Dr Parnassus) co-writing The Man Who Killed Don Quixotefor Gilliam to direct;
• Roger Michell (Venus, Enduring Love), directing Hyde Park on Hudson, written by Richard Nelson;
• Frank Cottrell-Boyce (Grow Your Own, 24 Hour Party People) who is adapting Michael Morpugo’s award-winning novel Kensuke’s Kingdom, for Anand Tucker (And When Did You Last See Your Father) to direct;
• Oscar®-winning writer Simon Beaufoy, (Slumdog Millionaire, The Full Monty), who is adapting The Raw Shark Texts from the novel by Steven Hall, and Salmon Fishing in the Yemen, from the novel by Paul Torday, to be directed by Bill Condon (Dreamgirls);
• Michael Winterbottom (The Shock Doctrine), co-writing The Promised Land with Laurence Coriat (Genova), a drama set in Palestine;
• Oscar®-winning writer Christopher Hampton (Atonement, Dangerous Liaisons), who is adapting the bestselling novel The Thirteenth Tale by Diane Setterfield;
• Zam Salim, the BAFTA Scotland-nominated newcomer is developing his short film Laid Off, into his first feature.

For more information on any of these films, contact the UK Film Council Press Office:
Email: tara.milne@ukfilmcouncil.org.uk
Tel: 0207 8617901

Jacques Audiard’s gripping prison thriller A Prophet continues to gather momentum as we head towards the Oscars - where it’s nominated in the Best Foreign Film category - by taking home nine Cesars (France’s premiere awards) at a ceremony held over the weekend.

Among the honours bestowed upon the film were Best Film, Best Director and Best Actor for star Tahar Rahim, who was also named Most Promising Actor. Rahim’s co-star Niels Arestrup won Best Supporting Actor, while the film also took home Best Original Screenplay, Editing, Production Design and Cinematography.

In acceting his award, Audiard acknowledged the support of the extras in the film, who were all ex-prisoners.  ”We had a really exceptional cast of extras,” he said. “They forced us to do something exceptional.”

A Prophet has been winning awards left, right at centre since it won the Grand Jury Prize at the 2009 Cannes Film Festival, where it made its debut. This has been followed by a BAFTA, the London Critics’ Circle Film of the Year Prize and Best Film at the London Film Festival. The smart money says that an Oscar will be added to this impressive haul on March 7.

Although he’s best known for destroying the world in movies like Independence Day, The Day After Tomorrow and 2012, German director Roland Emmerich has chosen a surprising target for his next project - William Shakespeare.

Entitled Anonymous, the film - which begins shooting in April - deals with the long-standing rumours that Shakespeare did not actually write his acclaimed works. First put forward by Thomas Looney in 1918, the suggestion is that Shakespeare’s plays were actually written by Edward De Vere, the 17th Earl of Oxford. The story goes that De Vere did not put his own name to the plays lest his peers think that such a pursuit was not a suitable pastime for a man of his aristocratic standing.

The Boat That Rocked star Rhys Ifans is on board to play De Vere, while Harry Potter’s David Thewlis is to take the role of William Cecil, De Vere’s father-in-law and chief adviser to Queen Elizabeth I (who will be portrayed by Vanessa Redgrave)

Speaking about the film, Emmerich explains it as “…a mix of a lot of things: it’s an historical thriller because it’s about who will succeed Queen Elizabeth and the struggle of the people who want to have a hand in it. It’s the Tudors on one side and the Cecils on the other, and in between [the two] is the Queen. Through that story we tell how the plays written by the Earl of Oxford ended up labelled ‘William Shakespeare’.”

Cornwall may well take its place on the movie map, with news that some of the fourth instalment of mega-franchise Pirates of the Caribbean might be shot in the beautiful coastal town of St Ives. Yes, star Johnny Depp may well be turning up on the beach, alongside his rumoured new co-star Penelope Cruz and director Rob Marshall (Chicago, Nine) - who takes over from Gore Verbinski - to film some scenes for the film. It’s certainly a big contrast to the franchise’s other main location of Hawaii. Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides is due for release in 2011.

Falling Stars

Industry analyst Michael Gubbins examines why the fall of the movie star may mean the rise of the actor…

“I am big. It’s the pictures that got small.” It’s taken 60 years, but the movies have delivered a $2bn riposte to Norma Desmond’s famous put down in Sunset Boulevard.

The pictures have been getting much bigger. So big, in fact, that they cannot be constrained by a mere two dimensions. And James Cameron’s Avatar has been the big blue daddy of them all, breaking all records for box office revenue and crossing the $2bn landmark in just seven weeks. “With this crazy, ambitious flight of fancy, Cameron has effectively killed off the movie star,” said the Times, a view held by a great many in the media. The stars-if we can still describe them as such-will now have to get used to playing second fiddle to CGI and gargantuan franchises, goes the theory.

There is more than a grain of truth in all of this. Since the collapse of the hedge fund boom in Hollywood two years ago, movie stars have had to face some harsh realities. The studios have bet their future on giant global franchises and 3-D, and the stars themselves are smaller. The acid test is whether any customer now cites the name of the star as the primary motive for going to a film, as they used to do for the likes of Humphrey Bogart.

These things work in cycles, however.

The triumph of high-concept or grand-franchise films will last precisely as long as the boredom threshold of audiences allows it. Stardom-for all the fairy dust is basically an economic unit. If people will part with tickets just to watch an actor, a star is born and the fees go soaring. But a couple of fundamental changes are happening. Firstly, the lèse majesté culture has brought the movie gods down to earth. We’ve seen their cellulite, their skin conditions and been exposed to their loopy religious views. (CGI creations don’t go ape on the chat show sofa, for example.)