Steven Spielberg, left, receives award from ADL’s Abe Foxman
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BEVERLY HILLS, California (Press Release)– Steven Spielberg received the Anti-Defamation League’s highest honor — America’s Democratic Legacy Award — at the Annual Dinner Celebration on December 9 at the Beverly Hilton Hotel.  ADL National Director Abraham H. Foxman presented the award in front of a sellout crowd of 1,100.

“Steven, we honor you for your exceptional contributions to the well-being and security of the Jewish people,” said Mr. Foxman. “Your masterpiece, Schindler’s List, literally changed the way we teach about Jewish history and the Holocaust and it arrived at exactly the time when we started to see a startling rise in Holocaust denial.”

Previous America’s Democratic Legacy Award recipients include former U.S. Presidents Ronald Reagan, Lyndon Johnson, John F. Kennedy, Dwight Eisenhower and Harry S. Truman; as well as Colin Powell, Eleanor Roosevelt, Adlai Stevenson, Justice Earl Warren, Saul Bellow, George Tenet, Henry Kissinger, Lee Iacocca, Walter Annenberg, Dwayne Andreas, Bernard Marcus and Cardinal John O’Connor.  The award has also been presented to distinguished institutions including Harvard University, The New York Times and the Columbia Broadcasting System.

Proceeds from the event will help ADL in its fight against bigotry, prejudice and anti-Semitism.

Drew Barrymore opened and closed the evening, citing her relationship with Spielberg since she was 6 years old and working on the movie “ET.” Kirk Douglas spoke and led the motzi (prayer over the bread) and Richard Dreyfuss also presented remarks.  Co-Chairs for the event were Harold Brown, David Geffen, Jeffrey Katzenberg, Richard Lovett, Ron Meyer, Bruce Ramer and Sid Sheinberg.

Speakers included two of the dinner co-chairs, Bruce Ramer, founding partner of Gang, Tyre, Ramer and Brown, Inc, and Sidney Sheinberg, founder of the Bubble Factory and former President and COO of MCA, ADL National Chair Robert Sugarman, Regional Board Chair Nicole Mutchnik and Regional Director Amanda Susskind.

Other special guests included “American Idol” finalist Adam Lambert singing the U.S. national anthem and Israeli singer/songwriter Noa Dori singing the Israeli national anthem.

Videos describing ADL’s work, the history of its America’s Democratic Legacy Award, and Steven Spielberg’s extraordinary contributions to the entertainment industry and philanthropy were shown.

Other celebrities attending included: Paula Abdul, J.J. Abrams, Matt Blank, David Franzoni, Greg Harrison, Walter Hill, Jeffrey Katzenberg,  David Linde, Frank Marshall and Kathleen Kennedy, Kevin McCormick, Walter Mirisch, Rich Ross, Stacey Snider, Matt Tolmach, Michael Wright.

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Preceding provided by Anti-Defamation League

Steven Spielberg and Stacey Snider are betting big on robots for their first project since securing $825 million in financing for the reconstituted DreamWorks.

Hugh Jackman

The DreamWorks principals have greenlit the “Rocky”-esque robot tale “Real Steel,” to star Hugh Jackman, as their first pic since raising $650 million from both J.P. Morgan Securities and Reliance Big Pictures and an additional $175 million from Disney, which will distribute DreamWorks titles.

Plot Summary
A future-set story where robot boxing is a popular sport and centered on a struggling promoter (Jackman) who thinks he’s found a champion in a discarded robot. During his hopeful rise to the top, he also discovers he has an 11-year-old son who wants to know his father.

Directed by Shawn Levy

Writers
  Leslie Bohem Screenplay
  John Gatins Screenplay
  Dan Gilroy Writer
  Jeremy Leven Writer
  Richard Matheson Short story

Producers
  Rick Benattar … co-producer
  Shawn Levy … producer
  Josh McLaglen … executive producer
  Mary McLaglen … executive producer
  Susan Montford … producer
  Don Murphy … producer
  Jack Rapke … executive producer
  Steven Spielberg … executive producer
  Steve Starkey … executive producer
  Robert Zemeckis … producer

Source(s) Variety, IMDB, TheWrap.com

Amazon Specials!

Martin Luther King

Em breve, Steven Spielberg vai conseguir realizar um desejo antigo: filmar a vida de Martin Luther King. É o que afirma a Folha Online:

O estúdio DreamWorks, de Steven Spielberg, adquiriu os direitos para levar aos cinemas a vida de Martin Luther King, ícone da luta pelos direitos civis nos Estados Unidos, informou a edição digital da revista americana especializada em entretenimento “Variety”.

O projeto é um sonho antigo de Spielberg e seu sócio Stacey Snider, que tentaram durante anos obter as permissões legais para realizar o filme.

“Estamos honrados de ter a oportunidade de contar este momento histórico. Temos esperança de que o poder criativo do cinema e o impacto da vida do doutor King possam ser combinados para apresentar uma história de poder inegável da qual possamos estar orgulhosos”, comentou Spielberg.

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The sky isn’t falling on DreamWorks 2.0.

Despite the credit crunch, Steven Spielberg and Stacey Snider remain committed to rebuilding the again-private studio into a sizable production machine capable of churning out four to six movies a year. DW brass declined comment, but well-placed sources suggested that media speculation regarding the studio’s ability to tap production funding in current market conditions has been wildly overblown.

The studio — which has tapped Universal as its film distribution partner — plans on buttoning up a $325 million bank syndication by April at the latest, supplementing a firm $550 million commitment by Mumbai-based Reliance Big Entertainment. That’s less than half of what DreamWorks was gunning for before the credit squeeze prompted its lenders to lengthen their timeline on the syndicated financing, originally set to close in January.

But studio execs and their bankers are focused on raising as much as $750 million in syndicated funding in what’s being described as an “accordion” approach to the financing. So once the $325 million portion is finalized, a follow-up phase of the syndication would be pursued.

DreamWorks brass still aims to get multiple productions before cameras in 2009, with a flow of releases to multiplexes beginning in 2010.

“Everything’s still on,” an insider said.Full story : http://tinyurl.com/4ppfo2

Indian businessman Anil Ambani, CEO of the huge Reliance Anil Dhirubhai Ambani Group, and the sixth richest man in the world, recently flew to Los Angeles to finalize the deal between his company and Steven Spielberg’s DreamWorks, investing more than five hundred million dollars in the American company, thus enabling it to gain its independence and become a full-fledged movie studio.

JPMorgan Chase will provide up to $700 million in financing for the deal, with Reliance providing an additional $550 million, according to The Times of India.

Current DreamWorks CEO Stacey Snider will continue his duties for the new studio which will start operations in January and is expected to continue being called DreamWorks. The deal comes after Spielberg & co decided to end their unhappy partnership with Paramount Pictures at the end of their contracts.

Source

If I were a betting man, I’d place all of my black chips that SAG will strike in late-November 2008.

Why?

There is growing (and quiet) support among all actors that they’re fed up with the Studio bigwigs.

Remember, this is NOT reported by the news media owned by the very same studios.

Allen and company at SAG should get 75% approval by November to strike. Also, November is the perfect time with the upcoming holiday season. In essence, it was a great twist-of-fate that the studios have not settled. Their movie coffers were full. But by February 2009, they will be itching to get more into production and guess what? They’ll be FORCED TO SIGN THE SAG AGREEMENT.

Brilliant war strategy by SAG and I applaud them.

I dislike the Studio Suits for ONE REASON: They do NOT deserve to make more money than the ARTISTS.

No way.

Knowing how to ’schmooze’ and say the right things does not qualify you to make more money than the ARTISTS.

Knowing how to say ‘How will this open?” or “What has he previously done?” or “What is the box office potential?” does NOT qualify you to make more money than the ARTISTS.

Are you getting the picture?

Whenever I despair that true courage — the willingness to take on the powerful and the intimidating — is nowhere to be found, I have a couple of weeks like these.

Last month it was the courageous Michael Savage.

Where, after all, can you find a man willing to fearlessly ridicule autistic kids and show the moral fiber it takes to make fun of the defenseless and the disabled? Others may hide behind such gutless concepts as compassion, empathy, and – YUCK!! – love, but at least Mike wasn’t afraid to be proudly and shamelessly cruel.

Now that takes guts.

I think Savage may have inspired the most recent courageous person of the week.

Today we salute the compassion of Stacey Snider, a senior executive at DreamWorks, who has stood firm against those who would criticize “Tropic Thunder,” a film from Ben Stiller that has used its right to free expression to nail those annoying little kids that the film bravely calls “retards.” Check out the tag-line on the poster: “Once upon a time…there was a retard.”

That’s right. While others might have knuckled under and admitted they had done something unspeakably hurtful, Ms. Snider has honored herself and her industry by announcing that she is “proud of the movie. It is hysterically funny. I do think it’s got its heart in the right place.”

And not one to be intimidated by the forces of compassion, she defends the film’s depiction of disabilities by suggesting that “The star-studdedness of it, and the absolute playability of it, trumps it all.”

That’s right: Miss Snider asks us to accept this profound hurt because of the film’s “star-studdedness,” which “trumps it all.” It might be disgusting, but at least it is stars being disgusting.

Just out of curiosity, Ms. Snider, whose concerns and hurts are trumped by all these stars? The hundreds of thousands of children who already get called “retard” at school, on playgrounds, in shopping malls? The kids who get stared at? The parents who struggle to protect and defend those kids from emotional pain?

Here’s what really kills me. Do I think that any production executive or Ben Stiller sat down and thought: How can we make fun of kids with cognitive disabilities? How can we cause their parents unnecessary pain? How can I make sure the word “retard” echoes across the cultural landscape?

Of course not. It is worse than that. Much worse.

Because what this whole shameful episode makes clear is that the entire promotional campaign – the posters, the web sites, the trailers, everything – made it through the entire DreamWorks production and promotion process without anyone, not one person , ever stopping to ask themselves: Sure we can say anything we want. Sure we can use the word “retard.” But do we want to? Should we? Is it right? Is it kind? Who would we hurt?

Nobody asked. Nobody asked.

Nobody gave two seconds thought to the possibility that someone might be hurt; that some kid might come home and ask why another kid called them a “retard” after seeing a movie made by Ms. Snider’s company.

I wish I was pure. But there is not a soul on earth to whom I would confess all the disgusting nonsense I have laughed at. I actually appreciate that we live in a society that grants artists the creative freedom to make an audience sick.

But never, ever — if you claim to have even a minimum of guts or decency — mess with people who cannot speak back.

Da Efe, em Nova York, publicada na Folha Online:

O estúdio DreamWorks informou hoje (25) que comprou da editora Scholastic os direitos para produzir a versão cinematográfica da série de aventuras “The 39 Clues” (“As 39 Pistas”, em tradução livre). O filme contará com direção de Steven Spielberg.

O anúncio do acordo foi feito pela executiva-cheve da DreamWorks, Stacey Snider, e a co-presidente da Scholastic, Deborah Forte.

A série “The 39 Clues” inclui dez livros, uma coleção de 355 cards e um jogo na internet que será lançado em setembro.

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