Russia's First Superhero Movie... Now With Added Bear-Man!

Not all Guardians guard the galaxy, some are content to stay in Mother Russia and defend it from supernatural threats.

Russia's first superhero film, Guardians (aka Zaschitniki) is a lush, $20 million flick from Armenian director Sarik Andreasyan, that tells the story of four Soviet superheroes, created during the Cold War by a secret organization named Patriot.

The heroes' DNA was modified in order to grant them powers to protect the homeland from exotic roblems. After the fall of the Soviet Union, the quartet remained in hiding until they are called back into action by the return of "an evil from the past".

Guardians is due for release in Russia on February 23, 2017.

The superteam consists of: Arsus aka Wildman (Anton Pampushniy), a mighty shapeshifting werebear; speedster Khan (Sanzhar Madiev); Ler aka Landman (Sebastian Sisak Grigoryan), a hero with telekinetic power over rocks and earth; and Xenia aka Waterwoman (Alina Lanina), a fast and agile aquatic superhero who can survive in any environment without oxygen.

Stanislav Shirin plays the villainous August Kuratov whose "Modul-1" device allows him to control any technology. His masterplan is to build an army of clones with which to capture first Moscow, and then the world.

Kuratov

Arsus

Xenia

Khan

Ler

Why Independent Filmmakers Turn To Kickstarter

Arrowstorm Entertainment, the creative team behind the Mythica series of independent fantasy movies, has published an interesting article about why they use Kickstarter to fund their movies:

1. Plummeting Worldwide Sales Revenue - this is a problem for the entire film industry, but Hollywood alleviates this problem via massive box office... Hence, they only produce gigantic franchise films that have a chance of generating $1 billion in the theaters. They routinely spend $200 million on production, and another $100 million in marketing... For indie filmmakers, who don't have the theatrical marketing dollars, theaters are still mostly a dead-end. DVD revenues are also dead in most places - piracy and changing viewing habits have killed that industry. TV channels don't play very many movies anymore, preferring series (and who can blame them with the current boom in great TV). Which leaves streaming...

2. Streaming Video Doesn't Make Much Money - while streaming video is awesome for the consumer, it's not great for indie filmmakers. Yes, more people get to see our films, but we don't see very much money from that model. Netflix generally pays $10,000 to $20,000 for the right to stream an indie film. When you consider that most indie films cost hundreds of thousands - or even millions - to produce, you see how that doesn't add up to much... Ad-supported services like Hulu and CONtv actually end up making a little more money, but still, we're talking about ten cents per view!... And Youtube... forget about it. Here's a screenshot of what Youtube ads make us:

Mythica 1 Trailer Revenue on Youtube

 3. iTunes is Over-Crowded - iTunes is a great place to make money, but it is very hard for the consumer to find your products there because there is just so much content. Studio films with tons of marketing dollars dominate the easily visible areas. So, like theaters, without big marketing, iTunes and other digital sales venues become very difficult marketplaces for small independents.

Which leaves: YOU, the fantasy fan... without your direct support, we cannot make these films. Yes, we still make a majority of our money selling to distributors all around the world, but every year that number shrinks as their marketplaces shrink... but thankfully, the number of Kickstarter backers willing to support our projects has grown. And this is not unique to us... this is a trend across the independent film (and music, art, comics, etc) industry. Without direct fan-support, independent artists cannot survive. We know you could be like the millions of other people around the world, who just download our films for free from Bittorrent... But sleep easy tonight knowing that your support negates their actions.

Arrowstorm's latest project is the second part of their epic Mythica saga: The Darkspore (starring Kevin Sorbo) and you can find more about it on their Kickstarter page here.

Schedule Conflict Knocks Out Godzilla Film Fest

by Armand Vaquer

Godzilla is indestructible. Planes can't stop him. Bombs explode off his hide with no effect. But scheduling conflicts can knock him out!

San Francisco's "Godzilla and the Monsters of Mass Destruction" film festival featuring the original Godzilla, Haruo Nakajima, has been postponed.

According to event organizer August Ragone:

JUNE 27, 2009: Due to unforeseeable scheduling conflicts, the GODZILLA & THE MASTERS OF MASS DESTRUCTION event slated for the Castro Theatre in San Francisco on August 21-23, has been postponed until further notice. When the event can be rescheduled, we will break the announcement here, and on our official website: shock-it-to-me.com. So, stay tuned!

We thank you for your interest and consideration and hope to see you in 2010!

Best Regards,
August Ragone
Organizer & Producer

Universal Fire: Classic Films Lost

Dovetailing my post from yesterday on the fire at Universal Studios, here's an article from today's Los Angeles Times:

Classic film prints lost in Universal Studios fire

Destruction of the copies could affect several upcoming screenings at museums and other sites.

By John Horn and Susan King

Los Angeles Times Staff Writers

June 4, 2008

In addition to the ruined "King Kong" attraction and the burned New York street scapes, the Universal Studios Hollywood fire has claimed another casualty: perhaps hundreds of classic 35-millimeter film prints, the studio said Tuesday.

The prints were high-quality copies of decades-old movies, not original masters, which are stored in a Philadelphia vault, the studio said. But the loss of the copies in Universal's scorched vault building, which the studio had not yet quantified, could affect several upcoming screenings of classic films at museums, festivals and repertory theaters.

"It's a real shame. The timing couldn't be worse," said Bernardo Rondeau, the coordinator of film programs at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art. As part of July's "The Discreet Charm of Charles Boyer" program, LACMA was scheduled to show the French-born actor's 1941 film "Hold Back the Dawn."

The print of that movie, which was originally released by Paramount but is part of Universal's archival collection, was being transferred from New York's Lincoln Center to the Los Angeles museum and may have been in the Universal vault when the predawn blaze broke out Sunday.

Making new film prints can cost $5,000 or more each and take months to produce.

The fire also claimed about 5% of Universal Music Group's recordings, primarily big band and jazz recordings on the Decca label, and video copies of Universal movies and television shows. Universal Music Group is no longer part of the NBC conglomerate but rents storage space from the studio.

LACMA's Rondeau said the museum was nearly finished preparing the schedule for its July 11-26 festival and still planned to include "Hold Back the Dawn" on the slate, hoping that the film was spared or that a substitute print could be located.

In an e-mail sent to several dozen film exhibitors Monday, Universal said the "fire destroyed nearly 100% of the archive prints kept here on the lot. Due to this we will be unable to honor any film bookings of prints that were set to ship from here. Over the next few weeks and months, we will be able to try and piece together what material we do have and if any prints exist elsewhere."

Jan-Christopher Horak, the director of UCLA Film and Television Archive, said that in addition to the uncertainty surrounding "Hold Back the Dawn," the status of several other classic film prints was murky but not as bad as once feared.

"Initially, with the flood of e-mails [asking for prints], the situation seemed more dire than it turned out to be," Horak said. "Universal did find prints on some stuff."

American Cinematheque, which operates the Egyptian Theatre and Aero Theatre, had booked prints of "Her Jungle Love" and "Aloma of the South Seas" (both Paramount films with Dorothy Lamour), and now Universal will not be able to provide the 35-millimeter prints, Horak said.

"It is upsetting," said Horak, who once worked at Universal. "I feed bad for my colleagues at Universal. I was in that vault. It was filled with stuff. It's going to take quite a while to assess what really was lost."