Post by Grey on Sept 19, 2004 10:59:38 GMT -5
FOX PICKS UP RIGHTS TO RUSSIA'S HIT "NIGHT WATCH"
Source: Variety
Date: August 20, 2004, 12:26 pm
Trailer:www-download.1tv.ru/sales/chor_34.asf
According to Variety, Fox has inked a three-pic deal with the writer-director of the boffo Russian-lingo hit "Night Watch" ("Nochnoj dozor"). Fox Searchlight will distribute Timur Bekmambetov's pic and its sequel, "Day Watch."
Studio will then go into production on a big-budget prequel to both films, "Dusk Watch," which will be released by Fox. The door is left open for Fox to also remake both "Night Watch" and "Day Watch" as English-lingo sequels.
Edging past fierce bidding by competitors like Dimension Films, Fox is said to have paid over $2 million for each of the Russian actioners, along with an undisclosed sum to create the English-lingo prequel.
"He's part of our ongoing search for great, emerging international talent," said Jim Gianopulos, co-chairman of 20th Century Fox.
"Night Watch" is the highest-grossing Russian film of all time, outpacing all competing foreign studio fare in the country this summer. With a $4 million budget, supernatural action suspenser managed to haul in $13 million in the three weeks since its release on July 8. By comparison, that's as much as the final "Lord of the Rings" pic made over two months in Russia.
"Night Watch" is the first part of a trilogy based on books by Sergei Lukyanenko, following what happens after a 1,000 year truce between good and evil is broken on the streets of Moscow. Like "The Matrix" trilogy, pic has stunning visual f/x. And like the "Matrix" films, it follows opposing supernatural forces in search of the One -- a child who can choose to side either with good or evil.
By the end of the first film, the child is in the hands of evil. In the second, an attempt to rescue and convert him to the forces of good is undertaken.
Bekmambetov is currently lensing the final two sequences of "Day Watch" in Russia, and Fox Searchlight topper Peter Rice confirmed that an agreement in principle had been reached under which "Night Watch" and "Day Watch" would both be released as foreign-lingo films under the Searchlight banner, starting as soon as next summer.
Source: Variety
Date: August 20, 2004, 12:26 pm
Trailer:www-download.1tv.ru/sales/chor_34.asf
According to Variety, Fox has inked a three-pic deal with the writer-director of the boffo Russian-lingo hit "Night Watch" ("Nochnoj dozor"). Fox Searchlight will distribute Timur Bekmambetov's pic and its sequel, "Day Watch."
Studio will then go into production on a big-budget prequel to both films, "Dusk Watch," which will be released by Fox. The door is left open for Fox to also remake both "Night Watch" and "Day Watch" as English-lingo sequels.
Edging past fierce bidding by competitors like Dimension Films, Fox is said to have paid over $2 million for each of the Russian actioners, along with an undisclosed sum to create the English-lingo prequel.
"He's part of our ongoing search for great, emerging international talent," said Jim Gianopulos, co-chairman of 20th Century Fox.
"Night Watch" is the highest-grossing Russian film of all time, outpacing all competing foreign studio fare in the country this summer. With a $4 million budget, supernatural action suspenser managed to haul in $13 million in the three weeks since its release on July 8. By comparison, that's as much as the final "Lord of the Rings" pic made over two months in Russia.
"Night Watch" is the first part of a trilogy based on books by Sergei Lukyanenko, following what happens after a 1,000 year truce between good and evil is broken on the streets of Moscow. Like "The Matrix" trilogy, pic has stunning visual f/x. And like the "Matrix" films, it follows opposing supernatural forces in search of the One -- a child who can choose to side either with good or evil.
By the end of the first film, the child is in the hands of evil. In the second, an attempt to rescue and convert him to the forces of good is undertaken.
Bekmambetov is currently lensing the final two sequences of "Day Watch" in Russia, and Fox Searchlight topper Peter Rice confirmed that an agreement in principle had been reached under which "Night Watch" and "Day Watch" would both be released as foreign-lingo films under the Searchlight banner, starting as soon as next summer.
