Hollywood Week: Olympics Opening Ceremony, UA Relaunches, Venice Film Festival
- Details
- Category: Entertainment News
- Published on Saturday, 27 July 2024 09:59
- Written by Janet Walker
The XXXIII Summer Olympic Games have begun in Paris, France, with an extraordinary opening ceremony featuring a flotilla of athletes, musical performances, and a laser light show, that celebrated the magic, mystique, and beauty of the host city.
Olympic Opening Ceremony – Très Magnifique
With an estimated television audience of 1.5 billion, an expected 2 million tourists, 6000 athletes representing 204 nations, 3000 performers, 300,000 spectators, 200 global dignitaries, and the global media, all eyes were on the City of Light, as French President Emmanuel Macron who had promised an opening ceremony, unlike any opening ceremony the world had seen, deliver magnificently.
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As clandestine as any top-secret undertaking, many of the details were kept under wraps and there was no collective rehearsal. Overall, the local and international televised audience were treated to a grand display, a trip through French history, from the passing of the torch on the modern subway to the underground rivers, through the French rebellion represented by the familiar music of Les Misérables, Marie Antoinette, the masked carrier carried the torch inside the Louvre Museum, as each segment showcased an aspect of what has made Paris a destination of the imagination. A city of enchantment, love, fashion, gastronomy, of joie de vie!
Reuters News Service provided a collection of reviews from the morning after headlines, some favorites included "Wet the Games Begin," from the British Tabloid, The Sun. "As beautiful as it was mad," wrote Germany's Frankfurter Allgemeine. India Today called the ceremony "truly sensational." The left-leaning Italian daily La Repubblica said the ceremony overshadowed the athletes. "A lot of France, a lot of Paris, very little Olympics.... a mirror that the immortal Paris turned on herself and discovered that she was so much, too much and soaking wet."
The next two weeks will see Olympic records broken, new records set, athletes experiencing the elation of unexpected victory, and the disappointment of loss. For the global audience we will be glued to our televisions, Olympic junkies, sudden addicts of all sports, cheering our favorite team and marveling at the underdog, the unexpected athletes that rise to the moment and capture the world's attention.
The 2024 Olympic Games will run until Sunday, August 11, 2024.
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United Artists Relaunches
Amazon MGM Studios announced it has entered a multi-year first-look deal with former Netflix head of film Scott Stuber which will relaunch United Artists (UA) studios.
Stuber, who oversaw the robust streamer's production schedule which included several hundred films simultaneously, left the company this year to launch his own media company. He will develop and produce several films annually to be released theatrically and on Prime Video. Stuber will set up his company on the Amazon Studio lot in Culver City.
"The move to Amazon may be a better fit for Stuber, who spent his tenure at Netflix advocating for a more significant theatrical footprint for their films. While he was intermittently successful, Netflix chief Ted Sarandos continually maintained that the streamer would not be prioritizing theatrical as part of its business model," reported The Wrap.com.
United Artists, one of Hollywood's oldest studios, was formed in 1919 by Douglas Fairbanks, Mary Pickford, Charlie Chaplin, and D.W. Griffith, as the then group wanted more control over their productions.
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Venice Film Festival
The 2024 Venice Film Festival opens on August 28, 2024, with the sequel to Tim Burton's 1988 classic "Beetlejuice: titled, "Beetlejuice, Beetlejuice" billed as the festival's opening night gala film. The festival, which was a low-key affair and was held under the shadow of the expected SAG/Aftra strike in 2023, is expected to be inundated by celebrities.
"Many of the films announced this morning by La Biennale President Pietrangelo Buttafuoco and Venice Film Festival Artistic Director Alberto Barbera were widely anticipated, including Todd Phillips' Joaquin Phoenix/Lady Gaga starrer Joker: Folie à Deux. The Warner Bros sequel arguably is the highest-profile movie of the competition bunch, coming five years after Phillips' Joker won the Golden Lion before going on to 11 Oscar nominations, a Best Actor win for Phoenix and over $1B at the global box office," Deadline reported.
A documentary on the 1972 film, "The Day the Clown Cried," made by the late comedian Jerry Lewis, centers on a clown who insults Hitler and then is sent to a death camp and forced to entertain children who are being sent to the gas chambers, will be screened in at the festival in the Venice Classic category. The film was never released and according to Wikipedia, Lewis insisted the film not be made available until June 2024.
