Paul McCartney To Help Restore Motown Piano

First Launched: October 29, 2011 6:33 PM EDT Credit: Getty Images DETROIT, Mich. -- Caption Paul McCartney attends the fifth anniversary celebration in the Beatles Love by Cirque du Soleil show within the Mirage Hotel & Casino, Las vegas, June 21, 2011During a summer season visit to a Motown recording studio, former Beatle Paul McCartney preferred to operate his fingers along an 1877 Steinway grand piano carried out by some Detroit music best he sights idols. He was disappointed once we told him it didnt play, Motown Historic Museum leader Audley Cruz Junior., told The Detroit News for just about any story Saturday. Undaunted, the legendary rock and curler from England told museum government bodies undertaking a This summer time concert at Comerica Park he preferred to assist restore it. On Monday, the piano will probably be acquired within the Detroit museum and shipped to Steinway&Sons in NY for restoration. The task is predicted to think about to five several days. The piano company must appraise the pianos condition before a cost can be discovered. Steinway&Sons is honored to bring back the historic Steinway piano that was employed by such tales as Marvin Gaye, Smokey Robinson and Stevie Question and to get this done within the identical NY factory where it absolutely was initially built-in 1877, Steinway&Sons Leader of Americas Ron Losby told the newspaper in the statement. Were especially proud, becoming an American company, to help the Motown Museum in safeguarding the legacy in the Motown Record Company, whose artists and albums carried out such a huge role inside the great eras of yank music. Copyright 2011 with the Connected Press. All rights reserved. These elements is probably not launched, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

Spielberg: More Indy & Jurassic Park?

Will there be more Jones / T-Rexes?This month's issue of Empire magazine (the December issue, fact fans, featuring Mission:Impossible on the cover) contains part two of ourStevenSpielberg special, following last month's in-depth look at TheAdventures OfTintin:The Secret Of The Unicorn. This time, we largely focused on War Horse, but we did find time to ask about the much-rumoured Jurassic Park IV and Indiana Jones V.On his dinosaur series, the signs are good."The screenplay is being written right now by Mark Protosevich. I'm hoping that will come out in the next couple of years.We have a good story. We have a better story for four than we had for three..."Since the third instalment wasn't that shabby as story goes, that's got to be a good thing, right? But what of Indiana Jones?We asked Spielberg about his reaction to the critiques of Kingdom of the Crystal Skull as well as his future plans for the archaeologist. Where do things stand right now?"You have to ask George Lucas. George is in charge of breaking the stories.He's done it on all four movies. Whether I like the stories or not, George has broken all the stories.He is working on Indy V. We haven't gone to screenplay yet, but he's working on the story. I'll leave it to George to come up with a good story."And Crystal Skull?"I'm very happy with the movie.I always have been...I sympathise with people who didn't like the MacGuffin because I never liked the MacGuffin. George and I had big arguments about the MacGuffin. I didn't want these things to be either aliens or inter-dimensional beings. But I am loyal to my best friend. When he writes a story he believes in - even if Idon't believe in it - I'm going to shoot the movie the way George envisaged it. I'll add my own touches, I'll bring my own cast in, I'll shoot the way I want to shoot it, but I will always defer to George as the storyteller of the Indy series. I will never fight him on that."And on the specifics of the criticisms, Spielberg takes some of them as a badge of pride. "The gopher was good. I have the stand-in one at home. What people really jumped at was Indy climbing into a refrigerator and getting blown into the sky by an atom-bomb blast.Blame me. Don't blame George.That was my silly idea. People stopped saying "jump the shark".They now say, "nuked the fridge". I'm proud of that. I'm glad I was able to bring that into popular culture."The Adventures Of Tintin:The Secret Of The Unicorn is out now, and War Horse will follow on January 13 in the UK. Pick up the new Empire for the full story from Spielberg on the making of that war opus.

Paul Master Could Proceed To Brick Mansions

Also known as The American District 13...Luc Besson continues to be threatening an american-based remake of District 13 (Also known as Banlieue 13) for some time now, and it is finally obtaining the pieces into position for that film, that has the slightly less evocative title Brick Mansions. District star David Belle has already been arranged for any role and Paul Master is presently in talks to accept other lead.Belle, obviously, was among the individuals who came from Parkour, the activity that has heavily both in District 13 and it is follow up, District 13: Ultimatum. In america version from the first film, Master is going to be an undercover Chicago detective chasing after ammunition of mass destruction in to the titular ghetto. His primary issue in the area may be the local drug dealer, who rules the area, but Master can get the help of Lino, who will not bow lower to anybody. Based on Deadline, a couple of Hollywood types were circling the Lino role, but Besson has held firm to creating sure Belle stays aboard.Whilst Pierre Morel directed the initial film, he's busy along with other things, so producer Besson, that has co-written the script with Robert Mark Kamen, is likely to hands the task to a different protégé, not yet been introduced. Master, meanwhile, will probably squeeze shooting the film in before sitting down again within the driver's chair for that Fast And Also The Furious 6.

'Just Friends' Financier to Recover $3.4 Million After Tax Credit Money Goes Missing

A financier of the 2005 film Just Friends, starring Ryan Reynolds, has been awarded more than $3.4 million from the film's foreign sales agent. At issue in the case was who was responsible for the financial burden when one of the film's producers absconded with millions of dollars received from a Canadian tax credit. The lawsuit was brought by Cinezeta Internationale, which put up $9 million in equity funding plus another $9 million in the form of a revolving production loan for the making of the comedy about a man who confronts his high school crush. In 2004, Cinezeta entered into two written contracts for the film -- a sales agency agreement with defendant Inferno Distribution and a production services agreement with Just Friends Productions and Mooseface Productions. Under the terms of the agreements, Inferno Distribution was to pay Cinezeta $7,694,100 so it could be the exclusive sales agent for the film in all territories other than the United States and Canada. The agreement laid out how this money would be guaranteed, including presales agreements, a letter of credit, and $3.6 million worth of tax credits from the government of Saskatchewan, a prairie province in Canada. The film was released in more than 20 international territories in 2005, but Cinezeta never received any payments in connection with the Canadian tax credits. According to details revealed by the judge's decision on Monday, a man by the name of Bill Vince is said to have "absconded" with the money and Cinezeta has been unsuccessful in efforts to recover it. The decision doesn't go into details about what happened there, but Vince is a Vancouver film producer who died in 2008, having worked on dozens of films in his career, including The Imaginarium of Dr. Parnassus, Underworld, Saved!, and Capote. Regardless of the details, a dispute erupted as to whether the millions of dollars in missing money should be counted as having been paid by Inferno Distribution to Cinezeta. Inferno claimed that assignment of the tax credits reduced the amount due under the Sales Guarantee, but Cinezeta believed that the money was merely designated as "collateral" for the Sales Guarantee, and the defendant was responsible for making it up. Reading the specific language of the contract, in reference to the assignments of the tax credits, California federal judge John Walter sides with Cinezeta's theory. According to the decision: "The Assignment specifically provides that: 'Cinezeta acknowledges that its receipt of the Tax Credits shall be used to reduce the Tax Credit Guarantee as defined in the Guarantee Agreement." Accordingly, there would be no reduction of the amount due under the Sales Guarantee, unless and until Cinezeta actually received the Tax Credits. Indeed, the Production Guarantee Agreement provides that the only way the amount of the Saels Guarantee can be reduced are from the waterfall payments or from any payments received directly by Cinezeta." In his partial summary judgment decision, Judge Walter refutes Inferno Distribution's argument that Cinezeta's only remedy for the non-payment is a termination of the sales agency agreement, and also rejects the defendant's side contention that the film producers didn't live up to their side of the contract by providing timely delivery of all materials per the agreement. The judge is ordering Inferno Distribution to make up a $3,427,914.44 shortfall to Cinezeta, but isn't giving the plaintiff prejudgment interest because of Cinezeta's late written notice of the breach. E-mail: eriqgardner@yahoo.com Twitter: @eriqgardner

Sin City 2 to feature Marv and Nancy Callahan

Everything's gone quiet again on Sin City 2 since TF reported in August that the project seemed to be back on track.However, if comic-book guru Frank Miller is to be believed, production will begin to roll early in 2012."Robert Rodriguez and I are finishing off the script and could be shooting as early as this spring," Miller told MTV.Miller also revealed that there has only been "sporadic contact" between him and Rodriguez in the years since Sin City was made but that they started collaborating again "since this project started coming alive"."Sin City 2 is primarily an adaptation of the book A Dame To Kill For," Miller added."It also features the short story, Just Another Saturday Night and two new stories. One involves Jessica Alba's character, Nancy Callahan, that I came up with for the movie in order to tie things together and make it be more united with the first."That revelation means there's just one more title to be revealed, as Miller told San Diego Comic Con that The Long Bad Night would be one of the other new stories.The big question is whether previous cast members will return for a sequel?Alba seems likely given that she loves to work with Rodriguez (Machete, Spy Kids 4) but Rourke previously seemed lukewarm about returning to the role of Marv and having turned down a chance to star in The Expendables 2 may stick to his guns.

Verizon's FiOS TV Subscriber Growth Slowed in Third Quarter

NY - Telecom giant Verizon said Friday that its FiOS TV service now has 4 million subscribers, with 131,000 net additions in the third quarter. The subscriber momentum in the latest quarter was weaker than Wall Street observers had predicted with the company mentioning a strike and bad weather as factors. It was also weaker than the 184,000 net additions in the second quarter and the 204,000 additions in the third quarter of 2010. Miller Tabak analyst David Joyce had projected 160,000 net subscriber additions. And Barclays Capital analyst James Ratcliffe said after the earnings report that FiOS TV net adds came in below his estimate of 181,000. The quarterly update came a day after competitor AT&T had also reported weaker-than-projected TV subscriber growth, kicking off earrings season for pay TV distributors with less momentum than expected. Analysts have predicted lower pay TV subscriber losses in the third than in the second quarter. But Verizon was bullish on the current fourth quarter. "With the clearing of FiOS installation backlogs caused by the storms and strike, Verizon expects to add at least 200,000 FiOS Internet and 200,000 FiOS TV customers in fourth quarter 2011," the company said in its earnings report. Verizon added 138,000 FiOS broadband subscribers in the third quarter, below Ratcliffe's 170,000 estimate and down 38.9 percent from the year-ago period. The company lost 118,000 DSL subscribers though, for a net gain of 20,000 broadband users. Verizon said it had a total of 4.6 million FiOS broadband subscribers as of Sept. 30. Email: Georg.Szalai@thr.com Twitter: @georgszalai Related Topics Verizon Communications

MGM shuts Eminem pic 'Southpaw'

EminemFuquaWhen DreamWorks place the Eminem-brought boxing pic "Southpaw" into turnaround in August, many industry associates wondered whether another studio could be willing to go into the ring with director Antoine Fuqua, film writer Kurt Sutter and it is questionable star. But Paul Rosenberg and Stuart Parr at Eminem's Shady Films banner and also the father-and-boy creating team of Alan and Peter Riche fought against difficult on its account, as well as their collective efforts have recently compensated off, as MGM has closed an offer to create the gritty drama, which is written by The new sony Pictures. MGM didn't have discuss the offer, though associates near to the process say the organization leapfrogged fellow suitors Alcon Entertainment and Summit Entertainment after being seen because the underdog as lately as a week ago. Story finds Eminem playing a welterweight boxer who fights his method to the title, simply to see his world collapse after tragedy strikes. The film follows Eminem because he fights to reclaim his past glory and regain the affection of his youthful daughter. The title refers that Eminem is really a lefty (a harmful factor inside a boxing ring) and also the project is going to be fueled through the struggles that inform Eminem's music and mirror his existence. Eminem has not made an appearance around the bigscreen since his breakthrough perf in Curtis Hanson's 2002 rap drama "8 Mile." He's switched lower numerous movie offers within the years since, permitting "Southpaw" for everyone because the follow-as much as his acting debut. Eminem is repped by ICM and manager David Schiff, who'll professional produce the pic, that is likely to start production sometime the coming year. Contact Shaun Sneider at shaun.sneider@variety.com