It’s been a busy year for the US film industry in China. During Xi Jinping’s visit to the United States in February, the PRC government announced it would loosen China’s quota on imported films. In April, the Walt Disney Co. announced it would co-produce Iron Man 3 with Chinese company DMG Entertainment. Shortly after, the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) announced an investigation into whether Hollywood movie studios had been paying bribes while working in China, but that hasn’t stopped business deals between the two countries’ film industries. In May, Dalian Wanda Group Co. said it would buy AMC Entertainment Holdings, which operates more than 300 movie theaters in the United States. And this spring, American films have been opening at the top of China’s box office rankings.
To make sense of these developments and the potential of the Chinese film market for US companies, three film industry experts recently spoke to CBR Editor Christina Nelson about trends in producing and distributing films in China.
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HOLLYWOOD and china films JOINT VENTURE
Hordes of young
female fans gripping camera phones were camped out in the lobby of the
Park Hyatt in Beijing on Thursday afternoon, hoping to catch a glimpse
of Lu Han, formerly of the South Korean boy band EXO, who was appearing
there with a clutch of other stars to discuss their participation in the
renowned director Zhang Yimou’s latest film, a fantasy adventure epic
called “The Great Wall.”
“It’s a little
overwhelming when someone like Lu Han shows up,” Matt Damon, whom some
might have characterized as the foremost star in the bunch, told a news
conference. Mr. Damon, who said the film was the biggest movie he had
ever been involved in, chuckled as he spoke about his experience working
for the first time with a cast of predominantly Asian actors.
“I think the first
night before we started shooting there were something like 400 flower
arrangements. It took up the entire hallway,” he said.
“I thought they were for me!” quipped Andy Lau, the veteran Hong Kong actor, much to the amusement of the audience.
Produced by the
American company Legendary Entertainment in partnership with Universal
Pictures, China Film Company and Le Vision Pictures, the $150 million
“Great Wall,” due to be released globally in November 2016, is one of
China’s biggest productions to date. Perhaps more significant, it is the
largest-ever Hollywood-China co-production, a designation that will
exempt it from China’s strict import quota on foreign films and entitle
its foreign production partners to a larger share of the box-office
revenue.
Hollywood studios have
long seen co-productions as a way to grab a piece of China’s booming
film market, now second only to the United States. But over the past
decade, United States-China co-productions have met with only varying
degrees of success, as they have struggled to balance Chinese cultural
elements and international box-office appeal.
For many studios, the
challenge has been to integrate Chinese elements into films without
appearing too obvious. Marvel Studio’s 2013 “Iron Man 3,” for example,
angered Chinese officials and audiences when it was revealed that two
versions of the film had been released, one for Chinese audiences that
included Chinese actors and locations, and one with those scenes cut for
international audiences.
With “The Great Wall,”
however, the challenge was flipped. Rather than adding Chinese
elements, the filmmakers had to determine how to make a Chinese film
with a Chinese subject, set in mainland China hundreds of years ago,
appealing to global moviegoers.
“This is the first
time something like this is being attempted by a director like me who
doesn’t speak English,” said Mr. Zhang. “If this film succeeds, it’s
going to open a whole new space for U.S.-China co-productions, and it
might inspire other forms of collaboration.”
This is the first
film primarily in English by Mr. Zhang, the director of “Hero” as well
as art-house favorites like “Raise the Red Lantern” and “Red Sorghum.”
“The biggest
challenge is to make sure that everyone understands the film, not only
Chinese audiences but young people around the world,” Mr. Zhang added.
“I asked many experts, what would foreigners think about this line and
what about that line? How would Westerners see this?”
After several years
of preparation, the project, which is being shot in mainland China,
finally began filming in March and is scheduled to wrap in August.
While details of the
plot remain under wraps, the filmmakers have disclosed that the story
centers on an army of elite warriors who must transform the Great Wall
into a weapon “in order to combat wave after wave of otherworldly
creatures hellbent on devouring humanity.”
Mr. Damon stars as
William Garin, a mercenary who comes from Europe to China with his
sidekick Pero Tovar (played by Pedro Pascal, of HBO’s “Game of
Thrones”).
Willem Defoe, of
“Platoon” and “The Grand Budapest Hotel,” plays Ballard, a “shadowy
outsider.” Jing Tian, the film’s lead actress, is Lin Mae, the leader of
the all-female aerial warriors of the Crane Corps. To increase the
film’s appeal to younger audiences, the cast also includes young male
heartthrobs like Chen Xuedong of “Tiny Times” and Wang Junkai of the boy
band TFBoys, as well as Lu Han.
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7 Chinese Brothers (Bob Byington | USA | 76 min.)
Jason Schwartzman stars as Larry who, along with his trusty sidekick (Schwartzman's real-life French Bulldog, Arrow), goes through life as a misanthropic outcast, unable to retain employment or stable relationships - especially with his grandma, played with sharp timing and wit by Academy Award®-winner Olympia Dukakis. Landing at a Quick Lube, Larry finds himself falling for his new boss Lupe (Eleanore Pienta). Part absurdist comedy and part character portrait, 7 Chinese Brothers is a unique tale of people stuck within the confines of normalcy while they represent anything but. Co-starring Tunde Adebimpe (TV on the Radio) and Alex Karpovsky from Girls.
Jason Schwartzman stars as Larry who, along with his trusty sidekick (Schwartzman's real-life French Bulldog, Arrow), goes through life as a misanthropic outcast, unable to retain employment or stable relationships - especially with his grandma, played with sharp timing and wit by Academy Award®-winner Olympia Dukakis. Landing at a Quick Lube, Larry finds himself falling for his new boss Lupe (Eleanore Pienta). Part absurdist comedy and part character portrait, 7 Chinese Brothers is a unique tale of people stuck within the confines of normalcy while they represent anything but. Co-starring Tunde Adebimpe (TV on the Radio) and Alex Karpovsky from Girls.
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Chinese superhero comedy “Pancake Man” (“Jian Bing Man”), which features cameos from Jean-Claude van Damme, is set to get a North American release on July 24.“Pancake” and Hong Kong-made sports action picture “To the Fore” will both be distributed by Milt Barlow’s specialty company Asia Releasing on behalf of rights holder Magnum Films.“Jian Bing Man,” which is a Wanda Pictures release in China, is the tale of a street pancake vendor who gains superpowers from the breakfast dishes he serves. It is directed by Da Peng and stars Chinese actors Ada Liu (“Badges of Fury”) and Yuan Shanshan (“One Day”) and includes Hong Kong comedy favorites Eric Tsang and Sandra Ng.
“To the Fore,” backed by Emperor Motion Pictures, represents a shift in tone for well-known genre and thriller director Dante Lam. The cast includes Eddie Peng, Shawn Dou, and Siwon as competing cyclists, with Hong Kong’s real-life cycling track stars Sarah Lee Wai Sze and Wong Kam-po in supporting roles. The film was shot in Hong Kong, Shanghai, Taiwan, Italy, Korea, and the Tengger Desert. Asia Releasing will give it an outing on August 7.
The company has recently handled North American and multiple territory releases of “Triumph in the Skies,” ”Don’t Go Breaking My Heart 2,” “12 Golden Ducks” and “The Left Ear.”
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Stars attended the premiere Wednesday of “Tiny Times 4,” the expected final installment of one of China’s most successful movie franchises, whose depiction of the lives and loves of four young women has garnered many fans among the young cinema-going audience.
The “Tiny Times” films follow the women from different backgrounds in Shanghai as they leave college and enter the real world, and has been criticized in China as promoting materialism for its lavish depiction of luxury items and lifestyles. Fans are attracted by the relationships between the four friends and their loves, as well as the teenage-like drama.
Director Guo Jingming, actresses Yang Mi, Amber Kuo, Xie Yilin and Hayden Kuo attended the red-carpet event in Beijing for “Tiny Times 4: Soul’s End,” along with actor Chen Xuedong. Actress Fan Bingbing, better known outside China, also showed up in support.
“The last three installments made 1.3 billion yuan ($217 million). I think this one should at least make 1.3 billion yuan,” said Fan, whose next film will be directed by Guo.
“Soul’s End” is expected to be the last of four installments of the “Tiny Times” series, which is based on a trilogy of books written by Guo himself, an author and entrepreneur.
He said Wednesday they initially didn’t think they could achieve the feat of making four movies, and that his career as a film director had just begun.“However, there will be no other film like Tiny Times, in which I have invested so much emotion,” he said. “Some people say movies tell fictional stories, but they actually become part of my real life.”The film released in China on Friday.
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One Saturday in June, Li Xue bought a ticket on her phone for the latest installment of the sci-fi movie “The Divergent.” The cost: about $2, much less than if she had bought it at the theater.
“Why bother to line up at the movie theater for a ticket ever again?” said the 31-year-old Ms. Li, a drug-company employee in Wuhan in central China. “These online ticketing sites offer such cheap tickets and can reserve a good seat for me.”
More than half of Chinese moviegoers, or 63% in the first quarter, are now buying tickets online, according to Beijing-based market research firm Analysys International, which said that $4.77 billion was spent on movie tickets in China last year, of which about $2.2 billion were online transactions.
That’s in sharp contrast with the U.S., where more than a decade after Web ticketing was introduced only about 13% of moviegoers buy their tickets online, and pay a surcharge to do so. One of the main reasons for the rapid surge in China’s online ticket buying is a price war led by China’s three Internet giants, Baidu Inc., Tencent Holdings Ltd. and Alibaba Group Holding Ltd. , which all have their own movie-ticketing sites and have also bought into existing platforms. Alibaba, for example, has taken a stake in Groupon-like Meituan.com, which owns the online movie-ticketing site Maoyan.com.
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Matt Damon, one of China's favorite Hollywood stars, said Thursday he was overwhelmed at the fans turning up at his hotel in China — not for him but for an ex-boy band singer who also appears in a Sino-Hollywood fantasy adventure movie.
The singer is Lu Han, 25, but with the face of a teenager, who rose to
fame as the lead vocalist and dancer of Chinese-South Korean boy band
EXO.
Lu was trailed by fans, said Damon. "I think the first night where we
started shooting there was something like 400 flower arrangements came
to the hotel and took up the entire hallway."
Damon spoke in Beijing to publicize the movie "The Great Wall," which
has a budget of $150 million. Damon, whose movies include "Good Will
Hunting" and the "Bourne" action franchise, plays a battle-scarred
mercenary in search of treasure. Pedro Pascal, of "Game of Thrones," is
his sword-wielding partner. Lu plays a boy emperor.
In the film peppered with stars from both China and Hollywood, warriors
use the Great Wall as a weapon to combat otherworldly creatures who
threaten humanity. It is due for global release in November 2016.
It is the latest co-production between China and Hollywood as U.S.
studios court China's rapidly growing movie audience and Chinese
producers look to improve their technological know-how.
It will be the first English-language movie by Zhang Yimou, the director
of the romantic Kung Fu drama "House of Flying Daggers," ''Hero" and
the opulent opening and closing ceremonies of the 2008 Beijing Olympics.
Zhang said he felt at ease with the story because it was set in China.
"Movies that have fights against monsters from the past, present and
future are all produced by Hollywood," he said. "What I have thought
about is how to use this Hollywood format to express what I want to
express and present the Chinese culture and make it unique."
Willem Dafoe
also stars in the film, and there are a host of Chinese actors in
supporting roles, including Hong Kong's Andy Lau. Actress Jing Tian
takes on the lead female role in her first English-language film.
Damon said the language barrier was not a problem when filming. "It's
the same discipline and it moves across cultures and languages pretty
easily," he said.
The movie is the first being made by Legendary Entertainment's Chinese
offshoot, Legendary East, together with Hollywood's Universal Pictures,
China Film Co. Ltd., a unit of the state-owned China Film Group, and Le
Vision Pictures, a private film company affiliated to Chinese tech firm
LeTV.
"The Great Wall" is an official co-production. That means it will be
treated as a domestic film and bypass China's import restrictions that
limit foreign movies and will get a bigger share of the Chinese box
office.
Hollywood has been inserting Chinese elements into some of its films to
appeal to the Chinese audience, but official co-productions like "The
Great Wall" require China or a Chinese story to be integral to the plot.
Most Chinese co-productions with the West have been box-office flops,
but producers hope "The Great Wall" can show that big-budget
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FOREIGN MOVIES DOMINATE CHINA BOX OFFICE
Foreign movies dominated the first six months of the year in the world's second-biggest film market, taking 53.5 percent of the box office largely on the back of tentpoles filling the swelling ranks of Chinese cinemas.
Box office had passed $3.22 billion (20 billion yuan) by June 29, a 50 percent increase over 2014 through the same date. Of this total, domestic films took $1.5 billion, or 46.5 percent, $230 million less than imported movies.
Driving the strong growth has been Hollywood tentpoles such as Universal's Furious 7 — the biggest movie of all time in China, with $387 million box office — Jurassic World and Marvel's Avengers: Age of Ultron.
The number of foreign movies allowed in China on a revenue-share basis is restricted to 34 films, with others coming in on a flat-fee basis.
Increasingly, Chinese companies are investing in overseas movies, which is helping the market open up. China Film Group owned a piece of Furious 7, which had a long run here probably as a result, and Alibaba Pictures is investing in Mission: Impossible — Rogue Nation, which opens at the end of the month.
Also, the growing number of screens is driving higher demand for content.
Last year, Chinese box office was $4.84 billion, up 36 percent, and by the end of 2014 China had 23,600 screens. It is expected to overtake the U.S. as the world's biggest cinema market at some point in the next few years.
In all, 156 different films have been screened in Chinese theaters so far this year, and imported films have generated 53.5 percent of the gross revenues, seven percent higher than that for domestic films.
The biggest Chinese movie of the year so far has been Bona's The Man From Macao II, with Chow Yun-fat, which has taken $156 million.
There have been some surprise non-Hollywood inclusions in the six-month best performers list, including Bollywood tentpole PK and Japanese anime Stand By Me Doraemon.
The government tries to keep the balance at around 50-50 between foreign and domestic movies but it's hard in years like this one, where are there are so many big foreign tentpoles and relatively few blockbuster Chinese movies.
July is traditionally a blackout month for foreign movies opening in China, and among the big Chinese movies running during the blackout are Hollywood Adventures and the latest installment in the Tiny Times franchise, as well as SPL 2: A Time For Consequences, Xiao Yang's The Ark of Mr. Chow and Chen Kaige's latest, A Monk Came Down the Mountain.
The blackout means delays for movies like Paramount's Terminator: Genisys and Disney/Pixar’s Inside Out.
The period is not officially sanctioned but widely acknowledged. Last year, of the $4.76 billion earned at the box office in China, homegrown films accounted for 54.5 percent of the total, largely due to the blackout periods, which gave a clear run for movies like Tsui Hark's The Taking of Tiger Mountain and Peter Ho-sun Chan's Dearest.
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Alibaba Pictures Group is making its first Hollywood movie investment and partnering with Paramount Pictures to promote the studio's latest Mission: Impossible installment in China.
The film unit of Alibaba Group Holding Ltd will collaborate with Viacom subsidiary Paramount in online ticketing, promotion and merchandising for Mission: Impossible - Rogue Nation in China, it said in a statement on Wednesday. It did not say how much the tie-up would cost.
The movie, starring Tom Cruise, is due in theatres on July 31, according to Paramount's website. Hollywood movie releases are usually delayed in China.
Alibaba Pictures, previously known as ChinaVision Media Group, raised nearly 5 billion yuan ($805.5 million) in 2014 from a share offer that put Alibaba in control of the company. Earlier this month, it agreed to sell 4.20 billion new shares at HK$2.9 (US$0.37) each to independent investors to boost its share capital.
In January, Alibaba Pictures unveiled its first movie project under its new ownership, a romance to be produced by acclaimed Hong Kong director Wong Kar-wai.
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Cue the music. It’s a fun track to
listen to whenever you’re racing through the words of a movie news post,
of course, but Vangelis’s theme to Chariots of Fire is
especially pertinent to this one. Technically, nobody is making an
official sequel to the 1981 sports drama, which is one of those Best
Picture winners iconic enough to likely never be tarnished with a remake
or true follow-up. But there is another movie being made about Scottish
Olympian Eric Liddell, and it will cover his later
life, so it is basically a sequel, just not one involving any of the
people or the studio behind the original.
It is funny to think of this new biopic, titled The Last Race and set to star Joseph Fiennes as Liddell, as part of the current trend in Hollywood to chase after Chinese money (production-wise and consumer-wise) for big franchises. It will be shot in China, like Transformers: Age of Extinction and Iron Man 3 and the planned Need for Speed 2. But The Last Race is primarily a Chinese production, and more notably it has to be set in the country even if it wouldn’t necessarily need to be filmed there. The movie follows Liddell back to China, where he was born and where he eventually died, in an internment camp during the Japanese occupation in World War II.
Unofficial or not, The Last Race is also the latest sequel to a major ’80s prestige period piece that was nominated for Best Picture (and won, in Chariots‘ case). This year saw the release of John Boorman’s Queen and Country, which is pretty much officially a sequel to his 1987 World War II drama Hope and Glory. Both of those movies are really only connected by the fact they’re both semi-autobiographical works, the newer title set later than the earlier. There have also been unofficial sequels to Raging Bull and Platoon
It is funny to think of this new biopic, titled The Last Race and set to star Joseph Fiennes as Liddell, as part of the current trend in Hollywood to chase after Chinese money (production-wise and consumer-wise) for big franchises. It will be shot in China, like Transformers: Age of Extinction and Iron Man 3 and the planned Need for Speed 2. But The Last Race is primarily a Chinese production, and more notably it has to be set in the country even if it wouldn’t necessarily need to be filmed there. The movie follows Liddell back to China, where he was born and where he eventually died, in an internment camp during the Japanese occupation in World War II.
Unofficial or not, The Last Race is also the latest sequel to a major ’80s prestige period piece that was nominated for Best Picture (and won, in Chariots‘ case). This year saw the release of John Boorman’s Queen and Country, which is pretty much officially a sequel to his 1987 World War II drama Hope and Glory. Both of those movies are really only connected by the fact they’re both semi-autobiographical works, the newer title set later than the earlier. There have also been unofficial sequels to Raging Bull and Platoon
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Tracing a Taoist priest’s foray from his hermit-like existence into the secular world, Chen Kaige’s “Monk Comes Down the Mountain”
is an uncharacteristically lightweight martial-arts caper with a touch
of Zen (and sin). Told in the old-school tradition of wuxia serial
novels, the film’s simple fable of good and evil unfolds with wondrous
visuals that recall the stylistic chutzpah of Chen’s “The Promise,” but
absent that pic’s kitschiness. The feast of fighting styles on
display will easily woo core Asian genre fans and conquer ancillary
markets, and despite the gloomy fates of equally virtuoso martial-arts
movies like “Wuxia” and “Reign of Assassins” in China, domestic B.O.
looks encouraging; “Monk” took in $7 million on opening day.
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Most of you have probably heard of some pretty good movies that have been released this year, such as The Hunger Games, 21 Jump Street, The Avengers, The Amazing Spiderman, and of course, The Dark Knight Rises.
In the past, China has a restriction on the number of foreign films
that can enter the Chinese theatrical market due to the fierce
competition between American films and Chinese films on mainland China.
Nowadays, the quota for foreign films has increased from 20 per year to
34 per year. The extra 14 films are to be made in 3-D, IMAX, or
animations.
So are foreign films actually having a positive or negative impact on
the Chinese film industries? It is obvious that the number of foreign
films entering the Chinese theatrical market will continue to increase
in the future, but that can lead to the possible extinction of Chinese
film industries. A lot of Chinese films are made each year, but very few
actually performed well. For example, in 2010, 526 Chinese movies were
made, but only a few performed well (maybe 10 to 15). If China wishes to
continue to create new films, then the government will need to further
enhance its protective policies toward the mainland’s film industries,
otherwise the domestic film industry will face a severe crisis
So now that the Chinese government has increased the quota of foreign
films from 20 to 34, there is definitely going to be an increase of
fierce competition between foreign film industries, such as Hollywood,
and Chinese film industries. Although this can be an incentive for
Chinese directors to create even more superior films, Chinese film
industries may be forced into bankruptcy in the future since most people
around the world would probably prefer to watch movies in English.
Nevertheless, if Chinese films are to be saved, it is better to consider
another course of action.
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obby Brown and wife Alicia Etheredge welcomed a baby girl on Saturday, July 11, a source tells PEOPLE.
Etheredge was admitted to Cedars-Sinai Hospital in Los Angeles on Friday and induced on Saturday, according to Entertainment Tonight, who was the first to report the news.
The couple, who were married in 2012, are also parents to 5-year-old Cassius. This marks the sixth child for the “My Prerogative” singer.
Brown and members of Bobbi Kristina’s family have been by her bedside at her Atlanta-area care facility. The 46-year-old singer has been slowly returning to work and making concert appearances. Last Saturday, on the Fourth of July, he performed in Atlanta but got emotional, occasionally hugging loved ones and saying he was “in a different zone right now.” Brown returned to Etheredge’s side in Los Angeles after the concert
New season, new look!
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On Saturday, the only breaking news Josh Elliott and Liz Cho were interested in was their own.The two anchors – Elliott, 44, reports for NBC Sports and Cho, 44, for ABC – said "I do" in front of a small gathering of friends and family during an intimate ceremony in Montecito, California, on Saturday. This is the second marriage for both.
The ceremony took place in front of 70 close friends and family members in the garden of Villa Sevillano private estate with views of the sparkling Pacific Ocean in the background. The bride wore a rose petal-hued Ramona Kaveza silk gown, the groom a blue suit by Zegna and their friend and colleague Sam Champion served as their lighthearted officiant.
"It's going to be a great beautiful weekend in a great beautiful, place that means everything to us, with people that are just the fabric of our lives," Elliott told PEOPLE ahead of the event. And the loving support couldn't have come at a better time: Elliott's mom suddenly died just three weeks ago after going into septic shock.
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Disick and Kardashian, 36, reportedly called off their 10-year relationship after photos of Disick canoodling with his ex-girlfriend Chloe Bartoli in the South of France surfaced late last month.
Since then, other images of the troubled reality star with other women and drugs have also emerged, leading sources to tell Us Weekly that the problems go well beyond the trip to France
Arrow's going to be looking a lot different when it returns this fall for season four...because Oliver Queen's (Stephen Amell) going to be rocking some seriously epic new threads!
That's right, gone is the Dark Archer getup (which, we'll be honest, we're a little sad to see go so soon), as well as the original Arrow outfit we've become so used to seeing the vigilante wear on the CW's superhero drama. The cast and showrunners revealed during the big Warner Brothers/DC Comics TV panel at Comic-Con that Oliver is getting a suit upgrade, and we've got your first look at the hardcore new costume.
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"From the studio that inexplicably sewed his f--king mouth shut the first time…"
And with that amazing intro video, Deadpool descended on Hall H. When the lights came up, Ryan Reynolds himself was onstage and the audience lost its mind.
"Looks like it's time to make the f--king chimichangas," Reynolds said after the applause died down. Deadpool's Hall H panel was one of the most anticipated of Comic-Con weekend, and the fans welcomed the cast with open arms.
But first, Ryan could not stop doing his movie trailer voice from the intro video.
"I do it all the time. It drives my wife nuts," he said when he finally stopped.
We're sure Blake Lively finds other ways to love you, sir
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If you did, it was most likely in response to Outlander's Sam Heughan finally living up to his word at the Outlander Comic-Con panel by dressing up as a Colin O'Donoghue-style pirate, eyeliner and all.
A couple of months ago, Heughan and Once Upon A Time's Colin O'Donoghue were the final two guys in E! Online's Alpha Male Madness tournament, and the two of them made a promise on Twitter: Whoever won would give their fans the pleasure of seeing them dress up as the other, meaning Colin in a kilt and Sam decked out in guyliner.
Sam eventually took home the prize, and had yet to make good on his promise...until today.
Of course, it helped that E!'s own Kristin Dos Santos was moderating the panel, and happened to bring a full pirate costume and a stick of eyeliner to make the stunt even easier. His costar, Caitriona Balfe, was on hand to apply the eyeliner, and the result was nothing short of incredible, as you can see above.
Honestly, we've never been happier, and it didn't hurt that the rest of the panel was positively laden with juicy Outlander scoop, hilarious moments, and whiskey, of course.
From
her wedding venue at London’s Kensington Palace to her gorgeous
Valentino gown, not to mention her billionaire groom James Rothschild, Nicky Hilton’s wedding on Friday was almost perfect — but it didn’t go off without a hitch.
The
fashion designer, 31, experienced a minor style snafu while making her
way to her nuptials when her delicate wedding veil got caught underneath
a car tire. Granted, it was a tire belonging to a Bentley, but a car
tire nonetheless.
Though
we’re sure she was freaking out on the inside, Nicky appeared to remain
calm while waiting for helpful onlookers to free her lacy headpiece.
(She’s a hotel heiress, so she knows how to handle these types of
situations.) Once the problem was remedied, she and her father, Richard,
hopped into the luxury vehicle and continued en route to the wedding
venue where she would exchange vows with an heir to one of Europe’s most
prestigious banking families. That’s how the Hiltons roll.
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After Harrison Ford brought down the house at the Star Wars: The Force Awakens panel on Friday,
he offered some words of advice to the younger members of the cast who
are just embarking on their journey to a galaxy far, far away. “It’s too
late for them,” said Ford (you can watch video of the interview
above). “Life as they knew it is no longer possible.” He recounted
a “serious conversation” he’d had with Daisy Ridley, who plays young
heroine Rey (and Han Solo’s seat mate in the Millennium Falcon according
to the new behind-the-scenes footage.)
“I said, ‘Your life will change,” he remembered. “You’ll be by turns
happy and delighted and employed. And then you’ll wonder what the hell
happened every once in awhile.”
An
obviously reflective Ford went on with some thoughts that seem to sum
up the central challenge of his legendary career: “The natural state of
the actor is to observe life around them. And now you have to figure out
how to do that when all anybody’s looking at is you.”
As if you could ever forget the image of Kardashian’s bare bum on the cover of Paper magazine last November. All the oil, the gloves, the glass brimming with champagne balanced on her backside… it was far from your typical celebrity magazine spread
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Capo, a rapper associated with Chief Keef's Glo Gang was shot dead today in the South Side of Chicago.Law enforcement sources tell TMZ the shooting took place around 2 PM and the victim was hit in the back and hip. The 22-year-old was rushed to a local hospital where he later died. We're told when the suspects were fleeing, they hit a baby stroller with their vehicle and also killed a 13-month-old boy.
A disturbing video is floating around online showing Capo in a pool of blood on the sidewalk just minutes after the shooting. We're told police currently have two suspects in custody.
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Here's a 22-year-old version of the fresh-faced Beatles drummer posing with his boy band back in 1962 (left) and 53 years later ... the iconic Brit -- who celebrated his 75th birthday earlier this week -- at a Hollywood party just this month
Move over, Barry Allen (Grant Gustin), there's a new Flash in town. Actually, the original Flash is coming to town! After teasing his introduction in the season one finale, The Flash is officially introducing Jay Garrick when it returns for its second season. And at the WBTV Presents a Night of DC Entertainment event at Comic-Con on Saturday night, it was revealed that Masters of Sex's Teddy Sears will be taking on the iconic DC Comics role.
"Having Jay Garrick come onto the show was one of our earliest ideas. It is so exciting, as we rush into season two, that we finally get to bring the Crimson Comet to life," executive producer Andrew Kreisberg said in a statement. "We couldn't imagine anyone more suited to play the original Flash than Teddy.
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Congratulations are in order for Jennie Garth!
The Beverly Hills, 90210 alumna got married to David Abrams Saturday night outside of Los Angeles, Garth's rep confirmed to E! News. "It was the perfect night," the pair shared with People. "We are so happy to have our family and friends surrounding us on this special occasion!"
Just two months ago, E! News sat down with the mother-of-three where we dished about all things related to weddings. When asked if her three children with ex-husband Peter Facinelli would be a part of the special day, Garth's answer was an absolute yes!
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TIGER SHERROF will be seen romancing Shraddha Kapoor in Sabbir Khan's Baaghi,
Tiger Shroff, who was last seen in the music video of the Atif Aslam track 'Zindagi Aa Raha Hoon', is now preparing for two films simultaneously. While he will be seen romancing Shraddha Kapoor in Sabbir Khan's Baaghi, Tiger will be paired opposite Jacqueline Fernandez in Remo D'Souza's The Flying Jat. Remo D'Souza who is riding high on the success of ABCD 2 will be soon flying to Bangkok along with the cast and crew for shooting the film but the 'superhero' of the film, Tiger Shroff, will be flying to the Thailand capital a week before the schedule. The actor will apparently undergo a seven day training program for his action sequences in the film. Says a source, "Tiger has to go through a hardcore training to play a superhero in the film. Tiger will fly to Bangkok for the intense training for what he calls the role of a lifetime. While he is already known for his physique and fitness levels, the young actor hopes to push the bar with this one. A special trainer has been appointed to train Tiger while in Bangkok. His look will completely be under wraps and even the rest of the cast and crew will see it only once they start shooting for the film.
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Actors Priyanka Chopra and Farhan Akhtar’s duet in the recently- released movie, Dil Dhadakne Do, got music lovers swinging. The duo was cast as a pair in the film. And it looks like PeeCee and Farhan are not an exception to the rule, but are actually a part of a growing trend in Bollywood — that of on-screen lead pairs doing playback singing as well.
Actors Alia Bhatt and Fawad Khan will reportedly sing for filmmaker Shakun Batra’s next, while The Rock On! sequel is said to have a duet by actors Shraddha Kapoor and Farhan.
So does having popular actors singing duets guarantee a chartbuster? “Well, their popularity does contribute to making the song seem more real as the actors sing in their own voices,” says composer Ehsaan Noorani, who was one of the composers of Dil Dhadakne Do. However he is quick to point out, “Even though we had actors singing the song, they were singers for us and we had to take the exact approach as we would with any singer.” Singer Adnan Sami thinks that a lead pair singing their own songs is of immense value. “There is nothing more authentic and beautiful than the actors singing the songs themselves. In fact, that is how it should be,” he says.
However, film critic Omar Qureshi says that the popularity of the song depends on the music of a song, and stars singing it does not mean a popular track is in the making. “If the track is good, then people will like it. Else, you can get the entire industry to sing the song, but it won’t help. Sometimes, the novelty value of an actor singing for the first time creates a buzz. But beyond that, there is no guarantee that the song will do well,” says Qureshi.
Singer Sona Mahapatra feels that an actor should take to singing their own songs, only if they are truly capable.“Everyone has the right to sing. But it should be done professionally, just following a fad is a big no,” she says.
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