Cinderella

Cinderella American romantic fantasy film ,the story is inspired by Charles Perrault's eponymous fairy tale. Although not a direct remake, the film borrows many elements from Walt Disney's 1950 animated musical film

Director: Kenneth Branagh 

Producer: David Barron, Simon Kinberg and Allison Shearmur (for Walt Disney Pictures)

Budget: $95,000,000 (estimates)

Opening Weekend: $67,877,361 (USA) (15 March 2015) (3,845 Screens)

Rating : PG

Release Date: Cinderella had its world premiere on February 13, 2015, at the 65th Berlin International Film Festival. It was released on March 13, 2015. Upon release, the film received generally positive reviews and was a box office success, grossing over $494 million worldwide.
13th March USA, 27th March UK

Stars: Lily James, Cate Blanchett, Richard Madden, Helena Bonham Carter

After the success of Tim Burton's Alice in Wonderland (which was the second-highest grossing film of 2010 and earned over $1 billion at the box office worldwide), Disney began developing a new adaptation of Cinderella in May 2010. Director Mark Romanek was initially going to direct the movie, however, he dropped out on January 9, 2013 due to creative differences. On February 1, 2013, Kenneth Branagh (Thor) stepped in as the new director.

















There are numerous ancient myths and stories containing Cinderella motifs, dating as far back as an Egyptian tale from the first century BC. The modern version of Cinderella was created by French author Charles Perrault, whose fairy tale was first published in 1697. It has since been the inspiration behind innumerable operas, ballet, plays and films.The first film version was seven minutes long, directed by George Méliès in France in 1899. Disney's classic animated version of Cinderella was released in 1950. It was a major box office success, and in 2008 was named the ninth-greatest animated film of all time by the American Film Institute. Other modern films based on the Cinderella concept include The Slipper and the Rose (1976), Ever After (1998) and A Cinderella Story (2004).

The live action film has it's own collection in Disney Store The dolls are modeled after the likeness of Cinderella character and stars the Limited Edition Cinderella Dolls are carefully crafted by Disney Store artists to uniquely and exquisitely capture the essence of the character.


With the success of Cinderella and Maleficent (and with Alice in Wonderland: Through the Looking Glass being released in 2016), Disney has announced the development of several other live-action remakes from their Animated Classics series. Since the releases of these two films, Disney has announced the development of live-action adaptations of Beauty and the Beast, Mulan, Dumbo, Winnie the Pooh, and Pinocchio.

UK funded film - We Are the Freaks

We Are the Freaks (2014) is a 15 rated comedy about three misfits that embark on a weekend they will never forget. Written by Justin Edgar, three misfits take a very memorable weekend trip.

Budget: £625,000 (estimated)

Box office: £N/A

Director: Justin Edgar

Produced by: Alex Usborne

Production Company: 104 Films

Released: 22nd April 2014 - Edinburgh Film festival 25th April 2014 - UK

Starring: Jamie Blackley, Sean Teale, Mike Bailey

Jamie Blackley  is a Manx actor who made his acting debut in 2008 in a TV mini-series Apparitions and is well known for his role in If I Stay (2014), and his role as Mark in the film of a true story, U Want Me 2 Kill Him?  He's also won 'Best Performance in a British Feature Film' at the Edinburgh Film Festival 2013 

Sean Teale is a British actor who made his acting debut in the TV series Summer in Transylvania but is most known for his role as Nick Levan in the 5th and 6th series of Skins in 2011-2012

Mike Bailey is a British actor who is most known for his debut role as Sid Jenkins in the 1st and 2nd series of the British teen drama Skins, within his time on skins he sang a musical ensemble of "Wild World" by Cat Stevens.

This film was filmed in Birmingham, West Midlands, England. 


Reviews


Rotten Tomatoes 

The Guardian

Den of Geek

IMDb

'Visuals effects are a main attraction for audiences'. How far do you agree with this statement?

Since the first film in 1894 (The Sneeze - Thomas Edison) the production of films has changed drastically, from being silent, sepia films from 1894 to 1927when the first sound film 'The Jazz Singer' was produced to 1973 when Westworld was made which was the first film to use CGI. Since then CGI and varying types of visual effects have become what modern film rely on in order to win over an audience.

Films like "life of Pi" strongly relied on visual effects due to the narrative of film, because of the visual effects used and the way they were used allowed the film to win awards in the categories of Best Cinematography and Best Visual Effects. However films like The Fault In Our Stars didn't need to rely on visual effects in order to be a success and attract an audience, due to the massive fanbase of the book the film is adapted from. The book by John Green already had a huge following, as well as his other books, because of the storyline and how original it was. Although this film uses the visual effects when the texts between Gus and Hazel appear on screen for the audience to see it is not the focal selling point of the film, the narrative and originality of it is what attracted the audience to the opening weekend in which the film quadrupled its budget of $12,000,000 so in opening weekend alone the film with little visual effects made $48,002,523 with an overall gross of $307,239,013 worldwide and 'The Life of Pi' has an overall gross of $580 million, which is a film that fully relied on visual affects to be a success and attract an audience.

Independent films with a small budget, like 'The Perks of Being a Wallflower with a budget of $13million, have little money to spend during the production of the film meaning visual effects aren't a high priority within spending the budget. Like 'The Fault In Our Stars' 'The Perks of Being a Wallflower' was also a book adaptation, although it's pre-existing following wasn't as large as the following for TFIOS. In it's opening weekend 'The Perks of Being a Wallflower' made only $228,359 and has made a worldwide gross of $33,384,127. It could be argued that this is due to the lack of visual effects which often attract an audience to watch a film. Others would say it's just a coincidence that the film had little to none visual effects and flopped in the box office; like mentioned in item B 'The Blair Witch Project' used no visual effects but used a different style of filming rather than relying on technology to bring in an audience as it's budget was $37,000 and made $248 million overall, proving that visual effects aren't an overly important factor in attracting an audience. 

The use of stars in films acts as an attraction, 'The perks of Being a Wallflower' uses Logan Lerman and Emma Watson who are both stars in the genre of this film. Emma Watson being known as Hermione Granger in the Harry Potter films, which as a franchise has made over $7 billion. Using a star like Emma Watson in a low budget film like 'The Perks of Being a Wallflower' takes off the pressure of need over the top visual effects that are usually sued as a luring technique to attract large audiences, as just the mention her name gets Harry Potter fans interested due to her and the franchises success; this got the film a lot more publicity and interest. Stars can have just as much affect on the overall success and attraction of an audience as visual effects and 'The Perks of Being a Wallflower' supports this as although it was a flop in the box office it still got some recognition and praise on the internet which is where it matters as the internet is now just as powerful as the word of mouth.

World Cinema - Blue is the Warmest Colour

Blue is the Warmest Colour is a romance, drama film rated 18, about high school student Adele who is confused about her sexuality until she meets a young blue haired woman who together explore social acceptance, sexuality and the emotional spectrum of their maturing relationship.               

This film is based on a French graphic novel which was originally named "Blue Angel". Two thirds of the film are similar to the film however the ending is different to the book.

Budget: 4,000,000


Director: Abdellatif Kechiche

Opening weekend: $100,316 (USA)    

Gross: $2,199,675 (USA)

                 
Produced by: Abdellatif Kechiche, Brahim Chioua, Vincent Maraval

Production Company : Quat'sous Films Wild Bunch

Released: 22nd May 2013 (Cannes Film Festival), 11th October 2013 (USA), 22nd November 2013 (UK)

Starring: Léa Seydoux and Adèle Exarchopoulos.


Léa Seydoux is a French actress who started her career in French cinema in films like The Last Mistress (2007) and On War (2008) and has also appeared in Hollywood films including Inglourious Basterds (2009) and Robin Hood (2010) and has won 15 awards.


Adèle Exarchopoulos is a French actress who started her career in 2007 with her appearance in Boxes. She is the youngest artist ever to be awarded the Palme d'Or at the Cannes Film Festival for her leading performance as Adèle in Blue Is the Warmest Colour.She also received a total of 37 other nominations for her performance as a lesbian teenager who plunges into a relationship with a 22-year-old woman.

The majority of this film is filmed in the North of France with a small amount filmed in Brussels, Belgium.

It has won a total of 83 awards whilst being nominated for a BAFTA and a Golden Globe.

Lesbian sexuality is one of the strongest themes of the film, as the narrative deals mainly with Adele’s exploration of her identity in this context. However, the film's treatment of lesbian sexuality has been questioned by academics, due to its being directed from a straight, male perspective. Film scholar Sophie Mayer suggests that in Blue is the Warmest Colour, "Like homophobia, the lesbian here melts away. As with many male fantasies of lesbianism, the film centres on the erotic success and affective failures of relations between women". The issue of perspective has also been addressed in a Film Comment  "Emma's supposedly sophisticated friends make eager remarks about art and female sexuality that seem to mirror the director’s problematic approach toward the representation of women".

US Blockbuster - The Fault in Our Stars case study

The Fault in Our Stars (2014) is a teen romance film about two teens, both who have different cancer conditions, fall in love after meeting at a cancer support group. Written by Scott Neustadter and Michel H. Webber and was an adaptation of John Green's book of the same title.

Budget: $12,000,000 - on opening it made $48,002,523


Director: John Boone

Box office: $304.2 million (worldwide)

Produced by: Wyck Godfrey, Marty Bowen

Released: 16th May at Seattle International Film Festival, 6th June in US, 19th June in UK

Certificate: 12A

Starring: Shailene Woodley, Ansel Elgort, Nat Wolff

Shailene Woodley is an American actress who made her acting debut in the 1999 TV movie Replacing Dad and is know for her role as Amy Juergens in The Secret Life of the American Teenger (2008-2013), Tris in Divergent (2014) and Hazel in The Fault in Our Stars.

Ansel Elgort is an American actor, musician, producer, singer and DJ. Known for his role as Tommy Ross in Carrie (2013), Caleb Prior in Divergent (2014) and Augustus Waters from The Fault in Our Stars (2014); his first credited acting job was in Carrie (2013)

Nat Wolff is an American actor, musician, singer-songwriter, composer who is for his part in the Naked Brothers Boyband: The Movie (2005),which was also his acting debut, he is also known for being Isaac in The Fault in Our Stars.

The Fault in Our Stars already had a fan base that existed for the book. John Green's pre-existing popularity is evident in the fact that the novel reached the number one spot on the New York Times Best Sellers list selling over 10 million copies and having been translated into 46 different languages. This shows the sheer size of the fan base. The success of the film does not just rest on the size of the fan base, but also on it's dedication and passion. The so called 'nerdfighters' are an incredibly active and vocal fan base.

Marketing 

The first trailer was released on January 29, 2014. The trailer had over three million views in fewer than 24 hours, and more than 15 million views in its first seven days. A video clip was shown before the show at the 2014 MTV Movie Awards on April 13, 2014.An extended trailer was released on April 28, 2014, and Fox released more clips via YouTube as part of the film's pre-release promotion. On April 2, 2014, the studio announced the launch of a promotional tour program named "Demand Our Stars", in which Green, Woodley, Elgort, and Wolff would visit the states that got most votes from fans re-blogging their states' map outlines. Four states won; the tour program started in Miami, Florida, on May 6, Cleveland, Ohio, on May 7, Nashville, Tennessee, on May 8, and ended in Dallas,Texas, on May 9.

Critics and reviews:

The film didn't need to rely on critics' reviews to get viewers to go to the cinema to watch this film due to the large following it already had due to the book and other John Green books as well as his YouTube subscribers and Tumblr followers.

The Guardian - The Fault in Our Stars
IMDb reviews - The Fault in Our Stars
The Independent review - The Fault in Our Stars


Awards

































Hindi remake

On August 6, 2014, India's Fox Star Studios announced its intention to produce a remake of The Fault in Our Stars in Hindi. The studio's CEO, Vijay Singh, said the English version of the film, which was released in India in July 2014, had earned over $1 million there. On September 19, it was announced that Homi Adajania, the director of Finding Fanny(2014), and producer Dinesh Vijan would be working with Fox Star to develop the film, which will be co-produced by Vijan's company Maddock Films. On September 25, Deepika Padukone and Varun Dhawan were confirmed to be playing the lead roles.