Gold gold coin fuels ITG growth plan

It's taken him 10 years, but legendary British agent Duncan Heath has finally found the heavyweight proper investor he's looked for since leading a buyout of ICM's U.K. arm in 2002.The sale for Ron Burkle's Yucaipa Companies to buy Independent Talent Group might be the most recent quickstep in the career of fancy work by Heath.He's already built ITG into Europe's greatest talent and literary agency, but he's wanting that Burkle's backing will turbocharge its growth. You'll find ambitious expects to boost a film production fund, build its branding business and expand further into comedy and sports."Burkle has paid out some money upfront, and provided a war chest for expansion," Heath states. "The bond will enable us being opportunistic. British agents are usually just agents they don't manage to put things together, because agencies here can't afford to use full-time males who raise money for projects. It's money to own that expertise, now our capacity to place things together will probably be greater."ITG controlling director Lyndsey Posner notes, "We've done a good deal without exterior funding, now this new investment will let's expand greatly. The American agencies have extended considerably, and there's pointless for people to acquire omitted.InchManufacturing is one thing where British agencies have a very apparent advantage on their American cousins. In Hollywood, agents are legally blocked from becoming producers, but no such bar will come in Blighty.Heath sees Burkle just like a potential ally within the historic ambition to enhance a film fund. "Burkle won't always buy production fund, but his contacts and expertise is only able to help our efforts to enhance one," Heath states.ITG already possesses its own development company, Brilliant Films. The initial feature project cooked up by Brilliant is finally poised to shoot later this year -- Neil LaBute's Agatha Christie adaptation "Crooked House," scripted by Julian Fellowes and starring Michael Sheen, Emma Thompson and Olivia Wilde.Mike Newell's historic kids' project "A Box of Delights" may also be changing."Becoming an agent inside the U.K., we identify the talent, however, if they break through to the U.S., the American agents frequently dominate,Inch Heath describes. "They are more aggressive about putting finance together, but we must be equally business. You need to stay involved with the U.S. careers within our clients."Heath can be a charming and extroverted figure which has always inspired great loyalty from his clients and also the fellow agents, lots of whom are actually with him forever of the careers.He founded Duncan Heath Affiliate marketers in 1973, provided to Hollywood giant ICM in 1985, merged with ICM's London office in 1991, then introduced an administration buyout in the combined operation nine years later. The business was re-named as ITG in 2007. It's 32 agents including veterans Greg Search, Sally Extended-Innes and Paul Lyon-Maris alongside up-and-comers for instance Jane Brand, Trina King and Jack Thomas.The organization signifies greater than 1,500 clients, including Danny Boyle, Newell, Mike Mendes, Fellowes, Difficulties, Anthony Hopkins, Maggie Cruz, Alan Rickman, Gary Oldman and Michael Caine.Since the buyout from ICM, especially since the rebranding as ITG, the business has varied substantially in the core business of repping stars, company company directors and authors.It setup Independent Talent Brands, a partnership while using Saturday Group that brokers associations between talent and brands, and includes certification arm ITB 360, ads company Black Label Prods. and fashion agency Hall London, which reps designers and photography fanatics.ITG has started to push to the comedy business getting an increasing report on comics, including Steve Coogan, Johnny Vegas, Simon Bird and Irish mock-rock combo Dead Cat Bounce it's arranging a significant drive into sports for instance tennis and golf."We've already done most of the things we mentioned we'd once we increased being ITG," Heath states "However we'll be capable of perform a much more.In . Contact the number newsroom at news@variety.com

Sundance Grand Jury Prize Winner Beasts of the Southern Wild Will Debut This June

Film lovers, take note: Benh Zeitlin's highly lauded Sundance '12 favorite Beasts of the Southern Wild is heading to theaters. Fox Searchlight, which acquired first time feature director Zeitlin's pic out of the fest, will release the film in limited release on June 29; hit the jump for a full synopsis and peek at the festival award winner. The bayou-set film was the indie discovery to come out of Park City this year, and earned the fest's Grand Jury Prize for drama. The magical realism-flavored drama should make for great counter-programming during blockbuster season -- at least, you can be sure Fox Searchlight's hoping so. The synopsis: In a forgotten but defiant bayou community cut off from the rest of the world by a sprawling levee, a six-year-old girl exists on the brink of orphanhood. Buoyed by her childish optimism and extraordinary imagination, she believes that the natural world is in balance with the universe until a fierce storm changes her reality. Desperate to repair the structure of her world in order to save her ailing father and sinking home, this tiny hero must learn to survive unstoppable catastrophes of epic proportions. Below: From Sundance, a meet-the-filmmakers vid with Zeitlin describing his project and young star, Quvenzhan Wallis. Expect an official trailer to come from Fox.

Jenny McCarthy Lands a Talk Show on VH1

Jenny McCarthy Jenny McCarthy - outdoors former co-host of MTV's infamous dating show Designated - has showed up her self-titled talk show on VH1, the network introduced Wednesday.The Jenny McCarthy Show, that's slated to premiere later this year, will feature guest panelists and "skewer everyone and all things in popular culture, news, fashion, TV, movies as well as the web," in line with the release.Jenny McCarthy on Co-Hosting Dick Clark's New Year's Rockin' Eve: "All bets are off""Jenny is a good comedy talent getting a clear, crisp wit and magnetic personality, which we're able to 't be more comfortable to welcome her for the VH1 family," Rob Olde, VH1's v . p . of original programming and production mentioned in the statement. "Our audiences connect to smart, funny, and open as well as Jenny certainly signifies all people elements ended in the style making people smile."Aside from her hosting gig on Designated, McCarthy has came out on two and a half Males, Just Shoot Me, as well as the Came Carey Show. Most recently, she co-situated Dick Clark's New Year's Rockin' Eve with Ryan Seacrest.

Claro: Finds beauty in the apocalypse

Manuel Alberto Claro confers with Lars von Trier on set of 'Melancholia'Role models: Harris Savides and Anthony Dod Mantle.Film or digital: "It is a great time right now, you have the choice, and soon film will be gone. In the industry high visual quality has been equaled with high resolution for the last many years. I find this very limited. I miss a broader approach to what is a good look. If it is shot on film or digital is not important."Favorite tool: "I like pencils. I wish I knew how to draw."Representation: Rebecca Fayyad, Sheldon Prosnit AgencyWhen Danish enfant terrible Lars von Trier turned his attention to the end of the world in "Melancholia," he found a perfect collaborator in the Chilean-born Danish cinemato-grapher Manuel Alberto Claro, who brought an austere formalism to the apocalypse, making it all the more terrifying for its total lack of visual hysteria.The d.p. terms his approach on "Melancholia" -- which won cinematography honors at the European Film Awards -- and such other films as "Reconstruction" (which won the Camera d'Or in Cannes 2003), "Dark Horse," "Allegro" and "Everything Will Be Fine," as "expressive naturalism, meaning that I like things to feel real, but with a strong visual attitude.""As a d.p. I believe you are obliged to visually create the necessary emotional space and impact for the specific moment. Unfortunately, I feel many films suffer from spineless cinematography."Surprisingly, the 41-year-old discovered cinematography relatively late in life. "I thought I was going to be a still photographer, but it didn't really work out for me," he recalls. In his late 20s he saw an ad for the National Film School of Denmark, applied on a whim and was accepted."Still photography is an amazing discipline, which I think is much closer to being a director than a d.p.," he says. "In film school I found out that I felt much more comfortable as a helper and interpreter than being the guy with the big vision."Even so, his first love informs his work. "I use still photography every day to pre-visualize, discuss and share lighting and mood ideas with director and crew," he says. "Coming from a more strict discipline, I have enjoyed having to learn to loosen up."Still based in Copenhagen, Claro is working on the HBO pilot of Jonathan Franzen's book "The Corrections," directed by Noah Baumbach.Trailer: "Melancholia"Return to 10 Cinematographers to Watch Contact the Variety newsroom at news@variety.com

France's Rezo spotlights U.S. indies

'Cherry' is set in the San Francisco porn biz.Continuing to offer an international springboard for edgier American fare, Gallic shingle Rezo is handling worldwide rights outside North America to "Cherry," the directing debut of U.S. novelist Stephen Elliott.ICM is repping North American sales rights.In a further key pickup, Rezo has taken international rights to "Xingu," produced by Fernando Meirelles O2 Filmes."Cherry" stars Ashley Hinshaw, James Franco, Heather Graham, Lili Taylor and Dev Patel. Pic follows a woman's experiences in the porn industry in San Francisco. Graham plays a porn director, Franco a cocaine-addicted lawyer.Screenplay is by Elliott, known for books such as his drug and angst memoir "The Adderall Diaries," and adult industry vet Lorelei Lee."?'Cherry' challenges assumptions about porn, sexuality, and success, and faces the difficult question of where you need to be in order to find yourself," said Sebastien Chesneau, Rezo's head of international."Xingu" is an adventure biopic of the Villas Boas brothers, who created Brazil's first national park. Brazil's Cao Hamburger, whose "The Year My Parents Went on Vacation" was a sales hit for Films Distribution at 2007 Berlin, helms. It proved a high-profile attraction at December's Ventana Sur."Cherry" and "Xingu" both unspool in the Panorama Special. Sundance hit "Frozen River," "Magic Valley," "The Yes Men Fix the World" and Liza Johnson's "Return," a Focus World and Dada Films U.S. release, all figure among Rezo's U.S. pickups for international.Rezo also uses Sundance to drive sales: Chesneau says he is "very confident" of closing Italy and Japan, the only outstanding key territories on Julie Delpy's Chris Rock-starrer "2 Days in NY," off the film's North America pickup by Magnolia at Sundance."The closure of studios' speciality labels has left a gap in the market that we can fill," Chesneau said.That said, Rezo's policy is to handle "different films for different distributors." That list includes such pics as Jean-Francois Laguionie's animated feature "Le Tableau," which receives its international premiere at Berlin; and Amit Gupta's World War II fiction drama, "Resistance," with Andrea Riseborough.Teaming last year with Luxembourg's Iris Group to create Rezo Finance, a 50/50 financing vehicle aimed at putting up minimum guarantees for distribution and world sales, Rezo can come to the table offering French distribution, production, international sales -- or a combo.One of the first Rezo Finance-backed films, Jean-Paul Lilienfeld's psychological drama "Arretez-moi," starring Sophie Marceau as a self-confessed murderer and Miao-Miao as the policewoman who takes her confession, will be introduced to buyers in Berlin. Contact the Variety newsroom at news@variety.com

'Space: 1999' to time-travel a century

"Space: 1999," an legendary seventies British series which was syndicated within the U.S., has been redeveloped by ITV Galleries America and HDFilms as "Space: 2099." HDFilms prexy Jace Hall is professional creating the project. Hall lately professional created ABC's "V," another reincarnation of the science-fiction series from the previous decade. "This can be a rare and exciting creative chance for anybody involved with storytelling and something that i'm honored to get,Inch Hall stated. "Sci-fi is really a effective format able to imagining a persons symptom in thought-invoking ways. "When we're indeed re-imagining the franchise and getting new things and highly relevant to present day audiences, Personally i think strongly that a few of the overall tones set through the original "Space: 1999" tv program represent a thrilling platform to understand more about options." ITV was the initial broadcaster within the U.K. of "Space: 1999" (which starred American thesps Martin Landau and Barbara Bain), compelling ITV Galleries Amerca prexy/Boss Paul Buccieri to comment that "after a lot more than 35 years, we're thrilled to become creating a new vision in our much beloved franchise for audiences worldwide." Contact Jon Weisman at jon.weisman@variety.com

LeVar Burton Coming back Reading through through Rainbow By getting a credit card applicatoin

LeVar Burton LeVar Burton is resurrecting Reading through through Rainbow for an additional generation - by delivering a credit card applicatoin. Burton, executive producer and host in the program that continued PBS for 26 years until 2009, is creating a mobile application through his site RRKidz, they started in September. "There is a brand-new generation of babies who could certainly take advantage of the kind of spark and inspiration Reading through through Rainbow provided where truly being a visitors is anxious,In . Burton told Mashable. "To date as Let me tell, reading through through will not ever go out style, nor will traditional-fashioned storytelling." Yvette Nicole Brown: LeVar Burton could have a couple of from the funniest moments in Community history Because the site already sells cases of the program, which won a Peabody and 26 Emmys, Burton recognizes the means by which kids today consume media - digitally. "The center reason behind the applying is books," Burton mentioned. "Wonderful, lightly enhanced e-books for children. However, we're very considering delivering an enriching experience to kids, much like classic Reading through through Rainbow did on tv.In . Burton added the applying is simply the starting point in the extended-term plan that will incorporated Digital video disks and streaming of classic episodes. "Each day of my existence someone appears in my opinion and notifies me in regards to the impact the show been on it maturing,Inch Burton mentioned. "It's not secret our educational method is forget about the platinum standard all over the world stage it had been formerly. Case my approach to ongoing to accomplish things i have always done, just in the different medium." As well as for entertainment, watch the show's opening theme song:

News Corp. taps Bloomberg vet for Boss

News Corp. has introduced within an outsider to guide Dow Johnson and Company, recruiting Bloomberg alum Lex Fenwick ceo, effective February. 13. Fenwick replaces ousted former Boss L'ensemble des Hinton, who left his publish in This summer within the wake of the hacking scandal at News Corp. tabloid "This News around the globe.Inch Fenwick will are accountable to News Corp. leader and COO Chase Carey from a workplace in NY. "Lex is a driving pressure within the financial information and news industry in excess of 2 decades,Inch Carey stated inside a statement announcing the appointment. "His aggressive and bold leadership is going to be invaluable to Dow Johnson at any given time when digital technology is making information more and more important." Fenwick became a member of Bloomberg later and assisted the organization launch the Bloomberg Professional service within the United kingdom and Europe. He later required on more worldwide management procedures and was hired COO of Bloomberg LP in 2001. In 2008, Fenwick founded Bloomberg Endeavors, an initiative to grow and broaden Bloomberg items. Contact Rachel Abrams at Rachel.Abrams@variety.com