‘Watson’ Screening At Monte Carlo TV Festival
CBS’s Morris Chestnut sleuth series Watson will get its French premiere at the Monte Carlo Television Festival on Friday, June 13, at the Grimaldo Forum Monaco. The “medical series with an investigative spine” is set six months after the death of the titular Dr John Watson’s friend, Sherlock Holmes, at the hands of Moriarty. He resumes life as a head of a clinic dedicated to treating rare disorders, though Moriarty isn’t done with him yet. CBS Studios is making the show, with Paramount Global Content Distribution shopping it globally. Elsewhere at the Monte Carlo TV Festival, American actress Jaz Sinclair will receive the Golden Nymph for Most Promising Talent. Sinclair currently stars in Prime Video superhero drama The Boys and is known for roles in Netflix’s supernatural series The Chilling Adventures of Sabrina and films such as Paper Towns and When the Bough Breaks, the latter of which she acted alongside Chestnut.
Giant Pictures Brings ‘Mockbuster’ To Cannes
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New York-based Giant Pictures has unveiled a roster of new films, which are launching at the Cannes Market this week. Among them is Anthony Frith’s Mockbuster, a behind-the-scenes documentary about an aspiring filmmaker’s first film for b-movie studio The Asylum. Tickled filmmaker David Farrier is an exec producer on the pic, which is bring made in association with several Australian funding sources and is . Also on the doc front are new acquisitions Beyond the Gaze: Jule Campbell’s Swimsuit Issue and The Britto Doc, which is about the life and work of Brazilian pop artist Romero Britto. This comes soon after Giant launched an international sales division headed by Giant Pictures General Manager Nick Savva, along with industry veterans Bill Sondheim, the former President of Cinedigm and Tom Bairstow, the ex-Sony Pictures Television and Kew Media Distribution exec. Bairstow will represent Giant Pictures on the ground at Cannes.
Alex MacNicoll Leads Indie Horror ‘Near Death‘
EXCLUSIVE: Brilliant Minds actor Alex MacNicoll is leading Near Death, an indie horror from Liminal Space Pictures. He will star alongside Harrison Xu (Extremely Unique Dynamic), Ivan Leung (Skill House), David A. Chang (The Accountant 2), Olivia Rose Prince (It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia), Del Eswar (The Dresden Sun) and Paige Hapeman (Before We Begin) in the pic, which is being billed as an “augmented reality horror.” Shaina Aidan writes and directs in her feature film debut. Story a withdrawn and disconnected software engineer, John (MacNicoll), who gathers a group of friends at a mountain cabin for his birthday to test out a new augmented reality prototype he’s helped develop. But when the experiment spirals out of control, the group is forced into a nightmarish battle for survival as their reality begins to unravel. The Liminal Space team – Aidan, Chang, Eswar and Noel Do-Murakami – are producing with Brad Bradley, Alexander Clark and Abby Johnson on board as associate producers and Jonathan B. Na the Director of Photography. MacNicoll, Aidan, Chang and Eswar all previously collaborated as Executive Producers on 2022’s Tribeca Film Festival title Wes is Dying. MacNicoll is repped by Gersh and Joanne Horowitz Management, Xu and Leung by Link Entertainment, Chang by Key Talent Management, Prince by Happen Agency, Eswar by Cutler Management and Hapeman by Ann Wright Representatives.
Chaka Khan, Chuck D & More Interviewed In Average White Band Doc
A doc about influential 1970s Scottish group Average White Band will include exclusive interviews with Chaka Khan, Questlove, Chuck D, Flavor Flav, Mark Ronson, DJ Premier, and Michael McDonald. Former US President Barack Obama, who once famously said, “Those boys could jam,” will also appear in an interview in Average White Band: Soul Searching. They will all discuss how the band became so important to the history of hip-hop, as one of the most sampled groups in the genre’s history. An exclusive glimpse at the film will be unveiled at the Cannes Film Festival on Saturday, May 17 at the Scottish Works-in-Progress Showcase at the Marché du Film. The film charts the band’s journey, through exclusive interviews, never-before-seen archive, and testimony from powerful voices in music and culture. Pic, directed by Anthony Baxter, comes from Montrose Pictures in partnership with Screen Scotland, Kartemquin Films, Vertigo Films and Sky Originals.