reported by Cal Gervais, CyberScreenwriter.com

Danny Fisher, CEO of New York-based City Lights Pictures, a division of City Lights Media Group, has acquired North American distribution rights to 2007 Sundance Film Festival Documentary Grand Jury Prize winner "Manda Bala." Simultaneously, Celsius picked up foreign distribution rights and the Sundance Channel took domestic broadcast rights.

Cinetic Media represented the filmmakers in the deal.

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reported by Betty Paulsino, CyberScreenwriter.com

Steven Spielberg and Peter Jackson, two of the most famous and celebrated filmmakers working today, have joined forces to create a series of motion picture films based on the adventures of Tintin, the iconic character created by Georges Remi, better known to the world by his pen name "Herge."

Spielberg and Jackson have selected three stories from the Tintin book series to develop into theatrical feature films, which they intend to direct back to back, employing state of the art performance capture technology.

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reported by Jennifer Tillman, CyberScreenwriter.com

In this new partnership Nick G. Miller will write, direct and produce film and TV projects while David Rodgers will take on a more business, advisory and creative role bringing completed works to the next level. The new company will be Rodgers / Miller Productions.

Miller and Rodgers first met several years ago at a film festival and had expressed interest in someday working together on a film. It was only after viewing a rough draft of Miller's latest feature "The Unlikely's," that Rodgers was convinced that he couldn't let a talent like Miller get away.

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reported by Samuel Grigsby, CyberScreenwriter.com

DreamWorks Studios in association with Film 4 has acquired "The Lovely Bones," Peter Jackson's adaptation of the Alice Sebold best-selling novel.

Peter Jackson will direct the film from a screenplay he co-wrote with Philippa Boyens and Fran Walsh. Carolynne Cunningham, Jackson, Walsh, and Aimee Peyronnet will serve as producers. Executive producing will be Film 4?s Tessa Ross, Ken Kamins and Jim Wilson.

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reported by Peter Hillstrand, CyberScreenwriter.com

Two new studies by Dartmouth Medical School pediatrician researchers underscore the significant impact that movies have in influencing teens to smoke. The studies show that movies deliver billions of smoking impressions to American teens; and that even teens outside the U.S. are affected by smoking images in films distributed internationally by American studios.

In a report published in today?s Pediatrics, "Exposure to Movie Smoking Among US Adolescents Aged 10 to 14 Years: A Population Estimate," Dr. James Sargent and his co-authors, researchers at Norris Cotton Cancer Center, used a nationally representative sample of 6,522 U.S. adolescents aged 10-14 years, and assessed their exposure to 534 popular contemporary box-office hits. Three out of four movies (74%) studied contained smoking, for a total of 3,830 smoking images.

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reported by David Hillsboro, CyberScreenwriter.com

Media 8 Entertainment has acquired the rights to EICHMANN for international distribution and will be introducing the film to buyers for the first time at the upcoming Cannes market.

EICHMANN is a powerful historical drama based upon the final confession of Adolf Eichmann, made before his execution in Israel, as he is interrogated about his role in Hitler's Third Reich.

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The President of the Cancun International Film Festival and Mayor of Cancun, Mexico, Francisco Alor Quezada announced the dates of the upcoming film festival at a press conference in New York City this afternoon. The film festival will run consecutively over 5 days from November 14th through November 18th, 2007. Dedicated to the discovery and development of Mexican, Latin American and International film, filmmakers and audiences, the Cancun International Film Festival will truly be a "Film Festival for the Americas."

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reported by Betty Paulsino, CyberScreenwriter.com

Joost, the world?s first broadcast-quality Internet television service, has commercially launched. Previously available in an expanded beta, Joost now is available to an unlimited number of friends, family and colleagues of existing beta testers. Starting today, when beta testers visit the "Invite Friends" widget in the "My Joost" area of Joost, they will be able to invite anyone they know to the Joost community. Both new and existing users can download a new version of Joost today.

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reported by Samuel Grigsby, CyberScreenwriter.com

History.com is bringing history into the digital age with the launch of five original digital brands. They include exclusive short-form original series, featuring rarely seen historical footage and a military blog that will enable users to experience soldiers' stories directly from the front-lines.

The History Channel has acquired the rights to a collection of 94 never- before-seen documentaries that are a companion to the critically lauded The Adventures of Young Indiana Jones television movies. Created and executive produced by George Lucas, the documentaries will premiere on History.com in late 2007. The television movies will air on The History Channel and History International.

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