Winchester to Cease Trading!
Oooh. Last Thursday, Winchester Entertainment suspended shares pending announcement of a merger - and today that merger was announced. Well, I say merger - by all accounts, it is a reverse takeover by ContentFilm. Apparently, Winchester will buy out ContentFilm, and then give them the controlling stake in the firm - which will still be called ContentFilm, and will be lead by current ContentFilm CEOs Ed Pressman and Schmidt.
So, what does all this mean for the Movie? It sounds good - a source close to the deal has said:
"This deal is the first stage of a plan to build up a major integrated U.K.-listed film company, capable of production, financing, and distribution. We will be bringing some of the brightest management in the U.S. film industry to London, and have some of the savviest backers in the business. We will be combining this with U.K. talent to create a real powerhouse in British filmmaking. This is a very exciting development for the U.K. film industry."
The company will continue to sell films internationally through it's London base - perfect for Red Dwarf. It may even increase the likelihood of the Movie being made - Winchester has had financial problems the past few years, and hopefully this merger should alleviate that - along with building a bigger company, like the source says. On the other hand, the management will change, and when a merger occurs it's difficult to predict anything with any certainty. We'll keep an eye on things to see; if anything has changed, we'll let you know.
Comments
Summer 2006 is my bet for the release date.
Place your bets... now!
Posted by Darrell Jones at December 3, 2003 03:06 AM
Winter Infinity + 3, it'll be the sleeper hit of the year!!!
Posted by Tiffany Zeisler at December 3, 2003 06:20 AM
> Calm down dear. It's a merger.
Oi!
Posted by Jon at December 3, 2003 09:43 AM
Anyone else think we're going to have the same sort of wait for new material that DOctor Who fans had?
Oh shit, and that's not even back yet...
Posted by Peter Martin at December 3, 2003 09:57 AM
Well, there is an animated version on BBCi, but it's rubbish.
Posted by Ian Symes at December 3, 2003 10:14 AM
Oooh, a set of Red Dwarf audio plays would be nice...
Posted by John Hoare at December 3, 2003 10:18 AM
...not that it'd ever happen in a million years, of course.
Posted by John Hoare at December 3, 2003 10:19 AM
Shada was pretty good. I liked it mainly 'cos it had alrge chunks of Dirk Gently in it. I thinmk the story was that Adam wrote Gently with that material after the BBC rejected it as a Dr. Who script.
Posted by Cappsy at December 3, 2003 12:15 PM
I'm going with 2005...Possibly Summerish, maybe
even Spring...
Posted by Cpt-D at December 3, 2003 03:20 PM
The BBC didn't reject Shada, it was even half-completed - but a BBC strike prevented it from being finished. All the original rushes were saved, though - which is always nice to hear.
There was a crappy attempt to piece it together in the early nineties as a video release, but the whole thing's a bit messy and crap. Doesn't stop people paying �40 a pop for it on eBay, though.
Posted by Darrell Jones at December 3, 2003 06:26 PM
About ninety minutes of Shada studio tapes were shown at the NFT the other month. Really great stuff; a fascinating look at the production of mid-seventies BBC studio-based drama, plus all the Dennis Norden fluffs while they try to literally Sellotape the Orb of Shada to some poor actor's forehead, plus Tom Baker having a diva fit when some fucker didn't close a door during a shot. Sod editing the rushes into an episodic form: put it on DVD uncut! I'd buy it, and I hate Doctor bleeding Who.
Um, Red Dwarf news, or something. Well, I saw Ruby Wax in Brook Street yesterday morning at 11. Looking at shoes she was. She's quite small, and wore literal rose-tinted glasses. Red Dwarf news.
Posted by Squidy at December 3, 2003 08:05 PM
I read in the Python Encyclopedia, there was an out take of John Cleese and A.N.Other on the Dr Who set, going completely of script and instead
running down their friend and Who writer Douglas Adams whilst in a lift..Now, that's something I would like to see !
Posted by Cpt-D at December 3, 2003 11:33 PM
Such a shame it doesn't exist, and that the idiot writer Robert Ross made it up.
Posted by Darrell Jones at December 3, 2003 11:45 PM
Never feel bad about going off-topic here: even I get sick of talking about RD incessantly. The place'd just get boring otherwise.
"NO, YOU MUST TALK ABOUT LEGION IN GREAT DETAIL, OR PISS OFF."
Posted by John Hoare at December 4, 2003 08:00 AM
There are other clips of Cleese pissing about on set, though. There's one where he asks Tom Baker for an autograph for his "bling godson", but Baker hasn't got a pen, so Cleese replies "Oh, I'll just *tell* him you've signed it".
Posted by Ian Symes at December 4, 2003 08:19 AM
So this Robert Ross, is something of a git then..
how much more of this book is just crap then..I'm really pissed off now, as I suspect would their
LEGION of fans be..[note the use of the word legion there, just to keep John happy]...Meanwhile what's the Python autobiography like, I'm having that for Xmas...?
Posted by Cpt-D at December 4, 2003 10:35 AM
The clips that Ian mentions (ie not the ones which exist inside Robert Ross' head) are from one of the BBC Christmas tapes.
'The Pythons' is excellent and worth having, but it's no 'Monty Python Speaks'. The audiobook's supposed to be good, as it's basically just a two-and-a-half-hour documentary made out of all the original interviews.
Posted by Darrell Jones at December 4, 2003 07:19 PM
And ignore every single of Robert Ross' books. He's a twat.
Posted by Darrell Jones at December 4, 2003 07:20 PM
Ah, right, I have to say the encyclopedia served one purpose in so much as I have become a born again Python fan buying all the DVD's and scouring bookshops for stuff..I really had my fill of Python in the 70's, and quite frankly had
almost forgotten just how good they were (apart from the Films which are amongst my all time favourite movies)...It's amazing to see how many young fans there are about considering most of the stuff happened before they were born..
Posted by Cpt-D at December 4, 2003 11:44 PM
I ambushed Robert Ross at the recent Mitch Benn/Neil Innes gig, and he told me that he was writing a biography of Charles Hawtrey, as he was disappointed with the Roger Lewis effort. He said that he didn't think much of Lewis's research, which, given what I've heard about Ross, seems rather ironic.
Posted by Tanya Jones at December 5, 2003 12:43 PM
http://www.business.scotsman.com/media.cfm?id=1382812003
Losses, there.
Posted by John Hoare at December 20, 2003 10:45 AM
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