Cinemax boasts busted pic series
'First on Max' to preem American movies
Cinemax will be emulating HBO: for a number of years now, the latter has premiered an average of two action-adventure titles a month, some of them produced as theatricals but withdrawn, mostly because of the ballooning cost of marketing a picture to the multiplexes.
A few other movies were filmed as direct-to-video offerings but rescued by Cinemax or HBO because of their pay TV potential.
Camilla Carpenter, VP of film programming for HBO, said that in the course of screening new movies for HBO, "we were seeing lots of dramas and comedies that didn't necessarily fit the criterion of action-adventure."
Premiering later this month is "The Judas Kiss," with Emma Thompson and Alan Rickman; in May, "Finding Graceland," starring Bridget Fonda and Harvey Keitel, will bow.
June will see Ewan McGregor starring in "Rogue Trader," James Dearden's docudrama about Nicky Leeson, the stockbroker whose shady deals brought down Barings. In July, Bridget Fonda returns in "The Breakup," with Kiefer Sutherland.
"Oxygen" features Adrian Brody ("The Thin Red Line") and Maura Tierney (August). "Susan's Plan," directed by John Landis, stars Natassja Kinski and Billy Zane (September). "Sex Monster" is a comedy written, directed by and starring Mike Binder (October).
Without fanfare, Cinemax premiered the first of these new movies in January: "Shadow of Doubt," with Melanie Griffith and Tom Berenger, produced by Largo Entertainment. Berenger also starred in the February movie, "Murder of Crows," with Cuba Gooding Jr. Last month's picture was "The Confession," with Alec Baldwin and Ben Kingsley.
Sources say Cinemax will shell out between $500,000 and $1 million for multiyear rights to each of these pics. The suppliers of these movies will be able to put each in the video stores 45 days after its premiere on Cinemax.
