Today's Film News: Thinkfilm to the Dark Side

By Katey Rich

Documentary filmmaker Alex Gibney usually focuses his rabblerousing on targets like Guantanamo Bay (Taxi to the Dark Side) and corrupt corporations (Enron: The Smartest Guys in the Room), but now he's focusing his anger on ThinkFilm, the company that distributed the Oscar-winning Taxi. The New York Times is reporting that Gibney filed for arbitration against ThinkFilm last Thursday, claiming that the company did not have enough money to properly market his film, particularly after it won the Oscar. "The fact that they were fiscally unable to capitalize on the Oscar infuriated me for two reasons: They had been in financial difficulty for some time and hadn't disclosed it to us; and we won the Oscar, and they still hadn't disclosed it to us," Gibney said in the Times. Anne Thompson has a roundup of this case that also links it to the production troubles for Nailed and other rumblings in the indie marketplace. Both articles are worth a look.

It's surprising that it's taken this long since the success of 300 for two major studios to jump on another sword-and-sandals epic. Now Variety is reporting that both Relativity Media and Warner Bros. have gladiator movies in development, with Warner having the slight advantage with its Clash of the Titans remake, to be directed by Hulk helmer Louis Leterrier. Relativity, for its part, will be making War of the Gods with The Fall director Tarsem, about a battle of humans and gods vs. demons and titans. Honestly, why should these two movies competing against each other be a problem? They both sound pretty damn impressive.

As much as we like him up on screen, Philip Seymour Hoffman seems to be aiming to step behind the camera for a bit. His Cooper Town Productions has signed a two-year deal with Overture Films, with the first project, Unconditional, being an adaptation of a play first produced by his LAByrinth Theater Company. The Reporter says Hoffman will not act in most of the projects. What a waste!

And finally, the Toronto Film Festival has unveiled part of its slate-- none of the big Hollywood debuts, but many of the Cannes hits like Palme d'Or winner The Class. Let the awards season buzz begin... is it really that time again? Check out the full list in Variety.