Slackery News Tidbits: July 14, 2014

in

Here's the latest Austin and Texas film news.

  • Central Texas filmmaker Terrence Malick's long-awaited feature, Knight of Cups, will have a limited release in US theaters later this year, although no distributor has been announced, The Film Stage reports. Actors Christian Bale and Natalie Portman star in the drama, the plot of which has been tightly guarded for years but is said to be about celebrities and excess.
  • Rooster Teeth, an Austin-based production company, made Indiegogo history last week by becoming the website's highest grossing campaign with more than $2.4 million raised for its first feature, Lazer Team
  • Austin Film Festival's late (and last of the year) film competition submission deadline is Tuesday (yes, tomorrow).
  • Season two of filmmaker Robert Rodriguez's From Dusk Till Dawn: The Series will begin production in Austin this October. The horror crime series is a television adaptation of Rodriguez's 1996 cult film From Dusk Till Dawn and is the first scripted original series to air on his new cable network, El Rey.
  • El Rey's other original series, Matador, has also been renewed for a second season ahead of its Tuesday premiere. The series, starring Austinite Gabriel Luna, chronicles the rise of a covert operative for a little-known branch of the CIA, moonlighting as a popular soccer star. The station has also acquired the rights to the 1980s cop show Miami Vice and will air all 111 of its episodes beginning January 2015.
  • In more AFF news, its 2012 selection Come Morning has been acquired by Monarch Home Entertainment for distribution in the US and Canada. The thriller, which will be released on VOD, DVD and digital platforms Sept. 23, tells the story of a hunting trip in rural Arkansas that turns into a murder coverup.
  • Former AFF conference director and UT RTF alum Adam Beechen has been named executive producer on the upcoming animated series Transformers: Robots in Disguise, slated for a spring 2015 release on the children's channel Hub Network, according to Variety.
  • Alamo Drafthouse Cinemas will begin construction this month on a venue in Laredo, with plans for a spring 2015 opening.
  • Richard Linklater's film Boyhood opened in five theaters on Friday and according to Indiewire, grossed more box-office per theater than any other indie film this summer. A variety of interviews and profiles of Linklater and the cast/crew have been published in the past week, and you can read/view as many as you like in an excellent compilation from David Hudson at Keyframe Daily/Fandor. In addition, check out Debbie's review and see her Boyhood red carpet photos from Sundance.
  • Finally, Linklater discusses how to handle movie-theater talkers in this Alamo Drafthouse PSA:

Lovely to hear the news about

Lovely to hear the news about Adam Beechen since we were in the UT/RTF graduate screenwriting program together. (Hi Adam!)

website