By Steve Pond
TheWrap

“12 Years a Slave” was the top nominee at the 18^th annual Satellite Awards, the International Press Academy announced on Monday morning.

Steve McQueen’s harrowing drama won 10 nominations, two more than Alfonso Cuaron’s “Gravity” and David O. Russell’s “American Hustle,” to lead a field in which nearly every possible awards contender received a number of nominations.

Other nominations for best motion picture included “All Is Lost,” “Blue Jasmine,” “Captain Phillips,” “Inside Llewyn Davis,” “Philomena,” “Saving Mr. Banks” and “The Wolf of Wall Street.”

With 10 best-picture nominations and eight nominees in each of the film acting categories, the IPA left few people or films out – though the failure of “Nebraska,” “Lee Daniels’ The Butler,” “Dallas Buyers Club,” “August: Osage County,” “Her” and “Fruitvale Station” to make the top category was no doubt disappointing to those films.

All except “Fruitvale” received multiple nominations in other categories, while “Fruitvale” director Ryan Coogler and star Michael B. Jordan were voted Special Achievement Awards.

In the television categories, “Breaking Bad,” “House of Cards” and “Orange Is the New Black” led with four nominations, followed by a group of a dozen series, movies and miniseries with three, including “American Horror Story: Coven,” “Behind the Candelabra,” “Mad Men,” “Masters of Sex,” “Phil Spector” and “Rectify.”

Warner Bros. was the most nominated studio with 18, followed by Sony with 15 and Fox Searchlight with 12; on the TV side, HBO led with 18 nominations, followed by Showtime with 10 and AMC, FX and Netflix with nine.

The International Press Academy, which hands out the Satellite Awards, was founded in 1996 by a former president of the Hollywood Foreign Press Association. It is made up of entertainment journalists from more than 20 countries around the world, with far more members but significantly less clout or visibility than the HFPA.

Over the 17-year history of the Satellite Awards (formerly called the Golden Satellite Awards), most Oscar Best Picture nominees were also Satellite nominees, though the winners seldom coincided. The winner of the Satellite Award for drama has gone on to be named the Oscars’ Best Picture five times (including four in a row from 2006-2009), while the Satellite comedy winner has been named Best Picture once.

(The Satellite Awards did away with separate drama and comedy/musical categories in 2011 in favor of a single, supersized Best Picture category.)

The Satellite Awards ceremony will be held on March 9, 2014 in Los Angeles.

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By Steve Pond
TheWrap

“Frozen,” “The Croods,” “Monsters University,” “The Wind Rises,” “Despicable Me 2” and “Ernest and Celestine” are among the films nominated for the top feature award at the 41st annual Annie Awards, the International Animated Film Society, ASIFA-Hollywood, announced on Monday.

Covering 30 categories of feature film, short-form and television work, as well as individual achievements in character animation, design, effects, music, storyboarding, writing, voice acting and more, the Annies nominated most of the top contenders in a competitive year for feature animation, and a year in which no single film is a clear frontrunner.

This is the third year of nominations since ASIFA-Hollywood made significant changes in its voting rules in response to concerns that had caused Disney and Pixar to withdraw its support of the organization. Nominating voters cast a typically wide net, with expanded fields in some of the 30 categories.

Last year, all five Oscar nominees in the Best Animated Feature category also received Annie nominations, though Oscar winner “Brave” lost at the Annies to “Wreck-It Ralph.”

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By Brent Lang
TheWrap

Paul Walker’s next film “Hours” will be released this month as scheduled, a spokesman for Lionsgate confirmed to TheWrap.

The “Fast and the Furious” star was killed in a car accident last weekend at the age of 40, and his sudden death has put the upcoming seventh film in the car racing series in limbo as producers struggle to figure out how to move forward.

“Hours” was completed months before the crash that took Walker’s life and had been scheduled for theatrical release in 15 cities and on video-on-demand on Dec. 13.

The film screened at several festivals such as SXSW and earned solid reviews. It finds Walker as the father of a newborn who finds himself stranded in New Orleans as Hurricane Katrina arrives and the city’s levees fail. The part was demanding and required the late actor to be on-screen for nearly all of the film’s running time.

In addition to “Fast Furious 7,” which was mid-way through shooting when Walker died, the actor will appear in the action film “Brick Mansions.” That picture is in post-production and Walker’s work was finished.

“Hours” will be released by Pantelion, a joint venture between Lionsgate and Televisa.

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By Todd Cunningham
TheWrap

Black Friday shoppers swarmed the multiplexes as well as the malls, putting this year’s Thanksgiving weekend box office on its way to being the biggest ever. “The Hunger Games: Catching Fire” and “Frozen” have the holiday on a record-breaking pace, after huge Fridays.

Bing: Find reviews for ‘Catching Fire’

Lionsgate’s Jennifer Lawrence sequel ran up a smashing $31.2 million and is now looking at a $110 million five-day haul that would shatter the holiday mark of $82.4 million set by “Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone” in 2001. It broke the record for the biggest Thanksgiving Day ever Thursday and has taken in more than $253 million domestically (and $229 million overseas) since it opened last weekend.

Also from TheWrap:  ‘Frozen’ and ‘Catching Fire’ to Lead Female-Driven Thanksgiving Box Office

And after its sizzling $26.8 million Friday, Disney Animation’s 3D family film “Frozen” should wind up with a five-day total north of $90 million, easily topping the previous best $80.1 million five-day debut of Pixar’s “Toy Story 2? in 1999. It will also be the biggest Disney Animation opening ever, ahead of another Thanksgiving release, “Tangled,” which brought in nearly $69 million in 2010.

With those two movies showing the way, this year’s long holiday haul could exceed $300 million, which would top the record set last year when “Twilight: Breaking Dawn Part 2,” “Skyfall” and Oscar contenders “Lincoln” and “Life of Pi” helped the box hit $291 million.

The weekend has been all “Catching Fire” and “Frozen,” so far. “Thor: The Dark World” will be a distant third and is likely finish the five days at around $15 million. The other wide openers – the Jason Statham-James Franco thriller “Homefront,” the musical “Black Nativity” and Spike Lee’s “Oldboy,” are turning out to be box-office turkeys.

Open Road’s R-rate ‘Homefront” brought in $2.6 million Friday and will likely finish the five days at around $9 million. Fox Searchight’s “Black Nativity” did $1.5 million and is looking at $5 million for the long weekend. And FilmDistrict’s “Oldboy,” an R-rated vengeance tale starring James Brolin, is tanking. It managed just $341,000 Friday and will finish the holiday at around $1 million.

“The Best Man Holiday” and “Delivery Man” were running fourth and fifth. Universal’s romantic comedy sequel from Malcolm D. Lee brought in $3.4 million Friday and should finish with around $11 million for the five days. DreamWorks and Disney’s Vince Vaughn sperm donor comedy did $2.7 million Friday and will wind up at around $9.5 million in its second week.

Two expanding Oscar hopefuls, “The Book Thief” and “Philomena,” broke into the top ten.

Fox went nationwide with its World War II drama starring 12-year-old Sophie Nelisse and it brought in $1.9 million from 1,234 theaters, which puts it on track for $6.6 million and seventh place.

The Weinstein Company aggressively expanded its Judi Dench drama from four theaters to 835 locations and it brought in $1.3 million, good for ninth place.

CBS Films’ geriatric comedy “Last Vegas” was in tenth, after taking in $1.1 million Friday. It’s the company’s highest-grossing film ever, and should hit $60 million domestically early next week.

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WENN

British actor Rowan Atkinson stunned fans by performing a surprise comedy show in London this week. The “Mr. Bean” star hit the stage to perform in front of only 30 people at the city’s Drink Shop Do venue on Thursday.

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One audience member tells Britain’s The Sun newspaper, “The crowd could not believe what they were seeing, a national institution performing in the basement of what essentially is a London cafe. His characters had everyone in stitches. It was a once-in a lifetime moment.”

LOS ANGELES (AP) — Paul Walker, the star of the “Fast and Furious” movie series, died Saturday in a car crash that killed one other person north of Los Angeles, his publicist said. He was 40.

Walker died Saturday afternoon, Ame Van Iden told The Associated Press.

A statement on the actor’s Facebook page said he was a passenger in a friend’s car, and that Walker was in the area to attend a charity event for his organization Reach Out Worldwide.

“We … are stunned and saddened beyond belief by this news,” the statement said.

The Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department said that deputies found a car engulfed in flames when they responded to a report of a collision in the community of Valencia. Two people who were found in the car were pronounced dead at the scene.

The Santa Clarita Signal reports a red Porsche crashed into a light pole and tree and burst into flames.

Bing: More about Paul Walker

Walker was working on “Fast Furious 7” at the time of his death. He also starred in the suspense drama, “Hours,” which is set for release this month.

Walker rode the “Fast Furious” franchise to stardom, starring in all but one of the six action Blockbusters, beginning with the first film in 2001. The blond-haired, blue-eyed Los Angeles-native brought California surfer good-looks and an easy, warm charm to the popular street-racing series.

“All of us at Universal are heartbroken,” Universal Pictures said in a statement. “Paul was truly one of the most beloved and respected members of our studio family for 14 years, and this loss is devastating to us, to everyone involved with the ‘Fast and Furious’ films, and to countless fans.”

The son of a fashion model and a sewer contractor, Walker grew up in a working class, Mormon Los Angeles household. The oldest of five siblings, Walker’s mother began taking him to auditions as a toddler. He was a child model beginning at the age of 2.

Walker has said the early induction to show business wasn’t to start him on a career path, but as a way to help provide for the family.

After a string of TV roles as a child in the ’80s, Walker made his feature film debut in the 1998 comedy “Meet the Deedles.” Supporting roles in the films “Pleasantville,” ”Varsity Blues” and “She’s All That” followed.

His performance in the 2000 thriller “The Skulls” caught the eye of producer Neal H. Moritz, who cast him in “The Fast and the Furious” as undercover police officer Brian O’Conner. Adapted from a Vibe magazine article about underground street races, the film became an unexpected hit.

In the sequel, “2 Fast 2 Furious,” Walker moved to center stage with his co-star Vin Diesel momentarily dropping out. Walker, a self-described “gearhead,” kept his character’s sports car from the film.

Walker starred in other films, including the crime thriller “Running Scared,” the Antarctic adventure “Eight Below” and the heist film “Takers.” Though his stardom didn’t make as much of an impact outside the “Fast Furious” series, Walker continually drew praise from his co-stars and directors as a kind-hearted and eager collaborator.

And “Fast Furious” proved unusually enduring. Released in May, “Fast Furious 6” was the most lucrative of them all, grossing more than $788 million worldwide. The seventh installment began shooting in September, with a release planned for July.

“Your humble spirit was felt from the start,” said Ludacris, Walker’s “Fast Furious” co-star, on Twitter. “Wherever you blessed your presence you always left a mark, we were like brothers.”

Walker is survived by his 15-year-old daughter.

By Brent Lang
TheWrap

Americans dug into a little gladiatorial combat along with the turkey and cranberry sauce on Thursday, propelling “The Hunger Games: Catching Fire” to $14.9 million at the domestic box office. That impressive haul beat previous record holder “Toy Story 2? to set a new record for Thanksgiving grosses.

Bing: ‘SNL’ Hunger Games skit

Lionsgate’s Blockbuster sequel has now grossed $222 million in North America since opening last week. It has earned an estimated $423 million globally and opened in 16 foreign markets this week.

The well-reviewed picture, which once again sees Jennifer Lawrence in a desperate battle to stay alive, is on pace to earn a massive $100 million over the holiday.

Disney Animation’s “Frozen” was also a hit with audiences looking for some family friendly diversion. Bolstered by strong reviews, the 3D picture brought in an estimated $11.1  million. It should wind up with north of $80 million in the first five days of its release.

Also from TheWrap.com: 5 Things Hollywood Should Be Thankful For

Disney’s Marvel film “Thor: The Dark World” benefited from the holiday crowds, adding $2 million to its $175 million haul. It should earn $13 million over the period. Pity poor “Delivery Man.” The Vince Vaugh sperm donor comedy showed a lack of vitality, earning $1.4 million on Thursday and bringing its domestic total to $12.5 million.

Likewise James Franco and Jason Statham’s action thriller “Homefront” exhibited a lack of pizzaz, bringing in an estimated $1.4 million en route to a $9 million five day opening, while “Oldboy” remake earned an estimated $212,795 in less than 600 theaters. The Spike Lee thriller should earn $1.2 million over the period.

Among Oscar contenders, Fox Searchlight’s “Black Nativity” and “The Book Thief” racked up $825,000 and $680,000 respectively.

5 Things Hollywood Should Be Thankful For

‘Hunger Games: Catching Fire’: What’s Next for Jennifer Lawrence, Josh Hutcherson, Liam Hemsworth?

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Thank heavens for the Ratings Board…I couldn’t have handled it unless it was watered down. Saved from myself!

WENN

Benedict Cumberbatch’s Wikileaks drama “The Fifth Estate” has topped Forbes’ list of 2013 film flops.

The movie bombed after it opened in October), bringing in just $6 million in global box office takings.  Forbes writers have now named it the worst performing film of the year as it earned back just 21 percent of its $28 million budget.

WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange, who is played by Cumberbatch in the movie, publicly opposed the project and correctly predicted the film would flop at the box office.

Other releases included in Forbes’ “turkey” list include Sylvester Stallone’s “Bullet To The Head” and Harrison Ford’s “Paranoia,” which ranked second and third respectively.

Jason Statham and Jennifer Lopez’s crime thriller “Parker” was ranked the fourth worst performing film while Mark Wahlberg’s political drama “Broken City” completed the top five.

By Todd Cunningham
TheWrap

Disney has crossed the $4 billion threshold at the 2013 global box office, the studio said Wednesday.

With “Iron Man 3,” “Monsters University,” “Thor: The Dark World” and “Oz the Great and Powerful” providing the biggest boosts, the studio has posted its best year ever in terms of worldwide grosses.

Bing: ‘Oz the Great and Powerful’ sequel?

Last week, the studio broke its global box office-record of $3.79 billion established in 2010, when “Toy Story 3 and “Alice In Wonderland” were the big films.

The 2013 figure will keep moving higher. The Disney Animation 3D family musical “Frozen” opens Friday, and “Saving Mr. Banks,” the Tom Hanks-Emma Thompson drama about the making of “Mary Poppins,” debuts on Dec. 13.

Also on TheWrap:  Disney’s Brilliant Strategy: Make Fewer Movies

In July, Disney became the first studio to reach the $1 billion domestic box office milestone for 2013, its eighth consecutive year. In August, in record time, Disney hit $2 billion at the international box office for the fourth year in a row, and in early November the studio broke its international box office record of $2.3 billion, also set in 2010.

Disney set the record with a lot of help from its in-house friends. Marvel’s “Iron Man 3 has brought in $1.21 billion worldwide, while Pixar’s “Monsters University” has done $743 million and Marvel’s “Thor: The Dark World” is at $559 million after four weeks.

“Oz the Great and Powerful” has added $493 million.

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