Robert De Niro, film producer Meir Teper visit Las Vegas to tour Nobu Hotel project.

From left to right, Robert De Niro and Chef Nobu Matsuhisa
discuss room design with Caesars Palace Regional President
Gary Selesner in the Nobu Hotel space at Caesars Palace.

Chef Nobu Matsuhisa brought actor Robert De Niro and film producer Meir Teper to Las Vegas last week to check on construction of their new boutique hotel inside Caesars.

De Niro and Teper are among shareholders in the Nobu Hotel, set to open this fall. The celebrity partners were in town to look at some of the model rooms with designers from the Rockwell Group and finalize some of the plans.

De Niro autographed one of the construction walls.

Caesars announced in March that it was partnering with Nobu Hospitality to turn the Centurian Tower into the Nobu Hotel, restaurant and lounge. The Nobu brand currently operates 24 restaurants around the world, including one at Hard Rock Hotel, but the venture with Caesars Palace will be its first hotel.

An 11,200-square-foot, 327-seat Nobu restaurant and lounge will be located at the center of the hotel, which will offer 180 rooms.

Should Hollywood movies adhere to Christian values more?

Has Hollywood lost touch with Middle America? According to The Christian Film & Television Commission, the city of lights and big dreams does not know how to appeal to the average American. Yet, other observers insist Christians may be expecting too much from a sector controlled by "nonbelievers."

"They don't know how to market to the average American who is a churchgoing Christian who believes in God, country, and family," said Dr. Ted Baehr, the ministry’s founder and chairman, in a released statement

"Year in and year out, our statistics show that moviegoers prefer family-friendly movies with positive Christian, wholesome, patriotic, conservative, and traditional moral values," he stated.

Filmmaker and media consultant Phil Cooke pointed out that Hollywood does not reflect a significant segment of what most would call "Middle America." He told The Christian Post that many of the studio executives he has met were "politically liberal" – adding that this could also be said about doctors, attorneys, and most university professors.

"Perhaps the biggest issue is 'Why do we expect nonbelievers to act like believers?'" Cooke questioned. "Why do we get so stressed out when Hollywood doesn't reflect our values, or create movies we like?"

Cooke, co-founder of Cooke Pictures, explained that Christians get "distracted" from the real call because so much time is spent "freaking out over not being able to say a prayer at the start of a high school football game, or upset at Hollywood, the gay community, or others, that we forget that our job is to reach the world, not complain."

Pastor David Wright, CEO of DOersTV, agreed that believers should not expect nonbelievers to act like them. According to Wright, nonbelievers are sinners and sinners sin. "Because Hollywood is controlled by nonbelievers who love to sin, we cannot expect a sinner to act like a saint," he told CP.

"No Christian is exempt from poisoning their mind with the filth of Hollywood – you can’t play with fire and not get burned," Wright added.

The Numbers, a box office website, found that G-rated features grossed $34.6 million in 2011, whereas R-rated movies averaged about $10.8 million. The typically family-oriented G-rated films also outranked more explicit-natured films in 2009 and 2010.

Dr. Baehr noted that the results reveal that these movies made three or, as in previous years, five times as much money as R-rated films. He noted that PG movies also ranked far better on average.

"Middle America wants to see, rent, and buy entertaining movies with Christian, biblical values that they can show to their whole family," he stated. "They want to see Good triumph over Evil, Justice to prevail, Truth to defeat Falsehood, and Purity to conquer Lust. They reject movies with explicit, graphic sex and violence."

Pastor Wright added, "True 'Christians' crave and desire to watch Christian themed movies not because of what’s in the movies, but mainly because of what’s not in the movie – sin and immorality." A similar sentiment was shared as well by Christian Hollywood Producer Shawn Anthony Sequeira of SAS Studio and SAS Agency.

On the other hand, Cooke suggested that the conception that G or PG movies rake in more money than R-rated films is inaccurate. He told CP that when you take out high budget animated blockbusters like "Cars" or "Toy Story" the situation changes significantly.

"We'd all like to believe that people are looking for G-rated entertainment, but the truth is, that's not necessarily the case," Cooke said. "While protecting children is critical, I'm not sure Christians are really called to produce only G-rated movies and TV programming."

He pointed out that much of the Bible, if turned into a movie, would be R-rated, if not worse. According to Cooke, God shared "real authentic stories and the Bible doesn’t gloss over real life."

"The culture would respect our message much more if we stopped producing just cheesy, G-rated films and started telling gritty stories about real life," he said.

Research from The Barna Group found that Christians watched almost the exact type of movies and TV programs as non-Christians, Cooke revealed. The original Barna study could not be found, but researchers at the National Study of Youth and Religion discovered that 43 percent of U.S. teens, between ages 13 and 17, who said their faith was either extremely or very important in shaping their daily lives reported watching mostly R-rated movies and videos.

Regardless, Cooke shared that while there is a place for Christian-themed films that is not why he goes to the movies.

"I go to see powerful, compelling stories about all kinds of subjects," he told CP. "If it has Christian implications like 'Blindside,' or 'The Chronicles of Narnia,' great. But I'm just as thrilled to see a great war movie, historical epic, or sci-fi thriller."

Cooke countered that the question is not what can Hollywood do to become more "in touch" with Middle America, but rather what does "Middle America" need to do to get Hollywood’s attention.

"We sometimes forget that Hollywood is a business. As a result, they pay very little attention to boycotts and critics, but pay a lot of attention to box office receipts," he stated. "Christians could change Hollywood tomorrow if they would simply start showing up at films they care about."

"There are millions of evangelical Christians in America, and if we could mobilize that power to show up at great movies that reflect our values, trust me – Hollywood would notice and respond.”

Shawn Anthony Sequiera of SAS Studio and SAS Agency, one of the most sought after producers is taking Hollywood by storm.

An established fashion photographer, director and producer who had worked on numerous well known productions is taking Hollywood by storm. Shawn Anthony Sequiera established SAS Studio in 200, ran SAS Agency for year and became a top fashion photographer which worked for some of the largest and well known ad agencies and shot top photography campaigns.


Soon after his peak in photography Shawn started building SAS Agency and while he worked on multiple Disney projects, his agency grew to over 3,000+ talent.

Film crew with Shawn Anthony Sequeira (middle Left) starting
Last Generation Movie

with Dave Hardberger (middle Right).

Sequiera has worked with numerous productions such as Iron Man, X-Men, Star Trek, Avatar. He also heads and finances many large Christian organizations for youth and development of churches.

SAS Studio also has an entire Film Equipment Rental Division in Los Angeles called SAS Rentals with a complete line of cameras, generators, trucks, lighting, studio facilities and everything to produce multiple feature films. Insiders say he offers the best pricing available.

Presently, SAS Studio is growing with over 90 employes just in productions with almost half a block of studios in downtown Los Angeles with all they need to pump out feature films.

Currently, Sequiera is ramping up for the Passion of the Christ 2.

Girl with the Dragon Tattoo producer blasts film critic over early review.

Scott Rudin bans New Yorker reviewer David Denby from future press screenings for breaking film's embargo.

'Bleak but mesmerising' ... Rooney Mara and Daniel Craig in
David Fincher's The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo.
Photograph: Merrick Morton

Oscar-winning producer Scott Rudin has banned David Denby, a critic from the New Yorker magazine, from all future press screenings of his films after Denby broke a review embargo on David Fincher's version of The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo.

The New Yorker will publish their review (an abstract of which is here) in this week's edition of the magazine, breaking the agreed-upon embargo by more than a week. Emails from Rudin to Denby (obtained by Indiewire's Playlist blog) describe Denby's decision to review the film, which is released in the states on 26 December, as "a very, very damaging move". "I could not in good conscience invite you to see another movie of mine again," Rudin said. Among the forthcoming Rudin productions Denby will likely miss are Sacha Baron Cohen's new comedy, The Dictator, the Coen brothers Inside Llewyn Davis and Martin Scorsese's planned Sinatra biopic.

In response, Denby, whose positive review describes Fincher's film as "a bleak but mesmerising piece of film-making", cited a combination of the business's skew-whiff release schedule and increased pagination for leading him into temptation.

"The system is destructive," he said. "Grownups are ignored for much of the year, cast out like downsized workers, and then given eight good movies all at once in the last five weeks of the year. A magazine like the New Yorker has to cope as best as it can with a nutty release schedule … Like many weeklies, we do a double issue at the end of the year, at this crucial time. This exacerbates the problem."

Denby also laid blame on the New York Critics Circle, who requested an early screening of the film to accommodate their annual awards ceremony, before apologising for the breach, citing "year-end madness". His apology was rejected by Rudin. "If you weren't prepared to honour the embargo, you should have done the honourable thing and said so before you accepted the invitation," he said in reply. "The glut of Christmas movies is not news to you, and to pretend otherwise is simply disingenuous."

Review embargoes are increasingly becoming a point of contention. They are seen as a vital way to manage press coverage of key titles by those responsible for marketing a film, but can seem redundant in an era when advances in social media and increased scrutiny of the film-making process feed public appetite for movie news.

Once an embargo is broken by one publication it is easier for others to justify publishing. Sony Pictures, the studio releasing The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, alluded to this in an email sent to journalists shortly after they learned of the New Yorker's intentions. "By allowing critics to see films early, at different times, embargo dates level the playing field and enable reviews to run within the films' primary release window, when audiences are most interested," said Andre Caraco, the studio's executive vice president of motion picture publicity. "As a matter of principle, the New Yorker's breach violates a trust and undermines a system designed to help journalists do their job and serve their readers."

The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, Fincher's adaptation of the first book in Stieg Larsson's bestselling Millennium series, stars Daniel Craig and Rooney Mara as a journalist and computer hacker who investigate the disappearance of a young woman. It's an English-language remake of Niels Arden Oplev's 2009 film, which kick-started the international career of its star, Noomi Rapace.

Producer Roy Lee on Old Boy and Battle Royale.

ComingSoon.net's ShockTillYouDrop.com recently visited the set of CBS Films thriller 7500 and was able to talk to the film's producer, Roy Lee, about his upcoming projects.

One of them is the Old Boy remake, to be directed by Spike Lee and starring Josh Brolin. "We are planning to shoot 'Old Boy' in March and that should start pre-production in late January," he said. "This is a brand new script by Mark Protosevich. It is very similar to the film, but Protosevich has added new elements that will throw off the audience who have seen the original movie because there are new characters and new situations that present themselves in a way that change the story but eventually go in the same direction. The ending will be something audiences--especially fans of the original movie--will be very happy with. Some may consider it a bit darker."

He added that "there's going to be a different interpretation of the hallway scene that is hopefully going to be Spike's signature moment in the movie that he wants to show in a way that has never been seen in an action movie."

As far as a remake of Battle Royale, it doesn't look likely with The Hunger Games film franchise starting.

"Hunger Games took a lot of wind out of the sails of [a U.S. version of Battle Royale] because of its similar storyline and so I'm not exactly sure any studio--even before 'Hunger Games'--would have taken the creative risks you would have needed to take to make the movie right now so would be even harder," he said.

You can see what he had to say about a Poltergeist reboot here and more films in "The Ring" and "The Grudge" franchises here.

'Bella' Film Producer Seeks Movie-Going Movement.

WASHINGTON -- The producer of the pro-life movie "Bella" is now throwing his weight behind a movement to promote films Christians and other pro-family types can fully embrace. 

At the recent Values Voter Summit, film producer Jason Jones shared his vision on how to shape culture by first shaping Hollywood. His aspirations are very similar to the upcoming producer Shawn A. Sequiera of SAS Studio.

Christians and conservatives are his target audience. Jones wants to turn them all into avid movie-goers who'll help make films about life, love, and beauty into sure-fire box office hits.

He also has created a website MovietoMovement.com, which he said he hopes will lead to a network that can help many other excellent films get noticed. 

Networking like this paid off when his movie "Bella" was released.

"With Hollywood, we didn't get distribution. So we went to the church and we said, 'Help us,' and the film became a tremendous success," he told CBN News.

"We built this huge network and we said, 'We need to use this network to serve other films that are true, beautiful and good. And that's when we created this non-profit," Jones explained. 

Movie to Movement aspires to use the website and a nationwide team of theater captains to get Christians and other pro-family types packing theaters by the millions when a great, new film like "Courageous" or "Dolphin Tale" is released.

"We want to send a message to Hollywood that Christians are the only group that fill buses when we like your movies," Jones noted.

"We're the only group that unloads churches and fills the theaters if you make films that we love," Jones noted.

Movie to Movement is currently promoting the new family film "Snowmen," set to premiere Oct. 21.

"It's a film about three boys who go on a quest to be remembered in a very superficial way," Jones said.

In this case, that means setting the world's record for most snowmen ever built at once.

"In that quest they discover what's really important" he said.

Even though he's in the business, Jones said he's not above having his life made better by great films.

For example, he explained how, in the middle of a big argument with his wife, he bought a DVD of Sherwood Pictures "Fireproof." The storyline is about saving and restoring marriages.

"We watched it and by the end we were crying and the fight was over. And these films are powerful," Jones told CBN News.

Such powerful storytelling can be seen in his movie "Bella," about a single man saving a baby from abortion.

"We know of over 500 women who were scheduled to have an abortion. They saw our film and instead chose life. And that's the power of art," he said.

If Hollywood studios and other movie makers would give Christians and their allies more of the stories and the films they want to see, Jones said the church as a whole would determine what the number one film would be at the box office every weekend.

'Lone Ranger' Filming Shut Down Over Budget Issues.

Walt Disney Studios' much-anticipated big-screen adaptation of "The Lone Ranger" starring Johnny Depp and Armie Hammer has been shut down, according to a source close to the production.

Those involved in the project are figuring out their next steps, and it's possible filming could resume, said the source, who was not authorized to speak publicly about the discussions and requested anonymity.

The development was first reported in Deadline Hollywood, an entertainment industry news website. It cited difficulties with reducing the movie's estimated $250 million cost to $200 million.

Jerry Bruckheimer was set to produce the film with a script by Justin Haythe. Hammer was expected to play the title character, and Depp was set to be the Lone Ranger's partner, Tonto.

The Lone Ranger show — about a masked Texas Ranger who battles injustice in the Old West — first aired on radio in the 1930s and became a hit TV series during the 1950s. The movie adaptation was scheduled to be released Dec. 21, 2012.

The film would bring together Depp and Bruckheimer, who have collaborated on the wildly successful "Pirates of the Caribbean" franchise. That franchise has raked in billions of dollars in worldwide box office sales for Disney.