FOX leads Oscar Nominations 2015 and is re-releasing The Grand Budapest Hotel and Gone Girl in Indian theaters!

After 20th Century Fox won the triple crown of box office, as market share leader for 2014 in India (Hollywood) , International and Global box office, breaking industry records for a calendar year in both the International ($3.73Billion) and Global box office categories ($5.52Billion), the studio has score the maximum Oscar nomations for 2015!!     

There the two top-nominated films: “Birdman” and “The Grand Budapest Hotel,” boast of 9 nominations each along with two more nominations for “Wild,” and miscellaneous nominations for X Men Days Of Future Past and Dawn Of Planet Of The Apes (Best Visual Effects), How To Train Your Dragon 2 (Best Animated Feature), Gone Girl (Actress In A Leading role)

What's more , for all the Indian movie fans out there, the studio is re-releasing The Grand Budapest Hotel and Gone Girl in theatres from next week!!

List Of Nominations

Birdman or (The Unexpected Virtue of Ignorance)

Best Sound Editing ; Best Sound Mixing ; Best actor in a supporting role ; Best actress in a supporting role ; Best Cinematography ; Best Original Screenplay ; Best Director ; Best Actor ; Best Picture

"The Grand Budapest Hotel"
Best Picture; Best Director ; Best Original Screenplay ;Best Film Editing ; Best Original Score; Best Cinematography ; Best Costume Design;
Best Makeup and Hairstyling ; Best Production Design

Best Visual Effects : "X-Men: Days of Future Past"

Best Animated Feature : "How to Train Your Dragon 2"

Best Visual Effects : "Dawn of the Planet of the Apes"

Actress In A Leading role: Rosamund Pike (Gone Girl), Reese Witherspoon (Wild)

Actress In A Supporting Role: Laura Dern (Wild)

Fox International sets a new industry record for box office in a calendar year by grossing more than $3.7 billion in 2014. That eclipses the prior industry record set by Paramount ($3.21B) in 2011 by over $500m GBO.

India also saw Fox Star Studios setting a new record with 10 Hollywood hits in 2014, including X Men: Days of Future Past, Dawn of the Planet of the Apes, How to Train your Dragon 2, Exodus, Rio 2, Gone Girl, Penguins of Madagascar, The Fault in our stars, Maze Runner & Night at the Museum 3. Fox Star Studios managed to generate about 3 times box office over the previous calendar year, and retained its No.1 position for the 3rd time in the past 6 years in Hollywood. Fox Star Studios have had a great run in India, with the biggest Hollywood grossers of all time Avatar (No.1 with Rs. 144 Crores GBO) & Life of Pi (No. 2 with 95 Crores GBO), and various other blockbuster franchises including  X Men films & Ice Age films.

UNIVERSAL MUSIC GROUP'S SAM SMITH BAGS FOUR AWARDS AT THE JUST CONCLUDED 57TH GRAMMY AWARDS CEREMONY IN LA

Win includes the prestigious `Record of the Year’, `Song Of The Year’ and `Best New Artist’ Awards!

It's been a big year for Universal Music Group’s artist Sam Smith with the young Brit taking home some of the biggest laurels the Grammy’s have to offer. The British Singer won two of the top Grammy awards `Record Of The Year’ and `Song Of The Year’for his heartbreak single “Stay with Me (Dark child Version),”and was also anointed the`Best New Artist’. His debut album “In The Lonely Hour” won `Best Pop Vocal Album’.

Just over two years ago, Sam Smith captured hearts throughout the world when he released a stripped-back, acoustic video of “Lay Me Down”. Two years later and Sam Smith is still the name on everyone’s lips as last year saw Sam sell over five million copies worldwide of ‘In The Lonely Hour’ making him one of the fastest-selling British debut artists of all time.

2014 saw Sam go from newcomer to international superstar having now collected an impressive array of prestigious music awards with four more to his name after last night’s Grammys.  It was also recently announced he was the only artist in the world last year to reach over 1 million album sales in both the UK and the US.

As he accepted the award for `Record of the Year’, the 22-year old Smith said, "I want to thank the man who this record is about, who I fell in love with last year. Thank you so much for breaking my heart because you got me four Grammys."

Smith also sent out a message to viewers earlier during the telecast urging audiences to accept themselves for who they are saying, "Before I made this record, I was doing everything to try and get my music heard, I tried to lose weight and I was making awful music and it was only until that I started to be myself that the music started to flow and people started to listen."

Commenting on Sam Smith’s Grammy win, Sunil D’Sa, Vice President – Marketing, Universal Music Group, South Asia says, “Sam Smith was one of the exciting new artists that we broke in India in 2014. His debut album “In The Lonely Hour” was one of the highest selling International albums last year here. And now with his well-deserved Grammy haul, we are confident that this album will scale new heights in India and establish Sam as a talent to reckon with. 5 million+ album sales globally, 4 prestigious Grammy awards, it’s time for every music fan in India to experience the brilliance of Sam Smith!”

2015 is shaping up to be bigger than the last year with Sam’s escalating success and multi-national sales making him one of the UK’s most exciting home-grown talents.

`In The Lonely Hour’ is available exclusively on Universal Music across all physical and digital platforms.

Sandesh Shandilya Gets a Standing Ovation for his First Symphony performance in Colonge, Germany.

Sandesh Shandilya Performed his First Symphony Composition “SEARCH FOR BUDDHA”. The World Premier was held on February 6th 2015 at the Funkhaus Wallrafplatz, WDR Cologne, Germany, with the WDR Funkhausorchester and the WDR Rundfunkchor, Conducted by Wayne Marshall. He also performed on 7th February 2015 at Bielefeld, Oetkerhalle. The composition "Search For Buddha" was comissioned by the WDR Cologne.

Sandesh reveals, “It’s a dream for a composer. My symphony, called the Search For Buddha, is based on world peace. I have worked out Hundred hours of music so far for the symphony, I had to connected with the western music.
 This began while I was learning the Vipassana course there, three years ago. After a bout of self-discovery, I decided to explore Buddha and his inner journey. Fear, anger and greed need to be controlled. Peace within helps you spread it through your music.”
 “I met Markus Stockhaousen — a famous jazz-trumpet player — with my compositions, who then referred me to the organisers of symphony in Cologne. Mine features artistes from all over the world, including from the Middle East and South Africa.
It was an unforgettable exposure, and I wish to perform this symphony in India soon.” With this, Sandesh will add his name to a prestigious list of Indian symphony composers like maestros Pandit Ravi Shankar, Pyarelal and Ilayaraja.

Sandesh also says, “It’s all destiny. People who have worked with me know my sensibility”, all good things come to people who wait, and keep at it.

His last composition for film music was for Ketan Mehta’s Rang Rasiya, a biopic about painter Raja Ravi Varma. “The film released late and didn’t do well, but its music was popular with those who heard it. Especially with my co-artistes in the symphony, who then welcomed me with open arms. Don’t set many rules, we don’t know what awaits us,” he maintains.
Sandesh swears, and adds that he is lucky to have the backing of a few good friends in the Bollywood music arena.
Currently, Sandesh is busy composing for Sudhir Mishra’s Aur Devdas, Time Out, John Abraham’s Satra Ko Shaadi and for Amit Roy’s IPad.

MADONNA’S “LIVING FOR LOVE” MUSIC VIDEO AVAILABLE ON VEVO

NEW REBEL HEART ALBUM AVAILABLE FOR PREORDER NOW

THREE ADDITIONAL SONGS TO BE RELEASED ON FEBRUARY 9TH

Madonna released the music video for “Living For Love” today on Vevo, 24 hours after its groundbreaking premiere on the Snap Channel on Snapchat Discover.   The Material Girl was the first superstar artist to premiere a video through the photo sharing app and the first to premiere one on the Snap Channel. The music video instantly became the #1 Trending Topic on Facebook, and Forbes declared: “Even after all these years, Madonna is still finding ways to innovate and present her art to the masses.”

The “Living For Love” music video was directed by J.A.C.K. - JulienChoquart and Camille Hirigoyen.  It was edited by Danny B. Tull, styled by B. Akerlund and choreographed by Megan Lawson.   Watch the video on Vevo. 

“Living For Love” is the first single from Madonna’s 13^th studio album, Rebel Heart, which will be released by Interscope Records on March 10th and is available for preorder on iTunesand Amazon.  Three additional songs will be available with the preorder of the album on iTunes on February 9^th (February 10^th internationally) and those who preordered the album prior to this date will have those three songs automatically delivered to them. Rebel Heart will be available as a 14 track Standard release (digital and physical), a 19 track Deluxe version (digital and physical), a 25 track two-disc Super Deluxe version (physical only) and on vinyl.  “Living For Love” will go to radio on February 12^th.

This Sunday, February 8^th, Madonna will perform on the 57^th Annual Grammy Awards at the Staples Center in Los Angeles, CA and televised live CBS at 8PM EST/PST.   On Wednesday, February 25^th, Madonna will perform on 2015’s BRITS Awards at London’s O2 Arena and televised live on ITV.

Arjun Rampal & Ranbir Kapoor's fishy story in langkawi on the sets of ROY

 

T-Series upcoming film ROY is surely one of the most anticipated films of 2015.

The film has great music to boast off, some stellar casting- Arjun Rampal, Jacqueline Fernandez & Ranbir Kapoor to be seen together in one frame.

We hear Arjun Rampal & Ranbir Kapoor bonded well on the sets of Roy, its fun to see two great actors on the sets enjoying and talking about everything under the sun.

A source close to the production team confirmed and said, "Arjun treats Ranbir as his younger brother and during the shoot in langkawi both these men wanted to go off for sailing, and their favourite pass time was fishing, while not shooting. As soon as they used to hear pack up , they would instruct the sailor to hop on and take them into the deep sea for fishing and bonded quite well!

Well! what do we say boys will be boys, wonder how many fish they actually got to catch

ROY Produced by Divya Khosla Kumar, Bhushan Kumar & Krishan Kumar, directed by Vikramjit Singh is scheduled to release on 13th February, 2015.