BERLIN: Merchants focus on femmes

The Berlin Film Festival starts Thursday, Feb. 9, and runs through Feb. 19.Chick photos, classy crossovers and Gallic comedies look set to operate a vehicle lots of Berlin's biz this season.Maximum Intl. arrives with "Beautiful Creatures," a teen fantasy tale of star-joined love from the boy and girl white-colored witch, using Margaret Stohl and Kami Garcia's book series. Alcon finances, Warner Bros. distribs Stateside, Richard LaGravenese ("P.S. I Like You") produces and directs.The world industry appears to own taken good note of "Twilight's" largely femme auds, obtaining a brace of comparable projects to the market. Frequently wealthy in profile or genre elements, they're as much femme as fanboy fare.Kate Hudson toplines Joe Lynch actioner "Everly," from Crime Scene Photos ("Gambit"), provided by Nick Meyer's Sierra/Affinity, with Hudson fending off waves of assassins sent by her mob-boss ex.Exclusive Media will talk up "Can a sound lesson Keep Your Existence?" with ambitious singer Scarlett Johansson finding love together with work with Mark Ruffalo.FilmNation introduces Steven Soderbergh's "Bitter Pill," with Rooney Mara just like a prescription painkiller addict awaiting her husband's jail release.Stuart Ford's IM Global starts human/puppet crime drama "The Happytime Killings," within the Jim Henson Co., with Katherine Heigl in final discussions.Bucking the recognition in femme energy, Experience as well as the Exchange will commence sales on crime actioner "2 Guns," returning Mark Wahlberg and "Contraband" helmer Baltasar Komarkur. Also, Sierra/Affinity will unveil "Wer," a werewolf thriller from "The Demon Inside" producers, and Jason Statham thriller "Warmth." Summit Intl. will debut actioner "The Tomb," starring Sylvester Stallone and Arnold Schwarzenegger.Customers can also be looking for crossovers."?'The King's Speech' and 'Black Swan' aren't classic arthouse films but ones by able filmmakers who've moved their subjects in to a more mainstream atmosphere. That's what many of us are trying to find,Inch mentioned Martin Moszkowicz, at Constantin.No less than two Berlin debutantes could fit this mainstream/auteur bill.Period drama "Serena" stars Jennifer Lawrence and Bradley Cooper in the film helmed by Oscar-champion Susanne Bier, and produced by 2929, co-funded and provided by StudioCanal.Wild Bunch and producer Alain Attal are fighting to secure key cast just before Berlin on Guillaume Canet's British-language directorial debut "Blood stream Ties," a NY-set sister drama-thriller composed by Canet and James Gray.As "Intouchables" romps past 24.8 million ($28 million) within the German box office, the finest gross ever for just about any French film in Germany, entrepreneurs will spare more than a concept for potential Gallic comedy breakouts.It's not coincidence that Wild Bunch has devoted one whole side of the Martin Gropius-adjacent prefab office with a billboard for Romain Duris-starrer "Populaire," a "Mad Males"-era romantic comedy.Other potential Gallic laffer breakouts: Pathe's "What's in the Title?" and EuropaCorp's "Love Lasts three years,In . both buzzed-about movies at January's Unifrance Paris Rendez-vous.Using "Twilight" vibes into -- hopefully -- "Twilight" results, "Creatures," inside a reported $50 million, is among Berlin's more pricey items."Serena" is within the $25 million-$Thirty Dollars million range. Toplining Frank Grillo, "Intersection," the completely new thriller from Luc Besson's EuropaCorp, weighs in at in at looking for less.InchThe contraction of budgets started not sometime ago: The entire industry required to get much smarter about budgets," mentioned Alison Thompson at Focus Features Intl.Sales agents and distributors' mantra entering Berlin is caution.Nonetheless, "You'll find still filmmakers that have that 'je ne sais quoi' and so are sure to attract a lot of excitement and attention," mentioned Thompson."Customers still look for quality scripts that are commercial tales and well-cast features," mentioned Julie Sultan of W2, that's shopping "The Drummer" and "Attachment." "They need to involve some of people boxes checked with this to become low-risk title."It'll simply take a few hot items within the EFM to consider a couple of from the particular cold from the sub-zero Berlin. Contact the number newsroom at news@variety.com