Daily Box Office: Sunday, July 1, 2012

Consider "The Painting," the fourth feature by slow-moving 74-year-old French director Jean-François Laguionie, a twee "Wreck-It Ralph." Inside a primitive portrait, the subjects are divided into three canvas castes: Sketchies, wraith-like creatures made of pencil lines; Halfies, who were left half-painted; and their snobbish overlords, the Alldunns, who sneer at the incompletes from their castle in the upper left corner of the frame.

A morose young woman, a soft-spoken blood-drinker and plenty of rainy skies — no, it's not "Twilight," but a languid, micro-budgeted serial killer drama called "Vampire," the first English-language film from Japanese writer-director Shunji Iwai ("All About Lily Chou-Chou").

Joe Roth producing novel adaptationHaving struck box office gold with Alice In Wonderland and this year’s Oz The Great And Powerful, Joe Roth and his production company have naturally been on the hunt for more fantasy fodder to sprinkle filmic fairy dust over. Last week, he partnered with Jane Startz Production to buy up the rights to Soman Chainani’s upcoming trilogy The School For Good And Evil, and Universal has won the bidding battle to produce the first film.Chainani’s trilogy – well, it will be once all three novels are out, but the first only just arrived on US bookshelves and hits here on June 6 – tells of ordinary boys and girls kidnapped from their homes and carted off to the titular learning establishment, a split personality teaching system where they are ether taught to be heroes or villains.Our heroine for this Harry Potteresque tale is Sophie, a beautiful girl who winds up in the Evil side while her friend Agatha is taken to the Good side. They see their fortunes reversed and must face the truth about their destinies.Chainani has made a deal to craft the script with Hook co-writer Malia Scotch Marmo, and Universal will be hoping for a new franchise from this one. As seems usual for bigger books these days, the novel as a trailer, which you can see below.     

Alexander Payne’s new movie, “Nebraska,” premiered at the Cannes Film Festival to largely favorable yet occasionally qualified reviews.

A guest at a charity auction at Cannes has paid 1.2 million euros ($1.5 million) for a trip into space with Leonardo DiCaprio.