It’s doubtful the upcoming second Sherlock Holmes sequel will feature the line “elementary, my dear California,” but the Golden State sure helped solve the riddle of how to get the latest installment starring Robert Downey Jr., Jude Law and Rachel McAdams financed.

With a near-record allocation of just under $20.85 million, Warner Bros’ December 2021- debuting Sherlock Holmes 3 was by far the most rewarded of the 10 films set to receive a boost from the state’s tax credits program managed by the California Film Commission .

As you can see from the chart below, this latest round of film credits has the fifth and likely final Purge offering from Blumhouse, as well as another American Pie treat among the five “non-independent” and five independent films that got a piece of the lucrative pie.

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Coen Brothers, Eva Longoria & Steven Soderbergh Films Among 22 Features Allocated CA Tax Credits

(CLICK ON IMAGE ABOVE TO ENLARGE)

Emphasizing job creation and spreading the wealth to keep production in the home of Hollywood, the CFC estimates that the 10 films given the incentive greenlight today will generate around $310 million in below-the-line spending to crew and vendors.

A big part of that will be the Great Detective himself.

Filming mainly outside the LA 30-mile studio zone, the Dexter Fletcher-directed Sherlock Holmes 3 is expected to splash around $106.8 million in “qualified expenditures” during production, says the now Colleen Bell-led CFC. The only movie that has funneled more money back into the state’s economy since the program was revamped five years ago has been Disney/Marvel’s blockbuster Captain Marvel . Having scored $20.76 million in credits two years ago , the Brie Larson-starrer had $118 million in that qualified spending during its production.

Scoring a trio of credited films selected to receive a total of $37.955 million from state funds makes AT&T-owned Warner Bros the big winner for this latest feature allocation cycle, which ran from June 17-21.

However, Blumhouse isn’t doing too bad either this morning. Purge 5 , to be released on July 10, 2020, was the fourth highest-rewarded film on the list made public today. It is also the second Purge movie to get money from California after Purge 2 also saw millions from the tax incentive program back in 2013. That was the year before then-Gov. Jerry Brown signed a widely supported bill jacking the state’s program from a fairly non-competitive $100 million a year to $330 million, allowing films with budgets over $75 million to apply and pulling the plug on the disastrous lottery system that had determined who got what previously.

Snapping another tentpole back to the state with the latest Holmes pic, this is the first feature allocation the program has made since Gov. Gavin Newsom flexed muscle and anointed Bell, the ex- Bold & the Beautiful producer and Ambassador to Hungary, to run the commission in May. Additionally, the CFC might be feeling a little buzzed after Quentin Tarantino just had his best opening weekend ever with a $40 million domestic box office for Once Upon a Time in Hollywood , which the state of California showered with more than $18 million in incentives in 2017.

Who will be among the lucky Tinseltown winners on the big and the small screens next Depending on how many previously rewarded TV shows are grandfathered in to another round based on renewals, we’ll find out in mid-December which series have been rewarded tax credits after the upcoming November 4-8 application period. For movies, the next round is October 7-11. The lucky ones in that round will be made known around November 11, we hear.

Stay tuned Baker Street Irregulars.

BTW – in case you are wondering, the more than $20 million awarded Sherlock Holmes 3 is not the most tax credits or even the second most tax credits a movie has received in the 2.0 version of the incentive program. The two top spots still belong to the Transformers spinoff Bumblebee and the LeBron James-starring Space Jam 2, with $22.4 million and $21.8 million in credits, respectively.

REUTERS: Six days in August 2004 redefined the life of British middle distance runner Kelly Holmes but only in the aftermath of her double gold-medal winning display at the Athens Olympics did the price she paid to scale such athletic heights truly emerge.

Colonel Dame Kelly Holmes, who turns 50 on Sunday, is now a highly respected mentor of young athletes, the proud recipient of myriad awards for her service to the community and in the forefront of the battle for improved mental health.

Back in 2004, as plain old Kelly, life was anything but glamorous, as, at the age of 34, she prepared for what would almost certainly be her final crack at global gold.

She had come close before with two world championship silvers and a bronze at the Sydney Olympics.

However, so much seemed to be conspiring against her that to the wider British public she seemed destined to be known better as “the former army sergeant and lorry driver” than one of the best athletes the country had ever produced.

In her autobiography “Black, White and Gold” Holmes estimated that she had suffered 37 major injuries in the previous decade, including ruptures, tears and stress fractures.

Whenever she managed to drag her battered body to the start line, Holmes then faced the further challenge of going up against an Eastern European doping culture on the one hand and testosterone-fuelled intersex athletes on the other.

Those injuries and the lack of a “level playing field” led to mental pressure that manifested itself in depression and self-harm, as Holmes took to cutting herself daily with knives and scissors then scrambling desperately to hide the results.

Somehow, she kept on training and, for once, arrived in Athens injury-free.

Up against her former training partner and defending champion Maria Mutola in the 800 metres final, Holmes ran the perfect tactical race to storm to gold.

Her wide-eyed, disbelieving face as she crossed the line became an iconic image of the Games, with BBC commentator Steve Cram excitedly shouting: “You’ve won it, Kelly, yes, you’ve won it.”

“I thought something would go wrong again. Something always goes wrong. It was totally unreal,” Holmes said in the aftermath.

Five nights later, running on a cloud of confidence, she roared through the field again, posting a national record to win the 1,500 metres and become the first Briton to take a double Olympic Games gold in 84 years and the first, and still only, British woman to win two athletics golds.

Having been crowned BBC Sports Personality of the Year, she retired in 2005 and threw her energy into motivating the next generation, forming “On Camp with Kelly” athletics camps to train junior athletes.

Made a Dame by the Queen and an honorary colonel by her former regiment, Holmes went on to use her public persona to speak out about the challenges of mental health, revealing the details of her secretive self-harming and suicidal thoughts.

She has written several books, worked as the government’s “school sports champion” and remains an in-demand motivational speaker.

These days, however, her subject matter is less what happened in Athens than what preceded it.

“I’ve been to the lowest point and to the highest point and everything in between,” she told The Guardian last year when launching her widely-praised mental health podcast.

“It shows we can go through life and have struggles and still actually achieve. If that is empowering for other people that would be really nice.”

(Reporting by Mitch Phillips; Editing by Ken Ferris)

British actor Ian Holm, best known for his roles in The Lord Of The Rings trilogy and Alien, has died aged 88, the Guardian newspaper said on Friday (Jun 19).

The actor, who received an Oscar nomination for his performance in the 1981 film Chariots Of Fire, had died from a Parkinson’s related illness, the paper said.

“It is with great sadness that the actor Sir Ian Holm CBE passed away this morning at the age of 88,” his agent told the paper.

“He died peacefully in hospital, with his family and carer. Charming, kind and ferociously talented, we will miss him hugely.”

Holm began his career on stage working as part of the Royal Shakespeare Company and gained international exposure when he was cast as android Ash in the 1979 Alien film.

His role as an athletics coach in Chariots Of Fire won him a British Academy film award (BAFTA) and an Oscar nod for Best Supporting Actor, while he played Bilbo Baggins in two of The Lord Of The Rings films, a role he reprised in the recent The Hobbit film series.

LONDON: BP will write off up to US$17.5 billion from the value of its assets after cutting its long-term oil and gas price forecasts, betting the COVID-19 crisis will cast a lasting chill on energy demand and accelerate a shift away from fossil fuels.

Like its rivals, the British oil major is set to take a big hit to revenue from an unprecedented collapse in oil demand due to the pandemic. The impairments are set to raise its debt burden sharply and increase pressure to reduce its dividend.

The move comes as Chief Executive Bernard Looney prepares to outline his strategy in September to “reinvent” BP including a reduced focus on oil and gas and a larger renewables business.

BP lowered its benchmark Brent oil price forecasts to an average of US$55 a barrel until 2050, down by around 30per cent from previous assumptions of US$70.

The outlook is the lowest among Europe’s top energy companies, according to Barclays research. See GRAPHIC: https://tmsnrt.rs/30JYclB

REVIEW OF PROJECTS

BP said that the aftermath of the new coronavirus pandemic would accelerate the transition to a lower-carbon economy, in line with the goals of the 2015 Paris climate agreement.

“We have reset our price outlook to reflect that impact and the likelihood of greater efforts to ‘build back better’ towards a Paris-consistent world,” Looney added.

BP shares were down 4.1per cent at 0912 GMT.

Last week, BP said it would cut about 15per cent of its workforce in response to the coronavirus crisis and as part of Looney’s strategy.

BP said the new price assumptions will lead to non-cash impairment charges and write-offs in second-quarter earnings, due on Aug 4, in a range of US$13 billion to US$17.5 billion after tax. It said it would also now review its plans for some oil and gas projects that are at early exploration stages.

BP is set to increasingly shift its fossil fuel production from oil to natural gas, which is expected to play a key role in supplying growing demand for electricity.

However, in its new outlook, BP revised down its assumption for gas from Henry Hub in the United States by 31per cent to US$2.90 per million British thermal units.

It also increased the assumed price it will have to pay governments for carbon dioxide emitted from its oil and gas activities to US$100 per tonne of CO2 in 2030, from US$40.

DEBT AND DIVIDEND

The large impairment relates mostly to oil and gas exploration assets and will lower BP’s asset value by around 10per cent, pushing the ratio of equity to debt, known as gearing, to about 48per cent in the second quarter, RBC Capital Markets said in a note.

At such levels, the company will need to lower its dividend, the bank said.

Investors have increased pressure on oil companies to lower carbon emissions to net zero by the end of the century. BP and its European rivals have in recent months outlined plans to sharply reduce their emissions by 2050, although how exactly they will get there remains unclear.

Charlie Kronick, senior climate adviser for Greenpeace UK, said BP’s price revision was “long overdue”.

“Accelerating the switch to renewable energy will be vital not only to the climate but to any oil company hoping to survive in a zero carbon future,” he added.

(GRAPHIC – Oil majors' 2020 spending: https://fingfx.thomsonreuters.com/gfx/editorcharts/yzdvxowmqpx/eikon.png)

(Additional reporting by Shadia Nasralla; Editing by David Goodman, Jason Neely and Pravin Char)

NEW YORK: A federal judge on Thursday (Jun 4) rejected Bernard Madoff’s request to be released early from prison because he was dying of kidney failure, saying the swindler has never fully accepted responsibility for his massive, decades-long Ponzi scheme.

Circuit Judge Denny Chin, who called Madoff’s crimes “extraordinarily evil” when imposing a 150-year sentence in June 2009, wrote that while Madoff’s failing health was “most unfortunate,” compassionate release was unwarranted.

“When I sentenced Mr Madoff in 2009, it was fully my intent that he live out the rest of his life in prison,” Chin wrote. “Nothing has happened in the 11 years since to change my thinking.”

The judge called Madoff’s fraud “one of the egregious financial crimes of our time.”

Madoff’s lawyer, Brandon Sample, expressed disappointment that Chin found Madoff “beyond redemption,” and said his client’s last hope was for President Donald Trump to commute his sentence.

Sample has said Madoff, 82, used a wheelchair and had fewer than 18 months to live. The US government opposed early release.

Prosecutors said Madoff used his firm, Bernard L. Madoff Investment Securities LLC, to swindle thousands of individuals, charities, pension funds and hedge funds, including many with ties to the Jewish community.

A court-appointed trustee estimated Madoff’s customers lost US$17.5 billion, of which US$14.3 billion has been recovered.

Madoff was arrested in December 2008 after admitting his fraud to his sons, and pleaded guilty to 11 criminal counts.

About 500 of the 520 victims who wrote to Chin opposed early release, and the judge said Madoff has appeared in public comments to blame them.

“Mr Madoff was never truly remorseful, and … was only sorry that his life as he knew it was collapsing around him,” Chin wrote.

Madoff sought release under the First Step Act, a 2018 law affording early freedom to some older prisoners, often for health reasons.