“KILLERS” TO CLOSE SHANGHAI FILM FESTIVAL

Lionsgate’s Killers, starring Ashton Kutcher and Katherine Heigl, may have been roundly panned by critics when it opened two weeks ago (The New York Times‘s Janet Catsoulis called it “a brain-deadening collision of high concept and low standards”), and it may have failed to sell many tickets (only $32-million worth so far), and it hardly seems like the kind of film that would wind up being screened at film festivals — but the Hollywood Reporter said today (Wednesday) that it has been selected to become the Shanghai International Film Festival’s closing-night film on Sunday. Landing the prestigious slot at the film festival, the trade publication said, involved a full-time effort by the media company DMG. “They love American movies,” DMG CEO Dan Mintz told THR. “However, there’s also a signal coming from China: You need to know how to do business with us and how to handle us. The signal is that you can’t just show up once in a while and expect things to go right. You have to know how to work the market and be committed. People know when you are committed or not.” The selection of Killers as the closing film by the festival also appears to guarantee it a spot on the list of 20 foreign films that the Chinese government allows to be shown in the country each year.