Frank pays a visit to Dennis Tanner at Tanner & Co, Chartered Magician. His shape shifting mother is still the beautiful receptionist. On Dennis’s timeline, only 3 years have passed, but Frank is 29 years old. The film promises a joyful cinematic experience; a big screen visual feast of imagination, fantasy and humour. Audiences will recapture, uninterrupted, that feeling from their youth of watching a truly creative work," Madman Entertainment CEO and Founder Paul Wiegard said. Not especially exciting or particularly well paced, but oddly engaging and baffling, this film is so strange and weird, it just draws you in. You'll be scratching your head several times as you try to work out what's going on, just accept that it's slightly bonkers, and I think you'll enjoy it.

The Portable Door was released theatrically in Australia on 23 March 2023 by Madman Entertainment. [9] [10] The film began streaming on 7 April 2023 in Australia on Stan and in the United Kingdom on Sky Cinema and Now, [11] [12] [13] and the following day in the United States on MGM+. [14] [15] Reception [ edit ] The novel concerns the first few months of the pair as they work for a company utterly unlike your usual one. This company is a conglomerate of magicians and enchanters, fey-folk and goblins who cheerfully look after the supernatural side of earth's life whilst making a tidy fortune on the side. Arclight Films previously sold the North American rights to Gravitas Ventures, who released “ Queen Bees” in theatres and on demand in June in the U.S. and Canada. Charismatic villains Humphrey Wells (Christoph Waltz), the CEO of the company, and middle manager Dennis Tanner (Sam Neill) are disrupting the world of magic by bringing modern corporate strategy to ancient magical practices, and Paul and Sophie discover the true agenda of the vast corporation where they work.

All Tom Holt Reviews

Having read Holt's historical novels (highly recommended to any fan of the genre) I decided to have a go through his more prolific fantasy pen and I have not come away disappointed. The only flaw in this opener was the character of Sophie but as she's gone in the next I'm cheerfully reading that at some pace. Starting a new job can be extremely stressful. You meet your colleagues and forget their name. You meet your boss and forget his name. Then after breaking the photocopier, you forget your own name. Cooper, Brenna (2 February 2023). "James Bond and Jurassic World stars' new movie gets first trailer and release date". Digital Spy . Retrieved 12 February 2023. Paul had believed in the existence of six a.m. for many years, just as he'd always believed in the yeti and the Loch Ness monster; in the same way, he'd always devoutly hoped that he'd never have to confront any of them face to face. But, somehow or other, he made it to the office door on time, to find Sophie already waiting. She was wearing a suit that had probably belonged to her grandmother, who had kept it for funerals." Holt's works include mythopoeic novels which parody or take as their theme various aspects of mythology, history or literature and develop them in new and often humorous ways. He has also produced a number of "straight" historical novels writing as Thomas Holt and fantasy novels writing as K.J. Parker. Tom Holt (Thomas Charles Louis Holt) is a British novelist.

A nerdy-sounding name like Paul Carpenter? In a fantasy novel? Well ... yes. This is fantasy, but it is not just comic fantasy; it is also rather oddball. Don't expect Terry Pratchett's variety of humorous fantasy, despite the fact that Tom Holt's name often seems to be coupled with his. Tom Holt's writing has its own separate and unique weirdness. There are no mythic lands peopled with magical creatures here. This novel is firmly rooted in the drudgery of ordinary life on planet Earth. There is magic, yes - and fairies - and goblins - but they are all to be found in a rather boring, mundane office environment, popping up disguised as ... well that would be telling, wouldn't it? In addition to the Emmy-nominated sci-fi drama Farscape and its follow-up miniseries Farscape: The Peacekeeper Wars, the multi-year distribution deal provides Shout! Factory and its streaming service Shout! Factory TV with all worldwide rights — across broadcast, streaming, on-demand, home entertainment, and non-theatrical arenas — to Henson’s Emmy-winning fantasy anthology The Storyteller and subsequent miniseries The Storyteller: Greek Myths, as well as such classics as Jim Henson’s World of Puppetry, Monster Maker, Lighthouse Island, Living with Dinosaurs, Dog City and Ghost of Faffner Hall, along with later productions like The Fearing Mind, Mopatop’s Shop and Brats of the Lost Nebula.Yes there were funny bits, but it seemed to be trying too hard sometimes. Jokes and "funny" comments seemed to be crammed in wherever possible. Sometimes less is more. The Portable Door – In Cinemas March 23". Madman Entertainment. Archived from the original on 18 March 2023 . Retrieved 11 April 2023. And Ray Sawyer's performance is nothing short of stellar. He alone outacts the author's prose better than the movie's entire cast. The person or persons who adapted the screenplay ought to hang their heads in shame. Perhaps they used Robinson Crusoe as their template. It certainly might have been closer to Tom Holt's vision. The movie is A Jim Henson Company, Story Bridge Films and Sky production, and is produced by Blanca Lista from The Jim Henson Company ( The Dark Crystal: Age of Resistance), and Todd Fellman from Story Bridge Films ( Daybreakers).

The JWWElls letterhead lists the partners: JWWells is the founder and is still on the books. They know he isn’t dead, but he hasn’t been seen for 130 years. He is a Master of Arcane Arts. I was so depressed after watching the woeful film I thought that maybe my recollections of the book's brilliance were flawed. Designed for productions to both measure and reduce their carbon footprint, the program includes a Carbon Action Plan with criteria across communication and engagement; editorial content; production energy, materials, and waste; travel; and carbon-neutral production. Quietly, Paul blessed the thin girl's parents for their attitude; because if she threw in her job, that'd be that, he'd probably never see her again. Mysterious swords and things with claws didn't exactly appeal to him as integral parts of the working environment, but he was damned if he was going to let them come between him and a girl who'd actually smiled at him, twice."Connie Schwartz-Alberich from Mineral Rights and Cassie Clay are doing the heavy lifting. The new management has ugly JWW baseball caps for everyone to wear as part of the Team. Connie refuses and is fired. Everyone hates the Company Song. Tom Holt may be the most imaginative satirist to land on our shores since Douglas Adams.”— Christopher Moore, New York Times bestselling author The most noticeable annoyance was the discrepancy between the apparent age / era of the main 2 characters (19 or 20 it seems, in early 2000s), and the language they use. They are about the same age that I was at that time, but they speak as if their age is somewhere between my dad and my grandfather.

World: The world building comes in slow as this book tries to set up the mundane and the banality of working in a mindless job to set reader expectations and then twist it around. When the supernatural and odd stuff does come in it's well thought out, it's a absurd and it's fun. It reminded me of Terry Pratchett, Douglas Adams and the many other great English writers and their sense of humor, the wry the wink and the nod. Book #1 The Portable Door: In which we meet Paul Carpenter and Sophie Pettingel, an unlikely duo who have been hired as Junior Clerks at JWWells Company. JWWells has chosen to introduce them to the company business by the photographic method – put them in a situation and see what develops. The side characters are okay, but even most of them are rather shallow. The only one who I empathized with is Paul's boss who flat out tell him, 'Hello! I thought you'd be happy knowing that you are about to become a magician. Everyone else in the world would sacrifice a limb to be a magic user!' Which is exactly how I feel whenever an idiot in books or film says, I never wanted to be a magician, it scares me. Well boo hoo hoo. I don't wanna read a story about you you miserable welp. Arclight Films and Mep Capital Management are teaming up to acquire and license all available media rights to the library of The Lotus Entertainment.

Publication Order of J. W. Wells & Co. Books

Colin Hollinghead Sr.’s factory gets a new workforce. They have cloven hooves, and work for nothing. Colin Jr. is afraid his father has sold his soul to get them, but he shouldn’t worry about that. Cassie Clay typed up the contract, so she knows whose soul is on the line. There is also a tree growing through Colin’s living room. After dealing with the ever persistent and seductive Mrs Tanner (goblin by night, voluptuous receptionist by day) he and Sophie end up foiling a century long office politics plot with the use of a somewhat more-than-meets-the-eye stapler and an irreversible love potion. This book is quite good fun, fun enough that I read the next one in the series as well, but I think with these books where the everyday world collides with the strange have a bit of a diminishing return. Initially there's an interesting tension between the mundane and the weird and unexplained, but the more it becomes dominated by ever more explicitly supernatural stuff, the less interesting it gets. It's a bit like watching True Blood, which was set up as an intriguing conflict between humans and vampires in a version of modern America; but as it piles on the maenads and werewolves and fairies, that basic connection to a recognisable everyday reality gets lost, and with it much of the dramatic tension. Blight, Dylan (8 February 2023). "The Portable Door to debut on Stan in Australia just in time for the Easter holiday". Explosion Network . Retrieved 12 February 2023.